Opening of Exposed
Ok, so this is a rough idea of how RawrGirl plans to open her memoir. If anyone is interested, she'd love to know if it's something you (if you read weight loss memoirs) would continue reading:
I grew up in a very rigid, fundamental Christian home, with a father who believed in dictatorial child rearing. During my teen years, he was also a pastor. To this day, it is hard for me to vocalize what happened as there was no one solitary event or act of concrete abuse that I can point to and succinctly sum up for someone why I am the way I am, why I react the way I react, why I believe the way I believe. My story is more of a series of events, sometimes unrelated, sometimes interconnected, of how a man in a position of authority set out to psychologically destroy me...and did so with such success that I would later be told by the man who had baptized me that I exhibited the symptoms of a rape victim.
Years later, I would discover that it is possible for extreme emotional abuse to inflict its victim with the same symptoms of those who were physically or sexually abused. But at the time, I could barely say more than, “My dad yells at me.” This response was often met with a raised brow as if to say, what kid doesn’t get yelled at by their parents?
What I didn’t, or couldn’t, verbalize was that at any given time of day I could walk into the house and my dad would take one look at me and fly into a rage, backing me into a corner, slamming his fist in the wall beside my head, his face inches from mine, his eyes bloodshot with fury, his face pink beneath the thin spots of his beard, screaming that the house was a mess, that a parishioner could come unannounced at any time, that I knew the house must be perfect at all times, and not like a pig sty, and that all he ever asked was for peace and quiet and a clean house so he could go down into his basement office and write his sermons.
Sometimes the trigger was the house. Sometimes it was because I smelt of cigarettes. Sometimes it was because I listened to a rock song. Sometimes it had nothing to do with me. My mother once answered my grandmother's question, "How is Jack?" "Fine, until Jaime walks into the room." But it was always the same...always the rage, always backing me into a corner, screaming until I cried.
One time, I decided I would not cry. That I would hold my ground. And so I did. I stood there, staring back as expressionless as I could. I tried so hard not to back away from him, but he got so in my face that I soon felt the kitchen counter behind me. But I refused to back down. I stood there, absorbing every scream like a blow, without flinching. This time it wasn’t just an outburst against me. My brother and sister were also there. I think he was raging about how the kitchen wasn’t as clean as he wanted. I remember him going over to the trash can and yelling about how it hadn’t been taken out, then picking it up and dumping it all over the floor, then raging about how there was trash everywhere.
Then, as always, he told us that it was our fault that he was angry, and thanked us for making him so riled up when he needed to be doing the “work of God.” He then turned and stormed down the basement steps, slamming the door behind him.
I remember the sigh of relief, not just that it was over, but that I had remained strong. For the first time ever, I had not cried. I hadn’t let him break me. Trembling, I asked my brother and sister if they were all right, when suddenly the basement door burst open and he flew at me, so fast and furious, screaming in my face again, that I had no time to emotionally prepare and instantly burst into tears.
Almost at once, he finished his rant and went back downstairs.
He’d never done that before. He’d never come back a second time. Every other time, he’d raged until his rage had been spent. But not this time.
Evidently, his anger would not wane unless he broke me.
