Abuse | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Abuse

The Family Stain

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

Now, I’m going to need to get your medical background. Does anyone in your extended family have a history of diabetes?

No.

Cancer?

No.

Heart disease?

Nope.

Anything else we should be concerned about?

No.

Well…

Except for depression and divorce and racism and sexual abuse and religious fanaticism and betrayal and lying and lying and lying and violence and does repeatedly buying into pyramid schemes count? Well, financial squandering then, and alienation and mistrust and selective ignorance and censorship and suicide and hate and always the secrets.
*****

Family history clings like a spider web this time of year. It comes with the clouds, draping over me like shreds of rubber cement. Or maybe it’s just this week, which has kicked my ass Chuck Norris style. Or maybe it’s this coming Sunday, Easter, which has always ranked as my least favorite of all least-favorite holidays (President’s Day and Take It In The Ear Day* coming in close behind).
*****

(Lapse in thought here. Both girls have decided to cry rather than sleep this afternoon, and the kitchen that was finally(!) clean(!) for twenty(!) whole minutes this morning has taken revenge by sprouting wok-shaped mold, and the computer I’ve been using since my laptop died has belatedly joined the writer’s strike, and I’m TIRED. Chuck Norris, etc.)

(I’m sorry. That turned out much more like stream-of-consciousness whining than the excuse-my-disjointed-thoughts disclaimer I intended. I’m off to take an absolutely necessary nap, and then? Please excuse my disjointed thoughts.)
*****

I know everyone’s got a messed-up family to a degree, and some of you are laughing right now because your family could SO take my family in a fist fight. But my history–the gnarly fabric of generational flaws–is plenty difficult for me to shoulder. I want it gone. Undone. Far, far away from me and my dear husband and my precious little girls. I often wake from nightmares, eyes wide as oceans in the dark, praying that I could just bleach out the stain of my name.

Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen, and it probably shouldn’t. Their mistakes, stark and magnified in my perspective, have taught me a lot of ways not-to-be. And Easter, that holiday reeking of ugly lace dresses in frigid, too-early mornings, of confiscated baskets full of candy I wasn’t allowed to taste, of back-to-back-to-back church activities and lengthy descriptions of Jesus’s death that I was far too young to handle? I have the chance to do it right with my new little family, and if not right, at least better. We can have giggly Easter egg hunts and celebratory meals with friends and sleeping late in a cozy, cuddly nest and so much love our minds will spin out into the stratosphere, far beyond nightmares, pain, and this inherited human stain.

—
* December 8th. Look it up! Or don’t.

4Feb

The Graveyard Shift

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

“People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.” ~ Calvin, to Hobbes

An idea has been rattling around in my mind for a while now. It sounds simple enough and maybe even fun: write down some happy childhood memories to share with my family, past, present, and future. But it’s not so simple. Every time I think about it, seriously consider starting, I find myself waist-deep in an emotional briar patch.

I’m sure everyone has things that he or she doesn’t like to think about, but I’ve made repression a way of life. It’s a twisted art form, learning to cope with trauma by shoveling six feet of dirt onto memories. Unfortunately, the good often gets buried along with bad, so I find myself in my twenties barely remembering my teens, much less earlier times.

I stare at this photograph

and remember my cat–his name (Hudson Taylor), his affiliations (Mimi the PMS-y wifecat), and his hobbies (poetry, cross stitch, world travel)–but I can’t remember my interaction with him. I can’t remember rocking him or wearing yellow overalls or being six years old.

I find this photo

and can’t remember my first ballet class, my first year of ballet classes even. I don’t know if I enjoyed it or if I liked my teacher or if I was any good. I wonder how long it took for my knobby-kneed legs to learn French. (And plié, and up, and pas de bourrée, jeté battu…)

I come across this one (I’m the third from the left)

and remember the way the girls laughed, my first batch of genuine friends since first grade. I remember the pranks we pulled and the atrocious poetry we wrote and the boys we used to giggle about, but I don’t recall who I was in junior high. I’m told I was the one who suggested we smoke birthday candles, but was I really that silly? When did I start pulling my hair up? What was my life like at home, away from my friends?

The answer to that last question is the reason I used to cry and shake and write “fuck” in my journal and think about the afterlife in very near terms. Then I went the therapeutic route, talking to close friends, writing everything down, turning my brain inside-out so the pain could float away on the breeze. At least, I hoped it would float away, and when it didn’t, I started shoveling.

