A fundamentalist teetotaler, my Viet Nam veteran father died recently, at 89. A relative called to tell me after his funeral in Alabama. Just as well, as I would not have wanted to crash their religion-crazed ceremony. We children were physically and emotionally assaulted: spare the rod, spoil the child. I vowed not to have children so that this particular cycle would end. I also escaped at 15.
Your thesis feels so right on, TC. Generations of closeted familial violence, the elephant in the room that is not discussed or acknowledged. The massive loss of safety, trust, love, and security from childhood reverberates through families, communities, and social systems.
Not normal, but normalized. The expanding acting out of this formerly repressed rage is also becoming normalized, much to the detriment and danger of our country.
"Generations of closeted familial violence, the elephant in the room that is not discussed or acknowledged." My therapist used that very phrase when helping me work through what was going on in my childhood home.
I remember the day that a cousin I had not talked to in decades called to question why I and my three sisters did not attend the funeral of my father. That was an awkward conversation; I did not answer her question except to say we had our own reasons.
“The first step to a solution is recognizing the problem.”
So true and I’ll chalk up a point for democracy. The former, who I believe as the bearer of very narcissistic personality traits, can not recognize a problem beyond the first hair on his nose because that means “LOSER” in neon orange lights. The current, on the other hand, has the capability to at least recognize a problem and will at least grapple towards solution.
I’m curious, all my friends and colleagues on this forum and other venues of my work. What does one think is the second step? Because democracy will prevail, in my opinion, if the most wise and basic of problem solving is upheld.
And TC. What a deeply personal account to share. Yet comprehensive in the scope of understanding by witness.
You live by a code of courage that is really practical and extraordinary at the same time.
This hit me pretty hard. I will not add my own life experience but to say that yes, we are all fucked up one way or another. And it carries on from one generation to the next until someone breaks the cycle. The sins of the fathers...
It takes a lot of therapy to know that the anger is born of fear; and it takes at least as much therapy to know how to counsel and befriend the fearful little child within. I believe that Viet Nam was the impetus for addressing PTSD in therapy and I am hopeful that there is a new day coming when "normal" is healthy. Thank you once again, TC. I admire your courage and honesty.
Thank you for this. Thank you for every single incredible sentence. I, too, have lived this story, with only slightly different details. I’ve been trying for most of my life to understand the “why” behind all the violence I experienced at the hands of various men, beginning with my chronically enraged father, a Korean War vet. Only recently did I see that war was the single common denominator in each of the violent men in my life. While I’ve been a little “triggered” after reading what you wrote, what you wrote is the most helpful unraveling I’ve ever seen in print on how the trauma of war passes down through generations.
I loved “Rocket Man.” You’re right, Rich and Famous doesn’t fill that gaping inner hole quite like understanding why that hole exists in the first place. Thanks for shining a bright light on your own past – for illuminating how war carves those holes in so many of us – and for understanding that maybe all those folks currently “acting out” are acting out of a level of trauma so deep that the trauma itself is perceived as white noise.
First, let me just say WOW. And second, thank you. Portions of your "normal" life match up with my own. Neither of my parents drank, because whiskey "liked their parents" too much. And like you, my "normal" youth convinced me to remain childless, even though I spent a career with other people's children and the teachers of those children. This is such a profound story. I am so glad you shared it with us.
For you, TC, after exposing your wounds to oxygen, hopefully they will not continue to fester and finally be healed. Thank you for your courage to tell us your story.
Thanks. I have to say, if I hadn't come to some sort of negotiated settlement, an armistice if you will, with all that stuff, a feeling that it is now explainable and therefore knowable, I wouldn't have written it. What I wanted to write about was this idea that the country - we Americans - are a PTSD victim. And it was probably the most liberating thing to realize several years ago that I'm not this unique thing - thinking our shit is unique is what keeps us from doing anything, "I don't care what you're doing, if you had to deal with the shit I have to deal with, you wouldn't be able to do anything with it either," and just realize that it's the same old story, just with different facts and events, but everybody knows it, then it's like "WTF am I doing not doing anything about this?" And then I have a pretty detailed knowledge of my family history, going back to the first ones that bumped into North America back 340 years ago (I told you I can tell a pretty neat story about the Revolution, which I will on the right day, which is coming), so I could use that to be the specifics from which to generalize to make my point. But I can assure you the fact it feels so easy now, when I know how terrible things were when I wasn't doing anything and how much heavy lifting doing something took, that amazes me. So I am really glad it worked, because it's always good to be reminded that everybody's different and unique, but the BS they tell themselves at age 6 with all the knowledge of a 6 year old, and then run their life with it for-bloody-ever, it's good to know everybody's doing/done that. So knowing everyone else has the same story with different facts, it becomes easy to ask yourself, why the hell are you sitting on your assets like this?
