I believe that most people who know me would say that I am a good person. I believe that they would say that I am an easy-going, happy, even-tempered fellow who loves his life and the people who populate his life.
I would agree with that assessment. That is the person that I am NOW. However, that is not the person that I’ve always been.
I am publishing these next couple of posts with a fairly large reservations. They are going to show a side of me of which I am not proud. (However, it is a side of me that, I believe, no longer exists. I truly believe that my Mr. Hyde is dead.)
Okay. Here goes.
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My daughter said something the other night that really made me sit up and take notice. She is going through a divorce, and she is, shall we say, a bit stressed lately.
She came out to house and cooked me a wonderful Father’s Day dinner. (Erin is a FANTASTIC cook.) After dinner, we were sitting around in the TV room, and she talked about going to her psychologist. I said that shrinks are all well and good, but real change only comes when a person makes up his or her mind to change. I also said that psychological change is a diffcult thing to accomplish.
Erin, without even hesitating, said very matter-of-factly, "Well Dad, you managed to do it. For the past fifteen years, you’ve been a completely changed person."
I was a little taken aback by this statement. Then I asked her what changes she saw in me, and she said that I was calm, happy and peaceful as opposed to the angry and stressed-out person I was before.
I was surprised. I had realized that I had changed because about fifteen years ago. I set out on a personal crusade to do so. What surprised me was that my daughter had noticed.Â
I grew up with an extremely mentally and physically abusive mother. Often, I went to school with welts on my face and arms because of her. (That was back in the days of unawareness, and teachers didn’t notice such things with their students.)
When I was young, I made it a point never to have friends over to my house because she would find ways to humiliate and degrade me in front of them.
My father had long since stopped trying to protect me from her, choosing instead to see the world through the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
I grew up broken, hurt, with low self-esteem, and very, very angry.
Couple that anger with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which often had me confused, frightened, and knowing that there was something seriously wrong with me, and, well, I was a mess.
The first time I married, it was to woman who was almost exactly like my mother. She wasn’t physically abusive, but she was a master at degrading and discounting everybody around her.
When she divorced me twenty years ago, because, according to her, I wasn’t exciting enough, I was devastated. I thought my life was over. Nobody loved me. Nobody wanted me. Nobody cared if I lived or died…not even myself.
People didn’t have to tell me that I was garbage; I knew it already. They didn't have to tell me that I was stupid. I was told that every day of my life. Nobody had to tell me that I was a disappointment to my parents. They told me themselves all of the time.
From my mother and my first wife, I learned to handle disappointment by being verbally abusive. When I grew angry, I would find the worst possible things to scream at a person (my wife, my kids, my friends) and then launch the assault with full force.
I would break things. Throw things. Punch walls. Kick furniture. Go off for hours in fevered rants.
Every project that I ever embarked upon was destined to fail because, from the start, I knew that I wasn’t good enough, or smart enough, or creative enough to be successful.
Mary Ellen found me in this state, and, somehow, she saw something worth loving. The first few years of my marriage to Mary Ellen were a little rocky, as I began falling into old, familiar behavior and thought patterns. We fought often. I found myself getting angrier and angrier. I even started thinking about a second divorce. Then, the revelation struck, and, believe it or not, I can remember the exact moment when I decided to change my life. I was leaving for work one morning, and I was in a typical, bad mood. Mary and I had words. I remember throwing some cutting remark at her as I stormed out of the house and slammed the door behind me. I had made it the entire 100 feet down the walkway to the driveway when I remembered that I had left my lunch back in the refrigerator. So, I stormed back into house. Mary was nowhere around. I grabbed my lunch and began heading out the door again when I heard a noise coming from the basement stairs. I opened the basement door and peered down into the murkiness. The light was off, and it was dark, but, through the gloom, I could make out Mary sitting on the bottom step. Her head was in her hands, and she was sobbing. I stood there for a moment, frozen and dumbfounded. My words caused that? My words are that powerful? I looked down at the most wonderful person who had ever come into my life, the one who loved and accepted me the way that nobody had ever done before, and this is what I had done to her? My chest got heavy and my eyes filled with tears. Look at this horrible thing that I had done! I walked down the steps. When she heard me coming, she quickly wiped her eyes, stood up and turned to face me. I dropped my lunch and hugged her as hard as I could. "I am SO SORRY!" I cried as I almost hugged the life out of her. "I promise that I will never, EVER do anything like that again!" I remember that moment so vividly! I have purposely burned it into my brain so that I would never forget it. I remember thinking this is what your hurtful words and temper can do. I’ve never done it again. Ever.
Oh, Mary and I have had our…discussions, and I’ve gotten angry, but I've NEVER done anything to purposely hurt her or any other person or thing again.
(Stay tuned. Much more to come.)
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