Dad’s Passing

Posted on February 26, 2013 by nonconformingchild

Dad died, and I’m waiting to feel.

That’s not entirely fair. I have feelings about it, but they’re not what I expected. Where are the tears and surprisingly-intense-even-though-it-was-expected pain of loss? What I feel is much more complicated, more subtly layered, and I have a peculiar sense of distance about it, almost as if I am anesthetized.

For the last year, Dad’s doctors had been telling Mom that he would die within weeks or days. His skin turned yellow, he stopped eating and his flesh shrank against his bones. He stopped drinking for weeks at a time. I guess when you feel like you can’t breathe, the desire to drink wanes. They said it was toxins in his system, another symptom of alcoholic cirrhosis.

Three years ago, my sister called me at work to tell me Dad was in rehab. “He had a seizure at work,” she said, which I later learned was a symptom of alcoholic withdrawal. He hadn’t quit drinking. He just hadn’t had a drink in several hours.

On hearing this, I couldn’t stop weeping. I felt relieved, and hopeful, and angry, and apprehensive, and hurt. Conversations with my father played vividly in my head, exchanges that never happened in which I told him in clear and certain terms how much damage his drinking did to our family. “Doesn’t Mom deserve to live with a sober spouse for a few years,” I wanted to ask him, “after all the bullshit she’s endured?”

I never had that talk with him exactly. Once, during the longest of his sober periods (lasting several weeks), I asked him how he was feeling. I imagined there must be something positive about it for him. Was he enjoying more quality time with Mom? Did he enjoy greater clarity? Did he feel hopeful, or empowered?

“I’m bored,” he said dully, and had nothing else to add.

He quit for a while, a month or two, long enough for me to feel hopeful, then angry with him for drinking again and mad at myself, too, for being stupid enough to think he would or could stop. It took another two years before I gave up, and I mean that in a positive sense. I let go, finally, of the wish that he would change. And it became easier to love him.

Almost a year before he died, I flew home to see him because he was, we were told, on his death bed. We wondered if I’d get there in time. He’d stopped eating, had lost a tremendous amount of weight, he was jaundiced (for the first time), in pain, he struggled to breathe, and said he was ready to die. When I saw him at the hospital, he looked frail and weak. He winced, moaned and gritted his teeth in pain at irregular intervals as urine drained through a catheter. Yet he was much improved, they said, and expected to go home in a couple of days.

Mom said the doctor told him he had about six months if he stopped drinking. But if he stopped, he would experience more seizures, which could be damaging and dangerous. He stopped and started, and finally, a few months before he died, he told my mother, “I love you, but I can’t stop.” And he continued drinking for as long as his strength to do so allowed.

His last week or so was really hard for Mom especially. He wanted to be at home, and she wanted that for him, too. But he was hallucinating, uncooperative and verbally abusive. At one of his first stays in the hospital, he’d called home and told my mother to bring him his gun. He said he was a secret agent and the hospital was keeping him there against his will. This delusion was frightening and painful for Mom, and she cried when she told me. And they said it would get worse as his liver quit functioning, and ammonia polluted his system. Finally, Mom guiltily consented to have him brought to a hospice. He fought her on it. “I know I’ll get better if you’ll just let me stay home,” he said, which made it even harder. But she couldn’t do it, she said, couldn’t take care of him anymore knowing that the worst was yet to come. He protested and cursed, “but that’s not really him,” I said. “He’s not in his right mind anymore. If he were, he wouldn’t want you to have to go through this anymore.” We all knew and we all told her she was doing the right thing. She was. She did.

He settled into the hospice on Friday night. He was given morphine at regular intervals. He did not regain consciousness. He died Sunday morning. He was 68.

The last time I spoke with him was a couple of months ago on the phone.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Tired,” he said.

We made small talk. I told him I loved him, and he said “Thank you.”

He said “I love you, Paul.”

And those were our last words to each other.

For that, I am grateful.

