Body compulsions

I’m on dirty vodka martinis tonight.

I did write for my dissertation today; I think I’ve moved beyond my block. I seriously think that this blog has something to do with that. I've promised myself to post daily, so here it is.

The topic is the body image thing: I get quite frustrated thinking about this issue, so I’ll probably write some and edit/re-edit it later.

My mother bought into the family obsession with female figures, facial beauty, and the need for male affirmation. Always bodily fixated, she requires sexual affirmation--whether from males or females--that is, she needs people to let her know her how appealing she is. She’s passed that onto me. But in my mom’s case, the primary means of affirmation--her source of identity--is tied to her fuckability.

My mother’s an attractive woman. But she’s always seen herself as imperfect. She had her first lipo in her 30s, when it was pretty new for non-celebs. Her first eye lift in her early 40s. She’s in her late 50s now, and she wants a full-on facelift, but she’s hesitant (she did speak to me about getting one of those “lunch hour facelifts.” I helped change her mind by sending her links to a CNN report on how often they backfire). Instead, she’s opted for injections of something that fills in her wrinkles. Remember, we're from thrifty working-class folk. So she shops at Goodwill and St Vincent’s, Wal-Mart, Costco--anything that will save her money. She is parsimonious--always worrying about her pension and saving money. She dumped HBO (a channel she loved) because of its cost. But she’s willing to cough up for cosmetic procedures. It’s paid off, though. Every time I visit a cosmetics counter with her she announces “I’m her mother,” and the saleswoman invariably responds “but you don’t…she [me] looks….” [awkward silence].

Of course I look older than her. I’m a smoker, a drinker, and I haven’t paid the obsessive amount of attention to my body and face as my mother does (mind you, she does look terrific) because I've always believed myself ugly--even when I was a making a good income as a stripper. Admittedly, I'm regretting my inattention to my appearance now that I'm aging.

My mother's appearance has a downside, though: she’s been lifelong friends with Ana and Mia. As a consequence, she’s had some health issues; she's perennially ill. More on that in another post, I think.

How did her fixation affect me? Well, she put me on my first diet when I was ten years old. When my body began developing, it didn’t develop the way she liked; she began talking to me about plastic surgery when I was 14. My bust was “too big” and needed to be “corrected.” She continued to advise: I needed surgery on my face, my belly, my teeth. All of this before I was 17, but, of course, she didn’t want to pay for any of these treatments. But she felt it was her motherly duty to point out my imperfections, to inform me of my options, and to leave it at that. I realize she wasn't trying to be hurtful, that she didn't see that I might interpret this as "my mother really thinks I'm ugly." But that is how I interpreted her advice.

She didn't stop with her plastic surgery suggestions until I was in my 30s. The last time it happened, we were in my husband's presence, in her car as we pulled into the family's garage. She said, cheerfully, "you know, there's a new technique. It's called a "skin bra." It would be quick and easy, and [my husband] would really like the results." After that humiliation, I spoke to her. I was pretty passive-aggressive, but I let her know she wasn't allowed to talk about my body anymore. She's mostly stopped.


Boy O boy. This is getting whiny. I’ll cut it loose now. Happy weekend.

Slacking off

Newcastle Brown Ale. Lovely.

Nothing to share today, really. I’m tired. And I’ve spent too much time writing for this blog rather than working on my dissertation. Today I realized just how far behind I am and am panicking a bit. I also need to prepare for the upcoming term as well as compose a short paper for a conference. I foresee many a sleepless night ahead. . .

I believe that sounding off on here has been good for me. Admittedly, I often look this page over and think, "Good God, many, many people have suffered really horrific experiences. Mine is nothing. What a lot of boo-hooing and whining. Why don’t I just get over it all and get on with my life?” Yes, these stories from my past might be insignificant compared to others' experiences, but just holding everything in and letting it simmer can’t be good for me either; doing just that resulted in my anxiety disorder, I think. It’s certainly resulted in a hella amount of free-floating anger.


