THE MEMOIR NOTES #14: This Is The House That Mom Built

Our house looked just fine to anyone visiting. All seemed well and normal. But many things inside that house were broken. It was a dangerous place. They just couldn't see it.

What’s In This Newsletter:

MAY IS MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH

• I write about how a dream was a portal into how I’d felt as a girl

• 3 things worth sharing: a resource, a recipe, and a few photos

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I had a dream that we had purchased a new home.

At first, I was excited, but it didn't take long for the dream to begin to tilt toward anxiety. Even though it was a picturesque mountain home, I soon noticed something strange.

My first clue was when I noticed that the previous owner had left many of their things behind and that most of them were broken. The next thing I noticed - which points to the main theme that kept evolving and returning in subsequent dream chapters, was an increasing sense of instability and danger.

As I walked out onto the back deck of the “dream” house, with mountainside and water far below, I noticed an opening in the deck rail where someone could fall to their death. It made me feel deeply uneasy and I was stunned to see how easily one could fall and die in this place of supposed comfort. How could this guardrail be open like that? Anyone could fall through and would surely die. I began to notice that the deck floor was slightly slanted and how easily I could stumble and fall toward that opening. I was terrified and wanted off that deck immediately and I felt worried and concerned about how we would fix it. Even repaired, it somehow wouldn’t feel safe to me out there.

As the dream continued, I found myself in more and more situations that repeated and increased that feeling of danger and unstable foundations. Suddenly sinking in mud, holding onto rocks that gave way, coming close to falling to my death. Even other rooms in the house and later at a restaurant, had unsafe, shaky, and precarious foundations. 

In the dream, there were other people around and everything seemed normal to them. There was a party going on and everyone was enjoying themselves. Likewise in the open area where I sank in the mud, no one seemed alarmed. No one moved to help. The tilted dangerous deck seemed normal and of no concern to the neighbor visiting my house. To everyone else, all seemed well. It appeared to be a lovely home, a beautiful outdoor area, and a normal restaurant. No one but me could see that it was off-kilter, unsafe, radically dangerous, and one could die there. I almost did in the dream. Over and over again.

Upon waking, I began to explore the dream by asking myself questions. Where are things feeling shaky and unstable in my life? What feels dangerous in places I should feel safe and secure? Home, to me, is safety, comfort, and care. But in this new home in my dream, things were off-kilter, untrustworthy, and unstable. 

I quickly realized that the way I felt in the home in the dream was much like what my real home felt like as a kid. The place where I was supposed to feel most secure was unstable, unpredictable, and unsteady.

In my childhood, I sometimes worried that I might die at home by my mother’s hands.  

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When she got that wild look in her eyes and her anger soared, I did at times think she could kill me. I remember thinking that even if she did, she wouldn't mean to, it would just happen, while she was in that fog. If it happened, it would be while that “other person” came over her, when she really couldn't see me anymore. 

I realize now that just because it felt that way doesn’t mean I was ever truly in that kind of danger. But feelings are feelings and at some level, my body as a child did believe that I was in that kind of danger at times.

Once when I was around 11 years old and we lived in California, I remember coming downstairs one morning and telling her that I had dreamed she was a witch and that in the dream she was trying to kill me. I thought it was kind of funny and that we might laugh about it, but part of me knew I was testing her. She didn’t laugh. She turned around from the kitchen counter, clearly very upset by my telling her that dream, and told me to never tell her dreams like that again. I’m sure, as a mom myself, that it was hard for her to hear that kind of dream from her child. Just a few days prior, she had lost her temper with me over something that I cannot even remember to do with a hairbrush, hit me with it, and threw me around the kitchen by my hair, slamming me into the folding doors that hid the washing machine and dryer. I remember looking up at her from the floor of the kitchen, frozen, terrified. Guarding my face. She told me at that moment, “Don't look at me that way. And stop acting like I'm trying to kill you.” As if it was the most preposterous, ridiculous idea.

I did, at that moment, believe it was a possibility. And yet, what kid ever thinks their parent might actually kill them? As I am learning, a lot of us. 

As an adult, I don't believe for a moment that my mother was capable of that kind of violence. She never left a mark on me. She never broke a bone. She had a temper that she sometimes couldn’t control and it often erupted in my direction. I was at times terrified of her and that day she knew it. And when she saw the real terror reflected through my eyes, I think it terrified her. I felt a slight shift in her after that. Plus, I was growing. I was getting bigger. It would be harder to throw me around. As we moved into my teenage years, it was mostly verbal abuse and slaps when she got angry.

I suppose the point is that I do not believe I was ever in mortal danger. She had a temper, she often lost her temper with her children, and as the oldest, I believe I received most of the worst of it, simply because she was younger and hadn’t learned restraint. As my other sisters came along, the physicality of her anger decreased.

So do I think I was ever in danger of my mother killing me?  Absolutely not.

But if you ask that little girl if she BELIEVED there was a POSSIBILITY that her mom could lose herself so fully to that fog, to that other person who took over her mother’s body at those times, if I were to ask that little girl if she believed that that “other person” could harm her deeply and maybe even break her or kill her, she would say yes. She would say yes she was THAT afraid sometimes.  And no one knew it. 

Our house looked just fine to anyone visiting. All seemed well and normal. But many things inside that house were broken. And no one knew that the foundation was shaky, unstable, and untrustworthy. It was a dangerous place. They just couldn't see it.

xo Mary

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3 THINGS WORTH SHARING:

1. Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families Big Red Book. “ The ACA Fellowship Text was anonymously written by ACA members and provides guidance on working the 12 Step ACA program leading to recovery from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. ACA addresses the effects of childhood trauma and neglect, and offers hope to ACAs worldwide.”

2. This Lemon Pistachio cake! My hubby and youngest daughter have birthdays just days apart. I made this cake at her request. Oh, baby!

3. Did you get to see the Northern Lights last week? These two were taken in Northern Colorado.

   

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This month, a portion of our paid subscriptions will be donated to: Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families.

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LOOKING AHEAD :

Up Next:

• Paid Membership Post and Audio Recording - May 31

In our paid subscriber membership:

• Updates and a story from the memoir-in-progress 📗

• A creative-contemplative practice to engage 🌀

• My monthly recommendations: what I am watching, reading, and listening to this month 📚🎶🎬

• An audio recording of the post so you can listen on the go 🎧

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