W
writtenword
Guest
I'm not sure how to go about telling this story because it's something I like to talk about. I don't enjoy beating dead horses (particularly when they involve other people's sin) and part of me thinks it's unfair to describe my parents without them being here to defend themselves. They were clearly influenced by powerful spiritual forces.
But, I've been asked to reveal a little about my testimony in the hope that others may be edified. So please keep in mind that I don't tell this story to just wantonly cast aspersions on my parents.
Both of my parents were in their mid 30s when I was born. I have a few older siblings. No one had a job, so our food came from public assistance, and when that got sold for drugs, our food came from donations. My dad suffered from severe mental illness. He was always depressed, lived in a world of paranoia and persecution, and thought he was entitled to act out violently because everyone was just picking on him.
My earliest memories (starting around age two or three) were of my dad not being around much. He would leave to 'look for work' or 'visit a friend' or whatever, and then he'd return a few days later, usually drunk and reeking of pot smoke. Then he would be shocked to find small children making noise at play, so he would yell at us for being disrespectful brats who didn't care that he had a headache. We dreaded him coming home because it meant no fun for anyone – and if he thought you were sassing, you got a smack on the mouth. He would often tell our mother that we were such bad kids, we were the reason he avoided home, and one day he would leave to never come back. The general consensus among us kids was that him leaving forever would be a good thing. But, his 'friends' always turned out to get tired of him, so he always came home eventually.
He could tell we didn't much like him, and that increased his tendency toward paranoia. He was convinced that we hid in our bedrooms plotting schemes to get rid of him. So whenever he was home, there would be no going out to play or hiding in your room to read a book. You had to stay in the living room where he could supervise your every move. I remember being about five or six and sitting on the couch with my siblings watching rated-R movies after dark, because dad controlled the TV and we watched what he watched. If you complained about nightmares from the violence, you were a baby. Our home was filled with violence, either real or fantasy, pretty much all day long.
Meanwhile, he would buy himself snacks like ice cream and soda to eat during the movie. We were never allowed to have these things because we were ungrateful brats (he was fond of calling us pigs) who didn't deserve any treats. So there I was as a five year old watching a movie like Carrie or Halloween, watching my dad eat chocolate ice cream he wouldn't share, and knowing that if I complained about any of it I'd go to bed with a bruise on my face. Then the next day he'd leave and be gone again.
My mother was unemployed. She didn't partake in the drugs, but she was so depressed that she stayed in bed all the time. We had a very messy, chaotic house, and we usually wore dirty clothes. Most of my childhood clothing came from donations. Sometimes when we were outside we would look for berries to eat in the woods, or sneak onto my grandmother's property and take things from her garden, because that beat bothering our mother for a daytime snack. Dad would come home again, and she'd get up to deal with him, and the two of them would gossip about all of our evil neighbors who thought they were better than us. Dad blamed her for us being bad kids. She blamed him for not disciplining us. Around and around they went.
We weren't bad kids by any means. We were toddlers who chewed with our mouths open because we didn't know better, and that earned a smack. Then we were school age kids who wanted to watch MTV, and that earned going to bed with no dinner. Then we were teenagers in high school who had our own opinions, and that deserved a beating.
During the whole thing, he was the victim. Always. He was driven to violence by our disrespect. He had no friends because everyone else was a jerk. He was unhealthy and overweight because other people caused him to be depressed. He was downtrodden and persecuted. He was practicing incredible restraint not to kill us, and we didn't know how good we really had it. He was the kind of person who would walk up behind you and hit the back of your head for a laugh, and if you didn't think it was funny, that was just because you were an elitist with no sense of humor.
If we got good grades, we were showing off to look prideful. If we got bad grades, we were losers. Hard work meant you were a smart alec and lazy work meant you were lazy. If you dreamed of being a lawyer, you wanted to get murderers free from prison. If you dreamed of being a judge, you wanted to throw innocent people into prison. If you wanted a car at 16, you just wanted it to run away. If you wanted to go to college, you were too good for blue collar work. We heard on a daily basis that we were lazy, rebellious, stupid, dishonest, ungrateful swine who consumed too much food, and a punch in the face was the quickest way to fix a bad attitude.
The girls were better than the boys. Always, at everything. They got to eat seconds at dinner before the girls. They were in charge when our parents were gone, even if an older girl was home. Girls had to do housework to deserve eating dinner, and that had to come before homework. He thought homework was a plot devised by teachers to help children get out of doing chores.
