She looks like she could have been happy in a better life
Saturday, December 22nd, 2012 02:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erikaOnce upon a time, there was a little girl.
There were many things wrong with this little girl, but she couldn't see what they were. She checked herself from head-to-toe, but on the outside she looked just like any other little girl. She sat in church and asked God what was wrong with her, or she sat in a tree and tried to just feel what could be wrong with her, or sometimes in class when she was done with her work, she would make lists, attempting to reason out what it was.
But there must be something wrong with me, she thought, because so many people tell me so. After all, what's more likely—that I'm right and they're wrong? There are so many of them, and I'm only a little girl who knows enough to know she doesn't know very much at all.
The little girl was only six or seven, and her older brother liked to make her do his chores or any other little things he didn't want to do, scary things like delivering heavy papers up and down the hills of their street, away from her house, or boring things that weren't her job, like the chores he was supposed to be doing. Sometimes, he liked to tell her scary ghost stories or tease her until she cried.
And then, sometimes, when she didn't want to do things, he hurt her. He pushed her around and yelled at her and lectured her and wouldn't let her leave the room. But only sometimes. It was only once in a very long while, really, the little girl thought. And he does get so very angry.
The little girl didn't know why he did all this, but she did know this wasn't nice, so she knew her parents would fix it. They always made her be nice to her little sister, after all, even though her sister was just a baby and boring.
When the little girl talked to her parents about how her older brother was treating her—and she tried, over and over again— they told her sometimes that she was too sensitive, sometimes that she was making things up, and sometimes to just calm down. She was only a little girl, after all, and so she thought perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about.
He loves you, her parents said, patting her on the head and sending her away to do their Grown Up Things. He wouldn't hurt you.
The little girl did not think the things her brother did were nice at all, and she thought that being nice to people was a way of loving them, but... she had been told, over and over, that her parents knew best and that her older brother was only trying to take care of her, so she believed them.
Mommy and Daddy always fix things, she thought, so when they say it's my fault for being too sensitive and not calming down (though she knew she wasn't making things up) that must be the way to fix it.
And then she thought, well, if my parents and my older brother are trying to protect me and help me but they have to be mean to do it, it must be my fault. I must not be good enough to be treated well. I must have to be punished more because I am Very Bad. It only makes sense that way; after all, locking someone up is mean, but if someone is very Bad they go to jail. I must be Very Bad.
So this convinced her there was something wrong with her, perhaps many things wrong with her. She spent a long time looking for these things, and finally she concluded that she could not find them, and this was further proof that she was VERY Bad, because only Very Very Bad People kept on being bad when other people told them not to be and tried to help them not to be.
She knew, of course, that if someone was hurting you at home you were supposed to tell a teacher or a guidance counselor and they would help you. Often she spent an hour or so with her teacher, after class, not wanting to go home, wanting to tell someone else... but she was also smart enough to know that telling a teacher meant Child Protective Services, which she had heard took kids away from their parents, and she was very, very scared of that.
The little girl tried to imagine what would happen if she told. Probably, they will just laugh at me, and say the same things my parents do, she thought. But what if they take me away? There are so many things wrong with me (she knew) so when they take me away from my parents, who do love me, who've told me over and over that they love me. . . if they take me away no one will ever love me again, because they will see all of the things that are wrong with me and hate me right away. My parents only tell me these things, tell me to calm down, to be less sensitive, to stop lying—because they love me. My brother only hurts me by scaring me and yelling at me and making me do things I don't want to do because I don't do what he wants; if I do what he wants, he will love me again.
But if I am taken away, my parents will be sad, because they love me, and they will feel bad, and they will be so angry with me that they won't love me anymore. And then no one will love me at all, ever again, and it would be My Own Fault.
Time passed. The little girl grew older, as all little girls do, and quieter, and sadder, and every day she still searched for what was wrong with her. She did the best she could with what she knew, but she could never find the answers, and she was so angry with herself for being Bad.
Her older brother was no longer content to simply scare her, or to only hurt her sometimes—though he continued teasing her until she cried, and sometimes her Dad would join in. At the dinner table, she would sit and they would make fun of her until she cried, and then they would laugh.