Incident

Posted on February 4, 2013 by nonconformingchild

Child welfare services deemed it necessary to separate Sam and his two siblings because after the sexual abuse they’d experienced under their birth mother’s care, they had “perpetrated” each other. Sam was three.
My partner, Jeff, and his partner-at-the-time, Kyle, adopted Sam when he was almost five. Sam is twelve now, and in a safe place. He is a beautiful, brave, smart, funny, loving, kind-hearted young man. And he makes a lot of mistakes, like the rest of us.
A therapist told us that it’s common, even expected that kids with his history lie. He said he’ll probably lie right into adulthood. And Sam has lied to us with disappointing frequency, about things small and large. Mostly small. It’s not because he’s pathological–I don’t believe so, anyway–it’s a tactic to try to avoid trouble. He’s lied to try to get something he wants, and he’s lied to conceal mistakes and misconduct.
Jeff likes to tell the story about when Sam first came to live with him, one morning Jeff found that Sam had written with a marker all over his closet door. Sam’s therapist had counseled Jeff and Kyle not to set him up to lie, so rather than asking him, “Did you write on this closet with these markers?” he said, “Let’s not write on the walls or doors anymore.” And Sam denied having done it.
Jeff pressed back, asking “Do you think our neighbor, Toni, did it?”
Toni is our neighbor still, an elderly woman with a dark sense of humor. Sam said yes, she must have done it. So Jeff called her on speakerphone. “Toni, did you come over during the night and write on Sam’s closet door?”
“Yes, goddamn it and I’ll do it again!” she said.
“See!” Sam interjected.
“Toni, you’re on speaker! Tell the truth.”
We all laugh at that story now. It’s a good story.

One night a few weeks ago, Sam spent an evening with Eddie, a friend of his a little more than a year younger than he. Eddie has a lot in common with Sam, having been abused as a young child, then removed from his birthparents and adopted by a gay couple, friends of ours.
A year or so ago, when Eddie was at our house, we overheard him ask Sam if he wanted him to put his penis in Sam’s mouth. Sam said no. We talked to Sam about it, and Eddie’s parents gave him a stern talking to. And we were not surprised, knowing to keep them under supervision.
Then during this recent sleepover, Sam asked Eddie if he wanted to have sex with him. We heard about this from Gary and Keith, Eddie’s dads. Eddie says Sam asked him repeatedly, even after Eddie said no, saying it would be so nice to “squeeze each others butts like in the movies.” He was persistent, and eventually, Eddie relented. At some point, he said he’d tell his dads if Sam didn’t stop asking, and this is the most troubling part: Sam said “they won’t believe you.” So Eddie let Sam touch him.
We do not know how much Eddie participated. I cannot imagine Eddie would admit it if he did play along, though its quite possible he did before he said no. We don’t know. We only got his side of the story. And eventually, confirmation from Sam, who made it sound less one-sided.
Sam was at Kyle’s house when he received the news from Gary and Keith, and he asked us to come over so we could talk to Sam together. When we arrived, Sam had no idea why we were there.
Kyle began with, “Tell us about what happened last night.”
“What?” Sam asked.
“We know what happened. Now you need to take responsibility and say it.”
I thought, there is no way on this green earth he is going to say it.
“We know, Sam,” I said. “We already know what you did with Eddie. We know. And it’s really important that you talk about it.”
Sam shut down. He froze. He was long ago diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he reacted here as he always does in a crisis–he became stiff and silent. He stopped breathing.
“You’re safe,” I said. “There is so much love in this room for you. You are safe. This is serious. We need to talk about this. And you’re in a lot of trouble, and it’s going to be okay, and you need to be brave and say what happened. It’s okay to be brave. We love you. It’s safe for you to say what happened.”
He was silent.
“You’re safe,” I repeated.
“What happened is in the past, and you’re in trouble, but the only thing that can make it better now is for you to talk about it,” Jeff told him. “You’ll only make it worse if you don’t own up to it.”
Nothing. I believe, given the option, Sam would have selected execution to this conversation. He was paralyzed.
“I’m not going to stand here and coddle you,” Kyle said. “You need to take responsibility. Say it. Tell us what you did. Say it.”
Sam did not speak.
I can understand the rationale behind wanting Sam to put it in words for us. And I don’t believe it was a realistic expectation for him at all. Nor do I believe it was necessary for this important conversation to occur precisely on Kyle’s terms. I suggested ways to facilitate communication: “Would you like to write it down?”
After a very long pause, Sam nodded his head almost imperceptibly.
“No,” said Kyle. “That’s not good enough. I don’t want you reading it to me. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me what you did.”
Nothing.
This went on for over about twenty minutes. Then Kyle announced that he didn’t have all night, it was time for dinner. I had no appetite and didn’t eat. I drank two glasses of water. Sam was served nothing.
Whenever Sam began to speak, Kyle interrupted. “No. Speak up. Look me in the eye.” And he would shut down again.
Eventually, he said “Eddie and I were talking about stuff that was inappropriate,” which was not nearly as specific as required. Kyle continued to press. Sam continued to shrink away.
I went to the bathroom, and lingered, breathing deeply. When I walked back toward the kitchen, I heard Sam speaking very quietly. I sat on the floor outside the room, not wanting to interrupt the flow now that he’d started. Maybe he could get it out with one less dad in the room. I couldn’t hear what he said. I only heard the summary rejection of it afterward.
Kyle asked us to take him home with us.
“You’re not welcome here.” I think Jeff actually said that. Kyle confirmed. It broke my heart. We brought him home with us.

