Every interaction we have with each other is subjective to an individual’s perspective. We interact through our lenses, prejudices, and insecurities, and what may come off as a person meaning well can, in fact, be taken as a hurtful comment. Other times, there is no justification.

What I’ve been pondering lately is how a person could repeatedly hurt another, and most sadly, in my case, a daughter. What kind of person do you have to be to treat your child with disrespect, malice, and contempt?

I’ve been on a healing journey these last few years to heal my soul from the damage it endured from so much pain, suffered at the hands of a family member (and others). My husband asked me why I put up with it for so long, and if it were him, he’d stick up for himself. I answered that I wasn’t raised to think of myself as worthy of respect.

There’s a difference between living in the past and continually being in pain and learning from the past and healing your psyche from the damage done.

I always felt like a burden when I talked about my family/life problems with friends because they kept happening. This was a result of being groomed to feel bad about myself to control me and keep me coming back for more pain – living in a vicious cycle: I’d work on healing myself and then get hurt again. I knew I had to change.

Just as a battered woman is judged and criticized for not leaving the environment that keeps hurting them, I, too, was stuck. When all you know and believe is toxic and self-harming, and few support a better life for you, how are you supposed to believe you deserve better? Children aren’t born with good self-worth; it’s learned.

I had to learn how to soothe my soul and fix what was once broken. And I am very grateful to have gotten help from therapists and having a loving and supportive husband. It’s been a noble endeavor to see myself as a worthwhile person who deserves respect and recognition for who I am and what I do.

However, I am still hiding in the shadows.

So much shame, wrong messages, and fear have controlled my destiny, and though I now believe I am worthy of the life I choose, taking action on it hasn’t been happening so much. It’s all been wishes, desires, and a dream. I haven’t taken myself seriously because I’ve been seeking external validation for an internal struggle that I’ve had with being okay being my real self.

I am asking for help.

I need to know that others have struggles, too, because I have been hiding myself for fear of being seen as “damaged” or “dramatic.” I believe that sharing my experiences, showing my scars, and celebrating my unique aura inspires and is worth my time.

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When I was a little girl aged five and seven, I had two life-changing events that molded my docile (ready to accept control or instruction; submissive) personality and poor self-image/self-esteem. The damage only got worse from years of repetition of wrong, negative messaging. I was broken, and the only way I knew how to survive was to keep myself small so as not to be noticed. If you don’t see me, you can’t hurt me. As an adult, I had to teach myself that it’s okay to be who I am and feel free with a caveat: I have to be away from those who hurt me and be disciplined to focus on only positive thoughts.

I was a five-year-old little girl put into a talent contest and sang the song my mother chose and did the dance my mother told me to dance. I followed the instructions whether I wanted to or not. I sang along to a 45 record playing on a machine that stopped working. I finished the song a cappella. I won the contest but lost any peace or happiness.

Immediately afterward, my older brother taunted and teased me incessantly that the only reason why I won was because I was a clown and that everyone was laughing at me. He did it again and again and again and again. He got a charge out of bullying and taunting me. I surmise I was his scapegoat for his childhood angst and inner turmoil since he is gay. The taunting sickness towards me ran rampant in my family. I felt like a leper, unable to feel good about myself or do the one thing I loved more than anything – to sing without worrying about judgment or criticism.

This has prevented me from being more comfortable performing or feeling confident sharing my musical work. Posting things on Facebook with music has been so difficult for me to do, but I’ve forced myself to do it (and not want to delete them afterward.)

I lost the belief in myself with music.

Catholics have First Holy Communion in the church when a kid is in second grade, and in my case, seven years old. My family held a party for me after the mass, as my parents did for my other siblings. My mother invited her friend, a woman I despised, who was rude, obnoxious, and spoke unkindly to me for no reason. I was a good kid. I didn’t deserve that.

While minding my own business, eating a powdered sugar-coated dessert (cream puff, I think), I had gotten the sugar on my face. That woman came up to me and told me I looked like a pig. I told her she should talk. She was a large, beastly looking woman.

When nearly everyone had left the party, my mother grabbed me and told me how I embarrassed her in front of her friend. She screamed that I was getting punished by her and my father for speaking like that to her friend.  I knew what that meant. True to her word, they each beat me hard multiple times. My head whacked into the paneled wall with each blow as my grandfather sat at the kitchen table, eating cake as if he were alone in the room. After so many whacks and me crying so badly, I vomited all over myself. The pretty blue dress  I wore was a mess, and I kept begging for them to stop, but my parents kept hitting me.

I don’t remember much after that on that day. I’m pretty sure I was in shock. And I am more than sure I developed PTSD from that horrific event because after that, nothing was good. I was anxious all the time. I felt less than everyone else and wanted people to like me so badly that I became a chameleon, changing myself to fit what I thought others wanted of me. I also became a target for everyone in my family’s angst, anger, shame, frustration, and sadness.

I lost the belief that I had a voice.

All my parents had to do was TELL ME what I did was wrong. TEACH ME that was not appropriate. SHOW ME how to respond to an adult calling me a derogatory term. Not beat me into submission. But that is exactly what they did.

It has taken me almost my entire life to work through so many incidents, not just those two, and sharing my stuff on social media and online like I have is a testament to how much my self-work has paid off. It’s terrifying to do so, but I keep pushing through the fear.

But I am still scared.

I’ve heard so many disastrous words out of my mother’s mouth regarding me and my choices. She has said and done things that hurt me so badly, and never once did she ever apologize. Thirty or so years after that beating, I was in my parents’ attic with my mother getting something of mine. She pulled out the little blue dress I wore that horrible day and asked me if I wanted it. I told her that was the dress she beat me in so badly I vomited on myself, and I never want to see that again. She laughed and said something hurtful, like I was being overly dramatic or too sensitive.

My mother has never apologized or considered my feelings – ever. I was nothing in her eyes. I always was and always will be. Do you know how that makes a child feel? How about that continuing into my middle age?

She just did something horrible to me a few weeks ago, and I have had enough. When my parents were away, I went to their house to get something of mine. I noticed my mother updated (within the last few years) her upstairs hall wall with a photo of me in my wedding dress from my first marriage, along with my older sister in her wedding dress from her current marriage, and my younger sister in her First Holy Communion dress. I was furious! That time period of my life was nothing but pain and she knew that – and I have been with my current husband for 28 years! I took the photo and ripped it up.

When I told my mother what I saw and did and how it made me feel, knowing I am married to someone else and how it was disrespectful and harmful to me (given what I had been through), she told me it was her house and she can do what she wants. She also said she would’ve like to have a conversation about it where she could have told me what she wanted to do with it, but that I didn’t give her a chance.

At that moment, I knew that I was done with my 90 year old mother.

Each time I had not spoken to my mother (and there have been a lot), I felt better about myself and did things I am proud of like creating music, writing books, blogs, etc. The sad thing is that being around her only keeps the wounds open, and I feel pain, unable to heal fully. She has never asked me what I’m working on and if I ever mentioned it, I was dismissed and criticized. Yet, I’ve spent my adulthood wishing my parents supported and believed in me.

I’ve been living in the shadows trying to protect myself from criticism, judgment, and pain.

I don’t want to do that anymore.

To being in the light,

Francesca

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