R.I.P. Luciano Pavarotti. And thank you.

The Family

I'm enjoying a lovely Venetian pinot grigio (with soda) tonight.

I thought some family background might be useful (for whatever).

My immediate family consisted of the parents and my two younger siblings. Five altogether.

I seldom saw my father’s parents or sisters while I was growing up, and they seldom showed any interest in me (the one period of time when they did express interest in seeing me was during my parents’ separation: they would have me over and pump me for dirt on my mom. Since the divorce was finalized, I saw them once before their deaths ten years ago). So when I speak of “my family,” I mean “my mother’s family.” My immediate family falls under that umbrella.

My mother’s family believed themselves to be very “traditional.” Most of the men served in the military at some point. Beyond the military, the men worked as mechanics, factory workers, miners. My own father worked at a car plant and later as a miner (until his drunkenness and adultery destroyed his job and marriage). The women stayed at home with children and housework. Nothing more was expected or desired of them. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the females were weaklings: smart, strong broads run in the family’s blood. We knew how to talk back. We also knew when not to talk back.

You could say we were “working poor”; we were definitely working class with that reverse elitism you sometimes find among poor people: folks who didn’t work with their hands were suspect, and this included teachers, clergymen, and the rich. Too much time sitting, thinking, or praying equaled laziness, and laziness was corrupt. Too much thinking couldn’t be good for a person, anyway. No. In my family all was black and white, either / or. I don’t mean to imply that my relations were all dimwits or non-thinkers. They were, however, anti-intellectual. I was the first person in my family’s history to go to university, but I think this has a lot to do with the opportunities for education that arose while I was growing up rather than anything else. Academia wasn’t a future they mapped out for me, that’s for sure.

The family was never “close,” as in intimate, open, honest, and loving. But we did stay together. Tribalism, really. Nearly every time a member of the family moved, the entire family--uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins--moved (this actually made for some great road trips).

Emotionally, we are all expected to behave a certain way: not like a sissy. We--both men and women--were expected to take whatever came our way, and to take anything other than a macho stance meant you were a baby, a weakling. Because of this, or enabling it perhaps, there was always lots of “mean teasing” going on. People would hurl insults at each other and pass it off as “kidding around.” Men would call each other pussies, women would sneer at other women about their appearance, name-calling was par for the course: “lardass,” “pussy” “sissy,” “cow” “fatty” were common nicknames for family members. Nice, huh? But maybe it’s not uncommon. I don’t know. I always resisted acting this stuff out; I hated being around it, and I always feared being the object of somebody’s else’s scorn.

Oh, and my grandpa would call his sons by female names, and this just resulted in the men over-hyping their masculinity. This often came to a head when they were drinking (which was often: whiskey and Coors beer were the family’s preferred bevvies). When the menfolk were drunk, fights would break out. Lots of shouting that lead to lots of hitting. Brawling, really, because everyone would get involved. I didn’t see much of the fighting, but I heard it. Sometimes from two houses away. Sometimes the fights--the yelling and the hitting--involved husbands and wives.

Moreover, the family was heavily sexualized. Little girls were encouraged to play cute and flirt, to pout, to be submissive, to simper, to try on Mae West impressions, to dance to “The Stripper” (no worries: they remained fully clothes!). The big message: to be loved by this group, you had to be appealing and you had to obey whatever an adult directive given by an adult.
I remember one Christmas where the kids (including me) were hustled out to an uncle’s house so the adults could watch a vhs tape of Debbie Does Dallas. Could you imagine watching a hardcore porn film with your brothers, sisters, and parents in the same room? But for us, or them, I should say, I guess it was normal. Magazines like Playboy, Oui, and, now and then, Hustler were scattered around homes. Two boxes of an old sex-themed comic book called Sex to Sexty got passed around from home to home. By the time I was five I knew exactly what my body was supposed to look like: big (but perky) breasted, long limbed, flat bellied, and thin waisted. I seriously thought my body would grow and develop to resemble that of a 1970s centerfold. People bitch about Barbie's ill effects on girls. Sod that. Barbie's plastic. Photographs are real. Realer than Barbie, at any rate (at least they were in the 70s).