When I was Sam’s age, I had a somewhat similar interaction with another boy. Although I was a child myself at the time, I concluded that I was a child molester. I meant no harm; I was mortified when I saw that I’d made this other boy uncomfortable; and I knew I would never do anything like that again. But none of that mattered to my conscience. I believed that I was damned, in a Biblical sense, and irredeemable. I carried literally unspeakable guilt, shame, and self-loathing about it for decades. I was long into adulthood before I began to forgive myself.
When I heard about the incident with Sam, I felt like the Universe, or God, Karma, Fate, whatever force you’d like to call it had brought me here so that I could be present and help Sam through this in the way that my parents had not had the consciousness to help me. I could say to him what I’d needed to–but didn’t–hear.
“What you did was very serious,” I told Sam at home. He sat on his bed, unmoving. “And it means a lot of trouble, and I know you know that. But I want you to know that it’s not about the touching, or the feelings, or the curiosity. Those feelings, that desire, is normal and healthy, and someday you’re going to be able to explore and share and express those feelings with someone else in a loving, appropriate, healthy way. And now while you’re a kid is not that time. Right now, the only appropriate way for you to explore those feelings is … by yourself. The feelings are ok. But it’s not ok to be messing around at your age. The most troubling thing is that you kept pressing even when he said no, and that you said no one would believe him. Did anyone ever say that to you?”
He said no.
“That’s the kind of thing that people say to people when they’re abusing them.”
And here is where I imagine his rationale in the moment. Eddie says he’ll tell, and Sam is horrified, so he says no one will believe as a knee-jerk response to protect himself, to keep the secret. But maybe someone did say this to Sam before. Maybe it was one of the people who sexually abused him when his mother prostituted him as an infant and toddler, and he doesn’t remember it consciously.
And I wonder, am I making excuses for him? By no stretch of the imagination am I excusing what he did. I’m just believe that he could behave in this way from a place of misguided innocence. He’s twelve. That innocence, of course, is lost. But I don’t think there was malice in him–there was curiosity, desire, confusion, fear, perceived opportunity with a kid who had propositioned him before, then a desperate retreat to hide and conceal, to prevent discovery. Who knows if he would ever do this again if he hadn’t been found out. Who knows if he would again having been caught. No one knows. Is it wrong or misguided that I believe he won’t? That I want to believe it? Even before this incident I would always keep an close eye on him with younger kids, not leave him alone with them. It just seemed prudent, given his history.

Kyle speaks as if this incident proves that Sam is a danger to other kids. Jeff and I think he is wildly overreacting.
Jeff and I had some important, open, serious talks with Sam in the past week. We told him that this conversation was not over, that is was important that he express to Kyle how sorry he was, and to say out loud what he had done, to take responsibility. We said we all needed to know that he would never do anything like this again–that he must wait until he was older and that it was mutual and so on. “How can we know that you really mean it?” we asked. “This is the most serious thing you’ve ever done. This is big. Much, much bigger than you realize. This is the sort of thing that makes you go to jail for your whole life, and makes it so you can’t ever have a job around kids. It’s really important that we know that you know how serious this is. You’ve lied to us so many times. How can we know that we can trust you now?”
“I don’t know.”
Of course not. Given how that question was set up–pointing out his past lies over misbehavior–how could he answer that?
“No, that won’t do,” I said seriously, but gently. I was careful to form my words slowly, carefully, calmly, without agitation. I spoke with as much compassion as I could. “Even more important, how do you know that you’ll never do it again? What makes you know that?”
He was as sober as I’ve ever seen him. He said he didn’t want to hurt anybody. He said he understood that it was wrong to pressure him. He said he felt really bad about it. He expressed himself well, way better than he had that night we all confronted him.

