I was having an interesting discussion with a friend of mine and the subject of finding some peace while living in chaos came up. She was concerned about being in a marriage where there are stepchildren with severe behavioural problems that create such chaos and turmoil within the 'sanctity' of their home. What do you do when your home becomes a hornets' nest of uncontrollable bad behaviour? Would you walk away? Would you begin to hate those you love? Or become indifferent? These and other questions plague her.
Almost immediately, my thoughts went to another place and time. My own childhood.
I think my father was mentally ill. No, I'm sure of it. It seemed like two people inhabited his body. The good father, the good man who lived inside him was wonderful. He was generous and kind. Talent oozed from him. He could do anything. He was creative, intelligent and intuitive. He was charming and fun to be with. With him, I felt safe. And happy. And loved. With him, all was right with the world and I can accomplish anything.
But there was another man who crowded inside him. This other person was sinister and dark. I did not like him. He was abusive, manipulative and cruel. This was the father whose rage was uncontrollable. This was a man who would drag my shaking 9 year old body out of bed one night because he thought I lost the key to the house. He yells at me with ferocious angry eyes and commands me to look for that key if it takes all night. When he yells obscenities at me, his angry eyes look at me but don't actually see me. It's as if he is staring at nobody. And I feel like a nobody. He pounds me with the question: where did you put that key? Answer me! And I don't know what to say because every time I say "I don't know", he hits me with his belt. And every time I start to cry, he looks at me with utter contempt and tells me not to cry or I'll get some more. My mother does nothing but watch as if all that is happening to me is well-deserved and my sister feels no compassion for me. So I hold it all in. I go to another place in my head. Everything goes into slow motion until I disappear. When my sister finally remembers that she had the key in her school uniform pocket and produces it, the rage dissipates and my father retreats without a word. The next day, it's as if nothing happened. And I am happy again because I have my father back. But the damage runs very deep inside me. Incidents like this were part of my life. There was no warning. And I could not avoid them no matter how careful I was, no matter how good I tried to be. It just seemed all too futile. At times, my everyday behaviour was acceptable. And other times, what I thought was acceptable, became the fodder for more abuse. It was very confusing. I relished the intervals, the in-between times when my father was himself again and ours would be a happy, idyllic, wonderful home. But I can always count on the fact that at some time, he was going to blow up and I would take the brunt of his rage.
My father was the thermostat that decided if ours was going to be a happy home...or a miserable one. Every day, after school, I’d have some time to walk home from the jeepney stop and during those walks, I would go into some kind of stealth vigilance. I remember that I would go deep inside myself and let some other person take over---someone sharp and quick, to reconnoiter and find the clues that would warn me of trouble ahead. I learned to rely on this person. Perhaps it was just instinct but every day, this ability became sharper, stronger and 100% reliable. By the time I got to the gate, I knew what to expect. Sometimes I would breathe a sigh of relief. And sometimes I steeled myself, ready to accept whatever tempest lay in wait.
My father was not the only source of strife in my home. An uncle, my father’s cousin, lived with us from the time I can remember. It was not unusual in Filipino culture to have relatives from rural, dire provincial areas to live with their city relatives who were much better off . In the case of my uncle Pete, he lived with us while he went to school and to help care for me and my sister. But there was something really bad about him. He was a molester---a quiet monster who molested me through out the years that I grew up in my home. And though I tried to tell my parents, my pleas for some intervention were met with either indifference or a scolding for “having a dirty mind”. So I learned to live with it. As a teenager, I locked my bedroom door at night and closed my windows even during the hot summer nights---that is, until my father put an end to that. One night, in a rage, my father kicked my bedroom door open and began to yell a litany of accusations at me ranging from “what are you trying to hide by locking your door?”, to you-are-a-whore (ano ka, puta?) ramblings.
Such was my life. And that was not the worst of it. I’d rather not tell the rest.
What is important is what I came away with from this chaos. And they were gifts. Jewels.
