With Family Like This...

          I don't have many friends, even though I make them easily. I just don't keep them. I'm likable; in fact I'm too likable for my own good sometimes. I'm also very picky. I've educated myself out of the realm of conversation with most people, and not having watched television or listened to terrestrial radio in well over a decade doesn't help either. It's hard to find anyone who understands me on a surface level, much less anything under the shell. Still, as I said, I'm charismatic, and so I've met people I've liked who want to be my friend, BUT I've backed off very fast from that. As you know by now, I have a lot of trust issues.

          It's been kindof hard to be so solitary. I remember years on years when my husband worked 90 hour weeks when I sat alone in the pure white house; I thought I was going mad. The flashbacks had just started and I took several years away from modeling then. I dropped off the map. While some isolation in the beginning worked for inward reflection, complete isolation over an extended period of time can change a person for the worse. 

          I wrote down all of my flashbacks in my journal, once I was done diving under blankets, crying and screaming in the fetal position. I remember lying in the bathtub with the lights off just wondering, for the first time, how I was going to reconcile what I knew with what just forced itself into my reality. These days, I understand that the reconciliation will happen on it's own, but it doesn't lessen the horror. 

Chinese New Year

          Around that time, Chinese New Year exactly, I had my parents down and told them everything I'd remembered - from my brother torturing me, to my Dad's best friend feeling me up every night. My Dad cried and my mom sat there, blank-faced, sometimes making excuses or denying knowledge. I told them I was giving them this one-time opportunity to make things right and be forgiven - to start over. Dad, who at some point discovered religion, said only god could do that. I told him that was unfair. I said only the person you wronged could do that. He's always had a problem facing reality.

           So, it was February, 2008, and I gave them one month to face my brother and make things right. My Dad wholeheartedly swore he would, and at the time I believed him. I always believed he was my knight in shining armor. My Mom, well, I knew better, but I never knew what to expect.

           A month passed and I wrote them a stern letter saying that if they cared, I wouldn't have to even ask, much less remind them. And, so, my Dad replies saying he doesn't know what to do. I said "Something! Anything! Get upset about what he did! Be a DAD! Punch him in the face!" ... ... He said he couldn't because he might go to jail. My Mom decided to do something, alright. She went to my Dad's best friend and chewed him out... keeping in mind that I'd already done so 12 years previous. 

            The man called me, crying and apologizing  as he had before, and we'd already had that conversation. I told him the same thing: I was thankful and glad as he sounded truly remorseful; still, years of feeling a girl up everyday (while nothing compared to what else I was going through) could never be forgiven or forgotten.

          My Mom called me, triumphant, expecting her forgiveness on a silver platter and I threw it in her face. I wanted her son confronted, and nobody was doing it. Why was nobody doing it? That February was the first time I'd ever really confronted them on their lack of protection and held them accountable, and I was actually hopeful that they'd make it right... 

The Great Manipulators

        My brother's wife came to visit my mom in a crying fit. They'd just had a horrible fight. He's still the worst kind of manipulator, and she is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of HER brother. Also, they're as closely related as two people can be and still marry. Anyway, she came to my mom for help and advice. She wanted to leave him, but he threatened to take their son away if she tried. She has ADD, he said, and he'd win. Instead of being supportive or comforting, my mom thought this would be considered "confronting him... somehow" and told her everything I remembered. Not only did she deny it all, but the backfire sent her home, and now he knows that I know. 

          She expected accolades for her performance, and my response was a refusal to see them for years.

          Last time I came to visit, my (youngest) nephew and I wanted to see each other SO much, He's the coolest kid, and though I haven't seen him much, I love him. I was excited, because we were into a lot of the same things and I was bringing him a numbered, collector edition sonic screwdriver from the 11th Doctor (Doctor Who). However, moments before we were supposed to pick him up, my brother told the boy he couldn't see me without giving him reason. From what I heard over the phone, the poor kid's heart was broken and his conversation was cut short as he was forced into his room - again, given no reason. I was so so so so pissed....but that was his whole point. He's malicious; he'll take even the smallest victories because we wants to hurt anyone who hurt him, even if it means innocent people get severely damaged in the process. To this day, I fear how he's using that gift to make the poor boy regret that I cared. From hundreds of miles away, however, all I can do is know him from experience - for who he is.

          So, you get the idea. My family have been on-again-off-again, but once I heard that news story about the father who killed the man he caught molesting his daughter - and was acquitted - that gave me the strength to cut the ties. In my mind, my Dad had always been my knight, but I couldn't reconcile that picture of him and the reality of him. I loved him SO much that I was blind to it, but it's true. If he loved me - he'd have been that Dad. 

          That news story set off a huge set of flashbacks and month-long bed-ridden depression in me, but it also spurred an amazing new openness when it came to my modeling. I began taking on some horror shoots, as well as glamour, and it helped me expand. I suppose it's all a part of filling in the gaps and becoming a whole person.

          I officially divorced my parents as well, though my Mom tried to send me things right away. She likes to show "how much she love me" when I don't want it - so other people can see how much she really and truly tries and how unreasonable I am. Someday soon, I intend to change my surname as well, and erase them from me entirely; they don't have the right to have a stamp on me.

        Anyway, short story long: that's just the very tip of my trust issues. It has taken me aeons to make friends, but I have a couple of good ones, who know me and my issues. They both know what I do and my issues, so... I guess they like me. They had to work for it though. One online friend had to wait 7 years before learning any personal details. Still, when actually meet someone I can trust, it's like befriending a unicorn - I keep worrying that it's actually been a lion all along.

-DC