It's time to heal. Not a bruise or bump type of healing. Healing of the heart and mind. Time to mend some scars and let the past stay in the past. Last week my ex-stepmother died. No need to be sorry or sad for me. This was a woman who tortured my brother and me for 13 years. And got away with it, more or less.
My parents divorced when I was 5 years old, and my father remarried when I was 7 years old. At first she seemed nice and kind. But once the gold band was placed on her finger, that all changed. She humiliated us, spanked us, slapped us, washed out my mouth with soap for saying "Oh my God", continually insulted our mother, and was just plain mean to us. And without good reason. We were good kids, but we felt so alone. No one believed us, no one saw what she did, no one seemed to care. At least in the eyes of an innocent child. I was never disrespectful towards her nor sarcastic. But it made no difference how well behaved we were, she would still punish us. My father finally divorced her when I was 20 years old. By then the damage was done. But she was no longer my stepmother. Just a nightmare of my past.
She left a lot of scars. In some ways, she destroyed my childhood. The innocent years were no more. Sure, I can justify or find reason for her cruelty, but it doesn't take away the pain nor does it make it right. Whatever was hurting her and making her so angry against the world, was taken out on me, my brother, and even my stepbrother, her son. I'm sure she didn't think that what she was doing was wrong or harmful. But it was. In some small miniscule region of my heart I do feel for her, and I knew she was suffering from something painful, too. I don't know why she did what she did, but does it really matter? Two wrongs don't make a right, right? It's a domino effect. When someone hurts someone else, that pain can turn into anger and be inflicted upon someone else, and so on, and so on. And those people that have been hurt can affect others in other ways, too, besides abuse. It starts out as a small snowball and turns into an avalanche of pain and sadness.
She's dead now. I don't feel sad for her death. If she died lonely or miserable, it was her own doing. Help is always available. But I'm not a psychologist or counselor. I'm a victim of someone else's pain. And I have found it very difficult to forgive her. How do you forgive so much pain? Regardless if they knew what they were doing was wrong or not? Regardless of anything. How do you forgive? I don't want to be a victim anymore. I'm a survivor. Maybe now is the time to help others with similar stories and similar pain. Maybe now is the time to let sleeping dogs lie.
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