The first gift that I got from being in this chaos is the sensitivity to variables and details that most people can’t see. Some of my friends and family say that I am one who “sees dead people”. I don’t know if this ability is one that I was born with or one that I developed to deal with the chaos but nevertheless, I can sense things. I can see things that people can’t see. Sometimes, I dream things that happen or will happen. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with some knowledge or warning that I need to heed either for me or for someone I know. But the sharpest skill I have is the ability to sense what’s inside people...especially what’s hiding inside them. And I’ve never been wrong though I can think of times when I’ve questioned myself and ended up sorry because I refused to believe the voices inside. I’ve since learned to never question my instincts. One example is a few years ago, I became acquainted with a nice family who all looked perfect. They had a nine year old girl who one Sunday, sang in church. That’s when it flashed in my head that this girl was being abused. I thought it was ridiculous that such an extraneous thought would flit into my head. Six years later, I would find out that her grandfather was an abuser. Could I have done something? I don’t know and I’m not going to punish myself. But gosh golly gee. I rely heavily on this ability and it has never failed me.
The second gift I got is the clarity of my true identity. This sensitivity is one that I need to work on and be vigilant about at all times. I’ve learned that there are times when one cannot walk away. When this happens, the only control you have is within yourself. Though there were strong forces that continually and relentlessly beat up on me, trying to prove that I was a nobody, a worthless person or a bad person, there was also a small but abiding voice that told me I was superlative. I saw myself differently deep inside. I saw what God sees in me---a valuable, loved and beautiful person. If I could choose the family I would be born into, why did I choose to be born where I was born? There has to be a reason. And it isn’t because I am stupid. I knew I was smart and I knew if I chose it, I had a good reason. And if God chose it for me, then he sees something in me that is superlative because He wouldn’t put me here just to make my life miserable. Or He wouldn’t be God. Because God loves. He loves me. Thus, there is a valuable reason. And there is. The truest most beautiful aspect of ourselves lie in wait for us to discover. And when we are ready to see, it becomes visible. And then there is peace amidst the chaos.
The third gift I got is the belief that life comes packaged with opposites---pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, difficulties and successes, peace and tribulation, adversity and wealth. All these are necessary for our growth and development. Life is comprised of experiences and events that shape who we are and what we can become. The forces around us happen whether we like it or not and rain will fall on both the good and the bad. And through all of these forces, the prevailing truth is that the greatest power on earth is the one that we are all imbued with: the power to choose for ourselves how we comport within these forces of opposites. For every force and its opposite can have joyous or devastating results depending on how we choose to be affected. Therein lies the hook. Therein is the secret.
I can list many more gifts but three sounds like a good place to stop for now.
The point is, I’ve come away from all these experiences basically intact, happy and peaceful. I don’t wear my unpleasant experiences like a badge of honor. I do not consider myself an abused person. I chose to break the cycle. I do not think that I am a survivor or a victim. I am not defined solely by the misfortunes and tribulations that fell upon me but by the sum total of my experiences, good and bad. I am merely one who lives life still and whose experiences continue to grow and provide me with wisdom and clarity. And while I am alive, I have yet many more to experience. There will yet be storms and tempests around me and as sure as I know those storms gather, I also know there is stillness and peace behind them. I’d like to think that I love fiercely and boldly. And I’d like to think that I continue to get better.
My father will have passed away seventeen years ago next week. I sorely miss him. I understand his battles against his demons. He was just a man who was my father. Though he was flawed, and absent his illness, I know his love for me was real and fierce. And I believe that my forgiveness and understanding gives him peace and joy wherever he is....and I want all that and more for him. I do look forward to that day when I can embrace him again and he will just be himself without the illness that racked his mind. The next time I see Papa, the only person who will inhabit his body will be that wonderful, loving and fantastic father. I know it just as surely as I know the sun will rise tomorrow.
The last time I saw my uncle Pete over 30 years ago, he was just a small man with a dark and sad countenance. I feel sorry for him and the life he lived, the choices he made. I feel sorry that his father was often drunk and abusive and that he did not know love. I wish him peace and clarity---that he will see with heaven’s eyes what God sees in him and then live the rest of his days accordingly.
