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An autobiography of violence
Child Abuse and Neglect, Vol. 2, pp. 139 - 149. 0 Pergamon Press Ltd. 1978. Printed in Great Britain.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF VIOLENCE
Jessica Cameronchild San Francisco Child Abuse Council 4093 24th Street, San Francisco, CA Being a Battered Hoping that maybe even if they were. Hoping that altercations.
you
they’ll can
just
Hoping no one will notice your hair.
94114
Child Means . . . be in a good mood, but knowing get
through
the stitches
breakfast
and
off
you couldn’t to
school
and black eye you have tried
trust without
them any
to hide behind
Wanting to be “as good of a bike rider as the rest of the kids,” but still rehearsing the laugh you will present with the explanation that you hurt your arm by falling off your bike. Hoping someone will care enough not to believe to account for your injuries. Feeling
that
everything
the incessant
like you because
you offer
“if only you. . .‘I
will be alright
Feeling guilty and confused when you make a mistake “It’s 1‘ust a mistake .I1 “They understand.” alright.” Teachers
explanations
and other
adults
tell you:
%‘s
you’re so well-behaved.
The kids don’t like you because anyway.
all the teachers
do and you don’t know how to play
Never knowing the consequences of a gesture, facial expression, or request. Sometimes a gift of flowers is received affectionately and sometimes it’s dashed down with a shove and a tirade of abuse. Sometimes a request for a piece of gum is a “good idea” and sometimes it’s “proof of your horrid greediness and irresponsible lack of concern for the cost of dental care.” Sometimes looking sad is met with friendly concern, and sometimes you’re berated and punished for being ungrateful. But you just never know. . . Worrying when you’re away from and sisters at home. Trying
to
find
a safe
explanation
home, for
about
what might
why you never
be happening bring
your
to brothers
friends
home.
Trying to figure out what you did to “deserve” to be born into the family situation you were born into; trying desperately to be a “good” person who doesn’t “deserve” the abuse you keep getting. Being careful
not to cry or laugh too loudly.
139
140 Feeling born.
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Cameronchild
guilty that you’re a burden to your parents, “Knowing” they feel the same way about you.
and
sorry
that
you were
ever
Hoping maybe you were adopted and that you could find your real parents and convince them you’ll be good if only they’ll take you back. But worrying about who would take care of your “present” parents if you were rescued. Lying awake wishing they Somehow
at night, listening would cry a little
feeling
Living
in constant
Hoping she/he
the doctor will.
Wishing the be cured.
your
to a brother or sister crying and feeling more softly so they won’t “get it” again.
parents
fear
that
could you
won’t believe
problem
was
love
or one
your parents’
alcoholism
you
if
of your
only
you
brothers
explanation
or a chemical
were
sorry
or sisters
Developing your sensitivity so as to intuit threatening mood changes, feeling that heightened sensitivity is more painful than helpful. Wishing they could just touch you, they really need to be held, too. At times hating them bitterly, “they didn’t mean to” or “they’re so loud” or . . .
or hold
you without
hurting
be
. .
killed.
but knowing
problem
but
you,
could
more
often
but sensing
but soon being reduced to tears because just having a bad day” or “you shouldn’t
Wishing that there was someone gentle and caring that you could that if the subject ever came up, you would defend them loyally. and you love them, and you need to believe they love you. A FRAGILE
will
so the
But
enough.
for your injuries,
imbalance
sad.
that
you know have been
talk to, but knowing They’re your parents
PEACE
“How am I to face the odds of man’s bedevilment and God’s, I, a stranger and afraid in a world I never made?(l)” They are both Neither of my parents are “animal9 or malicious people by nature. very proud, rigid people with enormous needs for approval, nurturance and control. Though neither was abused as a child, their parents were extremely strict and totally Both of my parents were raised in homes where children conditional in their love. were seen as vehicles for meeting their parents’ needs and were saddled with the burden of feeding their parents’ enormous prides. I have four brothers: I, and the youngest
one, a year my senior, a twin, who is five years my junior.
another
one
year
younger
than
Both of my parents are college educated and hold advance degrees. My mother taught learning-disabled children before she met my father; she had experience with small children, but was unequipped to deal with five children under six years of age without support. My father, the actively abusing parent wanted “companions” and knew nothing
and spouse, about small
once confided to me that children. His feeling
he had
141
An Autobiography of Violence was that
we “just kept
coming.”
Several common characteristics are outlined below:
in abusing
parents
evident
in my personal
experience
-The emotional deprivation and strong need for control and nurturance experienced by both of my parents. -The denial of responsibility on my father’s part. -The lack of a support system experienced by both parents. -The fact that there were two people, one active and one passive, involved in our abuse. --My parents’ views of us as companions and primary sources of approval and affection, rather than as children with our own needs. Therapists have suggested that abusers have a character dysfunction which allows aggressive impulses to be expressed without control. There also seems to be some evidence that abusive spouses and parents possess relatively little empathy and, therefore, may be unresponsive to the signs of pain in their victims. Drug use (alcohol included) was not a factor in the abuse which occurred in my home. I distinguish between two kinds of abuse in my own experience. were calmly enforced, sadistic rituals, defind as “discipline,” unpredictable outbursts of violence.
Oftentimes, there as well as totally
The former can be exemplified by my recollections of being forced to kneel upright, with piles of books in our outstretched arms for hours, of being made to “shove out” (to maintain a posture as if we were sitting on a chair, without a chair to support us) and to “eat a square meal” (to face staight ahead, without looking down at our plates) while eating. For years we were lined up and spanked with a stick before school in the morning and again when our father returned home in the evening. Sometimes we were put in a cold shower in the middle of the night if our parents went out for the evening. If one of us was told to sweep the driveway, we would be spanked each leaf our father discovered when he inspected our job.
with a stick
for
The second type of abuse that I distinguish was that of unpredictable outbursts of rage. I recall incidents such as the time our’ father dumped over a fully-set kitchen table because our mother had served two starches with dinner. There was also the time he nailed me to a wall by my braid for laughing too loudly. Allowing a door to slam, dropping a utensil at dinner, being too slow, using the “wrong” tone of voice, failing to maintain eye contact, not standing up straight enough, and laughing too loudly were all likely to incur severe beatings. We were slapped and spanked with a stick daily and every few months received injuries which required medical attention. Verbal abuse was incessant. We were constantly stupid and unloveable we were and threatened with our parents threatened to abandon us. Occasionally suicide because we were such a burden. We just minimize our demands so that they would love us.
demeaned and insulted, told how murder and torture. Sometimes our father threatened to commit kept trying to be perfect and to
As I alluded to earlier, our mother was also the victim of our father’s impulsivity and frustration. Every few months she received broken ribs, black eyes and cut lips. All of this
illustrates
the
atmosphere
that
pervaded
our house-that
of unreliable,
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Cameronchild
inconsistent messages and unpredictable outbursts of violence. There seemed to be unknown rules about everything. For example, I once was asked to change the roll of toilet paper in our parents’ bathroom. I put the new roll on so that it led out from the bottom instead of over from the top. For this infraction I was thrown down two fligbts of stairs. Needless to say, this inconsistency and explosiveness instilled great fear and insecurity in all of us, but we had to be very careful not to communicate our timidity for fear of punishment. It was too easy to cause our father to feel inadequate and unloved. We were made to witness the violence inflicted upon of proximity or because our father felt it would deter We couldn’t help each other nor could we communicate being the next target. This instilled a philosophy of set up a detachment between the members of our preservation.
