The Frailty of Life

Most people, when confronted with tragedy, turn to family and friends for comfort. But because I have adjusted to life without a family, and grown accustomed to concealing and suppressing my pain, I turn to pen and paper instead. Some of my words--often the ones most drenched with angst--I destroy, or tuck away in a secret place, never to be read by anyone. Others I cast out into the world, hoping someone else who's had a similar experience will happen upon what I've written and glean a ray of solace, or, better yet, be compelled to make a positive change in his or her life, and, in this case, benefit from my mistake.

So here's what happened: One of my brothers recently passed away. By choice. He took his own life, leaving behind no trace of a reason for his action. Only questions, questions that wake me in the middle of the night: Was the way he did it a shrouded message? Was what he was wearing a hint as to why? Was his dysfunctional childhood somehow to blame? 

As masochistic as this may sound, I long to feel the devastation of this loss of a sibling, my brother, my blood. But because I never got to know him at all, because of the unfortunate truth that he was nothing more than a passing acquaintance, I am left only with these unresolved questions, and a gut-wrenching sadness at the thought of him reaching the hopeless point of where the only way to end his unbearable pain was to end his life. And guilt. Most of all I'm left with guilt. Guilt that I never put forth more effort to make the lanky cotton-top boy, who once played in the background of my childhood, something more than a vague memory.

I wanted to start a relationship with him after Mama's death, last year. I thought it would be a good time to at least begin. After all, Mama was the one who had kept us apart. Wasn't she? But he didn't think it was a good time. Too soon. So we put the idea on a backburner and that's where it stayed, simmering, waiting for one of us to pick it up. But neither of us ever did. I'll always be tormented by the thought that maybe if I'd tried harder--pushed harder--to become a part of his life, I could have somehow stopped him from turning down the dark road he ended up on. Or not. Maybe there's no amount of familial love and support that could have saved him. I'll never know, because now it's too late to find out. Too late to say I love you, brother.

Why Call Me Cockroach?

It has been a while since I posted to this blog, and many of you know the reason is because I've been working on my second book, a sequel to Call Me Tuesday. Now it's completed and for sale in eBook format on Amazon and B&N, and the paperback is in the final stages. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who encouraged me to tell the rest of my story, and then waited patiently while I pecked it out on my laptop.

The second book was almost as painful to write as the first. After the release of Call Me Tuesday, initially, I was embarrassed to reveal the many horrific and humiliating incidents of my childhood. But then after I received the reader response, I realized I had not been giving people enough credit for their capacity for empathy. My abusive upbringing had unfortunately caused me to fear people, and to be leery of the possibility of their cruelty. The compassion, and the brave sharing of experiences I derived from others after they'd read my story made me truly grasp that there are many in this world worthy of trust. During the writing of the second book, in order to convey the true essence of the damage I incurred as a result of my abusive childhood, I found myself having to once again disclose  more shameful personal experiences. But I was able to move forward because of renewed faith and trust that I can only attribute to the kindness of my readers. What a priceless gift! For that I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Because of the reactions I have been getting concerning the title of the second book, Call Me Cockroach--ranging from ooooh! to WTF--I feel I should address my reason for choosing it. While I had several options for a title, this one just seemed to fit my story and my struggles. Like it reads in the Prologue of the book, my daddy actually called me a cockroach, because of my ability to survive, not only under dire physical circumstances, but also the uncanny way I am able to disregard my emotions if need be to keep on living. Many people would have crumbled without essential parental love, and as a result of family turning their backs and doing nothing to help them. But I was somehow able to walk away from them all in search of people who would love me. Cockroaches, although not particularly appealing creatures, survive at all cost. In this way I feel a kinship with them, and I believe there are many more like me out there. With all this in mind, there was really only one choice for the title, and so I swallowed my pride and went with it.

Tell

Some people--particularly a few members of my family--have asked why I felt the need to write a book based on my childhood abuse. They can't fathom how I could possibly benefit from revealing such embarrassing family secrets. Was it cathartic? Was it to get even? To make money?

No, no and no.

You see, severe childhood trauma tends to get caught in the crevices of one's soul and therefore, it's not easily purged by something as simple as writing. At least that's been my experience. If it were that easy everyone who's ever been a victim would just write it down and be done with it. Healed. Happy. Normal.

As far as getting even goes, well, that's just impossible. There's no way to even the score of losing your childhood, your self esteem, your ability to trust, and part of your adult sanity. Besides, my blood relatives are so far-removed from my life, unless they wanted someone to know we're related, because our last names are different, it would be next to impossible to make the connection.

A money-making scheme? Hardly. As an independent author, I have no hopes of becoming rich, or famous from the meager proceeds of this book.

Then why on earth did I write such a disgusting, humiliating story based on my life? The main reason is really a pretty basic human need--I wrote it to tell.

For most of my childhood I was afraid to tell, forbidden to tell, and for a long time, I didn't tell. Then when I tried to tell no one believed me. And no one else in my family would tell, so for many years, my abuse was kept a secret, and of course, my family thinks it should continue to be a secret. But I'm no longer a child and no longer afraid. Now I can tell. And that's why I did tell.

Really, above all else, it's the key message of my book: It's okay to tell. By telling my own story I send my message to all abused children and adult survivors. But today, in honor of Child Abuse Prevention/Awareness Month, I send the message, not to abused children, but to their families. Because for almost every abused child out there today, there are family members who suspect something but are not telling. That's one reason, in my opinion, why child abuse is still so prevalent.

