When It's Dark by Duane L. Herrmann

 

Image | Vika Glitter

WHEN IT'S DARK

     As a child, my mother put me to work beginning when I was two and a half.  My first job was to give my baby sister her bottle.  These were heavy, thick glass bottles.  Even when empty, they were heavy, and when full of milk, even heavier.  Other responsibilities were added, so by the summer I was thirteen, I was put in charge of my two younger brothers, meals, the large garden (we canned 150 quarts of green beans on weekends that summer and ate at least as many during the week), the chickens and their eggs, plus the assorted dogs and cats.  Thankfully, we didn't have any hogs that year.  I did this while our mother was out of town for a summer school session.  Her sister wanted to give me a break from my mother's screaming domination, and this was the only, though temporary, solution she could come up with.  It was the most pleasant summer of my childhood.

     After the summer session, when my mother returned home, My Dad put me on a tractor to help him with the farming.  I did that until he was killed, then I left home for college.

     Dyslexia and ADHD were with me when I began school, but no one then knew anything about them in my small rural school in the 1950s, so I struggled.  I only learned to read after second grade when I walked a mile to the home of a retired teacher down the road who taught me phonics.  I have since learned the residual effects of my childhood are cyclothymia (a brain chemical imbalance that creates a mild form of manic depressive), an anxiety disorder (I panic well and easily), and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).  I call it “domestic PTSD.”  The battlefield was my home, where I was attacked verbally, emotionally, and physically by my mother, who could not cope with being an adult or a parent.  It is far easier for me to see the dark side of things instead of the positive.  

     Day by day, hour by hour of my life at home, I was trapped with a mother who was so often upset or outright angry because things didn't go the way she wanted.  Most often, that involved me.  I was a little boy who simply could not do the adult tasks she demanded of me and for them to be done in ways specific to her, very often a complicated and awkward way.  If I did it simpler and quicker, I would be yelled at for not following her instructions.  But, even such simple things as walking across the room, shutting my lips, and swallowing, I could not do to her satisfaction.  This even included the way I slept.  Her most common refrain applied to me was, “fat, lazy, and asinine.”  I was afraid of what that last word might mean. Despite the constant work I did for her, she never once said, "thank you," or "you did a nice job." I couldn't even imagine praise from her.

     I eventually learned that my mother was mentally ill.  That helped me understand and accept my childhood, but it did not undo the damage that had been done.  Every bit of independence I had was opposed and suppressed by my mother.  I was forbidden from talking to her when I was four.  About nine or ten, I was told I had no reason to be angry, ever, for anything.  In fact, she laughed when she read about children being depressed.  They had no reason to be depressed.

    She had insisted, when I was six or seven, that my younger brother and sister could play with my toys, which I was not allowed to play with, and I could not refuse them.  Of course, when they broke them, I could not object.

     When my little brother learned that I had no right to my toys, he realized I had no rights at all and began to torment me.  Over the years, he went to great lengths to do this.  He delighted in it.  I had no rights, and he could do no wrong in our mother's eyes.  This simply compounded the hell of my home.  I, essentially, did not exist as a person.  My mother only valued me for my labor.  Even during family emergencies, she expected me to continue working.  She would boast to strangers that she had had children so they could do her work for her.  I wanted to disappear.  I wanted to die.  Every day, I hated being alive.

    Once I was on my own and hundreds of miles away from home, I began to learn about the effects of child abuse.  I realized that if a child knows, deep in their heart, that they are loved by at least one person, that love can save their life.  I KNEW my Granma (my father's mother) loved me.  It was her home that I had run to all through my childhood.  When that realization came, so did awareness of the simple, peaceful way I could have ended my life as a child.  We had an unvented gas heater in the small bathroom of our house.  I could have plugged the gaps under the doors and turned on the gas without lighting the fire.  That would have been simple.  I guess knowledge of my Granma's love did not let those thoughts surface.  I am still alive today, in my 70s.  My children and grandchildren love me, so I am here for them, just as my Granma was here for me.  

     The summer after high school, before I had actually moved out of the house, I began attending classes at the local college.  There, being exposed to the world, I found words that gave me a totally and radically different view of the world and myself.  This happened before I could rush to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of my childhood, and sex to seek some pleasure.  The path to numb the pain is such an easy one, so many people take it, and it is socially acceptable.  Although there are warnings, they are insufficient to deter people from going.  Many destroy themselves and their families with them.  That allure faded for me.

    The words and the group of people who, amazingly, accepted me for who I was, just the way I was, and their philosophy, based on those words —that human beings are noble spiritual beings, not depraved and corrupt —saved me from a path of destruction.  They gave me an alternative to the pain. And a reason for hope.

    This perspective, that I was a noble spiritual being, that I was loved more than I could ever imagine, that there are Divine influences in life that are present for everyone, that the essential part of each of us will last forever beyond this earthly life and, if I live selflessly and compassionately, I will advance spiritually and that will determine my eternal future, that my past experience need not be repeated and can be transcended, gave me a new life and reason to live.