each other, either as a result us from like “transgressions.” our sympathy for fear of “everyone for themself,” and family as a means of self-
For awhile I was able to switch back and forth between the obvious need for total control at home and a somewhat less guarded affect when there were no penalties for laughing or yelling with excitement. However, over time, I could not maintain the dual affect. Eventually, I became extremely passive and self-controlled at all times. We felt betrayed by our mother’s failure to intervene on our behalf, but we frequently witnessed our father’s mistreatment of her and realized that she could not risk interfering. We also felt guilty at our inability to defend our own mother. Our mother’s passive position served to reinforce our view of our father’s omnipotence; even another “grown-up” could not protect us from him. Another pervasive theme in our home was the message that “If you’re careful enough, you can be perfect.” There was no such thing as an accident or a mistake in our Once one of my brothers fell off a ten-story building and broke his ankle. home. When our father learned about it, he beat my brother with his crutch for getting hurt. Our father punished by brother for getting hurt in the fall, but also because he felt inadequate and helpless in the face of my brother’s discomfort and pain. This is also a tragic example of the role-reversal which is so common in abusive families. The children are expected to take care of their parents. We were all under constant pressure. Three of my brothers handled their frustration and anger by following our father’s violent example. At home they would pick up This is the nearest object and beat on another sibling with it if they were crossed. understandable both in light of our father’s ever-present example, and because we couldn’t yell and argue like other siblings. That type of behavior would get my parents involved, and that meant trouble. One of my brothers and I had learned to equate anger with violence. We were passive to abhor violence, we denied and suppressed our anger.
As we learned and depressed.
My parents both felt very inadequate and frequently set up double binds to test our We usually chose to live with our mother’s inflicted preference for one over the other. However, our mother would inevitably induce guilt rather than with our father’s fists. our father to punish us for her hurt feelings. There was real confusion in our feelings for our parents, especially towards our father. We were as much controlled by our sympathy for him as we were by our fear of his violent behavior. He was a terrifying abuser on the one hand and a frustrated, fragile
An Autobiography
of Violence
143
repenter on the other. His ambivalence can be graphically illustrated by an incident He injured in which he split my head open with a hammer because I wasn’t smiling. me because he felt frustrated and inadequate when he sensed I was unhappy. Through all of these years we were attending the same school, with many of the We also visited the same pediatrician month after month. He was same teachers. a friend of our father’s and was usually given plausible explanations for our injuries. It is usually the “trouble-maker” who gets attention at school, but we were all straight “A” students and extremely well-behaved. No one seemed to recognize that there was something unhealthy about our model behavior. No one questioned how such capable children could hurt themselves so often, just as no one seemed to wonder how someone as capable as our mother could “walk into doors” as she so often explained to account for her bruises. Finally, my younger brother began having trouble with school. He was extremely bright and bored with school. His teacher suggested he skip several grades, but our parents felt it would be unheathly for him. He began misbehaving in class and getting sent home from school. His teachers suggested that he was in need of some counseling. After shaving his head, making him sleep outside, forbidding any of us to establish eye contact with him, spanking him 50-75-100 times with a stick, our father finally called our local mental health department. When our mother learned of the appointment, she cancelled it, because she knew the head of the department. This blindness to alternatives led our parents to revert to their earlier position that there was nothing wrong with my brother “that a good thrashing couldn’t take care of.” He continued to be sent home from school. While I am not intending to level ultimate blame, it is clear that ignorance of our home situation led the school personnel to set my brother up for increased violence. Finally, my brother was again sent home from school, and this time when he arrived home he shot his head off with a rifle. He was eleven years old. There was no question about his death being suicide; he left a note and the trigger was rigged. The coroner, our pediatrician, our police chief and a police officer all saw his body and yet chose to “leave the family alone.” I found his body; it was a powerful sight. I emphasize this to point out the incredible level of denial that was used to ignore the desperation and futility inherent in my brother’s act. I think there were several influences operating to support such denial. We were an upper-class family and money buys privacy. We are all familiar, no doubt, with the term “Suspect” categories. I believe that there are also unconscious “exempt” categories; I believe that the misconception that “things like that don’t happen in ‘nice’ families” (both our abuse and my brother’s suicide) worked against us. Living in a small town, as we did, sets up an “isolation of familiarity” which is just as futile as the isolation found in big cities. There wasn’t anyone our parents didn’t know, and that they felt they could afford to “lose face with.” My brother and I had talked about turning our father in for child abuse, but we thought that abused children were children whose parents didn’t love them. If we were abused children, that meant our parents didn’t love us, which meant that we were unloveable. We weren’t ready to admit that.
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J. Cameronchild
Also, who could we tell? The police chief, our pediatrician and teachers were all friends or acquaintances of our parents. We were aware of their refusal to become involved. I have often heard people say that any child who doesn’t get what he/she wants thinks he/she is an abused child. If we told someone, we were sure that they wouldn’t believe us. We were convinced that we would be killed by our father if a single word was spoken. Our father’s omnipotence’ (in our eyes) made it seem that nothing could change things, anyway. Finally, we had denied our abuse to ourselves as well as to others. We always rationalized our situation by saying: “He’s having a bad day,” or “We were too loud We never saw it as a life-long pattern, but treated each incident as anyway,” etc. an isolated one. We forever hoped that if we could just be careful enough, remember all of the old rules and anticipate all of the new ones, that we could make the violence stop. Most of us didn’t have many friends; we were too well-behaved to be much fun to play with. It’s hard to be close to people when you’re hiding such a big part of your life. Also, as I mentioned earlier, we were our parents’ chief sauces of companionship and affection, so we spent very little time with other people. No one ever told us to lie about our injuries, though there was some intimation about Somehow, we always lied about our stitches and not “airing dirty laundry in public.” There was a sense of shame connected with admitting that we were being bruises. hurt at home, because it implied our own guilt and intimated that we were unloveable. There was also a sense of duty in protecting our father (again, the role-reversal in operation). Following my brother’s suicide our father took his pain and frustration out on our mother more than on us, but essentially nothing changed. In fact, the guilt and added pressure raised the tension at home. For me, the guilt stemmed from the detachment I needed to maintain in order to helplessly watch his daily abuse. I wasn’t his friend or his ally--just another silent witness. My brother’s suicide reinforced my sense of isolation and insecurity. I had spent 13 years preoccupied with our father’s mood changes, to the exclusion of all else. When my brother killed himself, I felt that life was truly unmanageable and unpredictable. The many professionals involved failed to intervene or to recongnize the tragic statement that my brother was trying to make. Their lack of involvement seemed to condone all that we had experienced, as well as to reinforce our sense of helplessness. Two years later I told a high school teacher that I had tried to kill myself. At the I realize that I had to time it was a purely impulsive action, but retrospectively imply the possibility of an act equally as drastic as my brother’s suicide to insure My teacher referred me to the school that some intervention was instituted. pyschiatrist who had me psychologically tested. The tests showed that I was very angry, unhappy, had minimal self-esteem and was afraid of violence. These findings, combined with her assumption that a child my brother’s age could not kill himself unless he was acting out the suicidal impulse of a parent, led her to contact our parents. She told our parents that I would kill myself if I wasn’t hospitalized, and that I would I became the make fifty percent slower progress if they weren’t in therapy, too. pivotal contact with our family as the identified patient. Strategically
this was an understandable
move on the psychiatrist’s
part.
