Friday, May 12, 2006

bye bye

Here I am in the office, on my last day in this job. I have been shredding work papers for most of the day. At the beginning of the week, I emailed my mom and told her our relationship was over. Happy Mother's Day! I will write my dad soon, to tell him he is the person most responsible for Jeff's suicide, and to never contact me again. This is a week of endings.

Visiting Jeff a few weeks ago was like traveling into my unconscious. I read the following in Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung- "My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious. Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation, and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions and to experience itself as a whole." I spent a day searching through that unconscious world, a depository of memories, feelings, and cryptic knowledge about the conditions of my life. Awareness that is obscured, veiled, hinting at its existence through symbols and uneasy feelings. A world that can, either subtly or forcefully, make itself known in our conscious experience, like a bird flying through our line of vision in the distance, or flying at our face.

Visiting my brother's grave definitely had a huge impact on me. I will tell the story soon. Some more information I found, from Wikipedia. Psychopathy is most commonly diagnosed using
Robert D. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Hare describes psychopaths as, "intraspecies predators who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they cold-bloodedly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret. Outside of that, in common parlance, the term psychopathy can take on broader meanings, often being confused with psychosis, particularly by the use of the abbreviation psycho. People sometimes take "psychopath" to be interchangeable with their perception of an evil person."

I thought my dad was evil, but maybe psychopath is a better description. He fits it. So what is my mom? Co-dependent seems too mild a description. Here is the email I sent her-

Do not contact me right now. I am trying to deal with the trauma I have experienced, and your continued insistence on putting the responsibility on me is not something I am willing to accept from you any longer. Your ex-husband is abusing his current family; he is not sorry for what he did to me or Jeff. What he did to me and Jeff had nothing to do with us- just his pathological need to control and destroy other people. In fact, he is trying to use his own son's suicide to justify abusing his stepson, and he is bringing a 4 year old girl to a man's house that he knows sexually abuses little girls. The two of you allowed and facilitated the abuse that happened to me. It is irresponsible and cruel to hold children responsible for protecting themselves against adults, and then make them feel ashamed for the anger and betrayal that they feel as a result. I gave you the chance to deal with this now, but you continue to align yourself with your psychotic ex-husband and your fantasy world of denial and secrecy.

Whatever feelings you have about this are yours to deal with. You have failed me as a parent and I do not trust you. I am not going to get better if I go along with your denial of what happened in our family, so do not contact me. I will not listen to your messages, or read your emails or letters. My brother is dead as a result of this family, and I am not participating in this nightmare any longer.

-Kristina

2 comments:

artquest1 said...

Hello Kristina,
I had looked up a few friends blogs, and had a some time to spend when I came to yours. I read three or four posts, bookmarked it and went outside and sat quietly by myself in my back yard, where I have created sort of a dream landscape/garden, with koi ponds, waterfalls and streams. I have always told myself that my garden was a refuge and sanctuary from the rest of the world and its troubles, both general as well as personal, but after reading your thought, memories, and present actions, maybe I should just think of it as a safe place to reflect upon what I don't know of the world and its evils.
I realize you are not writing to or for me, and perhaps you consider me an intruder for breaking into a corner of your world. If this is the case, let me know this and I will stay away from your site and not bother you.
My life is one of being actively involved in the arts, primarily visual (I consider my garden more of a living sculpture - it doesn't much follow anything Better Homes and Gardens would feature) and I am also a playwright and published short story author, as well as an actor and director. I tell you this because what you write has touched me in so many places and on so many levels, that I do not yet know its impact.
I suppose it is easy to respond to the primary narrative: "Who they were, what they did to you and your brother, and what they continue to do, both through action as well as inaction (there are, as you well know, both evils of commission as well as omission)." But for me, the horror is also the sub-text, the back-story if you will - it is what you don't say that my mind, soul and heart narrates back to me from a place not literal but just as real.
While this certainly was not your intention, your words have strength and impact well beyond you own circle of family and friends, and will cause change, and perhaps some new forms of positive creation.
Thank you very much for sharing, and again, I apologize if this is an untoward intrusion.
Bob

Anonymous said...

thanks Bob. I'm glad you got something out of my blog. it makes me happy that both my friends and people I don't know read my writings. a question- what is your interpretation of the sub-text that you speak of?