It IS possible to live peacefully amidst chaos. We are endowed with the tools to do it and do it well. When we discover that it is within ourselves that we can find peace, the heavens open, God intervenes and miracles begin to happen. It is that work, that faith, that effort, that precedes the miracle.
Almost immediately, my thoughts went to another place and time. My own childhood.
I think my father was mentally ill. No, I'm sure of it. It seemed like two people inhabited his body. The good father, the good man who lived inside him was wonderful. He was generous and kind. Talent oozed from him. He could do anything. He was creative, intelligent and intuitive. He was charming and fun to be with. With him, I felt safe. And happy. And loved. With him, all was right with the world and I can accomplish anything.
But there was another man who crowded inside him. This other person was sinister and dark. I did not like him. He was abusive, manipulative and cruel. This was the father whose rage was uncontrollable. This was a man who would drag my shaking 9 year old body out of bed one night because he thought I lost the key to the house. He yells at me with ferocious angry eyes and commands me to look for that key if it takes all night. When he yells obscenities at me, his angry eyes look at me but don't actually see me. It's as if he is staring at nobody. And I feel like a nobody. He pounds me with the question: where did you put that key? Answer me! And I don't know what to say because every time I say "I don't know", he hits me with his belt. And every time I start to cry, he looks at me with utter contempt and tells me not to cry or I'll get some more. My mother does nothing but watch as if all that is happening to me is well-deserved and my sister feels no compassion for me. So I hold it all in. I go to another place in my head. Everything goes into slow motion until I disappear. When my sister finally remembers that she had the key in her school uniform pocket and produces it, the rage dissipates and my father retreats without a word. The next day, it's as if nothing happened. And I am happy again because I have my father back. But the damage runs very deep inside me. Incidents like this were part of my life. There was no warning. And I could not avoid them no matter how careful I was, no matter how good I tried to be. It just seemed all too futile. At times, my everyday behaviour was acceptable. And other times, what I thought was acceptable, became the fodder for more abuse. It was very confusing. I relished the intervals, the in-between times when my father was himself again and ours would be a happy, idyllic, wonderful home. But I can always count on the fact that at some time, he was going to blow up and I would take the brunt of his rage.
My father was the thermostat that decided if ours was going to be a happy home...or a miserable one. Every day, after school, I’d have some time to walk home from the jeepney stop and during those walks, I would go into some kind of stealth vigilance. I remember that I would go deep inside myself and let some other person take over---someone sharp and quick, to reconnoiter and find the clues that would warn me of trouble ahead. I learned to rely on this person. Perhaps it was just instinct but every day, this ability became sharper, stronger and 100% reliable. By the time I got to the gate, I knew what to expect. Sometimes I would breathe a sigh of relief. And sometimes I steeled myself, ready to accept whatever tempest lay in wait.
My father was not the only source of strife in my home. An uncle, my father’s cousin, lived with us from the time I can remember. It was not unusual in Filipino culture to have relatives from rural, dire provincial areas to live with their city relatives who were much better off . In the case of my uncle Pete, he lived with us while he went to school and to help care for me and my sister. But there was something really bad about him. He was a molester---a quiet monster who molested me through out the years that I grew up in my home. And though I tried to tell my parents, my pleas for some intervention were met with either indifference or a scolding for “having a dirty mind”. So I learned to live with it. As a teenager, I locked my bedroom door at night and closed my windows even during the hot summer nights---that is, until my father put an end to that. One night, in a rage, my father kicked my bedroom door open and began to yell a litany of accusations at me ranging from “what are you trying to hide by locking your door?”, to you-are-a-whore (ano ka, puta?) ramblings.
Such was my life. And that was not the worst of it. I’d rather not tell the rest.
What is important is what I came away with from this chaos. And they were gifts. Jewels.