It must be a joke that I don't understand. I'm still just a kid, she thought. This must be how people treat their family, and I am just too sensitive, making a big deal out of nothing. After all, her mommy sometimes told them to stop, but they didn't listen to her either, so it must not have been a big deal.
As she got too big and too ornery to always do exactly what her older brother wanted, he too grew. He was several years older than her, after all, and it was easier simply to pick her up and stand over her while she swept the floor, or washed the dishes. It was easy, too, for him to tell her everything she had done wrong, sometimes for hours, blocking the exits with his larger body and pushing her back into a seat.
If only I weren't so bad, the slightly bigger girl thought. Then maybe my older brother would love me again, because he wouldn't have to yell at me all the time, or hit me to make me pay attention so often, or force me to stay in places where I don't want to be, because I wouldn't make him angry anymore.
The slightly bigger girl thought that doing what he wanted as much as she possibly could, and just not being angry would solve her problem, but try as she might, she couldn't stop herself from getting angry or fighting back when she was pushed, or shoved, or hit, or thrown onto the sofa for another lecture.... and that was just another reason why she was so Very Bad.
The girl was very sad that her family had to treat her this way to help her, and over time it became an undeniable fact of her life that she was bad, that she was horrible, that no one could care about her without hurting her because she was so detestable.
She wanted so badly to be good, but she knew it was all her fault that she couldn't be, and so mostly she gave up on everything except hating herself as much as she could. The pain grew and grew until it felt like it was ready to swallow her up at any moment, and it hurt, always, without stopping for a moment, until she would try anything to distract herself.
She didn't know how to deal with feeling things, because everything she felt was wrong and bad and awful, so many times she pushed the feelings away until it was too much, and over time the feelings got worse and worse and stronger and stronger and more and more painful, overwhelming her with their intensity.
Sometimes she imagined people were trying to hurt her when they weren't, and sometimes she thought they weren't hurting her when they were, but she couldn't figure out the difference that everyone else seemed to grasp so easily, and that only made her feel more wrong.
Even though she didn't like hurting people, or WANT to hurt people, she had tried so hard to be better and nothing she did made a difference, and so it was easier to act very mean, or angry, even to the people she loved, because she didn't know any other way to be.
And besides, how could it make a difference whether she was mean or nice or loud or demanding or quiet or helpful or compassionate or caring or rude or angry? She had been told so many times, by the ones she depended on, that her feelings were wrong, or that she was lying, or a lot of things that translated to "this isn't a problem, and you're wrong for caring"—all things which made her feel much less than human in many ways. Since she knew she wasn't really worth anything, it couldn't possibly matter how she acted.
She only ever wanted the pain to stop, but when you are in pain for a very long time, it's almost impossible to imagine anything different. Still, she wanted something besides the pain so desperately that she tried almost anything.
Sometimes when she was especially tired of being sad, she did awful things to distract herself, awful by anyone's standards, but it couldn't matter since she was already bad and she would always be bad and there was no way she could change that. The bad things got easier and easier to do, as any action you take repeatedly gets easier, and she hated herself for that, too.
She desperately wanted someone to tell her that she was Okay, that it was Okay, that she was Loved, but she could only seek out people to tell her that as she got much older. So, even when people did, she couldn't believe them because she knew that they were wrong. So though she tried over and over to find someone to tell her that she was Okay, it never seemed to stick.
Sometimes the nice things people said just seemed like they were setting her up for a fall, anyway. She knew they secretly hated her, because everyone did, so why did they bother to pretend?
Anyway, she was much more comfortable with people who hurt her or ignored her, because that was what she knew love was. When people got too close, or seemed too nice, it was easy enough to make them act like they should, to yell at them or lie to them until they hated her, hurt her or left her alone, and that was better because that was the way it was supposed to be.
She remained very sad for a very long time, as little girls (who grow up into slightly bigger girls, who grow into teenage girls, who grow into women) measure time, but also as anyone— who knows deep down in their bones that they are a waste of space, and oxygen, and that no one will ever be nice to them, or love them in a way that doesn't hurt— measures time.
I'm not sure this story has a real ending, not one that I can write, except to say that the little girl is me, and I am so, so sorry, honey, that no one ever told you that there was nothing wrong with you, and so very many things right.