Our home was full of sound and fury. The result was a lot of bad spiritual energy in the house at all times. I do not know if these forces arrived because of the behavior or if the behavior was prompted by the forces. But for as long as I lived there, the two went hand in hand.
I remember lying in bed at night hearing strange people in the house. I remember watching shadows as they moved around the room. I remember fear so strong that it tasted like metal in my mouth. Later as an adult, I recently asked my sister if she ever heard the people in the kitchen. She had no idea I'd heard the same thing all those years.
One particular thing happened when I was about twelve or thirteen. I awoke in the middle of night to find myself being pulled out of bed and dragged to the top of the stairs. Thank the Lord I awoke clearly enough to react. I grabbed the banister and stopped myself, but by then I'd gone down three steps. There was no one around me. Everyone in the house was asleep. Some invisible person had grabbed my arm and brought me to the stairs. When I pulled myself up, I was shaking so badly that I didn't want to be alone, so I went and jumped in bed with my sister.
Stuff like that was a pretty common occurrence.
It caused all of my older siblings to leave as soon as they could. Most waited until graduation and then either joined the military or got married right away. One of my brothers ran away when he was sixteen.
My dad was furious. The rest of us spent months walking on egg shells. I remember one day he was in a particularly bad mood. He thought he heard me say something disrespectful (I actually didn't), and the next thing I knew I was slammed against the wall with his hand around my throat as he told me to stop being such a smart alec. To this day, I have no idea what he even thought I said. That happened when I was about fourteen. Things like that happened with regularity, but I just remember snippets now.
My parents had a church they somewhat attended, but mostly to scam for free charity. Many people tried to counsel them. It took years for any of the counsel to sink in. Eventually my dad did sober up. He started on a path to change his life, but by then his violence had become an addiction and he had no idea how to control his temper.
Meanwhile, I had little use for organized religion. I spent most of my teen years avoiding the Christians at school. I was just kind of numb all the time.
One early turning point occurred the summer I turned 15. After numerous suicide attempts where I'd always chickened out (and one serious running away plot that got me all the way to the state line before I turned around), I finally reached my breaking point. I swallowed a bottle of Tylenol and drank a bottle of Nyquil, then added some benadryl for good measure. Mind you, at the time I weighed all of 95 pounds. I went to bed at peace that I'd wake up in the afterlife.
Well I didn't. I woke up puking my guts out the next morning, angry at God for letting me down. I missed school for two weeks. My parents assumed it was just the flu.
But something amazing came out of that. Halfway through my recovery, my dad came to check on me one day. He said I was starting to get my color back and that the worst was over. Something was different about the end of his comment – the worst is over. Those words rang in my mind. Although I wasn't a Christian then, I felt some kind of spiritual movement in the room and I knew it meant something more.
We moved away a few months later. We started over in a house with no emotional baggage. My parents began a slow trek toward growing up.
The summer after I graduated high school, I was a total emotional wreck. I hated almost everyone in my life. I lived with intense anxiety. I'd gone through more religious theories than I could count, and none of them worked. So one night I was in church. I went to the altar and said one simple prayer: Jesus, if you're real, show up and do something.
He did. That was the beginning of my journey to get healed.
I read the Bible and just decided to take everything at its word. After all, if Jesus was real, then the Bible had to be completely true. He said to ask for wisdom above all else. I lay in bed at night and asked for wisdom. He said to worship in spirit and in truth. I did that. Along the way, I found that worship was the most powerful weapon a believer could have.
I read in the Bible where it spoke about bearing one another's burdens. I saw that mental illness was my dad's burden. For me to be a Christian, I would have to help him bear it. That was the start of me working toward forgiveness. There were many times when he insulted my faith, calling me a hypocrite and saying I didn't mean any of it. I just calmly kept taking these things to the Lord.
His years of drug abuse took a toll on his body. He died at age 55. He became a strong believer in the end, but he never got around to apologizing for the past (at least not to me). I had nightmares many times after his death, some from fear that he'd return and destroy the new life I was building. Other dreams that the forces over him would come after me next. I clung to the promise that Jesus overcame.
His funeral was almost 12 years ago now. I am still on the road to complete forgiveness. I still have to resist the urge to post something angry every father's day. But with each passing year, it gets better. I cling to the truth that I am the chief of sinners.
Godly counsel from many strong women helped along the way. I've found in my walk that healing doesn't come from praying for healing: it comes from worship. When we draw close to Him, He draws close to us, and that is where healing is.
