what's normal ?

been reviewing most of the entries....
still challenging emotionally to revisit much of what happened.
have had to adopt a "reporter" mentality to make it through speaking some of it at all.
often my throat would sieze up while writing....with the physically hard-wired conditioning of....

"DON'T SAY ANYTHING !!!"

have often experienced unspecified anxiety during this process....still fearful of some mysterious potential fallout from speaking the "unspeakable" !

even thinking the "unthinkable" frightens me at times.

in early life, i was severely punished for showing fear, so-o-o....something in me determined the best solution to that problem was not to feel fear at all....or call it something else.....like...."NORMAL" !
of course i was constantly terrified, but the power of "denial" has been profound.
it was well into my late 30's before identifying my chronic state of being as....FEAR....in it's myriad forms.

in the world of my upbringing, almost everyone was angry, almost everyone shouted abusively, almost everyone was hitting someone or other, almost everyone drank excessively and became physically violent..
why would i think there was anything wrong with that picture?

as a surviving child-hostage, the most difficult challenge has been to learn how to trust my thoughts, feelings, beliefs and perceptions.
it seemed my father had an agenda....to utterly confuse me....to have me believing that anything i thought, felt, wished for, needed, or perceived, was by definition wrong or bad.
this phenomenon i've come to label...."mind-rape !"
for this survivor, that has proved the cruelest form of rape....having been violated to the point of insanity.

as life has gone on, i've learned that this tactic is common in wartime, to break the enemy's will.

for one such as he, who was obviously trapped in a state of war with the world, why wouldn't he perceive all about him as the enemy ?

the truth is that it was never personal....it could have been anyone suffering the brunt of his frustration and rage....it just happened to be me....and my beloved family.

i am learning a new definition of "normal"....

it is "normal" for me to wish to live in truth....rather than a convenient preferred version of how life is or was.