Adoption Series: Lessons in pain
When my emotions run hot, my skills go cold.
“Teddy, what’s three times five?” Asked in a voice, I can’t ignore.
“Fifteen.”
“And what’s four times five?” More demanding now.
“Twenty,” I say, dreading the next question, knowing exactly where he’s going with this. Knowing, too, that tears are about to spill.
They do.
“Okay, crybaby, what’s four times six?”
Sitting at the dining room table holding the four times six card, I’m focusing on the texture of the brown tablecloth –– no, it’s dark chocolate –– and my mind shifts to Hershey Bars. Now I’m lost in the rich flavor and wonderful crunch of Hershey with almonds.
Dad catches my eye, and I’m back.
Is the correct answer just four higher than the last one –– or is it six higher? –– but I can’t think –– and instead, I feel a yawn coming. My body’s self-sabotaging logic pushes me to tears at the worst imaginable moment, and now I know yawning will really piss him off.
I lose out to the yawn.
“Bored stupid, are you? Or just plain dumb? You’ll never get through the fourth grade!” Dad’s voice is rising now. And here it is: “You stupid little shit.”
I feel like he hit me. Violent words intended to hurt, just like his belt. He wants me to know the answer or know the pain –– thinking his threats will somehow pound the answer into my head. Or perhaps he thinks I’m defying him, and he must punish my defiance.
It never works.
I always submit. In the moment I’m as submissive as I can be. I slump my shoulders to make myself smaller while wildly sliding open every unopened drawer in my head, looking for more ways to please him.
But I still don’t know and can’t remember the answer. The answer is gone if I ever had it in the first place. Gone now.
Dad didn’t know any other way. And learning my multiplication tables taught me a lot about mean people. His attacks drove away any possibility of remembering what four times anything was. It gave him absolute power over me.
As I write, I remember.
Dad throws the flashcards onto the table and heads into the kitchen with “Betty” (that’s mom’s name), “I can’t take any more of this.”
In the kitchen, I hear him opening a cupboard and slamming it after getting whatever he is after. I hold my breath, frozen in my seat, hoping he’s done for now.
I’m still plunged in the deep well of absolute despair. He’s big. I’m small. My only power is to shrink into myself and hope he leaves me alone. The whole exercise isn’t about learning –– it was about him being “smarter” than me and proving it with emotional blunt force. His attack shatters any hope of actually learning.
I knew he was powerless. He worked all alone in a little corner of the vast warehouse space in the rear of the Sears store. Clearly put there for a reason. And whatever it was, I knew it wasn’t good. I’d seen him rage at other men in private but become submissive when he was with them.
He bulled me not to inform, not to help. It was never constructive criticism –– it was destructive criticism.
I came to realize, with time, that Dad’s abuse was situational. He had rules about how to do things. Rules to live by that could not be put aside. When Mom or I didn’t follow the rules, he’d insist –– if he thought we resisted, he’d get angry, meanness followed, and if we didn’t acquiesce quickly or correct our infraction, violence was next. The violence was rare, but the threat was always there. Somewhere deep down (among other motivations having nothing to do with me), Dad was afraid I would fail in the world if I didn’t follow the rules powerful people required.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to help without demeaning and shaming me. If I resisted or didn’t respond, he could only escalate –– for him, there wasn’t a gentle approach.
I wasn’t stupid, and I knew it even as he berated me. I was pretty sure I was smarter than most kids in my class (probably wishful thinking on my part). I was certian I was smarter than he was.
I wasn’t a crybaby, either. I knew I was just overwhelmed by my father’s violent threats.
I’ve since learned that he followed patterns that I could predict. I am pretty sure he helped me become a better observer of human behavior than I would have been otherwise.
In my head was a little list of situations that triggered him. That list helped me do everything I could to avoid his abuse. First on the list was when little things didn’t go the way he wanted. Leaving the toilet lid up, leaving a light on, not being home precisely on time, leaving a tool out, and so on. Any one of these infractions would shift him into finding more major infractions, like failing grades on my most recent report card. If I recklessly pushed back, I risked his belt.
By the time I was twelve, I’d learned to keep my distance, stay away from him as much as possible, and always put the lid down on the toilet.
I’d dreamed of leaving home for as long as I can remember. In the seventh grade, the music teacher bought one of my watercolors. With that purchase, she confirmed with real money how I could escape.
Art, I now knew, would save me. Having that goal seemed to give me power over Dad. He couldn’t control my imagination.
When I had to spend time with Dad, I praised his strengths to keep him from finding fault with me. The flattery, combined with sidestepping sensitive subjects, created a workable dynamic between us much of the time.
Once, after getting caught running away from home –– I think I was eleven –– I asked the priest of our church for help. I knew that using an authority my father respected –– maybe feared –– could help keep him in check for a while. I’d seen him be deferential to those in power many times. Sure enough, it worked. No beating, no belt, not even any restrictions.
It got so I could see the signs of my father sliding into anger early. A slammed door. Voice slightly louder. Dishes, not broken but handled roughly. I’d slip away, or rush to clean the dishes, or try to start a conversation on a different subject. There was nothing subtle about any of this. My survival strategies were just as makeshift as you’d expect from a kid weathering a crossfire.
But they kept me going.
Years later, well into my thirties, my wife Judy and I held a party at our new house. Neighbors, friends, and family came. At one point during the party, Dad came to me with a big smile. “Ted, I’m so proud of you and all your accomplishments.”
He paused, and I think I saw a tear in his eye as he said, “I don’t think there is anything else I can teach you.”