In the family, men and women alike would talk about women’s bodies--their breasts, bottoms, and weight. When I was developing, relatives seemed more interested in my bustline than I was. If you reacted to these comments, you were sneered at because you couldn’t “take it” (back to the macho stance). One small example: as a teen, I got a phone call from my drunken dad. He asked me how big my tits were (yes, he called tham tits). When I told him that wasn’t appropriate thing for a father to ask his daughter, he said “well, excuse me. I thought you were mature enough for this kind of talk.” Eh?

Now none of this is, I believe, abusive. My family were heavily invested in sex, but being heavily invested in sex doesn’t automatically make one a predator or an abuser. What I am trying to point out is the lack of boundaries. My family didn’t do a good job of distinguishing public matters from private ones. Also significant, think, is the way the entire family objectified women as physical things. Your grades don’t matter but your bra size does. A career isn’t anything if you’re unattractive. The only good woman is a submissive and sexually appealing one (I’ll write more on the effects of this perspective in another post. Hah. Make that all my other posts).

My grandma rebelled: she gained weight (and was called “lardass” the rest of her life). My grandma died when she was 59. She was ill, but she resisted medical treatment. She wanted out I think. And I resent that--not her wanting out, but the conditions that made her want out (does that make sense?).

So writing this out, I see a number of things that provided a schema for my own life behavior, for it involves:
Alcohol abuse
Lack of boundaries (or, now, uncertainty of boundaries)
Fear of the sneer

And the things that are valued in a female:
Obedience
Sexual passivity / availability
Physical / sexual appeal
Stoicism (e.g., macho stance)

Much of my family is dead now. Two uncles (one a suicide, the other a drug overdose). Grandpa died in his 70s and Grandma, of course, at 59. Once Grandma died, everything pretty much fragmented anyway. The tribalism collapsed into petty arguments and jealousies. People stopped communicating. Everyone moved on to different towns. Any pretense at being a traditional family faded as we isolated ourselves into smaller units, which, in turn, also shattered.

Note: If there's one thing I can't let go of, it's losing my Grandma. She was my anchor, my admirer, my encourager; of my family, she's the only one who supported me, who never derided me, and who (even though she desperately wanted me to give her grandbabies) told me I would go to college. If someone else had a go at me in her presence, she would take them apart. But I'm convinced that she just wanted to go. She was tired.

Fairly bare bones

I'm wondering if there's a way to reorganize my posts as I write them so that they reflect some sort of chronological order. The problem is that when I begin to write of one incident, another, similar incident springs to mind, and I’m reluctant to interject with “at this time we lived here and I was dating this man” if that information is tangential. So here, in brief, is a vague-ish rundown:

1) I was born in the southwest in the late 60s to a largish family.

2) A few years after my birth, my (entire) family moved to SoCal, where I was the victim of sexual abuse.

3) In the early seventies, my immediate family moved to the Midwest (and along Route 66 before it was torn up). This is where I attended kindergarten and first learned to doubt that “starting over” was ever possible because nothing really changed.

4) The next year, we--my entire family--moved to a small town in a conservative state.

5) In the mid-70s my immediate family moved back to the southwest (where my father’s parents lived and where my parents divorced).

6) In 1977 we (myself, mother, and two siblings) moved back to the small town in a conservative state.

7) The following year ("Hot Child in the City" was huge) , we moved to a city where my mother entered community college. This city is where I spent most of my pre-adult years (middle school high school and university), but I never considered those years “formative.” My personality and my problems had already cemented themselves by this point. This is also where I was raped and nearly murdered.

After I completed high school, I entered the local community college as an inexpensive way to earn my GUR credits before enrolling at a university. At this time, I began work as an exotic dancer (among other things). I would return to this job periodically for the next ten years.