Then it was was Kyle’s night with him. I took him to his house. Sam asked me if I was coming in. “Aren’t you?” Sensing he would like me there, I went in.
“Sam has something to say to you and he’d like me to be here so I came in.”
And Sam, slowly, got it out: what he did, and that he knew it was wrong, and that he felt terrible about it, and that he would never want to hurt anyone like that, that he was sorry… and Kyle shut him down.
What I witnessed next was essentially a sentencing. A condemnation.
“No. You can’t say you’re sorry. That’s not enough. Some things are too big to make up for them. This is one of them.” He went on to tell Sam “things will never be the same between us. You can’t be trusted with other kids.”
“Kyle,” I said, “I’d like to hear more… it sounds like you’re saying there is no room for forgiveness, for amends, for healing.”
“It’s not about that–it’s about trust,” he said, his words clipped. “And you can’t earn that back. Not ever. Because of your history. You’ve always lied to me, but I thought when it came to the important stuff, you’d tell me the truth. And I gave you that chance, and you lied to me. And your dad, Jeff, and Paul, sat there the other night and told you, you’re loved, you’re safe, and you still lied to them, too. This really sucks because it means we can’t trust you. We have to protect you. It means you can’t even sit at another table with other kids…”
Kyle went on at length. I sat there, listening and breathing slowly and deeply, wanting to leave, wanting to stop it, wanting to take Sam away from there.
“This is two incidents now,” he said, summing up his verdict.
“Two?” asked Sam, confused.
“Yes. Why do you think you can’t see your siblings anymore?”
Sam was stunned. So was I. This was brutal, and mean, and void of compassion and mercy and reason. Sam was three years old when he and his siblings touched each others’ private parts, acting out what had been done to them. Now Kyle had brought it up as if it were a prior conviction, as if it had been last month.
Kyle’s movement from his chair told me it was time for me to go. When he stepped out of the room momentarily, I stepped close to Sam and whispered.
“Be brave. We’ll get through this. I love you.” And left.

Can’t Control

Posted on September 22, 2012 by nonconformingchild

I just spent a few days in New York City with Jeff. I welcomed the break, and as we sit on the plane waiting for take-off to return home, I feel sick with anxiety.

This feeling started when Jeff finished a call with Kyle and shared with me that Sam hasn’t turned in his homework this week and that he failed his tests today. Kyle was asking Jeff’s opinion on whether or not to permit Sam to attend a social mixer at school tonight. They settled on “no.” Sam was doing well as of last week, and this week, left to make good choices on his own (complete his work, practice his trumpet, turn in his work, study), he slacked seriously on the homework and studying, didn’t turn in what he completed, and skipped practicing his instrument altogether.

My emotional response is out of proportion to the circumstance. Sam did not meet my expectations this week. Knowing this, I feel anxiety and anger, and as I feel it and watch this, I tell myself, Paul, get a grip on yourself. Relax. He’s twelve. He messed up. This week. In sixth grade. This is neither surprising nor earth-shaking. And yet I feel myself shaking internally. This is how crazy people are. I am being crazy.

Several weeks ago, I agreed to join Sam on a ride at the state fair. It was one of those big contraptions that gyrate and swing simultaneously, taking one’s secure-but-flailing body into dizzying arcs of progressively increasing altitude before winding gradually back down. As we began to spin and climb, I felt that dropping feeling in my stomach and felt myself resisting. So I said to myself, This is happening—I am on this ride now whether I like it or not, and I cannot change it, so I hereby say “Yes” to it, I surrender to this, all of it, the heights and the drops, and even the feeling in my stomach. Yes. Yes. Yes. And when I quit resisting, all of the unpleasantness ceased immediately. I enjoyed the ride, and it was over very quickly.

This is what I’m practicing now as we sit on the runway. Whether I like it or not, Sam will make his own mistakes, and he will not always meet my expectations. So I say “Yes,” to this, I surrender to all of it, the ups and the downs. I cannot control him and I do us both a disservice when I try. My job is to role model, to guide, to advise, to help when I can. Then I’ve got to step back and let go of the result.

I Love Dogs

Posted on September 7, 2012 by nonconformingchild

I can hear Polly licking her butt.

“Quit it,” I say, and she pauses. She looks at me, her body still folded in half. She resumes.

“Don’t make me put the Elizabethan collar on you.”

I’ve been avoiding the big cone collar, the “E-collar” as the vet calls it (that word makes me think of e coli. Ew. But appropriate when you consider what this dog’s applying her tongue to). Polly’s backside has been bothering her for months, despite all the dog doctor’s prescriptions, which include medicines, expensive new food, and frequent manual expressions of her anal glands (look that up on YouTube–I dare you).

Moose’s butt, meanwhile, presses against my leg. I’ve pulled a chair up beside me for him because he’s fretting over what sounds like fireworks outside. And as I completed that last sentence, he climbed gingerly into my lap, sheltering himself and snuggling at the same time.

I love my dogs. They are worth every effort, every mess, every dog-hair-sprinkled floor surface, every mischievously stolen morsel. These beasts are pure love.