Our parents
An Autobiography
of
Violence
145
were over a barrel as they had refused therapy for my brother. Had they consented to his therapy perhaps his suicide could have been averted. But I question whether it was really necessary to lock me up in an acute care child-adolescent psychiatric ward. INSTITUTIONAL
ABUSE
‘Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives
(21.”
When I was admitted to the psychiatric unit, the psychiatrist withdrew from the case explaining that her caseload was too full, and stating that she felt I would benefit She saw each of my parents once a week for more if I dealt with a male therapist. individual therapy and every other week for marital counseling. There was no mention No treatment was offered to my brothers, and there was no of family therapy. expressed concern for the effect my hospitalization or parents’ therapy might have on my brothers at home. After two months of hospitalization, I was following the ward routine and posing no problems for the staff. My therapist told me that I wasn’t working on my problems Having had no prior experience with therapy, I of depression and low self-esteem. didn’t know what “working on my problems” meant. Knowing that I would be going home when I was discharged did not encourage me to be the spontaneous, assertive, outgoing person that they envisioned as the “new me.” Even if I had grasped the principles of therapy, I knew what I was going home to. So, I was put on an “Harrassment” (Rage Induction) Program. The rationale for the program was that depression is anger turned inward and that soon I would rebel against my harrassment. Once angry, I would no longer be depressed and could be returned home with no threat of suicide. From 7:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. every day, I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the outline of a linoleum square in a counter-clockwise motion. I couldn’t change hands or sit back on my calves unless I was willing to suffer the consequences, such as missing a meal, staying up an extra hour, or sitting under a ledge which was 2% feet off the ground, scrubbing behind my head with a toothbrush. Another punishment used was called going into “sheets” which is a procedure in which male staff members wrap the patient from neck to ankles in layers of sheets and then tie the patient to his/her bed. The result is absolute restriction of movement. If I went into “sheets” on this program, the minimum stay was four hours. I went into “sheets” approximately 60 times. I ate alone, facing the wall, kneeling up at a tray which was on a chair. Frequently my assigned staff would give me an impossible time limit allowing me to eat only with my left hand or with both hands behind my back. If I refused to eat under these conditions, I was threatened with tube feeding while in “sheets.” I had a conference with my parents, assigned staff and therapist once a week. I also had two half-hour individual sessions with my assigned staff each day, and three sessions with my therapist each week. However, I had to continue scrubbing the floor, remain in %heets” or perform some other bizarre task during these interactions. I wasn’t allowed to interact with anyone but these people, but was harrassed by any staff member who felt so inclined. That was my life for the first month of the program. As inconceivable as it seems to me now, after the first month I felt bored by the program, but didn’t really mind
146
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what they did to me. It just served to reinforce established patterns from my home situation. Having experienced such ritualistic abuse since early childhood, I had long since buried any impuse to react against it. My parents allied themselves with my therapist and the staff and harrassed our conferences instead of concentrating on vital family counseling.
me during
Because I failed to respond to this milder form of harrassment, the staff pushed me harder. I was assigned to two male staff members with this routine: I had fifteen minutes to get up, get dressed, put my bed and linen away, go to the bathroom and be back at the wall. This alI required that I literally not be out of arm’s length of a staff member. Staff would frequently refuse to help me and if I was late, I’d be put in “sheetsV’ until I could explain why I was late. Often I was made to polish my assigned staff member’s tennis shoes with a dry cloth. At this point I was made to stand up and face a door which was in full view of all ward residents, staff, or visitors and scrub three raised wooden numbers, clockwise with a dry rag in one hand and counter-clockwise with a toothbrush in the other hand, simultaneously. These numbers were about three inches higher than I could reach comfortably, but I went into “sheets” or was given some other task if I raised my heels off the ground. I had to convince my assigned staff that I was hungry, had to go to the bathroom or wanted to go to bed or these “privileges” were uncomfortably extended. Convincing the staff usually meant yelling and swearing in a sufficiently outraged tone of voice, but the staff harrassed me for disturbing the unit if I did. I had to face straight forward at all times, but the staff would often squirt me in the ear with a water gun, clap their hands or pop paper bags next to my ears. If I turned my head or was accused of doing so, I went into “sheets.” Someone suggested that I keep time for the unit, so while scrubbing the numbers I was made to say, “At the sound of the tone the time will be ten fifty-two and ten seconds. . .Beep,” for 16 hours a day. A staff member would call, “Time,” and if I was more than a minute off, I went into “sheets.” I dreamed and talked the time for three weeks. If I refused to do this or any other task, I was put in “sheets” for a four hour time minimum and until I agreed to resume the task. This was because quitting a task was considered to be “symbolic suicide.” While in “sheets” staff frequently ratted my hair, rubbed food in my face and hair and tickled my restrained feet. I’d eventually get fed up with the cramped, hot sheets and the staffs’ harrassment of me and agree to resume the task. When I got out of “sheets,” I had to make up another “sheet bed.” My assigned staff member would tear it up and demand that I make up another one, which he would then tear up. This would go on for nearly an hour. Once a staff member brought in a book about the life of Teddy Roosevelt. Each day I was given several facts to memorize, complete with punctuation. They were only stated once, but on command I was expected to recite all the facts I had If I made any errors or refused to cooperate, I was put in %heets.” memorized. This intense treatment resulted in acute tachycarda and high blood pressure. However, At this time my chief harrasser confided that until I I remained on the program. began manifesting these psychosomatic symptoms, he couldn’t understand why I was in the hospital! As incredible
as it may seem,
most of the staff
members
who worked
with me liked
An Autobiography of Violence
147
me
They have since shared their guilt and very much, I liked many of them. self-recrimination with me and are retrospectively bewildered that they could have participated in such a program. They have further confided that they saw no justification for either my hospitalization or my treatment program and could not in me because they didn’t really understand have recognized signs of “improvement” the purpose of the program. Yet, these people all participated fully in my degradation To me, this illustrates the incredibly destructive things that and harrassment. compassionate people can be led to do when they feel relieved of responsibility for their actions, (as was graphically illustrated by Stanford University’s “Zimbardo” experiment and Princeton University’s, “MiIlgram” experiment). The functioning of the unit was based on a rigid hierarchy with a staff which neither approved of nor understood what their purpose in my treatment was. They participated because the ultimate responsibility for my treatment plan lay with my private therapist. My parents are both intellectual, educated people who demanded a well-rationalized, clearly visible treatment program. They didn’t question this program as they feared that they might be looked down upon or considered ignorant by the professionals involved. During the third month things really tightened up. I learned to cry which the staff viewed as manipulative behavior, so they increased my tasks. I was trying to do what the staff wanted me to do. I didn’t want to learn that yelling and swearing would be rewarded; such behavior would have gotten me expelled from school and beaten at home, The two staff members then started to work together. One told me to scrub the numbers on the door, the other told me to scrub the linoleum square on my hands and knees. I switched back and forth between the two tasks until one staff member put me in %heetsl’ for not doing as he had requested. I stayed in %heetsl* for four The other staff member then put me back in “sheets” for being in **sheets” hours. This went on for several days. Finally, I rather than doing what he had requested. refused to deal with either of them and was left in “sheets” while one staff member took two days off. When he came back, I was more than eager to comply with any request. Somewhere along the line I developed insomnia and was given strong medication that drugged me until noon. I still had to perform my tasks and remember Teddy Roosevelt facts. When I tried to protest, I was threatened with a forced injection, as this refusal was viewed as self-destructive behavior. During these previous two weeks my ward doctor and one of my assigned staff members left. This was a problem as their replacements had viewed the tactics, but missed the alleged purpose of the program. My continued lack of responsiveness led the staff to more desperate measures. I was made to scrub the top right hinge of a door clockwise with a dry cloth and a corresponding spot on the left hand side of the door counter-clockwise, with a toothbrush simultaneousfy. Both were just out of my reach, in height. After fifteen minutes of this, I was in real pain but couldn’t seem to convince the staff of this. I stayed in this position for two days. If I quit, the two staff would physically force me to continue. I always associate this memory with a crucifixion. I felt that the staff were trying to break me rather than following the original purpose of the program. I recognized that the staff were frustrated and that my apathy was going to get me hurt. My parents were harrassing me about money; our insurance was running out; further hospitalization would cost them $150 a day.