I lingered at the community college so I might take classes that interested me--I was in no rush, so I was able to enjoy courses such as political science, philosophy, anthropology, and art history. I finally moved on to university and achieved my BA. I followed that immediately (well, two years later) with an MA in the same discipline as my BA.

After my MA, I left the region. I met a men whom I married and divorced within three years.
I’ve remarried (seven years now), and I am currently a PhD candidate, which means I’ve done all but my dissertation. The downside of dissertating is all the requisite introspection. Whenever I sit down to work, sooner or later I end up turning that introspection onto myself, and that leads to a debilitating anxiety. I kind of figure that this blog will help ease that anxiety. Like I keep saying, a way to get sorted.

Elementary: exclusion

I've always been called an "exceptional student," beginning in elementary school, but academic success resulted from a sort of forced seclusion: I found it difficult to assimilate into groups of other children, and they, in turn, avoided me like the plague. I'm not certain why, but it's as though the other kids distanced themselves from me by instinct. Then again, much of my behavior was pretty off-putting. I alternated between introversion and hyperactivity. You know that kid who would be dead silent, perhaps frightened, but would abruptly change gears and start acting up? Laughing loudly (hysteria?), always looking for attention? That was me. (I still tend to be loud, and I’m horrified when I realize I'm doing it). You can’t really fault the children for keeping a safe distance--I probably scared them with my instability.

So, being isolated, I focused on my homework and I began reading. My parents had an old set of the Encyclopedia Brittannica--the volumes were off-white with brown labels on the binding--and I started playing with them. I'd just open a volume at random and see what I could find. The illustrations attracted me, and this is where I discovered Graeco-Roman art, Henry Moore, Big M's Pieta, Brancusi's Bird (of course, I didn't think of these things as "art," but it was my introduction to aesthetics). In the second grade (what is that? Seven years old?) my teacher escorted the class to the school library; the librarian explained to us what a library is, and then let us loose. That's when I found the first major literary influence on my life: D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. I adored it (and, nearly as much, the D’Aulaires’s book on Norse mythology).

In the third grade I focused on getting through the Little House books. I also picked up a few Alfred Hitchcock anthologies for young adults. This was my introduction to the "hook handed killer," the "roommate without a head," "the black ribbon," etc. All tried and true, albeit basic, scary stories. Funny. I've never realized that I began reading "horror" as young as eight.

After I learned what a library was, I demanded that my mother take me to the town library. Mind you, we were living in a very small town at the time, and it held an equally small library. Half of its space was devoted to children's books, which is good. Especially because the librarian made sure that children stayed in the children's section and didn't venture into the adults' stacks. So I whipped through their selection of Beverly Cleary books, some Judy Blume (Are You There God? It's Me, Maragaret and Forever weren't included in the stacks). But these bored me. My thrills came from fairy tales, sort of. Twisted fairy tales with bitter endings. I recall loving Ruth Manning-Sanders's wonderful series of folktales. I think I can still recite "Goldenhair" from A Book of Ghosts and Goblins. I loved her Book of Mermaids as well.

By the fourth grade, we'd moved. I immediately began haunting the Ocotillo Branch of the local library. Although it was probably a modest-sized building at the time, I thought it huge and wonderful; morever, I was able to break free of the children's area. Consequently, I found myself in both David Copperfield and Jane Eyre (these two read largely under the sheets with a mini-flashlight). I identified with these characters in numerous, probably obvious, ways.

At my school, as with many, there was an end-of-year convocation where administration would distribute awards. Mandatory attendance, by the way, for the entire school body. Like my fourth grade colleagues, I was to gain a certificate in mathematics. A piece a paper that announced I knew the multiplication tables etc. My teacher that year, Mr. Emerson, announced each child's name, and they went up on stage to retrieve this certificate. As is cmmon, everyone applauded. When it was my turn, someone began booing. I don't know why. Probably just your average child's cruelty kicking in. Anyway, other kids picked up on it. Soon, everyone was booing as I crossed the stage. I grabbed my piece of paper and began to take off. My teacher took hold of me. He had something else to give to me--a lovely, diploma-sized piece of paper that announced I was the "best reader in the x area." It was signed by the governor. Okay, I know that seems hokey now, but it impressed me then, and it made up for, a little bit, the booing that hadn't stopped while I was onstage.