I grew up with a lot of animals around the house, although I learned early not to get too attached. In nearly every case, animals did not fare well for long at our house before we had to bid them farewell.

I remember Buddy, a black lab we adopted when I was in first grade. We had him for a week or two before my uncle hit and killed him with his car. I have this odd memory of standing over his body after the accident. It’s odd because I remember feeling disappointment more than grief, like we’d lost a new toy. I feel more grief now as I write this than I did then.

We had another dog, Fred, whom I loved and played with a lot. When he began to behave aggressively and started to growl at me periodically, my affection for him turned to fear. I felt sorry for him, but I didn’t want to play with him anymore. He lived on a tether in our back yard year round for several years before my parents had him euthanized. If I think about that too much I feel angry at my parents and disappointed in myself. Maybe part of why I lavish so much love on my dogs now because of guilt about Fred.

My dad brought home a goat one day. It was incredibly cute, and smart, and affectionate. We named it Sheila. One day Dad and my brother took it on a walk and our neighbor’s dog ran out of his yard and killed her.

We also had a sheep. He was black, and sullen looking, as if he knew what was coming. And maybe he did, because he strangled himself. My dad tied him to a pole under the back porch, where I found him one morning still standing and stiff, having wrapped himself round and round the pole until there was no more slack in the rope.

Dad gave us rabbits, a pair of them, and their cage didn’t keep them safe. That same neighbor’s dog came down to our yard, tore the cage open, and mauled them.

We raised chickens, lots of them, and ate them. For years, each spring, we’d buy twenty or so chicks. They were adorable, and we’d play with them like pets until the novelty wore off. I liked to place them in my sister’s doll house because proportionately it looked like Barbie had a pet ostrich. But the fun didn’t last long. They weren’t, after all, very interactive. Most of them lived long enough to make it to our table. Dad would chop off their heads, then dunk their spasmodic bodies into hot water to loosen the feathers. I frequently helped.

We had some ducks. Dad slaughtered one on exactly two occasions, and never again. The first time he was flummoxed by the feathers, swearing as he vainly dunked the web-footed highly water-resistant carcass in a bucket. The feathers refused to be rinsed away, and they were hard to remove manually. So next time Dad added some Lestoil to the water. That actually worked, but it made rather a bitter marinade. And Mom didn’t know how to cook it. Try cooking a duck the same way you prepare a chicken and you get a greasy, flavorless, mess.

We had a horse once. I don’t remember where we got it. We sold it because it kicked my father in the teeth.

We had a cow for a while. My dad bought it at a county fair and brought it home in the back of the station wagon. We kept it in the chicken coop, where it got really bad diarrhea and died.

I should clarify that we did not live on a farm–not even close. My childhood home is a 1970’s Cape-style construction sitting on a single square acre. The chicken coop (aka cow-barn) was in the back yard. My parents still live there. Now and then my father says he wants to get another dog, and the family collectively cries, NOOOOOOooooo.

Sam loves our dogs, and I feel all warm and fuzzy seeing him dote on them. It’s therapeutic for him, I think. They have a lot to teach us about patience, compassion, affection and responsibility. And they’re love sponges. Moose is crazy-smart, a chronic worrier, food-obsessed, and a compulsive licker. Polly is more laid-back, but still a terrier. She’s dainty, mostly quiet, squirrel-obsessed, and likes to be with her person (me). She has lived here only as long as I have–she came with me when I moved here, and Sam adores her. She’s smaller than Moose, and, well, girlier. Dainty. She’s a little Princess. Who licks her butt.

Anxiety

Posted on September 6, 2012 by nonconformingchild

When I feel depressed, I catch myself thinking I have always been depressed, as if I cannot remember a time when I have breathed without this weight pressing down on, in, and through me.

When I feel anxious, as I do today, as I have for the past three days, I watch myself pacing around the house because when I sit still I think I have to move; I have to do; there is something else I can do to make things better; I will feel better when I do something, and I just have to figure out what that thing is.

I find myself thinking that this anxiety–again, this pressure–that pushes both in and out at the same time, is both my weakness and my strength. I feel anxious because I am weak-minded. I feel anxious because I care about so much that is not as I think it should or could be.

These are limited perspectives, I know. And I remind myself: this is temporary. I say to myself, breathe into this. Lean into it. That’s what Pema Chodron would say. Say “yes” to this. And this. And this. Yes.

And I feel like No.

So I breathe into that.