I have numerous journals filled with memories of the things my father did to me and my sisters. At my age, I have now been searching for someplace to burn those journals. I do not want my sisters to have to deal with them, and I don't want to risk them being discovered in the local waste and recycle center. It is what it is. Life goes on.
Fire is a good way to get rid of those journals you do not want to leave behind. I don't know the volume of writings that you have, but there are lots of open, outdoor areas where you can have a fire (I'm thinking of county/state parks or picnic areas. We are fortunate enough to have a firepit in our back yard. We've had a couple "ceremonial burnings" of writings, along with both the 2016 and 2020 calendars.) It also brings an element of completion and release.
Thanks for one of the most remarkable pieces of writing I've ever read. Age provides a lot of perspective but the courage and the will to share your story goes well beyond what most of us can handle.
The second step is necessarily supporting each other as we work through the trauma we suffer from and that will be even harder than the first. Especially so since a lot of people haven't or won't recognize the problem even if they're willing to admit there is one. All we can do is make a start in the time we have an pass along a determination to keep that process going. Your statement is a wake-up if there ever was one.
Wow! Thank you for that. I couldn’t have written it so clearly and taken it back so far but it’s been obvious that we have deep and widespread issues that have caused such a disconnect from our essential innocence. Hurt people hurt people and there’s a lot of hurting going on. I’m glad PTSD is getting attention and hopefully over current and future generations we will heal and stop perpetuating violence to ourselves and others (not to mention other living beings and our planet). Your honesty is appreciated and what is necessary by all of us for change.
Hurt people hurt people. Took me a few years to understand that. Saw it played out in my family. We are dealing with the survivors of the survivors of our First Nation Residential Schools. We see it everywhere we look.
I broke one of my cardinal rules last night by reading your post right before bedtime. Naturally, it remained with me throughout the night. I was so moved by your candid, raw description of your youth and the impact on your life, especially as some that don't really know you think your hard exterior is all that's there. Yet this post shows a very different you, and I thank you so much for sharing it with us. My childhood was very different.....and I almost feel guilty this morning for not having that type of pain growing up. My dad and my mom were very loving and supportive. Two of my grandparents died even before my parents were married, so I never even got to know them and my papa died when I was 11. So much of the family history is gone with them without me ever knowing it. Of course we all have skeletons in our closets, so one of mine may pertain to the uncle with Mafia ties selling lots of "stuff" in his garage. The family never really talked about that, but we all knew! In any case, thank you for this very perceptive insight into what we are all dealing with today. Next question, with so many people not even recognizing it, what in the hell do we do next?
Ha! My mother would take me into the garage and see if there was anything that I wanted!! She just didn't say where it had come from. It was my first experience with "real" Chanel #5 perfume.....not the cologne that you get in the department store.
Oh my goodness! Your great gift is in pulling on what seem disparate threads of life and seeing the connections through the light of your own experience. Then you are able to write about it in a way that makes sense for you and for all of us! It is so apparent in this writing that your wisdom is not pulled whole or easily from some heady realm but from your own pain and hard work in living. This day of all hallows, when the veil between worlds is said to be thinnest, is the perfect time to attend to why we are all screaming. Many, many thanks for helping us do that today (and for all your TAFMs).
Until we get a national health care system that secures every person living within our borders access to robust mental health care we cannot begin to make a dent in the collective trauma. We're incentivized to vote against our own best interests all the while screaming about how great it is to be free. Free of what? Robust social safety nets. Basic needs being met. Universal income at a level that prevents pointless human suffering. All the while rooting for multi-billionaires who manipulate our psychologies while building themselves self-congratulatory phalluses that can carry their boundless egos into space.
A fundamentalist teetotaler, my Viet Nam veteran father died recently, at 89. A relative called to tell me after his funeral in Alabama. Just as well, as I would not have wanted to crash their religion-crazed ceremony. We children were physically and emotionally assaulted: spare the rod, spoil the child. I vowed not to have children so that this particular cycle would end. I also escaped at 15.
