Summer: panic time

Content Warning: issues of childhood abuse/incest survival

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An eight-year old ish me in front of swan boat #6 at Centre Island in my little red dress and red shoes. I am holding a Raggedy Anne doll, which I still have today.

I always forget that summers make me panic and provoke a flight response. Why? It took me years to understand the connection between my sense of panic, claustrophobia and need to escape with childhood. Why is my fuse shorter? Why do I get even more sensitive and irritable than I normally am? Why do I need to stay as far away from home as possible. Why do I want to run? Drink? Just find any way possible to escape. What is this panic?

I loved my father. He told me stories. We went everywhere together. Here are the memories I have of what changed and how, and the effects it has had on me.

1. Willowridge, Etobicoke, Ontario

   from the time I was 8 until 11, we lived in an apartment building. it was my fourth residence: 1. England; 2. Rexdale, Ontario. 3. Wilfrid/Pefferlaw, Ontario - small town; our house on a half-acre of land, which I loved. My father used to commute to work in Toronto when we lived at 3, but then my parents decided we needed to move back to the city, possibly because the commute was too much. My mother also worked.

   At some point, when we lived at the Willowridge apartment building, he lost his job: laid off or fired, I am not sure. He was now home all the time, but I wasn’t home alone with him all day until the summer time. He used to drive us to Centre Island and Ontario Place on weekdays when my mother was at work. In the garage, when he fasted my seat belt, he would run his hands along my inner thighs. I don’t know how I was wise enough to understand that this isn’t something he should have been doing, but I felt uncomfortable and told him to stop and he stopped. Except it happened again and again. I continued to say no, but I always had to do it. Always had to be careful and make sure I was clear.

2. When we went out together, he always sang songs that were full of sexual innuendo and it creeped me out. I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key… or snippets of romantic love songs: if you were the only girl in the world, and i was the only boy…later when we lived in a townhouse near my high school, i remember not wanting him to be near the girls who came over..my classmates, and Americans we were hosting as part of choir-band exchanges.

   once when I had a bad dream, he came in to stop me from screaming. he put his hand beneath my pajama top at the back only. but it remained there for a long time. and i didn’t like it.

3. Mississauga, Ontario - condominium near my junior high school.

   In between grade 8 and 9, I suddenly broke out of my well-behaved shell and started to act out. I got drunk and knocked a cop’s tooth out with my head. (long story) I was arrested for shoplifting at the local K-Mart. My parents decided to ground me. I was 13 and it was summer and I couldn’t leave the condo, and he was there all day while my mother was at work.

   In the upstairs part of our condominium, my father kissed me on the lips hard, forcing his tongue down my throat and wouldn’t let me go. I hated the taste of cigarettes and his greasy brylcreamed hair. I pushed him away and ran out the upstairs exit a to the nearby mall, where my then brother-in-law found me and brought me back home.

   I told my mother about the kiss and we left my father for two weeks and then returned. he promised he would never touch me again.

   sometimes when he was really drunk, stinking of Crown Royal, his drink of choice, he came up to my room and opened the door, standing there in his underwear and vest, those white briefs. i can’t stand them now, when i see them in films or on tv: tightie whities, they’re referred to, and the vests - wife beaters. ugh... he was crying. standing there and blubbering. my father. i was angry, disgusted, but not afraid. once he threatened me with his belt to punish me for something and i told him to go ahead and try. he never did it.

4. Mississauga, townhouse near high school: my father and I lay on either side of the couch covered by a blanket my mother had crocheted. His foot lay on my crotch. mine on his. neither one of us moved. i was excited. shamefully so.

   
   we had a downstairs bathroom. he always left it open when he peed. i was horribly embarrassed and nervous and confused about this, and my reaction to it: curiosity/shame/anger/embarrassment, wondering if i was doing something wrong. i asked him repeatedly to close the door, but he never would.

   sometimes when i lay in bed with the door to my room closed, i humped my pillow in the night for release from sexual tension, a normal thing for a teen, but sometimes my door opened and stayed open and i remained still beneath the blankets until the door closed.

   those are the only clear memories i have of such incidents. before they happened, i worshiped my father. after these incidents, i became wary and guarded. i found him to be a weak person. my mother worked hard but all he seemed to do was drink and curl up on the couch in the fetal position. he got drunk a lot after he started to have employment instability. when i came home from school, he was often drinking and smoking on the couch by the door and i didn’t want to go in. and in the summer, the only peace i felt was when i managed to go out alone, which i couldn’t do until i was in my teens. he never let me have boyfriends. the one time i arranged for a boy to pick me up, claiming we were meeting a group, he wouldn’t let me leave the townhouse, and i watched from my bedroom window as Rick’s car pulled up, as he honked and then eventually left.

   i believe my father sexualized me early with his behaviour, and taught me desire. it was wrong desire, and it shamed me. i always said no, but there was a part of me that wanted to please him, to show him that i loved him. i will never feel anything but guilt over that feeling. of wishing i had let him do what he wanted to me. of feeling that i was bad for not letting him.

   years later when my first husband and i had intimacy troubles and i began to act out, going out with men and drinking a lot, we went to couples’ therapy. the therapist also saw us individually. my childhood memories came back. i always thought that because i said no every time, nothing had happened to me. i took care of myself, became independent. but i was always guarded. i had trouble sleeping. i never wanted to be indoors in the summertime. i didn’t eat right. and i loathed my parents, both of them. the therapist told me that i was a survivor. sometimes i believe this and sometimes i don’t.

   at one point, i bought this book, the Courage to Heal, but I can’t even open it. just seeing the title makes me feel all shaky and weird.

   in the summertime, all i want to do is flee. fortunately Charles is a loving and wonderful husband and has helped me to address and get through the trauma, even helping me to recognize what’s going on when i get irritable without any recognizable reason in the summer, when i need to get out of the apartment for as long as possible. i’m dealing with it.

   perhaps for some of you this will be offensive to read or an overshare, and i’m sorry about that. it’s as hard to write as it probably is to read. but some of you may also be survivors of childhood trauma. i cannot be around fathers and young children. i hate father’s day. i want to tear up every happy f day greeting and throw up when i see it. i can rarely see a man around children without believing the worst. every once in a while, i can, but it’s rare.

   so summertime is particularly difficult for me. if i get weird and irritable around you, i apologize. if i seem to be overreacting about something minor, that is possibly why.
   for all incest and abuse survivors, my heart goes out to you. you are not alone. and you are a survivor. i send you love.