Later that afternoon, I was helping Mr. Emerson clear up our classroom. He was hesitant, but kind. "It must have been hard going onstage with all of that." I don't know how I responded or what I replied, but chances are that the family's macho stance bore me out. But I appreciate Mr. Emerson's sympathy. Because it was hard to have several hundred people deriding you. and the faculty didn't do anything to intervene. (Now that I think of it--the faculty's non-interference might be perceived by the audience as authorizing the audience's behavior; I probably took it that way too--"Nobody intervened because nobody thought I shouldn't be booed"). Anyway. . .

At the end of my fourth grade year, the school suggested to my mother that I take an IQ test. I ranked 159. I don’t know if that number was true or not. As a result of the IQ thing, the school placed me in an experimental class for “gifted” children. The curriculum focused on self-study. Several “topic” stations were distributed throughout the classroom, and your task was to spend an hour at each one at some point throughout the class day. You completed assignments at your own pace while the teacher and a teacher’s aid floated about offering any necessary help. I loved the class, I loved my schoolmates, I learned about Phyllis Wheatley, Judaism, Henry VIII, and Medieval living conditions. I felt “right.”

After six months (in the middle of the school year), I was returned to my “normal” fifth grade class, much to my “normal” classmates’ mirth. I was humiliated. Nobody explained why I was moved from the “gifted” class, so I assumed it was because I wasn’t smart enough and was, therefore, deserving of my classmates’ scorn.

Years late, my mother told me that it wasn’t because I wasn’t “smart enough”; rather, my excitability proved too distracting for the other students.

The following year, in a different school, but my loudness again backfired on me. My teacher placed my desk so that it faced the wall, outside of the group. He ignored me if I raised my hand in class, and my classmates were ordered to not speak with me. This continued for several months. When I was time to rearrange the desks (as this fellow was wont to do), I asked him, in private, if I could please be re-admitted to the group, and he agreed. He changed his mind when “rearrangement day” arrived. I remained facing the wall. Allow my sixth grade self a little pity: this extends beyond being the last one picked for a kickball team.

Then again, this all certainly looks very whingy, doesn’t it? Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m making mountains out of molehills; alternately, I’m concerned that readers will think I’m exaggerating these experiences. But this is the way things were done in the late 1970s.

I should add that, following my eviction from the “gifted class,” my “acting up” didn’t cease. In fact, it was compounded. I began to behave inappropriately in a sexual sense. It was compulsive more than anything else, and that, I think, was associated more with how adults had sexualized me more than some precocious sex drive. Anyway, I got called into the school counselor’s office one late spring afternoon. My teacher had asked the school psych to meet me. I stopped my actions dead after that--the shame that other people knew. Yes, I should have known better. But I didn’t. My “boundaries” were more than “squiffy.” They just didn’t exist.

When I think about this, I'm overcome with self-loathing, disgust, and shame about my actions, by not knowing what I was doing to myself; that is, setting myself up for scorn and others' disgust. This is the first time I've ever discussed this episode in any capacity whatsoever. I'm a bit torn, a bit ambivalent, and I might delete the entire entry.

Coward's update: I caved and edited the latter part of this post. The details are beside the point anyway.

The last time I fell asleep in class

So, why do I drink so much? Well, at first it was to help me get to sleep. Believe it or not, I’m terrified of sleeping tablets--Ambien, Valium, those kinds of things. My mother, however, has taken such things as long as I can recall. I think she’s as hooked on them as I am on booze (not that she’d admit it). Okay, tangent time:

Anecdote: when I was in high school, my mother worked graveyard shift. I was too afraid to sleep those nights when I was alone in the house, so I’d pull all-nighters. It wasn’t bad: we had cable and MTV was still in its infancy. I’d drink coffee and stay awake with Toto Coelo, Duran Duran, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and a few other bands I'm too ashamed to admit I enjoyed.