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I asked what it was I had to do to get off the program. I was told that I had to convince my assigned staff and therapist that I resented the treatment that I had received. I also was to develop an alternate program for myseif that would demonstrate my awareness of my problems. I never really believed that I shouldn’t have been treated that way. It was uncomfortable, at times painful, and boring, but my orientation towards authority figures, particularly males, along with my. apathy and lack of self-esteem, supported the program. It was confusing to me. I believed that I was basically worthless. (My family and hospitalization further reinforced my opinion of myself.) But, if pretending that I was otherwise would get me off the program, I was willing to try. I had to earn the time to work on my alternate program while on the Harrassment Program. I had a lot of information with which to develop an alternate program. Staff members’ indirect suggestions and an invaluable list of my strengths and weaknesses given to me the fifth day of my hospitalization gave me the guidelines. I developed a “Scheduled-Invzment” Program and began mentally rehearsing my speech of “rage.” After two weeks I managed to convince my assigned staff members that I was truly too worthwhile a person to be treated so inhumanly. It took an additional three weeks to convince my therapist. If I raised my voice or swore at him, he’d dismiss me, telling me that when I could be appropriate, we’d discuss it again. Already the behavior that I had been rewarded for on the program was creating conflicts. Finally, after four months, I switched to my “Schedule-Involvementti Program and was allowed to go outside into a fenced play area for the first time in seven months. After ten days on my new program my insurance ran out and I was discharged and sent home with no transition period and a new diagnosis of “acute undifferentiated schizophrenia.” I started my junior year in high school two days late feeling totally alone, depressed, and somewhat in culture shock. It is i~omprehensible that the realities of my home situation were totally ignored in the affixing of my diagnoses as well as in the formulation and implementation of My brothers recount that the pressures caused by my my treatment program. hospitalization and parents’ therapy, resulted in an intolerable increase in violence at home. It seems patheticaIly ironic that I came from a highly abusive, confusing home situation and was placed on a program managed by highly abusive, confusing caretakers. This had a destructive effect on my future perceptions of authority figures as well as my The psychiatrist and hospital staff were, in fact, setting up a very futile self-esteem. and destructive double bind by putting me on a program that required me to give up defenses which were vital to my survival at home. My perception of reality was further confused by the pressure put on me to swear and scream while on the Harrassment Program while being asked to establish warm and trusting relationships They labeled my problem as a “character deficiency.” Again, with my tormentors. my failure to be open and confrontive with my father was viewed to be symptomatic of my “adjustment reaction to adolescence.” As I acknowledged earlier, I was very controlled and apathetic; I did need therapy. But I grew out of those defenses when it was safe to do so. I can=e the logic of the psychiatrist labeling me as the patient in order to force my parents into treatment. However, the course of my treatment exacerbated the violence for my brothers at home, condoned our parents’ past mistreatment of us, reinforced their denial, and My hospital caretakers are not augmented my futile view of the world in general. malicious people, as my parents are not. While there were some sadists and self-serving
An Autobiography
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opportunists on the staff, most were reasonable, honorable people. No one was willing or able to analyze my behavior in relation to the oppressiveness of my family life. They were able to espouse the naive theories of depression used to justify my treatment only because they carefully avoided looking at what was really going on. My parents remained in therapy for about a year. With the support my father got from his therapy, he was able to control almost all of his abusive impulses. As my mother is a very private person, she greatly resented therapy’s requirement for self-disclosure. She kept her appointments, but was determined not to change. She I finished my junior year in high viewed my father and I as the ones, with problems. school and then applied for early admission to college away from home. I am presently a 23 year old doctoral candidate working in a city near my home; two of my brothers are in graduate school; the third is in college. My brothers are all gentle, compassionate men. Like myself, they have each had to find their own role models from which to learn about healthy male-female relationships. They all struggle with feelings of inadequacy and have some difficulty with intimacy. Like myself, they have had to learn healthy responses to aggression in themselves and others; we have all learned that it’s okay to be happy. Our parents are living alone now; I have never known them to get along so well together. My guess is that not having to compete with five children for each other’s attention has made the difference. We deal more formally with our parents than most offspring, but despite the usual value clashes found in any family, we get along well. Our relationships with our parents are based on our independent, adult status. There is no evident shadow of our years of abuse as children. We’ve been through a lot, and they’ve been through a lot. We deal with each other as we are now, with unspoken respect for each other’s private struggles. That isn’t to say and he expressed much, but even that deep down,
that all is forgiven. I spoke with my older brother about this once, his feelings that reflected my own. He said, “1 care for them very though it doesn’t interfere with our day-to-day interactions, I know I can never forgive them for what they did to us.”
I am a very intense, intuitive woman. I am somewhat untrusting and my tolerance Through observation and experimentation I am learning that for intimacy is low. anger and aggression are not synonymous with violence, though I am still hypersensitive when witnessing anything more than mild discord. While to others I project an air of self-reliance, the truth is that I carry a very hurt child within me. It is too late for me to have the accepting, loving “parents” I privately searched for for years. At times, that same need is translated into an impulse to have a child of my own. 1 fantasize that a baby would give me the unconditional love that I never got. However, I recognize this as the same destructive expectation my parents held. I have given therapy another try. It’s hard to go through all of that old pain again, but I would like to have a child some day, and I see enough of my parents in me to believe in the multi-generational effects of child abuse. I am a surprisingly hopeful person and while at times I feel angry and futile in my struggles to repair the damage, I have strengths which grew from the broken places; I believe that in time I will learn how to love and to be loved. (1)
Housman,
(2)
A;~;lo;~~l.
A.E. Last Poems,
XII.