The first gift that I got from being in this chaos is the sensitivity to variables and details that most people can’t see. Some of my friends and family say that I am one who “sees dead people”. I don’t know if this ability is one that I was born with or one that I developed to deal with the chaos but nevertheless, I can sense things. I can see things that people can’t see. Sometimes, I dream things that happen or will happen. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with some knowledge or warning that I need to heed either for me or for someone I know. But the sharpest skill I have is the ability to sense what’s inside people...especially what’s hiding inside them. And I’ve never been wrong though I can think of times when I’ve questioned myself and ended up sorry because I refused to believe the voices inside. I’ve since learned to never question my instincts. One example is a few years ago, I became acquainted with a nice family who all looked perfect. They had a nine year old girl who one Sunday, sang in church. That’s when it flashed in my head that this girl was being abused. I thought it was ridiculous that such an extraneous thought would flit into my head. Six years later, I would find out that her grandfather was an abuser. Could I have done something? I don’t know and I’m not going to punish myself. But gosh golly gee. I rely heavily on this ability and it has never failed me.
The second gift I got is the clarity of my true identity. This sensitivity is one that I need to work on and be vigilant about at all times. I’ve learned that there are times when one cannot walk away. When this happens, the only control you have is within yourself. Though there were strong forces that continually and relentlessly beat up on me, trying to prove that I was a nobody, a worthless person or a bad person, there was also a small but abiding voice that told me I was superlative. I saw myself differently deep inside. I saw what God sees in me---a valuable, loved and beautiful person. If I could choose the family I would be born into, why did I choose to be born where I was born? There has to be a reason. And it isn’t because I am stupid. I knew I was smart and I knew if I chose it, I had a good reason. And if God chose it for me, then he sees something in me that is superlative because He wouldn’t put me here just to make my life miserable. Or He wouldn’t be God. Because God loves. He loves me. Thus, there is a valuable reason. And there is. The truest most beautiful aspect of ourselves lie in wait for us to discover. And when we are ready to see, it becomes visible. And then there is peace amidst the chaos.
The third gift I got is the belief that life comes packaged with opposites---pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, difficulties and successes, peace and tribulation, adversity and wealth. All these are necessary for our growth and development. Life is comprised of experiences and events that shape who we are and what we can become. The forces around us happen whether we like it or not and rain will fall on both the good and the bad. And through all of these forces, the prevailing truth is that the greatest power on earth is the one that we are all imbued with: the power to choose for ourselves how we comport within these forces of opposites. For every force and its opposite can have joyous or devastating results depending on how we choose to be affected. Therein lies the hook. Therein is the secret.
I can list many more gifts but three sounds like a good place to stop for now.
The point is, I’ve come away from all these experiences basically intact, happy and peaceful. I don’t wear my unpleasant experiences like a badge of honor. I do not consider myself an abused person. I chose to break the cycle. I do not think that I am a survivor or a victim. I am not defined solely by the misfortunes and tribulations that fell upon me but by the sum total of my experiences, good and bad. I am merely one who lives life still and whose experiences continue to grow and provide me with wisdom and clarity. And while I am alive, I have yet many more to experience. There will yet be storms and tempests around me and as sure as I know those storms gather, I also know there is stillness and peace behind them. I’d like to think that I love fiercely and boldly. And I’d like to think that I continue to get better.
My father will have passed away seventeen years ago next week. I sorely miss him. I understand his battles against his demons. He was just a man who was my father. Though he was flawed, and absent his illness, I know his love for me was real and fierce. And I believe that my forgiveness and understanding gives him peace and joy wherever he is....and I want all that and more for him. I do look forward to that day when I can embrace him again and he will just be himself without the illness that racked his mind. The next time I see Papa, the only person who will inhabit his body will be that wonderful, loving and fantastic father. I know it just as surely as I know the sun will rise tomorrow.
The last time I saw my uncle Pete over 30 years ago, he was just a small man with a dark and sad countenance. I feel sorry for him and the life he lived, the choices he made. I feel sorry that his father was often drunk and abusive and that he did not know love. I wish him peace and clarity---that he will see with heaven’s eyes what God sees in him and then live the rest of his days accordingly.
It IS possible to live peacefully amidst chaos. We are endowed with the tools to do it and do it well. When we discover that it is within ourselves that we can find peace, the heavens open, God intervenes and miracles begin to happen. It is that work, that faith, that effort, that precedes the miracle.
