Someone’s worth is what remains when we subtract one’s bad characteristics from the good, and the sim that remains is our true value.
While I am not an apologist for the destructive behavior which sadly led to Anne Heche’s passing, as a survivor of childhood abuse, I do possess empathy for her, and sympathy for her friends & family she left behind.
I know all too well, and all too personally, that when our tormentors die, all the damage that they wrought does not miraculously dissipate and correct itself.
Ms. Heche’s death did make me pause for more than a moment and reflect how random it all is, how we survive and cope in the aftermath of emotionally destructive childhood abuse.
I could have been a statistic in many ways. I could have been a pregnant teen. I could have ended up in relationships with domestic violence. I could have become an addict. I could have been many of those things, but did not.
This is not to say I came out of my childhood, or my almost 54 years, unscathed. The after effects of abuse presents itself differently in everyone whose formative years were impacted by abuse.
For me, most notably, I have had problems with nearly every relationship I have had with women in authoritative positions in my life: my grandmother, mother, aunt, women I encountered in the military, as well as my boss, and work associates older than myself.
Perhaps this is one of the contributing factors behind my difficulties to find a job elsewhere. Then there’s the issue of spending my first 30 years totally lacking any self worth.
All that is MY legacy of abuse.
Recently Jennette McCurdy’s book “I’m Glad My Mom Died” was published. Much like Anne Heche’s book, “Call Me Crazy,” it is a biographical account of childhood abuse. I wish these were isolated books, but there are countless books out there (remember Mommy Dearest, by Christina Crawford?). And this isn’t unique to mothers & daughters—the very night my mom died, I watched Cracked Up: The Darrell Hammond Story.
It is a predictably easy thing to blame our mothers for our struggles. It is easy because for too many of us it is true.
I don’t need to publish a book or have a movie made about my abuse, and that doesn’t make my reality any less real than anyone else’s. But I do feel an uncomfortable kinship with these women (and Mr. Hammond as well).
Reading articles & books or watching films depicting their abuses resonates deeply with me—it is so eerily familiar, we are all telling familiar stories, so familiar, it is as if we are sharing the same narrative, or perhaps we are distant members of the same family.