Anyway, that's the gist of it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will be as honest as I can.
But, I've been asked to reveal a little about my testimony in the hope that others may be edified. So please keep in mind that I don't tell this story to just wantonly cast aspersions on my parents.
Both of my parents were in their mid 30s when I was born. I have a few older siblings. No one had a job, so our food came from public assistance, and when that got sold for drugs, our food came from donations. My dad suffered from severe mental illness. He was always depressed, lived in a world of paranoia and persecution, and thought he was entitled to act out violently because everyone was just picking on him.
My earliest memories (starting around age two or three) were of my dad not being around much. He would leave to 'look for work' or 'visit a friend' or whatever, and then he'd return a few days later, usually drunk and reeking of pot smoke. Then he would be shocked to find small children making noise at play, so he would yell at us for being disrespectful brats who didn't care that he had a headache. We dreaded him coming home because it meant no fun for anyone – and if he thought you were sassing, you got a smack on the mouth. He would often tell our mother that we were such bad kids, we were the reason he avoided home, and one day he would leave to never come back. The general consensus among us kids was that him leaving forever would be a good thing. But, his 'friends' always turned out to get tired of him, so he always came home eventually.
He could tell we didn't much like him, and that increased his tendency toward paranoia. He was convinced that we hid in our bedrooms plotting schemes to get rid of him. So whenever he was home, there would be no going out to play or hiding in your room to read a book. You had to stay in the living room where he could supervise your every move. I remember being about five or six and sitting on the couch with my siblings watching rated-R movies after dark, because dad controlled the TV and we watched what he watched. If you complained about nightmares from the violence, you were a baby. Our home was filled with violence, either real or fantasy, pretty much all day long.
Meanwhile, he would buy himself snacks like ice cream and soda to eat during the movie. We were never allowed to have these things because we were ungrateful brats (he was fond of calling us pigs) who didn't deserve any treats. So there I was as a five year old watching a movie like Carrie or Halloween, watching my dad eat chocolate ice cream he wouldn't share, and knowing that if I complained about any of it I'd go to bed with a bruise on my face. Then the next day he'd leave and be gone again.
My mother was unemployed. She didn't partake in the drugs, but she was so depressed that she stayed in bed all the time. We had a very messy, chaotic house, and we usually wore dirty clothes. Most of my childhood clothing came from donations. Sometimes when we were outside we would look for berries to eat in the woods, or sneak onto my grandmother's property and take things from her garden, because that beat bothering our mother for a daytime snack. Dad would come home again, and she'd get up to deal with him, and the two of them would gossip about all of our evil neighbors who thought they were better than us. Dad blamed her for us being bad kids. She blamed him for not disciplining us. Around and around they went.
We weren't bad kids by any means. We were toddlers who chewed with our mouths open because we didn't know better, and that earned a smack. Then we were school age kids who wanted to watch MTV, and that earned going to bed with no dinner. Then we were teenagers in high school who had our own opinions, and that deserved a beating.
During the whole thing, he was the victim. Always. He was driven to violence by our disrespect. He had no friends because everyone else was a jerk. He was unhealthy and overweight because other people caused him to be depressed. He was downtrodden and persecuted. He was practicing incredible restraint not to kill us, and we didn't know how good we really had it. He was the kind of person who would walk up behind you and hit the back of your head for a laugh, and if you didn't think it was funny, that was just because you were an elitist with no sense of humor.
If we got good grades, we were showing off to look prideful. If we got bad grades, we were losers. Hard work meant you were a smart alec and lazy work meant you were lazy. If you dreamed of being a lawyer, you wanted to get murderers free from prison. If you dreamed of being a judge, you wanted to throw innocent people into prison. If you wanted a car at 16, you just wanted it to run away. If you wanted to go to college, you were too good for blue collar work. We heard on a daily basis that we were lazy, rebellious, stupid, dishonest, ungrateful swine who consumed too much food, and a punch in the face was the quickest way to fix a bad attitude.
The girls were better than the boys. Always, at everything. They got to eat seconds at dinner before the girls. They were in charge when our parents were gone, even if an older girl was home. Girls had to do housework to deserve eating dinner, and that had to come before homework. He thought homework was a plot devised by teachers to help children get out of doing chores.