There were many things wrong with this little girl, but she couldn't see what they were. She checked herself from head-to-toe, but on the outside she looked just like any other little girl. She sat in church and asked God what was wrong with her, or she sat in a tree and tried to just feel what could be wrong with her, or sometimes in class when she was done with her work, she would make lists, attempting to reason out what it was.
But there must be something wrong with me, she thought, because so many people tell me so. After all, what's more likely—that I'm right and they're wrong? There are so many of them, and I'm only a little girl who knows enough to know she doesn't know very much at all.
The little girl was only six or seven, and her older brother liked to make her do his chores or any other little things he didn't want to do, scary things like delivering heavy papers up and down the hills of their street, away from her house, or boring things that weren't her job, like the chores he was supposed to be doing. Sometimes, he liked to tell her scary ghost stories or tease her until she cried.
And then, sometimes, when she didn't want to do things, he hurt her. He pushed her around and yelled at her and lectured her and wouldn't let her leave the room. But only sometimes. It was only once in a very long while, really, the little girl thought. And he does get so very angry.
The little girl didn't know why he did all this, but she did know this wasn't nice, so she knew her parents would fix it. They always made her be nice to her little sister, after all, even though her sister was just a baby and boring.
When the little girl talked to her parents about how her older brother was treating her—and she tried, over and over again— they told her sometimes that she was too sensitive, sometimes that she was making things up, and sometimes to just calm down. She was only a little girl, after all, and so she thought perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about.
He loves you, her parents said, patting her on the head and sending her away to do their Grown Up Things. He wouldn't hurt you.
The little girl did not think the things her brother did were nice at all, and she thought that being nice to people was a way of loving them, but... she had been told, over and over, that her parents knew best and that her older brother was only trying to take care of her, so she believed them.
Mommy and Daddy always fix things, she thought, so when they say it's my fault for being too sensitive and not calming down (though she knew she wasn't making things up) that must be the way to fix it.
And then she thought, well, if my parents and my older brother are trying to protect me and help me but they have to be mean to do it, it must be my fault. I must not be good enough to be treated well. I must have to be punished more because I am Very Bad. It only makes sense that way; after all, locking someone up is mean, but if someone is very Bad they go to jail. I must be Very Bad.
So this convinced her there was something wrong with her, perhaps many things wrong with her. She spent a long time looking for these things, and finally she concluded that she could not find them, and this was further proof that she was VERY Bad, because only Very Very Bad People kept on being bad when other people told them not to be and tried to help them not to be.
She knew, of course, that if someone was hurting you at home you were supposed to tell a teacher or a guidance counselor and they would help you. Often she spent an hour or so with her teacher, after class, not wanting to go home, wanting to tell someone else... but she was also smart enough to know that telling a teacher meant Child Protective Services, which she had heard took kids away from their parents, and she was very, very scared of that.
The little girl tried to imagine what would happen if she told. Probably, they will just laugh at me, and say the same things my parents do, she thought. But what if they take me away? There are so many things wrong with me (she knew) so when they take me away from my parents, who do love me, who've told me over and over that they love me. . . if they take me away no one will ever love me again, because they will see all of the things that are wrong with me and hate me right away. My parents only tell me these things, tell me to calm down, to be less sensitive, to stop lying—because they love me. My brother only hurts me by scaring me and yelling at me and making me do things I don't want to do because I don't do what he wants; if I do what he wants, he will love me again.
But if I am taken away, my parents will be sad, because they love me, and they will feel bad, and they will be so angry with me that they won't love me anymore. And then no one will love me at all, ever again, and it would be My Own Fault.
Time passed. The little girl grew older, as all little girls do, and quieter, and sadder, and every day she still searched for what was wrong with her. She did the best she could with what she knew, but she could never find the answers, and she was so angry with herself for being Bad.
Her older brother was no longer content to simply scare her, or to only hurt her sometimes—though he continued teasing her until she cried, and sometimes her Dad would join in. At the dinner table, she would sit and they would make fun of her until she cried, and then they would laugh.