One day I went to school after one such all-nighter, and I dozed off in class (admittedly, it wasn’t the first time I’d done this). My teachers discussed my naps, and decided to phone my mother. One did and asked if she had any pills I might have been taking because I was falling asleep in class (funny that drugs ranked first in their suspicions and that no one had thought to speak with me about the situation).

My mother responded by counting out her pills; as I’d been nowhere near her tablets, the counts must have been acceptable. Even so, she still asked me if I’d been into them. This wasn’t the first time she’d falsely accused me of something when I was innocent, so I didn’t overreact. I just said “no,“ and left it at that. But I went to school the next day with a good deal of guilt and shame knowing that all my teachers were convinced of my “drug abuse.”

I’m sure this little scenario isn’t uncommon; I assume it’s happened to many, many teenagers--then as now. Especially now with our drug paranoia at such an extreme--and mine were merely the days of “just say no.”

I should add that, for various reasons (none drug/alcohol related), I was enrolled at an “alternative” high school. Three teachers (addressed by their first names), 60 students. A very cozy situation lacking none of the power struggles and angst of “regular” high schools. There were, however, fewer jocks because we had no gym.

Why is this important? It might not be. Like I wrote: it's an anecdote.

Three's a big girl, then

As a child, I was something of an insomniac. Like other kids, I would fight to stay up with my parents. But I don’t think it was simply a case of not wanting to go to bed. I actually didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to be alert, awake just in case something happened. I don't think nighttime scared me as much as bedtime did, for, as children, we went to bed when it was still light out (about 6:00 during the school year, 8 in summer).

I think my anxiety about bedtime began when I was three.

We moved around quite a bit while I was growing up. When I was three, we (myself, parents, two younger siblings) moved to California. We lived just outside of Los Angeles, and this is where my memories begin. I’m not certain of the chronology, but three big events happened:

1) Fourth of July celebrations! Our parents got us ready for bed, and as soon as it grew dark, my family went out onto the street where neighbors were setting off fireworks. A kind man gave each of us children a sparkler to play with. Poof ! I went up like a firework myself. The sparkler had ignited the cheap, blue, synthetic nightgown I was wearing. I must have passed out. I woke up in the hospital, smelling something horrible (disinfectant? burned skin?).

The next day my mother drove me to my grandmother’s house nearby to show off the nightgown’s remains. She appeared proud of my having been burned; she was clearly excited as she told my grandmother about the sparkler.

(Years later a friend of my grandparents told me that he’d been the one to give me the sparkler, and that when I caught fire he threw me to ground and smothered the flames with his own body. My mother says he’s full of nonsense. I don't know who to believe--I think all of the adults on that July 4th were drunk on ring-pull cans of Coors).

2) First Earthquake! I woke up in the middle of the night because the bed was rocking. My mother, nude, was crouched over me, holding me to the bed (my siblings were cradle-bound at this point). I didn't know what to be more scared of--the earthquake or my mother. Bless her. It was her first earthquake as well.

3) First Abuse! My mother's brother agreed to babysit my siblings and I while the parents went out to play. It was a regular evening, uneventful. When it was time for bed, I helped fill my siblings’s bottles with sugary water and prepared for bed. When I came out to the bedroom to say “goodnight,” he said that, since I was the eldest, I could stay up a little bit later than the babies. I was delighted. I started to watch t.v. with him. I was so young I didn't quite understand what it was he was watching, but I do remember a laugh track, so I'm guessing it was a sitcom. Just a few minutes after I'd settled down ont he sofa, though, he picked me up and bent me over the couch, across the armrest, and he assaulted me.

And then the typical post-abuse story: he told me I was a big girl. A good girl. I wasn’t to tell my mother; I went to bed feeling sick, dirty, ashamed, and unsure.