Every time you read an article, or hear on the news about another child dying from abuse, ask yourself this: why didn't anyone in the family tell? Surely a parent, stepmother, stepfather, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, an aunt or uncle suspected something. Unless the abuser was a single parent with an only child, who had cut off all contact with family and friends, believe me, someone knew something and didn't tell. I am convinced of this because after I became an adult, practically everyone in my extended family admitted to me they knew I was being mistreated but didn't tell.

Adult survivors, still keeping your secret, you now have a chance to have the tiny voice of the child within you to be heard. Tell. Or consider writing down what happened to you, like I did. You don't have to publish it (writing just happens to be my thing) but you can write about it and let someone you love read what you've written. No matter what anyone says, it did happen. And it's your turn to tell.

If by chance I'm fortunate enough to have a young person, who is in some way involved in abuse, happen upon this blog, or my book, I hope they get my message loud and clear: tell. If  you are afraid, or if the words are too horrifying to utter, then write it down and slip it to someone. If you're not being abused yourself, but a sibling is, or you suspect one of your friends may be a victim--please, please tell.

True Story or Based On a True Story

It makes sense that people wonder why I say my book, Call Me Tuesday, is "based on a true story" and not simply "a true story." The short answer is that personally, I believe every memoir--particularly the ones covering the earliest years of one's life--in which names, locations, etc. have been changed, conversations recreated, and in some cases blanks filled in, should be classified as "based on a true story."

To me, pure nonfiction is documented, researchable facts, not personal reflections, as seen through someone's eyes. For a memoir to be based on truth, I believe the bone structure of the story, to the best of the memoirist's recollection, should remain intact and not embellished upon, which in my case is the horrific, often twisted, childhood abuse I endured at the hands of my disturbed mother. Due to my young age when much of this took place, my recreations of conversations and insignificant events may be imperfect, but the day-to-day torment I suffered during these early years is etched into my memory in vivid detail. This raw, soul-baring account of what I remember is what I offer the reader in Call Me Tuesday.

Nevertheless, readers are understandably confused by all this, as evident in this interesting blog review: 
http://taralovesbooks.blogspot.com/2012/12/call-me-tuesday-by-leigh-byrne-cbr-iv-50.html.

So, the sequel to CMT (projected to be released in late spring or early summer of this year), in which my true experiences are diligently rendered as I recall them, will be classified simply, as a memoir.

Scapegoat

While being the victim of a parent’s fury is bad enough, being the only child in a family singled out to receive it is many, many times worse.

There came a point during the writing of Call Me Tuesday, when I felt the need to somehow impart meaning and purpose to what had happened to me as a child, to make my story, at least in my mind, something more than a pointless reflection of human suffering.

I spent hours on the Internet combing through newspaper articles about abused children, searching for one similar to mine. After days of reading heart wrenching stories about children who’d been brutally killed by one or both of their parents, I ran across an article about a four-year-old girl who’d been beaten to death by her mother. Reading on, I found out that in the years before her death, the little girl had been severely abused over an extended period of time, whereas her five brothers were never harmed. In the article, she was referred to as a “scapegoat child,” a term commonly used by social workers.

Wanting to know more, I typed “scapegoat child” in the search box of my computer and found many stories just like mine of children who were the only ones in their families abused. Turns out the phenomenon is surprisingly common nationwide and well-documented among child welfare experts, but hard to detect because it’s often covered up by the family members and sometimes becomes an accepted function within the family system. And like with all cases of child abuse, we don’t hear much about it until the death of one of the victims makes the papers.

The expression,” scapegoat” dates back to Biblical times. It’s written in Leviticus 16 that, on The Day of Atonement, two goats were chosen for a ceremony to rid Jerusalem of its sin. One goat was offered to God as a sacrifice, the other, after having all the sins of the people symbolically placed upon it, was sent out into the wilderness to fend for itself. The second goat, the bad, now sinful goat, because it was allowed to “escape” with its life, became known as “the scapegoat.”

Today, the word scapegoat is used to describe someone unjustly blamed and punished for the wrongdoings of others. Just as the riddance of evil was transferred from the Israelites to the Biblical goat, so do some people, instead of trying to understand the uncomfortable feelings within themselves, unconsciously project them onto another person, who then becomes the reason for all their problems.

Scapegoats are often the weak and powerless among us, making children likely targets for troubled parents seeking refuge from their guilt and other unwanted feelings. The child chosen from a sibling group—usually the most passive—is deemed bad and punished merely for existing. After being beaten, berated, and tortured for years, like the scapegoats in the Bible, they are then sent out into the world alone carrying with them the burden of their families' rejected pain.

I now know I was a scapegoat child. Everything my mother thought was bad in her, all her guilt and discontentment, she projected onto me, and once she made me into a replica of everything she hated about herself and her life, she lashed out at me physically and castigated me, not because she hated me, but because she hated who she was.

Scapegoating is not limited to children, and it’s not always noticeably severe. People are scapegoated every day in the workplace, in peer groups, as well as within our families. Every time we make fun of, or belittle someone to make ourselves look or feel better, we’re making a scapegoat of them. We are, albeit subconsciously, relieving the burden of our obscure feelings of self-badness and inadequacy by dumping it onto someone else. Scapegoating a child—or anyone for that matter—has the potential to be one of the most psychologically damaging forms of abuse we can inflict on another person. Please—don’t do it.