“My memory has something to say about the way trauma has altered my body’s DNA, like an ancient virus,” writes Carmen Maria Machado in her recently published memoir, In the Dream House, an account of a lover’s psychological abuse. “Dream House” refers to the home Machado shared with her abuser for two years.
“So many cells in my body have died and regenerated since the days of the Dream House,” Machado writes. “My blood and tastebuds and skin have long since recreated themselves, but my nervous system still remembers. The lenses of my eyes, my cerebral cortex, with its memory and language and consciousness. They will last forever, or at least as long as I do. They can still climb into the witness stand.”
Yes, they can, and they will testify again and again and again that you were not only a victim of psychological abuse by a mentally ill mother, but like that mother, you were also the perpetrator of psychological abuse . . . abuse that came as naturally as breathing and was as hidden as a deadly virus.
PROSECUTOR: So, you freely admit that you psychologically abused lovers like you claim your mother abused you?
SHARON: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: You spied on lovers you considered a threat? You followed them in your car, you waited in dark, freezing weather to see who they were out with? You read their personal diaries? Opened their mail and email?
SHARON: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: And that included gaslighting them, setting up elaborate schemes — all based on lies — with their loved ones, even their parents, so they would come to believe that your lovers were, in fact, abusing you?
SHARON: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: What about the time you humiliated a lover who attempted suicide by overdosing on pills and vomiting all over her bedclothes. The time you told her that she was a complete failure because she didn’t take enough pills? Didn’t you say, “You are still alive — I can’t trust you to do anything right”?
SHARON: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: You also terrified your lovers, didn’t you, by threatening to kill yourself; worse, by claiming you had taken an overdose of pills when, in fact, you hadn’t?
SHARON: Yes.
PROSECUTOR: Bottom line, we really don’t know if your mother’s abuse was as bad as you say it was, do we? And even if it was, that was quite a long time ago, no? Love is complicated. She was probably abused herself. Why can’t you let it go?
SHARON: [Silent]
PROSECUTOR: Did you ever tell a teacher or a neighbor about how you felt your mother was abusing you?
SHARON: No. At the time I didn’t know it was abuse.
PROSECUTOR: Fair enough, but we really don’t have proof that you were actually abused by your mother.
SHARON: Am I not the proof?
PROSECUTOR: But moments ago, you confessed to being a liar and a manipulator. Why should we believe you?
SHARON: You know, I don’t fucking care anymore whether or not you believe me. I’m so weary of all this shit. How in the hell do I get back my original DNA? If it hadn’t been altered by abuse, what would my life be like now? Would I have completed the story of my life which I find nearly impossible to complete because every time I sit down to write it I hear in the far distance my mother’s footsteps and then her voice: “It’s always about you, isn’t it? You. You. You.” Writing my story is just another insidious way my mother’s abuse continues to infect my life like an ancient virus.
PROSECUTOR: Uh . . . that’s kind of a lazy cop-out . . . and isn’t it about time you grew up? Anne Frank was able to write her story and she died when she was just 16; Sophie Scholl was 21; Etty Hillesum was 29. All authors of their own mercy before the age of 30. You’re more than twice as old and it’s not like you were raised in a Nazi prison camp.
SHARON: You’re right, Madam Prosecutor — I have not been the author of my own mercy. I plead guilty. Guilty as charged. Please let me go because at this moment, I can hear the footsteps. They never speed up and they never slow down. They remain horribly, terribly even. I’m 10 years old again, and am terrified that she will step into the waking world where I have worked so hard to be safe and far away. Can you hear them? Her footsteps are steady and they never falter. She’s closing in, and she’s highly contagious. Please let me go.
Ariel Gallery Asheville, North Carolina, 2007
From the private collection of Sharon J. Anderson
I apologize if you thought this post was about the Coronavirus which, admittedly, is worrisome.
Everything I learned about abuse, I learned from my mother. She was a good teacher and I was a very good student because I was hyper-vigilant. I watched her every move, her affectations, her tone, her language. She was brilliant. She was able to convince not only my sisters, but also me that I was a real threat to the house we all lived in.
