Personal discovery

Last night I made some deeper personal discoveries about myself and how I became the kind of person that I am today.

I gained a deeper understanding of why it is exactly that I have, for most of my life, had a fear of authority figures. I am still unraveling this piece of the tapestry that is my life so I can replace it with something more beautiful and productive, but great progress has been made already.

Let's walk back to my early childhood. I was a pretty typical kid, energetic and gregarious. My mother tells me that I was very sweet - before my brother "got ahold" of me. Is this the source of the problems I've had? I pose to you that it is not through any fault of my brother's that I became reclusive and shy. He was simply passing on to me what he himself had received, not understanding the complexity of that interaction and the emotional harm that it would cause.

So, where did my shyness come from? Was it from my second-grade teacher who told me on my first semester report card that I "socialized too much in class" and then, at the end of the year wrote on my report card "I can't get Charles to say a word in class"? I believe this was just third-party verification of something I had interpreted as a fact from my upbringing: adults aren't interested to hear what I have to say, and they want me to sit quietly or I will be punished.

How did I come to accept this mistaken belief? Routine spankings. Corporal punishment. I received harsh spankings no less than once per week during my childhood. Many times there was no infraction committed aside from me being glad that it was my brother finally being punished for something he had done. Yes, this also merited a spanking.

I'm sure someone out there is thinking "So you got spanked. So what? You probably deserved it." Please allow me to relate to you an experience I had last night. I was talking with my lovely, wonderful wife about this self-same subject and I picked up an empty cardboard box from the floor. I told her to watch carefully, because this is the way I got spanked as a child. She was dumbfounded and horrified at the way I forcefully flailed my open palm into the side of the box. She noted that the box, after my beating, was completely malformed. If this is what happens to a piece of cardboard when you beat it, how much more damaging is it for a child to routinely receive this as a punishment on his or her backside?

There were many times when I would try to defend myself by covering my bottom with my hands. The result? A spanking twice as hard and twice as long. This led to me hiding under my bed. I was always found there and forcibly dragged out to receive my beating. Ok, so hiding under the bed is no good. I'll hide in the closet. Oh, you found me there too? It just makes you more angry when I hide? Extended beating. Please also bear in mind that before and after the spanking, there was no discussion. Here comes dad into my room to give me a beating and then promptly leave again. It is this severity that led me to have feelings of low self-worth, always trying to prove myself by academic excellence. That never stopped the beatings.

After demonstrating to Faythe what the typical spanking was like for me as a child, I had the most sickening and disgusted feeling with myself. I found it to be an emotionally damaging experience.

What I don't want you to take away from this story is any implication that I do not love my parents. I love my parents very much and I forgive my father for all of the beatings. He did not understand what impact they would have on my growth and development. I have recognized that these incidents are the fuel that I have used to stoke the flames of my bad temper and my rage. So, I am cleaning up my life and removing that fuel source. I will no longer let these ghosts of my past rule over who I am and will become. I will instead always strive to shower my child or children (someday!) with all of the love, affection, acknowledgement, and understanding that they need to become whole, healthy adults. It is my promise to myself not to pass on this legacy of violence.