The Dying Year: Taking Shape

Groundwork

My life could be considered comical for all it's challenges. It qualifies as tragic by default. My parents were tragically flawed. They were either unaware of their flaws, or hoped having children would mask them.

My parents raised four children, and damaged all four, as well. I was chosen to be damaged the most. The chaos in our home was so prevalent it was ordinary, and so frightening you went numb. It required someone to blame. They blamed me. Any member of my family will tell you. Sometimes you don't even have to ask.

What really happened was Dad started drinking to forget a past he never talked about. He drank to make his pain disappear, and made everything else disappear with it. Money disappeared. Homes disappeared. Security disappeared. Love disappeared. Identity and structure disappeared. All that remained was his anger, and if you weren't careful he'd unleash it on you. He unleashed it on me most of all, and everyone else pretended not to know.

His beatings were administered between my 8th and 11th year. They were violent and terrifying and swift. They were traumatic. When they occurred my mom would load us in the car and threaten to leave. She never did. My siblings would look at me like I asked for it, like everything would be fine if I wasn't there. They never asked how I was. No one talked about it, ever.

To find out why my father beat me, I was taken to psychologists and psychiatrists for evaluation. When they failed to find my pathology, I was taken to the Stanford Sleep Disorder Center where my brainwaves were analyzed. My mom would keep me awake all night by driving around town, and drop me at the Lab where electrodes were glued to my head, and men in lab-coats watched me sleep from behind a window. My dad never talked to a doctor, or accompanied me. Neither did my siblings.

When the first test showed “abnormal brainwaves” there was a murmur of excitement, and the entire routine was done a second time. When the second results matched the first results the doctors said it confirmed my brainwaves were 'normal', and I was fine. My family didn't accept that because I still behaved badly, and acted out. I learned later that the child who 'acts out' in families like mine is the one who knows something's wrong. He acts out to try to get help. He acts out because he doesn't know who to ask. He acts out to bring attention to the family.

My parents caught on because they sat us down, and announced we were moving. "We're moving because Pat keeps getting in trouble, and we don't know what else to do." My two brothers, and sister, already hated me and believed I was the problem. My parents needed me to believe it, too. I never did.

I'd wander alone through the foothills behind our new home, and sometimes I'd hear a voice, or feel a voice, I'm not sure. Its message was different than my family's. I often cried as I walked, and talked to God. I asked why this stuff had to happen to me, why I was the one everyone unloaded on. The answer was always the same: "It's happening to you because you're the one who can take it". My crying would stop, and my fear would diminish, and I'd agree to return home. When I heard that voice I knew I'd survive. Deep down, I knew that voice was right.

Birth Contract

I believe my parents were perfect stewards for the soul waking in me. I believe they were predetermined. Events in the last five years revealed the necessity of each trauma I incurred. They identified traits I was to acquire, and provided an alternate route to them. Instead of having a father who modeled them, I got one who destroyed them.

His effort to deny me was motivation for an entrance into them. He shaped the lifelong pattern I'd employ to understand, or process, myself and the world. I have always been dissatisfied by superficial study. When I want to know something, I enter it. I aim for its heart in an attempt to feel it. I came with that. My parents taught me how to make use of it.

They positioned what was most destructive to my soul, within arms reach of it's native radiance. They delivered on the agreement they made. They forced me to the edge of crippling darkness until it made sense. They preserved the roots of compassion, and empathy, that allowed me to enter that darkness broken, and emerge whole. I don't know how they did it.

They knew my siblings would leave me, and they knew how they had used me. They knew I'd agreed to it upon entry. They knew they'd die before I'd come to forgive them, and they knew I'd build my life on glass too thin to hold. They knew I'd survive, and they hoped I'd be happy.

Here's what I learned:

I know how to survive.

I don't know how to be happy.

I'm proud of both.

Innate Aptitudes

I have a high tolerance for psychic pain. I can enter it without being consumed. I received a high dose, but not as high as others. It's bewildering what some have been asked to endure.

There's nothing noble, or self-congratulatory, in the claim. It's what I'm programmed to do. Out of all the possibilities- athleticism, mathematical genius, care taking, humor, artistry - this is my assignment. Pain was a constant in my first 30 years, as was my gratitude for it. Everything I value about my human experience came through its prism.

It’s only been the past few years that I entertained an expectation of reward, or recognition. Maybe an epiphany, or a catharsis. Maybe an "a-ha" moment. I was feeling entitled to something. I even started talking to God a lot, and not in the tradition of prayer, or guidance. More like a spoiled child. I'd tell him if he loves me he should show me. I tell him what a good job I’m doing, and how about a “Well Done”, or a car.

"What", he replies, "made you believe the life you have is to serve you?"