(1970) I Know Why the Caged Birds Sings, Random .
House,
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF VIOLENCE
Jessica Cameronchild San Francisco Child Abuse Council 4093 24th Street, San Francisco, CA Being a Battered Hoping that maybe even if they were. Hoping that altercations.
you
they’ll can
just
Hoping no one will notice your hair.
94114
Child Means . . . be in a good mood, but knowing get
through
the stitches
breakfast
and
off
you couldn’t to
school
and black eye you have tried
trust without
them any
to hide behind
Wanting to be “as good of a bike rider as the rest of the kids,” but still rehearsing the laugh you will present with the explanation that you hurt your arm by falling off your bike. Hoping someone will care enough not to believe to account for your injuries. Feeling
that
everything
the incessant
like you because
you offer
“if only you. . .‘I
will be alright
Feeling guilty and confused when you make a mistake “It’s 1‘ust a mistake .I1 “They understand.” alright.” Teachers
explanations
and other
adults
tell you:
%‘s
you’re so well-behaved.
The kids don’t like you because anyway.
all the teachers
do and you don’t know how to play
Never knowing the consequences of a gesture, facial expression, or request. Sometimes a gift of flowers is received affectionately and sometimes it’s dashed down with a shove and a tirade of abuse. Sometimes a request for a piece of gum is a “good idea” and sometimes it’s “proof of your horrid greediness and irresponsible lack of concern for the cost of dental care.” Sometimes looking sad is met with friendly concern, and sometimes you’re berated and punished for being ungrateful. But you just never know. . . Worrying when you’re away from and sisters at home. Trying
to
find
a safe
explanation
home, for
about
what might
why you never
be happening bring
your
to brothers
friends
home.
Trying to figure out what you did to “deserve” to be born into the family situation you were born into; trying desperately to be a “good” person who doesn’t “deserve” the abuse you keep getting. Being careful
not to cry or laugh too loudly.
139
140 Feeling born.
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Cameronchild
guilty that you’re a burden to your parents, “Knowing” they feel the same way about you.
and
sorry
that
you were
ever
Hoping maybe you were adopted and that you could find your real parents and convince them you’ll be good if only they’ll take you back. But worrying about who would take care of your “present” parents if you were rescued. Lying awake wishing they Somehow
at night, listening would cry a little
feeling
Living
in constant
Hoping she/he
the doctor will.
Wishing the be cured.
your
to a brother or sister crying and feeling more softly so they won’t “get it” again.
parents
fear
that
could you
won’t believe
problem
was
love
or one
your parents’
alcoholism
you
if
of your
only
you
brothers
explanation
or a chemical
were
sorry
or sisters
Developing your sensitivity so as to intuit threatening mood changes, feeling that heightened sensitivity is more painful than helpful. Wishing they could just touch you, they really need to be held, too. At times hating them bitterly, “they didn’t mean to” or “they’re so loud” or . . .
or hold
you without
hurting
be
. .
killed.
but knowing
problem
but
you,
could
more
often
but sensing
but soon being reduced to tears because just having a bad day” or “you shouldn’t
Wishing that there was someone gentle and caring that you could that if the subject ever came up, you would defend them loyally. and you love them, and you need to believe they love you. A FRAGILE
will
so the
But
enough.
for your injuries,
imbalance
sad.
that
you know have been
talk to, but knowing They’re your parents
PEACE
“How am I to face the odds of man’s bedevilment and God’s, I, a stranger and afraid in a world I never made?(l)” They are both Neither of my parents are “animal9 or malicious people by nature. very proud, rigid people with enormous needs for approval, nurturance and control. Though neither was abused as a child, their parents were extremely strict and totally Both of my parents were raised in homes where children conditional in their love. were seen as vehicles for meeting their parents’ needs and were saddled with the burden of feeding their parents’ enormous prides. I have four brothers: I, and the youngest
one, a year my senior, a twin, who is five years my junior.
another
one
year
younger
than
Both of my parents are college educated and hold advance degrees. My mother taught learning-disabled children before she met my father; she had experience with small children, but was unequipped to deal with five children under six years of age without support. My father, the actively abusing parent wanted “companions” and knew nothing
and spouse, about small
once confided to me that children. His feeling
he had
141
An Autobiography of Violence was that
we “just kept
coming.”
Several common characteristics are outlined below:
in abusing
parents
evident
in my personal
experience
-The emotional deprivation and strong need for control and nurturance experienced by both of my parents. -The denial of responsibility on my father’s part. -The lack of a support system experienced by both parents. -The fact that there were two people, one active and one passive, involved in our abuse. --My parents’ views of us as companions and primary sources of approval and affection, rather than as children with our own needs. Therapists have suggested that abusers have a character dysfunction which allows aggressive impulses to be expressed without control. There also seems to be some evidence that abusive spouses and parents possess relatively little empathy and, therefore, may be unresponsive to the signs of pain in their victims. Drug use (alcohol included) was not a factor in the abuse which occurred in my home. I distinguish between two kinds of abuse in my own experience. were calmly enforced, sadistic rituals, defind as “discipline,” unpredictable outbursts of violence.
Oftentimes, there as well as totally
The former can be exemplified by my recollections of being forced to kneel upright, with piles of books in our outstretched arms for hours, of being made to “shove out” (to maintain a posture as if we were sitting on a chair, without a chair to support us) and to “eat a square meal” (to face staight ahead, without looking down at our plates) while eating. For years we were lined up and spanked with a stick before school in the morning and again when our father returned home in the evening. Sometimes we were put in a cold shower in the middle of the night if our parents went out for the evening. If one of us was told to sweep the driveway, we would be spanked each leaf our father discovered when he inspected our job.
with a stick
for
The second type of abuse that I distinguish was that of unpredictable outbursts of rage. I recall incidents such as the time our’ father dumped over a fully-set kitchen table because our mother had served two starches with dinner. There was also the time he nailed me to a wall by my braid for laughing too loudly. Allowing a door to slam, dropping a utensil at dinner, being too slow, using the “wrong” tone of voice, failing to maintain eye contact, not standing up straight enough, and laughing too loudly were all likely to incur severe beatings. We were slapped and spanked with a stick daily and every few months received injuries which required medical attention. Verbal abuse was incessant. We were constantly stupid and unloveable we were and threatened with our parents threatened to abandon us. Occasionally suicide because we were such a burden. We just minimize our demands so that they would love us.
demeaned and insulted, told how murder and torture. Sometimes our father threatened to commit kept trying to be perfect and to
As I alluded to earlier, our mother was also the victim of our father’s impulsivity and frustration. Every few months she received broken ribs, black eyes and cut lips. All of this
illustrates
the
atmosphere
that
pervaded
our house-that
of unreliable,
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Cameronchild
inconsistent messages and unpredictable outbursts of violence. There seemed to be unknown rules about everything. For example, I once was asked to change the roll of toilet paper in our parents’ bathroom. I put the new roll on so that it led out from the bottom instead of over from the top. For this infraction I was thrown down two fligbts of stairs. Needless to say, this inconsistency and explosiveness instilled great fear and insecurity in all of us, but we had to be very careful not to communicate our timidity for fear of punishment. It was too easy to cause our father to feel inadequate and unloved. We were made to witness the violence inflicted upon of proximity or because our father felt it would deter We couldn’t help each other nor could we communicate being the next target. This instilled a philosophy of set up a detachment between the members of our preservation.