Your thesis feels so right on, TC. Generations of closeted familial violence, the elephant in the room that is not discussed or acknowledged. The massive loss of safety, trust, love, and security from childhood reverberates through families, communities, and social systems.
Not normal, but normalized. The expanding acting out of this formerly repressed rage is also becoming normalized, much to the detriment and danger of our country.
Blessings upon us all this Samhain.
"Generations of closeted familial violence, the elephant in the room that is not discussed or acknowledged." My therapist used that very phrase when helping me work through what was going on in my childhood home.
I remember the day that a cousin I had not talked to in decades called to question why I and my three sisters did not attend the funeral of my father. That was an awkward conversation; I did not answer her question except to say we had our own reasons.
The more I learn, the more I realize just how exceptional my parents were in escaping this situation. My Mom's family, in particular.
“The first step to a solution is recognizing the problem.”
So true and I’ll chalk up a point for democracy. The former, who I believe as the bearer of very narcissistic personality traits, can not recognize a problem beyond the first hair on his nose because that means “LOSER” in neon orange lights. The current, on the other hand, has the capability to at least recognize a problem and will at least grapple towards solution.
I’m curious, all my friends and colleagues on this forum and other venues of my work. What does one think is the second step? Because democracy will prevail, in my opinion, if the most wise and basic of problem solving is upheld.
And TC. What a deeply personal account to share. Yet comprehensive in the scope of understanding by witness.
You live by a code of courage that is really practical and extraordinary at the same time.
Light and Love
I want to thank you all for your responses. This whole post has been an education in the best way. It's a privilege to have you all for readers.
I'm so very sorry. My own story will remain untold for now.
I understand, Rowshan. Thank you for tending to you.
This hit me pretty hard. I will not add my own life experience but to say that yes, we are all fucked up one way or another. And it carries on from one generation to the next until someone breaks the cycle. The sins of the fathers...
It takes a lot of therapy to know that the anger is born of fear; and it takes at least as much therapy to know how to counsel and befriend the fearful little child within. I believe that Viet Nam was the impetus for addressing PTSD in therapy and I am hopeful that there is a new day coming when "normal" is healthy. Thank you once again, TC. I admire your courage and honesty.
Thank you for this. Thank you for every single incredible sentence. I, too, have lived this story, with only slightly different details. I’ve been trying for most of my life to understand the “why” behind all the violence I experienced at the hands of various men, beginning with my chronically enraged father, a Korean War vet. Only recently did I see that war was the single common denominator in each of the violent men in my life. While I’ve been a little “triggered” after reading what you wrote, what you wrote is the most helpful unraveling I’ve ever seen in print on how the trauma of war passes down through generations.
I loved “Rocket Man.” You’re right, Rich and Famous doesn’t fill that gaping inner hole quite like understanding why that hole exists in the first place. Thanks for shining a bright light on your own past – for illuminating how war carves those holes in so many of us – and for understanding that maybe all those folks currently “acting out” are acting out of a level of trauma so deep that the trauma itself is perceived as white noise.
Thank you KT for this.
First, let me just say WOW. And second, thank you. Portions of your "normal" life match up with my own. Neither of my parents drank, because whiskey "liked their parents" too much. And like you, my "normal" youth convinced me to remain childless, even though I spent a career with other people's children and the teachers of those children. This is such a profound story. I am so glad you shared it with us.
For you, TC, after exposing your wounds to oxygen, hopefully they will not continue to fester and finally be healed. Thank you for your courage to tell us your story.
Thanks. I have to say, if I hadn't come to some sort of negotiated settlement, an armistice if you will, with all that stuff, a feeling that it is now explainable and therefore knowable, I wouldn't have written it. What I wanted to write about was this idea that the country - we Americans - are a PTSD victim. And it was probably the most liberating thing to realize several years ago that I'm not this unique thing - thinking our shit is unique is what keeps us from doing anything, "I don't care what you're doing, if you had to deal with the shit I have to deal with, you wouldn't be able to do anything with it either," and just realize that it's the same old story, just with different facts and events, but everybody knows it, then it's like "WTF am I doing not doing anything about this?" And then I have a pretty detailed knowledge of my family history, going back to the first ones that bumped into North America back 340 years ago (I told you I can tell a pretty neat story about the Revolution, which I will on the right day, which is coming), so I could use that to be the specifics from which to generalize to make my point. But I can assure you the fact it feels so easy now, when I know how terrible things were when I wasn't doing anything and how much heavy lifting doing something took, that amazes me. So I am really glad it worked, because it's always good to be reminded that everybody's different and unique, but the BS they tell themselves at age 6 with all the knowledge of a 6 year old, and then run their life with it for-bloody-ever, it's good to know everybody's doing/done that. So knowing everyone else has the same story with different facts, it becomes easy to ask yourself, why the hell are you sitting on your assets like this?