No one appointed me the peace keeper of my home. But I listen, I feel, I am tuned in at all times the emotional broadcast of this house, feeling it so strongly it submerges me. I focus on it, resisting. When there is tension, or potential for it, I want to change it, resolve it, contain it. I’m watching a boulder perched on top of a hill over us, and no one else sees that the few pebbles holding it in place are loosening and ready to shift.

Sam just led Jeff downstairs and outside. A minute later, they returned and climbed the stairs to Sam’s room. Jeff, ever the generous spirit, has agreed to play “school,” and evidently Sam wanted to administer a fire drill. Outside Sam’s room, I heard him tell Jeff he could not go to the bathroom without asking because then Sam wouldn’t know where he was. Although I know they’re playing, I do not like Sam taking that tone of voice.

I admire Jeff’s willingness to indulge Sam in this kind of play. And it makes me nervous, because when Jeff gets bored with it (and who wouldn’t? I can’t stand it for more than two seconds) he begins to do ridiculous things like he’s in an absurdist play. But Sam wants him to play it straight, and this is where so many times in the past they would launch into a verbal fight ending with Sam having a tantrum.

Sam having a tantrum equals a twelve year old boy yelling and carrying on angrily in what is ultimately an impotent explosion of his frustration at not getting his way. This being so, I expend a disproportionate amount of energy fretting about when the next one will erupt. That’s an old habit I’m ready to give up.

Twelve and Throwing Tantrums

Posted on September 4, 2012 by nonconformingchild

At twelve years old, Sam has tantrums on the scale of a two year old. He is still learning how to handle his emotions appropriately. Fortunately, these tantrums are limited now mostly to yelling, some stomping around and some door-slamming, so we’ve seen improvement. Each time he gets in trouble for acting out in this way, we remind him that he earns consequences not because he’s gotten upset, but because of his behavior when he is upset.

I find his tantrums extremely stressful. Way more often than I’d like to admit, I’m walking around on edge because I can feel Sam’s emotions building, and I anticipate a fit. Somewhere along the way I must have decided it was my job to control Sam, that I could control him and that I should. Saying that out loud or writing it, I know it’s ludicrous, but I catch myself believing it anyway. I feel the adrenaline and cortisol rising in my blood when I sense him becoming agitated. My stomach ties itself in knots, my breath constricts, my chest caves inward, and I think, futilely, I must prevent him from acting up again. This is where I get pulled into a struggle with him, where it’s been hardest for me to disengage. I’ve become a lot better at it, though some of the time I put on a performance of calm that conceals distress so palpable I can barely stop myself from trembling. And it’s here that I realize that what I’m trying to teach him–how to deal with his emotions in a healthy way–is just what he’s teaching me. He’s showing me what not to do (flip out), and as the adult, I’m trying to remember to breathe, choose my words with care, and act instead of reacting. That’s not easy for me as an adult, so I can appreciate his challenge as a twelve-year old (with PTSD) in handling himself properly when he feels this way.

An acquaintance who happens to be a psychiatric nurse shared a theory with me the other day. She said we develop some important emotional skills when we’re around two years old, that this is what’s going on during the so-called “terrible twos,” that we learn then to moderate our behavior when we feel strong emotions. And this makes sense, because at two years old, Sam was being seriously abused. Could it be that this part of his development was interrupted? Since that conversation, I’ve been able to feel more compassion for Sam when he fails to control himself as I would like. I’ve been able to maintain a more genuine calm (despite my stress) in the face of his upset. And I still want to help him as best I can to develop the skills he needs to control himself.

Jeff and I often debrief after one of Sam’s tantrums, and its usually to remind ourselves of what we already know. Experience demonstrates that when we decline Sam’s invitation to join him in his drama, it all fizzles out much more quickly. Still, we occasionally let ourselves get sucked in despite ourselves. We argue with him. Routinely, we used to declare consequences during one of his tantrums on the theory that it would show he we meant business. This only escalated things like fuel on a fire, so eventually we learned (mostly) not to do this. It’s not that consequences aren’t ever in order, just that giving them while he’s acting up has proven counter-productive. To date, the best advice we’ve heard has been to disconnect, to take away the audience. When he’s upset, Sam wants to argue aggressively, and to do that, he needs someone to fight with him. We’re still learning how not to be drawn in. Jeff still argues with him more than I do, and we have argued about that. I say, if one party (the adult) stops, the argument is over. Sam can’t keep it going by himself.

This is something we more or less agree on, and it’s often difficult to remember in practice. Like Sam, we’re so attached to being “right.” But as the parents, we hold the power, and we give it away if we allow Sam to hijack a conversation and turn it into a shouting match. It’s hard to walk away when he’s saying something obnoxious, defiant, or otherwise disrespectful. But it quiets him more quickly than anything.