each other, either as a result us from like “transgressions.” our sympathy for fear of “everyone for themself,” and family as a means of self-
For awhile I was able to switch back and forth between the obvious need for total control at home and a somewhat less guarded affect when there were no penalties for laughing or yelling with excitement. However, over time, I could not maintain the dual affect. Eventually, I became extremely passive and self-controlled at all times. We felt betrayed by our mother’s failure to intervene on our behalf, but we frequently witnessed our father’s mistreatment of her and realized that she could not risk interfering. We also felt guilty at our inability to defend our own mother. Our mother’s passive position served to reinforce our view of our father’s omnipotence; even another “grown-up” could not protect us from him. Another pervasive theme in our home was the message that “If you’re careful enough, you can be perfect.” There was no such thing as an accident or a mistake in our Once one of my brothers fell off a ten-story building and broke his ankle. home. When our father learned about it, he beat my brother with his crutch for getting hurt. Our father punished by brother for getting hurt in the fall, but also because he felt inadequate and helpless in the face of my brother’s discomfort and pain. This is also a tragic example of the role-reversal which is so common in abusive families. The children are expected to take care of their parents. We were all under constant pressure. Three of my brothers handled their frustration and anger by following our father’s violent example. At home they would pick up This is the nearest object and beat on another sibling with it if they were crossed. understandable both in light of our father’s ever-present example, and because we couldn’t yell and argue like other siblings. That type of behavior would get my parents involved, and that meant trouble. One of my brothers and I had learned to equate anger with violence. We were passive to abhor violence, we denied and suppressed our anger.
As we learned and depressed.
My parents both felt very inadequate and frequently set up double binds to test our We usually chose to live with our mother’s inflicted preference for one over the other. However, our mother would inevitably induce guilt rather than with our father’s fists. our father to punish us for her hurt feelings. There was real confusion in our feelings for our parents, especially towards our father. We were as much controlled by our sympathy for him as we were by our fear of his violent behavior. He was a terrifying abuser on the one hand and a frustrated, fragile
An Autobiography
of Violence
143
repenter on the other. His ambivalence can be graphically illustrated by an incident He injured in which he split my head open with a hammer because I wasn’t smiling. me because he felt frustrated and inadequate when he sensed I was unhappy. Through all of these years we were attending the same school, with many of the We also visited the same pediatrician month after month. He was same teachers. a friend of our father’s and was usually given plausible explanations for our injuries. It is usually the “trouble-maker” who gets attention at school, but we were all straight “A” students and extremely well-behaved. No one seemed to recognize that there was something unhealthy about our model behavior. No one questioned how such capable children could hurt themselves so often, just as no one seemed to wonder how someone as capable as our mother could “walk into doors” as she so often explained to account for her bruises. Finally, my younger brother began having trouble with school. He was extremely bright and bored with school. His teacher suggested he skip several grades, but our parents felt it would be unheathly for him. He began misbehaving in class and getting sent home from school. His teachers suggested that he was in need of some counseling. After shaving his head, making him sleep outside, forbidding any of us to establish eye contact with him, spanking him 50-75-100 times with a stick, our father finally called our local mental health department. When our mother learned of the appointment, she cancelled it, because she knew the head of the department. This blindness to alternatives led our parents to revert to their earlier position that there was nothing wrong with my brother “that a good thrashing couldn’t take care of.” He continued to be sent home from school. While I am not intending to level ultimate blame, it is clear that ignorance of our home situation led the school personnel to set my brother up for increased violence. Finally, my brother was again sent home from school, and this time when he arrived home he shot his head off with a rifle. He was eleven years old. There was no question about his death being suicide; he left a note and the trigger was rigged. The coroner, our pediatrician, our police chief and a police officer all saw his body and yet chose to “leave the family alone.” I found his body; it was a powerful sight. I emphasize this to point out the incredible level of denial that was used to ignore the desperation and futility inherent in my brother’s act. I think there were several influences operating to support such denial. We were an upper-class family and money buys privacy. We are all familiar, no doubt, with the term “Suspect” categories. I believe that there are also unconscious “exempt” categories; I believe that the misconception that “things like that don’t happen in ‘nice’ families” (both our abuse and my brother’s suicide) worked against us. Living in a small town, as we did, sets up an “isolation of familiarity” which is just as futile as the isolation found in big cities. There wasn’t anyone our parents didn’t know, and that they felt they could afford to “lose face with.” My brother and I had talked about turning our father in for child abuse, but we thought that abused children were children whose parents didn’t love them. If we were abused children, that meant our parents didn’t love us, which meant that we were unloveable. We weren’t ready to admit that.
144
J. Cameronchild
Also, who could we tell? The police chief, our pediatrician and teachers were all friends or acquaintances of our parents. We were aware of their refusal to become involved. I have often heard people say that any child who doesn’t get what he/she wants thinks he/she is an abused child. If we told someone, we were sure that they wouldn’t believe us. We were convinced that we would be killed by our father if a single word was spoken. Our father’s omnipotence’ (in our eyes) made it seem that nothing could change things, anyway. Finally, we had denied our abuse to ourselves as well as to others. We always rationalized our situation by saying: “He’s having a bad day,” or “We were too loud We never saw it as a life-long pattern, but treated each incident as anyway,” etc. an isolated one. We forever hoped that if we could just be careful enough, remember all of the old rules and anticipate all of the new ones, that we could make the violence stop. Most of us didn’t have many friends; we were too well-behaved to be much fun to play with. It’s hard to be close to people when you’re hiding such a big part of your life. Also, as I mentioned earlier, we were our parents’ chief sauces of companionship and affection, so we spent very little time with other people. No one ever told us to lie about our injuries, though there was some intimation about Somehow, we always lied about our stitches and not “airing dirty laundry in public.” There was a sense of shame connected with admitting that we were being bruises. hurt at home, because it implied our own guilt and intimated that we were unloveable. There was also a sense of duty in protecting our father (again, the role-reversal in operation). Following my brother’s suicide our father took his pain and frustration out on our mother more than on us, but essentially nothing changed. In fact, the guilt and added pressure raised the tension at home. For me, the guilt stemmed from the detachment I needed to maintain in order to helplessly watch his daily abuse. I wasn’t his friend or his ally--just another silent witness. My brother’s suicide reinforced my sense of isolation and insecurity. I had spent 13 years preoccupied with our father’s mood changes, to the exclusion of all else. When my brother killed himself, I felt that life was truly unmanageable and unpredictable. The many professionals involved failed to intervene or to recongnize the tragic statement that my brother was trying to make. Their lack of involvement seemed to condone all that we had experienced, as well as to reinforce our sense of helplessness. Two years later I told a high school teacher that I had tried to kill myself. At the I realize that I had to time it was a purely impulsive action, but retrospectively imply the possibility of an act equally as drastic as my brother’s suicide to insure My teacher referred me to the school that some intervention was instituted. pyschiatrist who had me psychologically tested. The tests showed that I was very angry, unhappy, had minimal self-esteem and was afraid of violence. These findings, combined with her assumption that a child my brother’s age could not kill himself unless he was acting out the suicidal impulse of a parent, led her to contact our parents. She told our parents that I would kill myself if I wasn’t hospitalized, and that I would I became the make fifty percent slower progress if they weren’t in therapy, too. pivotal contact with our family as the identified patient. Strategically
this was an understandable
move on the psychiatrist’s
part.
