Dysfunctional families always keep secrets. They may be about sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse, drug use, time spent in prison, prostitution, incest, infidelity and a number of other unpleasant subjects. They weave incredible stories around their secrets so that no one suspects wrongdoing or evil. When you hide something you are trying to make it invisible, create dark shadows that live in the background. They strive to conceal that which needs to come out in to the light. Healthy families are open, sharing, working problems out together as a family. They don\u2019t conspire among themselves to keep it all a secret.<\/p>\n
Which one do you belong to?<\/p>\n
For many decades whenever a therapist or a new friend asked me about my childhood I always had the same reply: \u201cI grew up in a happy Catholic household. I adored my father and loved my mother. As the result of my father\u2019s work, constructing electrical substations, we lived in many Midwestern towns, all but one (Tucson, AZ) was small enough for me to walk barefoot from one end of town to another. In the summer I climbed trees, swam in rivers, hiked in woods, played baseball; in the winter I had snowball fights, did angel wings in the snow, made igloos, ice skated on the rivers, went rabbit hunting with my brother and our 22 rifles and took frozen clothes off the clothes line for my mother. My dad made all the long drives from one small town to another entertaining as he made up games (who can keep a lifesaver in their mouth the longest? how many miles is it to that mountain? name the capitols of each state), told us the history of the area where we were going to be living and had us sing songs (mostly Bing Crosby songs as my father had played piano in Bob Crosby\u2019s orchestra on the Hawaiian Islands when he was in the Marine Corp during World War II \u2013 the Marine Corp hymn was a must-sing). What a delightful childhood, happy Christmases, 4th<\/sup> of July celebrations, Easter egg hunts, Halloween where I dressed up as a gypsy wearing my mother\u2019s clothes and jewelry, Thanksgiving feasts. \u00a0Each winter morning we had hot chocolate with marshmallows while we peered at the paintings Jack Frost had created on our windows, warming our backsides at the woodstove. Mom baked bread, homemade rolls, breadsticks, cinnamon rolls, orange rolls with white frosting and especially fruit cake in the weeks before Christmas. Every night we said prayers kneeling in a circle in front of my mother with dad sitting nearby smoking his pipe and reading.\u201d<\/p>\n What a great childhood! What happy memories!<\/p>\n What I didn\u2019t say is much more vital than what I did say. I didn\u2019t speak of the daily and painful enemas my mother forced her four small children to undergo while my father was in the war. The four of us lay crosswise on the bed like sacks of potatoes each of us terror stricken at what we were about to endure. I didn\u2019t mention my father raping me when I was 13 as I lay sleeping on the bottom bunk, my rosary in my hands. I didn\u2019t mention my mother finding out about dad\u2019s raids and how she had him beat me with a belt until I confessed to being the guilty party. I didn\u2019t mention my mother lying in bed crying, day after day once she discovered what my father was doing. I didn\u2019t talk about how she had me groom her as she lay there, like a pet, bathing her with the washcloth and soap, combing her hair as her head lay on the pillow, a catatonic look on her face, shaving her underarms and her legs, all the time wondering what happened to my mother. And why did my dad find work in another town, coming home only on the weekends? When we were 15 we moved to LA. I hated it and was miserable and homesick for Petersburg, NE where we spent the last three years. When I was eighteen and had graduated from high school, I was told I could not go to college, had to work to help support the family at a job they chose, could not wear makeup, could only read books they approved of, could not get a driver\u2019s license, could not have any friends, was not allowed to use the phone, could only listen to music they approved of and had to turn my paycheck over to them. I never talked about any of this. No, I couldn\u2019t because I had a happy Catholic family.<\/p>\n One day, sick of it all, I rebelled, telling my parents, \u201cIf you don\u2019t stop treating me like this I\u2019m going to lose all the love and respect I have for you. \u201cGet the belt, Bernie. No one speaks to your father like this.\u201d This last beating almost killed me. A few days later I ran away from home.<\/p>\n But until I got in to recovery I kept on telling people about my \u201cHappy Catholic family\u201d. Toward the end of my recovery I journeyed back to Petersburg, the town where all my torment and despair began. There I went back in to that house. I re-lived all the terror, faced it boldly. Then, badly shaken, I went across the street to visit Ginny, a wonderful woman who I had babysat for when we lived there. She began speaking of my family.<\/p>\n \u201cYour mother always told me you were no good. I knew that wasn\u2019t true. She always tried to make your family look like the perfect family, but somehow I knew that wasn\u2019t true. I felt that something very dark was happening in that red house.\u201d<\/p>\n I blurted out about the rapes, my dirty little secret I had kept for more than thirty years.\u00a0 She was stunned and began sobbing, \u201cIf only you had come to me for help.\u201d<\/p>\n How could a young teenager back in the fifties go for help? There was no 911; incest was a word in the dictionary. Words that today are in frequent use, rape, child sexual abuse, physical assault, domestic violence and dysfunctional family were unheard of back then. So I kept my secret, buried it deep in a room in my mind, a room I wouldn\u2019t open till I was 45, then on my third domestic violence relationship, battered, living part time in a women\u2019s shelter, suicidal and so filled with despair that I lived in daily terror of a husband who was a rapist, who had sexually abused his teenage daughter, a dirty little secret that even she kept. When I first met my in-laws everything seemed normal on the outside but I felt something terrible in all their smiles, their chatter. Whatever it was, was ugly.<\/p>\n A few weeks later I received a phone call from his sister. My husband had sexually abused her from the time she was five until she was fifteen. She wanted vengeance. Her dirty little secret split the family into parts that never came together again. After my divorce he moved to Alaska. Last I heard he was a homeless person living in a shelter, still unrepentant and determined to keep his dirty little secrets.<\/p>\n My family, my children, their children and even my sister have secrets. Little by little they seep out. My hope is that one day we can talk openly about all of our secrets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n