It’s not always feasible to walk away. If we’re cooking dinner, or working in the living room, we cannot evict ourselves every time Sam acts up. So we tell him to go to his room. Usually, eventually, he will stomp his way up the stairs and slam his bedroom door in classic angry-kid fashion. But sometimes he seems intent to perform an aria of outrage. It’s as if he believes he could make us cave if only he could rage loudly enough. If that’s the aim, it’s puzzling because it has never, ever worked. Not once have we ever given in to a demand when he’s disrespectful, or obnoxious. Which leads me to believe that if he’s not getting his way from it, he must be getting something from it, or wouldn’t he have dropped the habit by now? I suspect what he gets is some release. He gets the feeling out.

We’ve talked about that with him. “You can have your feelings–they’re always okay–and you don’t have to get in trouble if you can do something else to get them out. Go to your room. Listen to music. Go outside and ride your bike. Punch a pillow. Write down your feelings. And you can talk to your therapist about it. She can help you, give you some ideas of some things you can do instead of having a fit.” He doesn’t say anything to this. His expression seems to say, “yeah, maybe.”

A few months ago, I did something different. Sam was carrying on and escalating about homework or something, had refused to go to his room, and began rapidly increasing his volume and intensity. He even started jumping up and down–just like a toddler. Spontaneously, without thinking, I began to do it, too. “I can yell, too!” I said. “I can act like this, too! Aaaaaaaaah!” And I jumped up and down.

Sam stopped cold, like he’d been struck. His whole energy shifted. The rage turned to what looked like sadness or grief, and he ran outside crying, telling me I was mean and horrible. I felt really bad, and at the same time I realized that in a way, it had worked. He had shifted.

I told myself I wouldn’t do that again, but since then I have done it, about three or four times. Last time, before I did it, I said, “Sam, lower your voice. Would you like me to start talking to you the way you’re talking to me?” And on he went, and so I mirrored him (that’s the word I would like to use, because it’s kinder than what I fear may closer to the truth: mocking). Within thirty seconds he was leaving the room of his own accord. He wasn’t any happier, but he was removing himself.

Sam and I have talked about it. When he’s in a positive mood, he talks freely and openly about what’s going on with him during a tantrum. Last week, I said to him, “I know it doesn’t feel good to you when I act like you when you’re doing that. But honestly, it’s the only thing that has ever gotten through to you to make you stop for a minute. I don’t want to hurt you, I just want you to see what you’re doing.” He just nodded.

Two days ago, when we were talking about alternatives to yelling when he’s upset, he said, “You can always act like me again.” He seems to agree that when I’ve done that, it’s helped him shift. But I don’t like it.

Effective or not, I am not sure if mirroring him like this a good idea. I do know that it doesn’t feel good to me, and based on that, I am resolved not to make this a habit. Still, when all else fails, I often feel at a loss for what to do, how to respond. I guess in those cases, I can always take my own advice, whether or not it’s convenient, and disengage. Just walk away.

Dad

Posted on September 1, 2012 by nonconformingchild

I wrote the following in December 2010:

I’m at my parents’ house for the week of Christmas. I haven’t spent more than 48 hours here in fifteen years. I feel uncomfortable, awkward, out of place. I want very much to leave. But I also want to be here. I can do this. My being here means a great deal to my parents. They’re so happy I’m here.

I spent the day with my mom. I drove us to the beach–I hadn’t seen the ocean in a couple of years. We shopped in the afternoon, and in the evening went to a Christmas concert at my nephews’ school. We got back a couple of hours ago, and my father was still up. This was unusual for the hour.

“Would you care to sit down for a bit?” he asked. He looked vulnerable.

He was watching a thriller of some kind on TV. A bloody face filled the screen. I didn’t want to sit with him, nor did I want to watch this show.

“I’m not interested in watching that show,” I said.

He hit the power button the remote, and the screen went dark.

“I didn’t ask you if you wanted to watch the program. I asked you if you’d sit down.”

I did not want to, but I did. I can do this, I thought. For him. So I sat on the couch, leaving enough space for another body to fit between us. He smiled at me through an anesthesia of alcohol, something between a grin and a wince. Then he reached out to me tentatively. He wanted to touch me, to hold me. I let him. He sighed and held me close. I can do this, I told myself. It was ok, easier than I thought it’d be. Love to him, I thought. I can do this. I visualized light in my chest, allowing the glow to reach out to him.