It must be a joke that I don't understand. I'm still just a kid, she thought. This must be how people treat their family, and I am just too sensitive, making a big deal out of nothing. After all, her mommy sometimes told them to stop, but they didn't listen to her either, so it must not have been a big deal.
As she got too big and too ornery to always do exactly what her older brother wanted, he too grew. He was several years older than her, after all, and it was easier simply to pick her up and stand over her while she swept the floor, or washed the dishes. It was easy, too, for him to tell her everything she had done wrong, sometimes for hours, blocking the exits with his larger body and pushing her back into a seat.
If only I weren't so bad, the slightly bigger girl thought. Then maybe my older brother would love me again, because he wouldn't have to yell at me all the time, or hit me to make me pay attention so often, or force me to stay in places where I don't want to be, because I wouldn't make him angry anymore.
The slightly bigger girl thought that doing what he wanted as much as she possibly could, and just not being angry would solve her problem, but try as she might, she couldn't stop herself from getting angry or fighting back when she was pushed, or shoved, or hit, or thrown onto the sofa for another lecture.... and that was just another reason why she was so Very Bad.
The girl was very sad that her family had to treat her this way to help her, and over time it became an undeniable fact of her life that she was bad, that she was horrible, that no one could care about her without hurting her because she was so detestable.
She wanted so badly to be good, but she knew it was all her fault that she couldn't be, and so mostly she gave up on everything except hating herself as much as she could. The pain grew and grew until it felt like it was ready to swallow her up at any moment, and it hurt, always, without stopping for a moment, until she would try anything to distract herself.
She didn't know how to deal with feeling things, because everything she felt was wrong and bad and awful, so many times she pushed the feelings away until it was too much, and over time the feelings got worse and worse and stronger and stronger and more and more painful, overwhelming her with their intensity.
Sometimes she imagined people were trying to hurt her when they weren't, and sometimes she thought they weren't hurting her when they were, but she couldn't figure out the difference that everyone else seemed to grasp so easily, and that only made her feel more wrong.
Even though she didn't like hurting people, or WANT to hurt people, she had tried so hard to be better and nothing she did made a difference, and so it was easier to act very mean, or angry, even to the people she loved, because she didn't know any other way to be.
And besides, how could it make a difference whether she was mean or nice or loud or demanding or quiet or helpful or compassionate or caring or rude or angry? She had been told so many times, by the ones she depended on, that her feelings were wrong, or that she was lying, or a lot of things that translated to "this isn't a problem, and you're wrong for caring"—all things which made her feel much less than human in many ways. Since she knew she wasn't really worth anything, it couldn't possibly matter how she acted.
She only ever wanted the pain to stop, but when you are in pain for a very long time, it's almost impossible to imagine anything different. Still, she wanted something besides the pain so desperately that she tried almost anything.
Sometimes when she was especially tired of being sad, she did awful things to distract herself, awful by anyone's standards, but it couldn't matter since she was already bad and she would always be bad and there was no way she could change that. The bad things got easier and easier to do, as any action you take repeatedly gets easier, and she hated herself for that, too.
She desperately wanted someone to tell her that she was Okay, that it was Okay, that she was Loved, but she could only seek out people to tell her that as she got much older. So, even when people did, she couldn't believe them because she knew that they were wrong. So though she tried over and over to find someone to tell her that she was Okay, it never seemed to stick.
Sometimes the nice things people said just seemed like they were setting her up for a fall, anyway. She knew they secretly hated her, because everyone did, so why did they bother to pretend?
Anyway, she was much more comfortable with people who hurt her or ignored her, because that was what she knew love was. When people got too close, or seemed too nice, it was easy enough to make them act like they should, to yell at them or lie to them until they hated her, hurt her or left her alone, and that was better because that was the way it was supposed to be.
She remained very sad for a very long time, as little girls (who grow up into slightly bigger girls, who grow into teenage girls, who grow into women) measure time, but also as anyone— who knows deep down in their bones that they are a waste of space, and oxygen, and that no one will ever be nice to them, or love them in a way that doesn't hurt— measures time.
I'm not sure this story has a real ending, not one that I can write, except to say that the little girl is me, and I am so, so sorry, honey, that no one ever told you that there was nothing wrong with you, and so very many things right.