Our parents
An Autobiography
of
Violence
145
were over a barrel as they had refused therapy for my brother. Had they consented to his therapy perhaps his suicide could have been averted. But I question whether it was really necessary to lock me up in an acute care child-adolescent psychiatric ward. INSTITUTIONAL
ABUSE
‘Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives
(21.”
When I was admitted to the psychiatric unit, the psychiatrist withdrew from the case explaining that her caseload was too full, and stating that she felt I would benefit She saw each of my parents once a week for more if I dealt with a male therapist. individual therapy and every other week for marital counseling. There was no mention No treatment was offered to my brothers, and there was no of family therapy. expressed concern for the effect my hospitalization or parents’ therapy might have on my brothers at home. After two months of hospitalization, I was following the ward routine and posing no problems for the staff. My therapist told me that I wasn’t working on my problems Having had no prior experience with therapy, I of depression and low self-esteem. didn’t know what “working on my problems” meant. Knowing that I would be going home when I was discharged did not encourage me to be the spontaneous, assertive, outgoing person that they envisioned as the “new me.” Even if I had grasped the principles of therapy, I knew what I was going home to. So, I was put on an “Harrassment” (Rage Induction) Program. The rationale for the program was that depression is anger turned inward and that soon I would rebel against my harrassment. Once angry, I would no longer be depressed and could be returned home with no threat of suicide. From 7:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. every day, I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the outline of a linoleum square in a counter-clockwise motion. I couldn’t change hands or sit back on my calves unless I was willing to suffer the consequences, such as missing a meal, staying up an extra hour, or sitting under a ledge which was 2% feet off the ground, scrubbing behind my head with a toothbrush. Another punishment used was called going into “sheets” which is a procedure in which male staff members wrap the patient from neck to ankles in layers of sheets and then tie the patient to his/her bed. The result is absolute restriction of movement. If I went into “sheets” on this program, the minimum stay was four hours. I went into “sheets” approximately 60 times. I ate alone, facing the wall, kneeling up at a tray which was on a chair. Frequently my assigned staff would give me an impossible time limit allowing me to eat only with my left hand or with both hands behind my back. If I refused to eat under these conditions, I was threatened with tube feeding while in “sheets.” I had a conference with my parents, assigned staff and therapist once a week. I also had two half-hour individual sessions with my assigned staff each day, and three sessions with my therapist each week. However, I had to continue scrubbing the floor, remain in %heets” or perform some other bizarre task during these interactions. I wasn’t allowed to interact with anyone but these people, but was harrassed by any staff member who felt so inclined. That was my life for the first month of the program. As inconceivable as it seems to me now, after the first month I felt bored by the program, but didn’t really mind
146
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Cameronchild
what they did to me. It just served to reinforce established patterns from my home situation. Having experienced such ritualistic abuse since early childhood, I had long since buried any impuse to react against it. My parents allied themselves with my therapist and the staff and harrassed our conferences instead of concentrating on vital family counseling.
me during
Because I failed to respond to this milder form of harrassment, the staff pushed me harder. I was assigned to two male staff members with this routine: I had fifteen minutes to get up, get dressed, put my bed and linen away, go to the bathroom and be back at the wall. This alI required that I literally not be out of arm’s length of a staff member. Staff would frequently refuse to help me and if I was late, I’d be put in “sheetsV’ until I could explain why I was late. Often I was made to polish my assigned staff member’s tennis shoes with a dry cloth. At this point I was made to stand up and face a door which was in full view of all ward residents, staff, or visitors and scrub three raised wooden numbers, clockwise with a dry rag in one hand and counter-clockwise with a toothbrush in the other hand, simultaneously. These numbers were about three inches higher than I could reach comfortably, but I went into “sheets” or was given some other task if I raised my heels off the ground. I had to convince my assigned staff that I was hungry, had to go to the bathroom or wanted to go to bed or these “privileges” were uncomfortably extended. Convincing the staff usually meant yelling and swearing in a sufficiently outraged tone of voice, but the staff harrassed me for disturbing the unit if I did. I had to face straight forward at all times, but the staff would often squirt me in the ear with a water gun, clap their hands or pop paper bags next to my ears. If I turned my head or was accused of doing so, I went into “sheets.” Someone suggested that I keep time for the unit, so while scrubbing the numbers I was made to say, “At the sound of the tone the time will be ten fifty-two and ten seconds. . .Beep,” for 16 hours a day. A staff member would call, “Time,” and if I was more than a minute off, I went into “sheets.” I dreamed and talked the time for three weeks. If I refused to do this or any other task, I was put in “sheets” for a four hour time minimum and until I agreed to resume the task. This was because quitting a task was considered to be “symbolic suicide.” While in “sheets” staff frequently ratted my hair, rubbed food in my face and hair and tickled my restrained feet. I’d eventually get fed up with the cramped, hot sheets and the staffs’ harrassment of me and agree to resume the task. When I got out of “sheets,” I had to make up another “sheet bed.” My assigned staff member would tear it up and demand that I make up another one, which he would then tear up. This would go on for nearly an hour. Once a staff member brought in a book about the life of Teddy Roosevelt. Each day I was given several facts to memorize, complete with punctuation. They were only stated once, but on command I was expected to recite all the facts I had If I made any errors or refused to cooperate, I was put in %heets.” memorized. This intense treatment resulted in acute tachycarda and high blood pressure. However, At this time my chief harrasser confided that until I I remained on the program. began manifesting these psychosomatic symptoms, he couldn’t understand why I was in the hospital! As incredible
as it may seem,
most of the staff
members
who worked
with me liked
An Autobiography of Violence
147
me
They have since shared their guilt and very much, I liked many of them. self-recrimination with me and are retrospectively bewildered that they could have participated in such a program. They have further confided that they saw no justification for either my hospitalization or my treatment program and could not in me because they didn’t really understand have recognized signs of “improvement” the purpose of the program. Yet, these people all participated fully in my degradation To me, this illustrates the incredibly destructive things that and harrassment. compassionate people can be led to do when they feel relieved of responsibility for their actions, (as was graphically illustrated by Stanford University’s “Zimbardo” experiment and Princeton University’s, “MiIlgram” experiment). The functioning of the unit was based on a rigid hierarchy with a staff which neither approved of nor understood what their purpose in my treatment was. They participated because the ultimate responsibility for my treatment plan lay with my private therapist. My parents are both intellectual, educated people who demanded a well-rationalized, clearly visible treatment program. They didn’t question this program as they feared that they might be looked down upon or considered ignorant by the professionals involved. During the third month things really tightened up. I learned to cry which the staff viewed as manipulative behavior, so they increased my tasks. I was trying to do what the staff wanted me to do. I didn’t want to learn that yelling and swearing would be rewarded; such behavior would have gotten me expelled from school and beaten at home, The two staff members then started to work together. One told me to scrub the numbers on the door, the other told me to scrub the linoleum square on my hands and knees. I switched back and forth between the two tasks until one staff member put me in %heetsl’ for not doing as he had requested. I stayed in %heetsl* for four The other staff member then put me back in “sheets” for being in **sheets” hours. This went on for several days. Finally, I rather than doing what he had requested. refused to deal with either of them and was left in “sheets” while one staff member took two days off. When he came back, I was more than eager to comply with any request. Somewhere along the line I developed insomnia and was given strong medication that drugged me until noon. I still had to perform my tasks and remember Teddy Roosevelt facts. When I tried to protest, I was threatened with a forced injection, as this refusal was viewed as self-destructive behavior. During these previous two weeks my ward doctor and one of my assigned staff members left. This was a problem as their replacements had viewed the tactics, but missed the alleged purpose of the program. My continued lack of responsiveness led the staff to more desperate measures. I was made to scrub the top right hinge of a door clockwise with a dry cloth and a corresponding spot on the left hand side of the door counter-clockwise, with a toothbrush simultaneousfy. Both were just out of my reach, in height. After fifteen minutes of this, I was in real pain but couldn’t seem to convince the staff of this. I stayed in this position for two days. If I quit, the two staff would physically force me to continue. I always associate this memory with a crucifixion. I felt that the staff were trying to break me rather than following the original purpose of the program. I recognized that the staff were frustrated and that my apathy was going to get me hurt. My parents were harrassing me about money; our insurance was running out; further hospitalization would cost them $150 a day.