Needless to say, in looking for a mother who abandoned me, several of the lover relationships I became entangled in were abusive. One lover was a dangerous alcoholic who twice broke into my house and left notes detailing how abusive I was. Another would dress me down in front of my friends. Adrienne witnessed this a couple of times.
Have I lived in my small house for three decades as a way to contain the contagion?
I’ve been asked countless times, “Look on the bright side — when your mother kicked you out of her house, you escaped her control.” No, I didn’t. It was in my DNA, and I became the contagion, spreading the abuse, mostly within myself and most of the time, I didn’t recognize it. And still don’t.
One beloved calls me a walking miracle. I’ve often wondered what she means — that I’m getting out of bed in the morning? Making it through the day without diminishing another person or myself? Wow — what a success story!
I think it is wonderful if you make it through the day without diminishing anyone. I’m especially happy when it doesn’t happen to me.
I was kicked out of my mother’s house 50 years ago — a half decade ago. Over those decades, I’ve spend tens of thousands of dollars on therapy trying to understand why I hated myself so much. Of course, my relationship with my mother was dissected. I remember the year it really sank in how much she had abused me. But I didn’t get better because that realization was the first wave of the infection. Every year, I would have new epiphanies about her abuse and why I got entangled in relationships that were abusive.
But it wasn’t until I read In the Dream House that I understood my own abusive behavior. Think about that — 50 years later, I am exposed. The author of In the Dream House experienced her abuse while living with her lover for two years. Two years. Two years, four years ago. Since then, she married woman, wrote a best-selling novel and now this book.
I’m so haunted by my inertia, my disability, my infection, by yet another moment when I’ll be reading or watching something and see my mother in myself. What other horror will be exposed?
This blog is excruciatingly painful. Maybe you need to be with this awareness that you gained by reading the memoir for some time. The prosecutor does not get the last word. You also need to hear from God’s beloved emissary about confession, forgiveness, healing, and restoration. Not abuse, rather love gets the last word. You are loved and lovable. I am your witness.
Sharon – I am here in Taos again, at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House. Seeing Gwen and Bob’s names at the center of the altar for the dead was a kick in the teeth, but also a wake up. All of us left from that intensive as survivors. We get to keep going, to try to figure it all out. A handful of us are here. No one is celebrating their success. We are all still telling our stories and most of them involve working it out with our mothers, whether alive or dead. I can’t tell you how to finish your story, I can only encourage you to keep going, because as Gwen said, “you just don’t have that kind of time.”
Beth — interesting that you bring up Gwendolyn as she’s been on my mind and heart the last couple of days. Here’s why:
On February 21, the Pulitzer-prize winning poet, Lisel Mueller died at the age of 96. I knew that I owned her collection of poems, “Alive Together,” and when I reached for it on one of my poetry shelves, I discovered SIX other volumes of Mueller’s poetry, all of which had been gifts from Gwendolyn in 1996. Following are the inscriptions:
THE PRIVATE LIFE: “For Sharon and her verdant private life. Love, Gwendolyn”
VOICES FROM THE FOREST: “For SJ Anderson, herself a forest voice. Love, Gwendolyn”
WAVING FROM SHORE: “For Sharon, whose white palm waving is a beacon in the night. Love Gwendolyn”
THE NEED TO HOLD STILL: “In memory of the father and mother we are to each other without the need to hold still. Love, Gwendolyn”
SECOND LANGUAGE: “For the 1,592.4 languages you have taught me. [Smiley face] Gwendolyn
LEARNING TO PLAY BY EAR: “For Sharon, who helps me hear the music and the laughter of chosen family. Love Gwendolyn”
Tucked inside the last book was a note:
“Dear sister Sharon — for that is what you are to me. I hope this reaches you before your Amazon bike trip to Alaska — if not, a welcome home surprise. I am content to rest in the tides of your happiness these days, my friend. Life is good. Love, Gwendolyn”
PS: There are 24 people in this silent retreat, but only a handful are from our intensive. Sending you much love and strength from Taos Mountain.
I don’t think I could say it any better than Charlotte. You are so loved and lovable. I am also a witness.
The only possible response for me to this very painful post is Silence. I hold you close.
“… whose white palm waving is a beacon in the night.” That’s you alright.
GOD: Sharon, I love you unconditionally.
MERRIE LEE: Sharie, I love you unconditionally, too.