I’m now realizing that I’ll have to dig around in the graveyard for even the happiest memories, and let me tell you, it’s a mess. Fragments of memory are scattered like misplaced bones. Unmarked graves hold mental snapshots, many of them moldy and disintegrating. The dirt clings to me for hours afterward, even when I don’t manage to find anything.

I’m so, so reluctant to dig deeper, down to where the whole memories and undiluted hurt lie intertwined. At the same time, I know how much the happy moments of my childhood will matter to my daughters, to my parents, and probably to me. I haven’t found the necessary strength yet; I’m still clinging pretty tightly to the idea that my childhood was 100% bad. But I know there were times of laughter and imagination and closeness, and I owe it to many to rediscover those moments. I owe it to myself.

If at first you don’t succeed…

28Sep

Disowning Regret

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 9 Comments

It stands out like a hologram from the pages of my journals:
Regret for being too innocent.
Regret for far surpassing the bounds of innocence.
Regret for being too shy.
Regret for letting boldness take over.
Regret for liking the boys I’ve liked.
Regret for rejecting the ones I didn’t.
Regret for being too melancholy, too low.
Regret for experiencing giddy highs.
Regret over my numerous emotions.
Regret over my compensating numbness.
Regret over being boring.
Regret over having fun.
Regret over every person, place, and circumstance woven into the fabric of my past.

I’m startled to see it pop out at me so clearly. Has it always been lurking between the pages of my past, waiting patiently for me to approach with open eyes?

An entire lifetime spent regretting myself…

This morning, I sat on the floor immersing myself in the ghosts of Bethanys past, laughing (at age 14, I decided I would marry my first boyfriend on October 20, 2003), aching (the Sunday my entire youth group stood in front of the church to promise abstinence for True Love Waits, I cried alone in the bathroom as the only teenager whose parents were unwilling for her to think about sex–even to pledge celibacy with all her friends), and wishing desperately for a time machine.

I wish I could protect the sweet little girl who learned about unfounded yet unrelenting, soul-crushing guilt at home every single day. I would tell her she was precious and wanted, that it was OK to smile and play and think that God liked her. I would show her that her beautiful little heart was anything but “hard, cold, and black” like she was told, that the daily accusations against her were untrue, that her deep little-girl wounds were not her fault. I would stop regretting my existence.

I wish I could give the excruciatingly lonely teenager a heaping dose of the love she lived without. I would tell her how funny she was in her blossoming creativity. I would hold up a mirror and show her how pretty she was, even (especially) with the freckles and red hair and too-long legs she hated. I would whisper to her about her intrinsic value and the luscious life ahead. I would give her reasons not to kill herself other than the sole terror of facing a God who, she was told, hated her. I would stop regretting how my goody-two-shoesness kept me from sneaking out at night to recapture my boyfriend’s attention.

I wish I could inject Valium into the college student’s frantically over-analytical brain. I would tell her to relax into the gentle process of learning, to enjoy each moment without dissecting it to death. I would give her the confidence to stand up to the guys who mistreated her and to unabashedly be herself with the ones who captured her affection. I would remind her to have fun dating, building friendships, learning, becoming an adult. I would stop regretting the fun and crazy side of my personality making itself known.

I wish I could extract the vast self-imposed disillusionment from the newly-inaugurated adult. I would help her see her fears and misgivings as the product of misguided childhood teachings. I would tell her that her perpetual doubts about love, capability, purpose, and belief were natural but not world-spinning. I would encourage her to enjoy rediscovering her identity, to face her life with courage and joy, to accept her new marriage as safe, to let herself feel at peace as a woman. I would stop regretting my imperfection.

I can hardly believe it’s taken me this long to realize that I’m a human and that that’s OK. I imagine most people realize this while they’re still in diapers or at least when their first smudgy fingerpainting is taped onto the fridge… not years after getting a minor in psychology or even more years of dedicated self-therapy or still more years of affirming friendships. (When did you find out it was perfectly OK to be you?)

Hello, my name is Bethany, and today I’ve stopped regretting Me.

I feel like a newborn being snuggled for the first time by ecstatic, weeping parents and thinking it the most natural moment in the world.

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