In my early twenties, married with two babies, my husband a functioning alcoholic, I knew little of what was going on in the real world. I went to a local market one day to buy groceries with my two little ones in a baby carriage and as I left the store I saw a newspaper in the news stand. It screamed loud headlines, \u201cPresident Kennedy killed!\u201d I stopped in shock as I stared at the headlines. My first thought was how horrible that the president was killed. My second thought was, \u201cI didn\u2019t know he was president.\u201d What a sad but true testimony to the shambles my life had become. I had little knowledge of world affairs or of any US government happenings. If you had asked me who the Vice President was (now, of course, our new president) I couldn\u2019t have told you. I was like one of those people interviewed by a Man on The Street news reporter who, when asked a question about a major world affair, like Vietnam, or who a major world figure like Harold Macmillan was I\u2019d have given them a quizzical but embarrassed look as I knew nothing about either. What was the Profumo scandal? Beats me. Who were the Beatles? Ummm\u2026\u2026\u2026don\u2019t know that one either.<\/p>\n
Once I got home I turned on the news and watched as the photos of a young man being killed were dumped on a horrified world. I remember it seemed strange to be watching the news on a television station, something I never did. I kept my eyes glued to the set holding my three month old daughter while my 14 month old played on the floor, occasionally trying to pull herself up by grabbing my pant legs. I usually watched I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Adams Family or My Three Sons, while I was ironing, running a load of laundry, mostly filled with diapers, had one baby propped up on the sofa with a bottle stuck in her mouth and another one in her high chair banging her spoon on the tray in demand of more food. Every night I wondered where my husband was? This night was no exception.\u00a0 His shift ended at 4pm and it was already 8pm. I\u2019d eaten dinner alone. It was a familiar scene. I knew in my heart where he was. He was at a bar with a bunch of his cronies who were buying him beer after beer since they liked his company. He was a good listener.\u00a0 I knew he\u2019d come dragging in at 2:30 too drunk to even make it to the bed, passing out on the sofa instead. I also knew that come morning in response to my tearful entreaties he would promise, from now on, to come home right after work, a promise he never seemed able to keep.<\/p>\n
When you are a child sexual abuse victim who has never been through recovery, for the most part you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in the world; what\u2019s worse, you don\u2019t even care. It\u2019s all you can do to keep yourself from constant sobbing, from anger at where you are in life. You chain smoke, you cry, then you cry some more. It doesn\u2019t bring your husband home but it\u2019s a grieving process you must go through. You know there are dark shadows in your past but you don\u2019t know what they are from. You wake up in the middle of the night screaming and screaming from a horror you can only describe as a steamroller coming over you, one that crushes you to death. It takes hours for the sobbing and the shaking to finally subside.<\/p>\n
For a child sexual abuse victim (and it\u2019s been my habit to refer to those who have never been through recovery as \u201cvictims\u201d and those who have as \u201csurvivors\u201d \u2013 just my personal choice) the immediate challenge in their world is themselves. Why are you so unhappy? Why did you feel like you were putting a noose around your head when you married the first person who said, I love you?<\/em> You struggle through your day, trying to make sense out of the grief you feel surrounded with. Nothing takes the pain away. You look through the windows in the other houses and imagine a happy family living there, wondering how they can become a happy family. You keep thinking it\u2019s your fault that your husband \u201cdrinks too much\u201d (you can\u2019t bring yourself to call him an alcoholic). So you work harder. You cook dinner, do dishes, do the laundry, clean house, pay the bills, rock the babies as you sing them Irish Lullabies, mow the lawn, wash the car, haul the trash cans obediently to the end of the road on the weekend while your husband sits on the steps with another male neighbor both of them working on their second six pack. The neighbor says, \u201cDon\u2019t you think you oughta help your little wife take that trash can up<\/em>?\u201d \u201cNah, I don\u2019t need to; she grew up in the Midwest where wives do that sort of thing all the time<\/em>.\u201d You seethe with anger and resentment.<\/p>\n But still, you think it\u2019s your fault. And once the funeral is over the television news station isn\u2019t visited anymore and you still can\u2019t think who the new President is. Time goes by. You\u2019re pregnant again. There\u2019s one thing he makes sure he takes care of. You go dutifully to mass on Sunday and ask God why? You beg Him for help. Still the nightmares keep on coming and your husband stays away more and more nights; one time he\u2019s gone all weekend and you\u2019re terrified he\u2019s been in an accident and call the hospitals and police stations. He comes stumbling in late Sunday night, so drunk he can\u2019t make it any further than the living room. You are filled with despair as you stumble to your knees, sobbing and beg him to get help, to go to a marriage counselor, to see a priest. He pats you on the head, calls you his good little Catholic wife, then passes out.<\/p>\n The next day your father, whom you haven\u2019t seen in years, calls and say he\u2019s coming over to see you. You start trembling violently as you hang up the phone. Your terror accelerates as you realize he\u2019s coming when your husband is at work and you\u2019ll be alone with him. Dark shadows cover you hour after hour as you wait.<\/p>\n It will be many years before you are able to connect the two events in your life and figure out the meaning of it all.<\/p>\n PS: Today I\u2019m a news junkie, especially political news and world affairs. I never would have predicted back in the dark days before recovery that one day I\u2019d spend several hours a day watching the news and enjoying it tremendously.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n