“Thank you,” he said, still holding tight. “I feel it,” he said. “I feel… penetration.” I almost laughed at this choice of words. He let go for a moment, then pulled me in again. “I’m not done,” he said. He caught his breathe as if laughing or sobbing. Then he sat back and looked at me blearily.

“You know,” he began, and hesitated. “In two years, it’ll be 50 years your mother and I will be married.”

“I know.”

He was silent for a few seconds while he stared toward the wall. Then he looked back at me and grinned. “You know, if you want to… if you really want to set her off… you…” and he leaned in toward me, pressed his lips against my shoulder, and exhaled. I felt the warmth of his breathe seeping through the fabric of my sweatshirt. Then he sat back, smiling mischievously. “If I really want to upset her, all I have to do…”

“Let me ask you a question,” I said.

“What?”

He couldn’t hear me. I had to speak loudly.

“Let me ask you, why would you ever want to ‘set her off?’ Why would you want to upset her?”

He was flummoxed. I repeated the question. His expression shifted as he considered, looked confused, then unsure before a bland look came over him as he said (as if it should be obvious), “It can’t be all love.”

“Why not?”

He seemed to think this a naive question.

“Because it’s not out there.”

“You choose your behavior,” I said. “You choose to be loving or not. Why would you choose to upset her, on purpose, ever?”

He thought this over for a few seconds.

“For fun,” he offered.

“It’s not fun for her,” I pointed out.

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not fun for her, but…” and he went silent, then looked confused again.

“I don’t understand why you’d do that,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re not making any sense,” he said, shifting his body to face me. He was searching for words, clearly wanting to have a talk, to educate me.

“I don’t care to have this conversation with you when you’re this drunk,” I told him.

“What?”

“I’m not going to have this conversation with you while you’re drunk.”

Hearing this, he released me. “Oh. Ok. Good night to you.”

I went down to the guest room.

Twenty minutes later, I opened the door and stepped to the bottom of the stairs, listening.

“He’s downstairs,” he was saying. “What the fuck is up with that? That’s not right,” he told my mother. ”There’s something wrong with that.”

“Don’t use that language,” she scolded.

It is very hard to be here.

—

I love my father. That hasn’t always been easy to say. When I was a kid I frequently told him I hated him. I was always so angry at him. I didn’t trust him. I experienced him as moody, erratic, unfair, creepy, invasive. He enjoyed teasing me. He admitted this years later. I got into the habit of just avoiding him, making myself invisible. I was good at it.

I’ve seen my father a few times in the last several years, on my brief visits back to the northeast. He’s ailing badly now, and his doctors have told him he won’t live long. Mom says he hasn’t had a drink in over a month. This time it’s not because he’s on medicine to curb the desire, or because he’s reached a resolution, but because he always feels like he can’t breathe. I guess that cuts the appetite for alcohol.

About ten years ago while I was in grad school, he and my mom visited me in Iowa City. While they were there, I set up a video camera and interviewed them as they sat in my living room. Not too long before this visit, I had recorded a conversation with my grandfather days before he died, and now I thought, why wait until they’re on their deathbeds? So they agreed to do it.

I’ve lost the recording. I had it backed up on a couple of drives, and last year when I tried to look at the files, they were irretrievably corrupt. But I remember.

“You used to hide all the time,” Dad told me.

I knew exactly what he meant. I didn’t say anything.

“Tell me about when you started drinking,” I said.

“I remember when I was a kid,” he began, “I used to see aunt Rita and Uncle Charlie pour themselves a whiskey, and they’d fill a glass like that…” He held his fingers out to suggest the size of a tumbler a little larger than a juice glass, which he then mimed holding and filling to the top. “And I saw them do that, and…” he searched for words. “I admired it. I wanted to be able to drink like that.”

Wow, I thought.

“So when I was old enough, I started drinking.”

I’d never heard this story before.

I’d asked the question because his drinking affected me, it affected all of us. I believe it’s one of the main causes of our strained relationship right from my childhood. I always knew he drank, but somehow I didn’t understand until I was a teenager just how much. When I was in high school, I got up one morning, and in the kitchen found what I thought was a flat, stale glass of beer on the kitchen counter left from the night before. I poured it down the drain. Not long after, I heard him moving angrily through the house asking “Who dumped my beer?!” I told him I did. I remember feeling very self-righteous and angry about it. I didn’t apologize, I just said, “I never imagined you’d be drinking this early in the morning.”

I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. I talk to mom just about weekly, and sometimes she hands him the phone. Our conversations are short. He sounds more pleasant, less gruff than I’m used to. Softer.

And it’s easier now for me to feel my love for him. I don’t feel angry with him anymore.

NonConforming Child