I have numerous journals filled with memories of the things my father did to me and my sisters. At my age, I have now been searching for someplace to burn those journals. I do not want my sisters to have to deal with them, and I don't want to risk them being discovered in the local waste and recycle center. It is what it is. Life goes on.
Thank you for sharing, TC.
Fire is a good way to get rid of those journals you do not want to leave behind. I don't know the volume of writings that you have, but there are lots of open, outdoor areas where you can have a fire (I'm thinking of county/state parks or picnic areas. We are fortunate enough to have a firepit in our back yard. We've had a couple "ceremonial burnings" of writings, along with both the 2016 and 2020 calendars.) It also brings an element of completion and release.
Good thing to do during the week before the New Year.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will check out local parks and have a nice long picnic at the park.
Thanks for one of the most remarkable pieces of writing I've ever read. Age provides a lot of perspective but the courage and the will to share your story goes well beyond what most of us can handle.
The second step is necessarily supporting each other as we work through the trauma we suffer from and that will be even harder than the first. Especially so since a lot of people haven't or won't recognize the problem even if they're willing to admit there is one. All we can do is make a start in the time we have an pass along a determination to keep that process going. Your statement is a wake-up if there ever was one.
Wow! Thank you for that. I couldn’t have written it so clearly and taken it back so far but it’s been obvious that we have deep and widespread issues that have caused such a disconnect from our essential innocence. Hurt people hurt people and there’s a lot of hurting going on. I’m glad PTSD is getting attention and hopefully over current and future generations we will heal and stop perpetuating violence to ourselves and others (not to mention other living beings and our planet). Your honesty is appreciated and what is necessary by all of us for change.
Hurt people hurt people. Took me a few years to understand that. Saw it played out in my family. We are dealing with the survivors of the survivors of our First Nation Residential Schools. We see it everywhere we look.
Growing up in the 50s and 60s had a lot of negative undercurrents that never showed up in “Dick and Jane”.
PTSD was called Soldiers Heart after the Civil War. Gary Paulsen wrote a very moving YA novel with that title.
Yeah, that and Reverie. Reverie was the first one I ran across, so it sticks with me.
I broke one of my cardinal rules last night by reading your post right before bedtime. Naturally, it remained with me throughout the night. I was so moved by your candid, raw description of your youth and the impact on your life, especially as some that don't really know you think your hard exterior is all that's there. Yet this post shows a very different you, and I thank you so much for sharing it with us. My childhood was very different.....and I almost feel guilty this morning for not having that type of pain growing up. My dad and my mom were very loving and supportive. Two of my grandparents died even before my parents were married, so I never even got to know them and my papa died when I was 11. So much of the family history is gone with them without me ever knowing it. Of course we all have skeletons in our closets, so one of mine may pertain to the uncle with Mafia ties selling lots of "stuff" in his garage. The family never really talked about that, but we all knew! In any case, thank you for this very perceptive insight into what we are all dealing with today. Next question, with so many people not even recognizing it, what in the hell do we do next?
What do you think your parents would say?
Ha! My mother would take me into the garage and see if there was anything that I wanted!! She just didn't say where it had come from. It was my first experience with "real" Chanel #5 perfume.....not the cologne that you get in the department store.
Oh my goodness! Your great gift is in pulling on what seem disparate threads of life and seeing the connections through the light of your own experience. Then you are able to write about it in a way that makes sense for you and for all of us! It is so apparent in this writing that your wisdom is not pulled whole or easily from some heady realm but from your own pain and hard work in living. This day of all hallows, when the veil between worlds is said to be thinnest, is the perfect time to attend to why we are all screaming. Many, many thanks for helping us do that today (and for all your TAFMs).
Until we get a national health care system that secures every person living within our borders access to robust mental health care we cannot begin to make a dent in the collective trauma. We're incentivized to vote against our own best interests all the while screaming about how great it is to be free. Free of what? Robust social safety nets. Basic needs being met. Universal income at a level that prevents pointless human suffering. All the while rooting for multi-billionaires who manipulate our psychologies while building themselves self-congratulatory phalluses that can carry their boundless egos into space.