forbidden scream

i don't wish to overlook the earliest experience of "trauma" in memory.

it must have been around 3 years old, because i remember having to sit in the old-style wooden box-seats on the swings at the local park.
my father had taken us kids there for an afternoon outing.
i do remember my mother not being present.
dad deposited me in the swing and began pushing me, higher and higher, i can still remember how much fun it was, laughing and squealing with delight until....

SUDDENLY....

i was going too high, i became terrified, my father continued to push me higher.
i naturally screamed in terror, as any 3 year old would.

he violently stopped the swing, ripped me out of the seat, spanking me hard while angrily dragging me to the vehicle.
he opened the car door and flung me into the back seat, insisting that i remain locked in there while the other kids continued to play.
i remember his furious words as if it were yesterday...."don't you ever scream like that again !"

my heart was broken, there i was, crying and watching helplessly through the rear window as my siblings were playing in the park.

it seemed forever til they returned to the car, not one of them seeming to care how i might feel.

it was as if i wasn't even there.

already, at 3 years of age, it seemed clear, i was S.O.L. and absolutely on my own regarding emotional support.
that fact never changed while living at the family home.

i was guilty of an unpardonable crime....that of crying the forbidden scream.
some 6 decades later, i am still aware of more than a few forbidden scream's buried deep within my being.

the sins of the fathers....