Our home was full of sound and fury. The result was a lot of bad spiritual energy in the house at all times. I do not know if these forces arrived because of the behavior or if the behavior was prompted by the forces. But for as long as I lived there, the two went hand in hand.
I remember lying in bed at night hearing strange people in the house. I remember watching shadows as they moved around the room. I remember fear so strong that it tasted like metal in my mouth. Later as an adult, I recently asked my sister if she ever heard the people in the kitchen. She had no idea I'd heard the same thing all those years.
One particular thing happened when I was about twelve or thirteen. I awoke in the middle of night to find myself being pulled out of bed and dragged to the top of the stairs. Thank the Lord I awoke clearly enough to react. I grabbed the banister and stopped myself, but by then I'd gone down three steps. There was no one around me. Everyone in the house was asleep. Some invisible person had grabbed my arm and brought me to the stairs. When I pulled myself up, I was shaking so badly that I didn't want to be alone, so I went and jumped in bed with my sister.
Stuff like that was a pretty common occurrence.
It caused all of my older siblings to leave as soon as they could. Most waited until graduation and then either joined the military or got married right away. One of my brothers ran away when he was sixteen.
My dad was furious. The rest of us spent months walking on egg shells. I remember one day he was in a particularly bad mood. He thought he heard me say something disrespectful (I actually didn't), and the next thing I knew I was slammed against the wall with his hand around my throat as he told me to stop being such a smart alec. To this day, I have no idea what he even thought I said. That happened when I was about fourteen. Things like that happened with regularity, but I just remember snippets now.
My parents had a church they somewhat attended, but mostly to scam for free charity. Many people tried to counsel them. It took years for any of the counsel to sink in. Eventually my dad did sober up. He started on a path to change his life, but by then his violence had become an addiction and he had no idea how to control his temper.
Meanwhile, I had little use for organized religion. I spent most of my teen years avoiding the Christians at school. I was just kind of numb all the time.
One early turning point occurred the summer I turned 15. After numerous suicide attempts where I'd always chickened out (and one serious running away plot that got me all the way to the state line before I turned around), I finally reached my breaking point. I swallowed a bottle of Tylenol and drank a bottle of Nyquil, then added some benadryl for good measure. Mind you, at the time I weighed all of 95 pounds. I went to bed at peace that I'd wake up in the afterlife.
Well I didn't. I woke up puking my guts out the next morning, angry at God for letting me down. I missed school for two weeks. My parents assumed it was just the flu.
But something amazing came out of that. Halfway through my recovery, my dad came to check on me one day. He said I was starting to get my color back and that the worst was over. Something was different about the end of his comment – the worst is over. Those words rang in my mind. Although I wasn't a Christian then, I felt some kind of spiritual movement in the room and I knew it meant something more.
We moved away a few months later. We started over in a house with no emotional baggage. My parents began a slow trek toward growing up.
The summer after I graduated high school, I was a total emotional wreck. I hated almost everyone in my life. I lived with intense anxiety. I'd gone through more religious theories than I could count, and none of them worked. So one night I was in church. I went to the altar and said one simple prayer: Jesus, if you're real, show up and do something.
He did. That was the beginning of my journey to get healed.
I read the Bible and just decided to take everything at its word. After all, if Jesus was real, then the Bible had to be completely true. He said to ask for wisdom above all else. I lay in bed at night and asked for wisdom. He said to worship in spirit and in truth. I did that. Along the way, I found that worship was the most powerful weapon a believer could have.
I read in the Bible where it spoke about bearing one another's burdens. I saw that mental illness was my dad's burden. For me to be a Christian, I would have to help him bear it. That was the start of me working toward forgiveness. There were many times when he insulted my faith, calling me a hypocrite and saying I didn't mean any of it. I just calmly kept taking these things to the Lord.
His years of drug abuse took a toll on his body. He died at age 55. He became a strong believer in the end, but he never got around to apologizing for the past (at least not to me). I had nightmares many times after his death, some from fear that he'd return and destroy the new life I was building. Other dreams that the forces over him would come after me next. I clung to the promise that Jesus overcame.
His funeral was almost 12 years ago now. I am still on the road to complete forgiveness. I still have to resist the urge to post something angry every father's day. But with each passing year, it gets better. I cling to the truth that I am the chief of sinners.
Godly counsel from many strong women helped along the way. I've found in my walk that healing doesn't come from praying for healing: it comes from worship. When we draw close to Him, He draws close to us, and that is where healing is.
Anyway, that's the gist of it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will be as honest as I can.