    I'm constantly grateful that I found this perspective that is so different from the home and church I grew up in, where “we” were the only ones “saved” for all eternity from “Hell.”  However, some of their ideas were so fantastical and absurd as to be comical.  For instance, human bodies floating up out of their graves at some unknown future time, even though human bodies don't float in the air – ever!  And then, what about those bodies (and there must be gazillions and gazillions of them) that have decomposed over the millennia?  No answer there.  And, there is the foundational assumption that humans are depraved and defective.  Uck!  I'm glad to be away from all that.

     I have endeavored to implement this new perspective in my life and share it with my children and, now, grandchildren, as well as others I meet.  I now know that I was created a noble and powerful spiritual being, who is in this life to develop and exercise spiritual attributes, so that after this life, I'll be able to function in the non-physical reality.  This is true for us all.

    I must exercise the attributes of compassion, understanding, empathy, and fairness in my daily life to make my life a prayer in action.  This gives my life purpose and a goal.  Every day, I have the opportunity to exercise these attributes and continue to improve.  Improvement is always possible.  The most crucial aspect, though, is to make the effort.  Effort and intention are foundational.

     I can see evidence of the community I belong to making progress globally.  It is not ostentatious nor loud.  In fact, most people miss it.  It certainly is not in the news.  But people from over 2,000 different backgrounds, sometimes even historical enemies, are finding ways to work together to improve their lives, their families, and their communities. There are no priests, clergy, or dominating individuals of any kind.  In fact, the scripture forbids it.  All decisions are made in councils of consultation, members of which are elected in acts of prayer.  Money is never solicited and, in fact, cannot be accepted from others. 

     The progress I see begins with small, yet persistent, efforts.  Seeing evidence of this gives me hope that during the chaos, confusion, and destruction all around, some positive accomplishments are being made.  And, this is happening all around the world.  With this new perspective in my head and heart, and the positive evidence I see, the appeal of suicide can be set aside.

     When my first daughter was four years old, she discovered that a cousin of mine was not married.  She told her cousin that she should be married.  When the cousin asked why, my daughter said she could have children.  Then my cousin again asked why.

    “It's so much fun for the children,” my daughter innocently replied.

     My heart melted.

     As a child, I never imagined life could be fun.  The helplessness of childhood was the worst experience I could imagine.  Now my child was saying she was glad to be alive.  I had not passed on to her the generational trauma that I had been born into.  My mother grew up without any affection in her life, so she could not show it.  Her mother was too depressed to care for or nurture my mother.  Her own mother, my great-grandmother, had died when my mother's mother was just eight.  She was emotionally devastated.  When I learned more family history, I discovered that the mother of this great-grandmother had died when this great-grandmother was just ten.  I was the fifth generation in this string of traumatized mothers.  It hit me when I was two, but here my daughter was expressing her joy in simply being alive.

     WOW!!!

     What a difference some words can make!

     The year I turned fifty, I resolved that sometime, somehow, during that year, I would manage to cause my mother to say, “Thank you” to me for the first time.  That year was nearly over when the opportunity arose.  I forced her. I demanded that she say, “Thank you,” before I did a favor for her.  She did and giggled, thinking it was cute.  No, I was desperate for at least one drop of appreciation from her after spending decades laboring for her.  After that time, she even said it a few more times.

     One day, after she had been in a nursing home for several months, she reached across the dining table to me.  I was puzzled.  Was she going to hit me again?  Not likely.  We were in a public space and she didn't do that in pubic places.  She was cautious about her image.  But why was she reaching towards me?  I left my hand and place, and waited.

     I was shocked when she simply held my hand.  She merely wanted to touch me.  That was more affection than she had ever given me in my sixty-five years.  A few days later, when she was nearly paralyzed in bed and could only speak with great difficulty, I knew she could not attack me any longer.  She, then, forced her hand, with great effort, to reach out and hold my hand again.  For the first time ever in my life, I realized she did care for me.  I burst into tears.

     I cried for her, for us, for all we never had, and could now never have.  I realized how truly she was born into her mother's pain, and I was born in the midst of hers.  Neither of us deserved the life or the childhood we found ourselves in.  My life was turned completely upside down.  She died two days later.  I am content.

     What would I do without those words I'd found?  I'd be lost and mired, as so many others, in the negativity, rejection, and dejection all around me.  These words kept my heart open.  They redeem my life.  They enable me to find something positive after my panic calms down.  There isn't much positivity in the world around me at the moment.  In short, these words give me hope and a sense of purpose.  They gave me a new foundation for a life I had never imagined possible, and a purpose.  I try to share them when I can: “Noble have I created thee...”

© Duane L. Herrmann

Duane L. Herrmann

With degrees in Education and History, Duane L. Herrmann has work published in print and online, in fifty-plus anthologies, over one hundred other publications (Gonzo Press, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Page and Spine, etc), plus a sci fi novel, eight collections of poetry, a local history, stories for children, a book on fasting and other works, despite an abusive childhood with dyslexia, ADHD, cyclothymia, an anxiety disorder, a form of Mutism, and now, PTSD.  

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