The next day, I was playing in our empty garage, which smelled of old oil on warm concrete. I was setting “table” on a large, overturned cardboard box. The dishes were cheap, tin toys with Charlie Brown characters on them. A door connected the garage with the kitchen, and it was open while I played. I could see my mom getting things ready for lunch, and I could hear her talking on the telephone. When I heard her hang up, I called out and told her all about the previous night's event. I don't know why I just ignored my uncle's directive. Perhaps I was just a brave kid. Perhaps I wanted my mom to know my uncle thought I was a big girl, a good girl.

She didn’t respond. I went inside to see if she’d heard me, and I found she was on the phone again. When she replaced the receiver, she said “Grandma and grandpa know, and you aren't to tell anyone about this.” Nothing more was said.

Inconveniently, perhaps, I remembered all of it, in a rush, when I was 12. I don't know what provoked the memory (I think my uncle might have been planning to move into the area). Regardless, I remembered. I told my sibling about our uncle had done to a three year old girl. I thought relating the event was perfectly acceptable; all the grown-ups knew. Surely there wasn't anything to hide. Well, my sibling went to the family adults--including our mother--to report what I'd said.

My family--including my mother--told my sibling that I was a liar. They told me I'd made it up. I was misremembering. I had to apologize for telling horrible stories. They pretended I'd concocted the event in order to grab attention and to scare my sibling. Even though I knew I was right, the feelings of dirtiness and shame escalated, compounded by guilt and humiliation. I was pushed out of the family's safety net, usurped by a sibling's need to feel safe around my uncle.

When I was 18, my mother confirmed my story. She justified forcing me to lie by saying "we just didn't talk about things like that back then. We thought it was better if nobody knew" She's right, I know, but that doesn't curb the betrayal I feel. We haven’t spoken of it since.

Two years ago my uncle shot himself in the chest with my grandfather's gun.

Years before, his wife had left him, taking their two little girls with her to another state (I'd always wondered if he'd forced his attentions on those girls, but it could be that he'd never touched a child after me). Following his divorce, my uncle wandered. He actually spent some time doing the hobo thing and jumping trains. Alcoholism and drug abuse incapacitated him to the point where he couldn't work. So he hang out in bars and received disability checks for some ailment.

I felt ambivalent when he died. I still do. I understand the tragedy of a life wasted, of the pain that must drive one to suicide, but I know that if he'd never touched me, everything in my life would have been different. That one action kickstarted a chain of actions. and here I am.

Introduction

I’m a getting-on-to-middle age professional woman: alcoholic (bottle of wine a night minimum), sexually inappropriate, inclined to self-harm, and determined to sabotage friendships and whatever achievements I might grasp. I am multi-phobic, I alternate between extremes of fear and anger and am horrified by myself and, often, others.

I don’t want your pity. I just want to give you the facts.

I’ve been thinking for a while about composing a memoir. “They” say that writing things out tends to help you overcome problems; I assume it’s because writing gives you some sense of control. Well, control is what I require: I seem hell bent on self-destructing.

This is my rough draft of a life that, in some ways, reflects the standard story of childhood trauma leading to abusive relationships and addiction. But it also includes involvement in the sex trade and, ultimately, a professional career. In an effort to save that career (and, perhaps, my life), I’m beginning this ’blog.

The point of this narcissistic exercise? So much of my existence--my experience--has been hidden, secret, falsified, that I feel fake. Unreal. By putting it “out there,” I hope to make those experiences more concrete, more real, and less debilitating.

I’ll remain anonymous because everything I write will be verifiably true, and some of this material could harm my current life.

Again, no pity. I’ve achieved some remarkable things, and I wouldn't have achieved them without my experience; this is simply an attempt to order that experience.


NB: If you have any questions for me, any comments on the blog’s form / content, or wish to share experience, please leave a comment here or you can email me.

Funny that “sordid” rhymes with “sorted”--“organized, tidied up, put right”