Lectured...

Duh?? But I thought...

My step dad used to lecture me incessantly. He made me nervous...what else can I say? Very rarely, would he ever speak to me. Instead, it was always AT me. I remember...his vehicle (whichever one he had at the time) would pull in the driveway, and everyone in the house had to quickly look like they were doing something...because if not, we were lectured on the ills of having done nothing all day. Usually, we were only relaxing because it was evening, and we were tired because we'd been busy all day...but that made no difference. I remember him making me look up the words "Independence" and "Systematic" in the dictionary because he'd decided that I wasn't good at either one one of these things...and it was time I learned what they were. I was only 11.

He was an artist. When he married my mother, our garage became his (sort of) studio. One afternoon while I was washing dishes (a MUST as a daily chore), I suddenly heard him out there cussing. I thought I heard him drop something, and I wondered if he hurt himself. When he came in the house, I made the mistake of asking him if anything was wrong. It was a mistake because he became really nasty with me. He demanded to know why I would assume anything was wrong...and didn't I know what I was doing when I ASSUME things? Apparently, I was making an ASS out of both him and myself (ME).

He stood in the kitchen and lectured me; warning me I needed to mind my own business. I stood there mortified, with a squished dish rag in one hand and a wet glass in the other as he went and got a pad of paper and...wrote the word ASSUME on it in all caps. I figured out that he was still showing me what I had done wrong...but. WHAT was that exactly? I had't even gotten to tell him that I just wanted to make sure he was okay. He wouldn't let me! He asked me if I knew what I had done...telling me to LOOK at the word on the paper. I stared at it hard; but had NO idea what he meant. (For goodness sakes, I was only a kid!)

Many a discussion with him suddenly and unexpectedly turned into a noisy torrent of words that just made me wish I could dissolve onto the floor into a puddle. Then I wouldn't have to hear anymore. His words hurt. Sometimes, I felt like he was literally hitting me on the head with a hammer. I wanted to scream: STOP!!! But then, I'd never hear the end of THAT. My only option was to stand there and allow him to "teach" me what I'd done wrong. I had done nothing wrong. So why did my "parent" (figure) suddenly seem so determined to "break" me? I remember one night, he came in the door from work, and mom and I were relaxing on the sofa. The armchair in the corner was piled with clean laundry...which he suddenly began throwing at us. Here it came...the lecture...and all the humiliation that came with it. Why were we so lazy and why hadn't we done anything all day. (??)

This is not about laundry, dishes, or looking up words in the dictionary. And that is exactly my point. These things are not important. So why did I need to build an imaginary wall around myself? I didn't want to; but so often, perpetual "bullets" would fly. Why did he get SO MAD...SO EASILY?? I drove myself crazy trying to answer this question. I decided (at some point) that I would not love him; I didn't want to be close to him...and I would NEVER be like him...EVER. I learned quickly to keep as close as possible to my mother, and do everything I could to rise above, what I deemed was, his own stupidity.

If he lectured me or called me any names, I'd pretend I was holding a giant mirror in between us. That way, he'd be staring in that mirror and treating HIMSELF like dirt kicked under somebody's shoe. He wasn't talking that way to ME!

I think there's a lot of truth in the way I sheltered myself. As badly as he treated me at times...he must've felt a hundred times worse about himself. In order to "dump" all that on someone else, a person has to have all that going on inside of them...yeah? The problem was that my "empathy" Became less and less. Oh, don 't misunderstand me: His treatment of me and refusal to ever acknowledge it was NOT my fault. The thing was...the less empathy I allowed myself to have for him...the angrier I became. The angrier I became, the more isolated I was...even though I poured myself into so many other things, like my friend's at school, my homework, and the support group I attended. I knew nothing at that time about AS or Autism...I just knew that I had a step dad who would get mad at me and ask me if I wanted to be dumb all my life. Looking back...I wonder if he was actually petrified because he thought that I believed HE was dumb. Poor guy. Yeah...I said that...poor guy.

People only wound someone else when they are wounded themselves. As an adult, now determined to move on with my life...I need to remember this. Back then, the one thing we had in common that smothered everything else, was our wounded spirits...mine because he was wounding it...and his because of years of experiences (most of which I will never know about) that I as a child, should never have been expected to grasp. I now know, that we really did have so much more in common with each other than that; but his need to hold me down, and my need to be left alone suffocated everything. I had not planed to write this...but I think I needed to because here it is...what can I say?

Anyway...he died a few years back. He'd had mounting health issues, and we'd been silently preparing (or knowing we needed to) for a long time. I'd spent the first night in the first place I had all to myself. I was still in bed that morning, boxes stacked everywhere, when my phone rang. I didn't answer it. I was exhausted and I let it ring. About an hour later, it rang again, and I was up then. It was my mother, telling me that he had passed away the night before. I was numb...but it was a displaced, well-we-knew-this-was-coming kind of numb. I hadn't allowed myself to "feel" towards him for so long, that it was hard now. I was sad, of course, but I immediately went down the road of well-at-least-he's-not-suffering-anymore. I know now, that I was only continuing to do what I'd always done: I held myself together because I'd learned for so long that around him...it was not safe to fall apart. At his funeral, the dam broke (as it were), and I cried like a baby...sobbed on my mother's shoulder. I don't think anybody expected this... certainly not me! It's not that I was DETERMINED to keep it out...I just didn't even realize that I felt that bad...that I was hurting that much...that I missed him...that I loved him.

The feelings that I had wanted to express to the man that I came to know as a parent when he was alive...had to wait until he had died to show themselves. I guess in his world, vulnerability was not accepted...so try as he might...he couldn't take it from anyone else. This is my theory, anyway. I know now, that I had convinced myself for so long that I had never needed him...that I would not let myself know that really did need him.

I needed him. I loved him.

I'm still not used to saying this at all...because I'm still waiting for the "lecture.". Now...I'm scared to death of someday marrying somebody just like him. But this is a tragic statement... One that I do not want to become my mantra! This is why...as long as I've been single...the idea of marriage has never left my mind. But determining who I will never be like is pitiful grounds on which to build God's most sacred institution. So I'm now attempting to do what I could not... and then WOULD not allow myself to do. I know I need to let myself love the man that I was so determined I hated...only to protect myself. Hard as this might be...I really believe I need to open these "floodgates"...either that, or stay bound to trying to keep them locked up. Who needs that?!! I don't want my heart to stay a place where vulnerability isn't allowed to flow freely. I need to do this for ME...not anyone else; and for so long, this had never occurred to me.

So now, I want to take memories...experiences...things from back somewhere in my mind that don't involve a feeling of "drop.". I want to invite these things in, and start allowing myself to embrace all the things good, about a man that I learned to look at as a threat. Children should never have to learn to defend themselves from those who are supposed to make them feel cared for and safe; nor should adults, for that matter. But so often, this is what happens, and as a result, so many believe that marriage isn't even worth it anymore. How sad is that? No, marriage is not a requirement to be a great person...I just Want to make sure that I don't forfeit my future because I can't face my past.

PS...I know I have not said his name once here. It was Daniel.