Suffering Ends When Awakening Begins

Chapter 2 ~ Remain Silent

There is a reason I am the way I am. My father never spoke of what my mother tried to do to my sisters and me. He was certainly deficient in communication skills and the ability to articulate his thoughts and feelings in a constructive, nurturing manner. Looking back, I can see that he was loving, albeit he didn't know how to express love. This, of course, was rooted in his own childhood. He was a lonely child, limited in his social skills, from a dysfunctional family. This resulted in low self-esteem and self-worth, which I inherited. I now understand that these problems can run for many generations if not recognized and addressed.

After the "event," my mom was hospitalized. I can only guess what kind of treatment she received back then. As for my dad, my sisters, and me, not only did we not receive any kind of counseling, we never even talked about it among ourselves. We swept it under the rug. I suppose we just hoped that with the passage of time, everything would be fine.

Though I never talked about it with anyone in the family, after I recovered from the effects of the carbon monoxide, a horrible emotional pain remained. But even greater than the pain was an extreme sense of betrayal that would grow inside of me like a cancer on my soul.

I became aware that my dad was not dealing with things very well one night at dinner a couple of weeks after the incident. My older sister was ragging on my younger sister about her schoolwork. "I can't believe how dumb you are," she said. "You just never pay attention. And do you even read the chapters you're supposed to?" Then she dipped her fingers in her glass and flicked water at my sister's face.

Dad suddenly just blew up. "Shut the hell up!" he yelled, and he slammed his fist down on the table, but he accidentally hit the edge of his bowl of chili. Chili went flying everywhere, and that only enraged him more. He shot up from the table, knocking his chair over in the process. He grabbed his spoon off the table and flung it against the wall.

This was not unusual behavior for him. He was an angry, violent man. But it frightened and confused me. Why was he so angry? Did he love my sisters and me? Did he hate us as much as Mom seemed to?

It seemed like a year passed before my mom was discharged from the hospital, but it had only been a few months. I didn't know what to make of her presence in the house again, and I found myself walking on eggshells. I noticed everyone else was too. Was she stable? Was she going to snap again?

I didn't think about it at the time, but now I realize it was tough for her too-not knowing how her husband and children were going to welcome her back. But what reservations and fears we had about her we kept to ourselves, each of us living in a separate, private world of doubt. But we tried to go on like nothing happened.

I tried to make sense of the obvious fact that I had been the intended victim of a premeditated murder by my own mother. The best I could come up with was to tell myself it was some sort of a freak accident. Later I overheard my dad talking with his parents about the whole thing, and that ruined any lies I'd constructed, leaving only the cold reality I'd kept in the back of my mind all along.

That overheard conversation, and the new, angry behavior my father exhibited, just made everything worse. I felt worthless, unloved, a burden. Of course, I made myself feel that way by accepting his statements and his anger. That anger made me feel I was doing something wrong. In this environment, my thinking became corrupt. I created a pattern of negative thoughts that would haunt me the rest of my life.

Robert Crown ~ Suffering Ends When Awakening Begins