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J.
Cameronchild
I asked what it was I had to do to get off the program. I was told that I had to convince my assigned staff and therapist that I resented the treatment that I had received. I also was to develop an alternate program for myseif that would demonstrate my awareness of my problems. I never really believed that I shouldn’t have been treated that way. It was uncomfortable, at times painful, and boring, but my orientation towards authority figures, particularly males, along with my. apathy and lack of self-esteem, supported the program. It was confusing to me. I believed that I was basically worthless. (My family and hospitalization further reinforced my opinion of myself.) But, if pretending that I was otherwise would get me off the program, I was willing to try. I had to earn the time to work on my alternate program while on the Harrassment Program. I had a lot of information with which to develop an alternate program. Staff members’ indirect suggestions and an invaluable list of my strengths and weaknesses given to me the fifth day of my hospitalization gave me the guidelines. I developed a “Scheduled-Invzment” Program and began mentally rehearsing my speech of “rage.” After two weeks I managed to convince my assigned staff members that I was truly too worthwhile a person to be treated so inhumanly. It took an additional three weeks to convince my therapist. If I raised my voice or swore at him, he’d dismiss me, telling me that when I could be appropriate, we’d discuss it again. Already the behavior that I had been rewarded for on the program was creating conflicts. Finally, after four months, I switched to my “Schedule-Involvementti Program and was allowed to go outside into a fenced play area for the first time in seven months. After ten days on my new program my insurance ran out and I was discharged and sent home with no transition period and a new diagnosis of “acute undifferentiated schizophrenia.” I started my junior year in high school two days late feeling totally alone, depressed, and somewhat in culture shock. It is i~omprehensible that the realities of my home situation were totally ignored in the affixing of my diagnoses as well as in the formulation and implementation of My brothers recount that the pressures caused by my my treatment program. hospitalization and parents’ therapy, resulted in an intolerable increase in violence at home. It seems patheticaIly ironic that I came from a highly abusive, confusing home situation and was placed on a program managed by highly abusive, confusing caretakers. This had a destructive effect on my future perceptions of authority figures as well as my The psychiatrist and hospital staff were, in fact, setting up a very futile self-esteem. and destructive double bind by putting me on a program that required me to give up defenses which were vital to my survival at home. My perception of reality was further confused by the pressure put on me to swear and scream while on the Harrassment Program while being asked to establish warm and trusting relationships They labeled my problem as a “character deficiency.” Again, with my tormentors. my failure to be open and confrontive with my father was viewed to be symptomatic of my “adjustment reaction to adolescence.” As I acknowledged earlier, I was very controlled and apathetic; I did need therapy. But I grew out of those defenses when it was safe to do so. I can=e the logic of the psychiatrist labeling me as the patient in order to force my parents into treatment. However, the course of my treatment exacerbated the violence for my brothers at home, condoned our parents’ past mistreatment of us, reinforced their denial, and My hospital caretakers are not augmented my futile view of the world in general. malicious people, as my parents are not. While there were some sadists and self-serving
An Autobiography
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opportunists on the staff, most were reasonable, honorable people. No one was willing or able to analyze my behavior in relation to the oppressiveness of my family life. They were able to espouse the naive theories of depression used to justify my treatment only because they carefully avoided looking at what was really going on. My parents remained in therapy for about a year. With the support my father got from his therapy, he was able to control almost all of his abusive impulses. As my mother is a very private person, she greatly resented therapy’s requirement for self-disclosure. She kept her appointments, but was determined not to change. She I finished my junior year in high viewed my father and I as the ones, with problems. school and then applied for early admission to college away from home. I am presently a 23 year old doctoral candidate working in a city near my home; two of my brothers are in graduate school; the third is in college. My brothers are all gentle, compassionate men. Like myself, they have each had to find their own role models from which to learn about healthy male-female relationships. They all struggle with feelings of inadequacy and have some difficulty with intimacy. Like myself, they have had to learn healthy responses to aggression in themselves and others; we have all learned that it’s okay to be happy. Our parents are living alone now; I have never known them to get along so well together. My guess is that not having to compete with five children for each other’s attention has made the difference. We deal more formally with our parents than most offspring, but despite the usual value clashes found in any family, we get along well. Our relationships with our parents are based on our independent, adult status. There is no evident shadow of our years of abuse as children. We’ve been through a lot, and they’ve been through a lot. We deal with each other as we are now, with unspoken respect for each other’s private struggles. That isn’t to say and he expressed much, but even that deep down,
that all is forgiven. I spoke with my older brother about this once, his feelings that reflected my own. He said, “1 care for them very though it doesn’t interfere with our day-to-day interactions, I know I can never forgive them for what they did to us.”
I am a very intense, intuitive woman. I am somewhat untrusting and my tolerance Through observation and experimentation I am learning that for intimacy is low. anger and aggression are not synonymous with violence, though I am still hypersensitive when witnessing anything more than mild discord. While to others I project an air of self-reliance, the truth is that I carry a very hurt child within me. It is too late for me to have the accepting, loving “parents” I privately searched for for years. At times, that same need is translated into an impulse to have a child of my own. 1 fantasize that a baby would give me the unconditional love that I never got. However, I recognize this as the same destructive expectation my parents held. I have given therapy another try. It’s hard to go through all of that old pain again, but I would like to have a child some day, and I see enough of my parents in me to believe in the multi-generational effects of child abuse. I am a surprisingly hopeful person and while at times I feel angry and futile in my struggles to repair the damage, I have strengths which grew from the broken places; I believe that in time I will learn how to love and to be loved. (1)
Housman,
(2)
A;~;lo;~~l.
A.E. Last Poems,
XII.
(1970) I Know Why the Caged Birds Sings, Random .
House,