Life is a Battlefield

This paper was written in response to questions about significant turning points in my life. It was written for the Psychology 240 class taught by Lauren Kuhn at Portland Community College, Spring term 2011. The theme of this class was Personal Growth and Awareness.



Life is a Battlefield, Autonomy is the Reward

When I was twenty-one I took the car my parents had purchased for me and drove it the 95 miles from Salt Lake City, Utah to my home town of College Ward, Utah. When I arrived I left the car in the driveway, unlocked, with a key and a note on the driver’s seat. The note informed them that I was cutting off all contact from that point forward. I asked them to please respect my decision as I needed to heal the emotional wounds created during my adolescence. I had attempted to heal with them in my life but we were a disconnected (71) family and I found myself falling apart whenever I would speak to them. To me it felt that I was in a battle for sanity and they were the enemy that was helping to destroy me.

I had thought long and hard about this choice. It was difficult to leave my family, but I had been contemplating the decision for years. They didn’t understand me or my emotional struggles. I was sexually assaulted multiple times in my youth and when I was around them the wounds felt fresh. A family member was one of my assailants; they seemed to care more about him than me. No one ever brought up what he did to me, but they were always talking about how I was an emotional wreck that didn’t make sense. I was the only person who seemed to understand that there was a correlation between my abuse and my psychological issues. Not only did the abuse play into my crumbling mental state, but so did their lack of understanding.

Leaving them allowed me the freedom to look within myself and find ways to heal. I didn’t second-guess myself as often and started to believe that I had a right to my emotions. I was even beginning to understand that I had a choice about how to feel. I realized that negative events in my life may have helped mold me, but who I became was my decision. At the age of 23 I finally had the courage to do something I had wanted to do for more than a decade; I moved to Portland, Oregon.

While this experience helped me grow into a more independent person there was still one thing I was really struggling with-anger. I liked the person I was becoming and felt more and more like me everyday, but when I looked at the roadmap of my life I was furious at the route I had needed to take. It seemed unnecessary to be abused and belittled over and over again so that I could struggle to appreciate my inner self. Surely there must have been an easier way that didn’t involve so much victimization, from others as well as myself. I became an expert at blaming my past, and my mother, for every inconvenience I experienced. For example, one day I was getting ready to leave work and my car was dead. I was pissed, not at the car or the current situation, but at my mother whom I hadn’t spoken to in 2 years. I knew that my stupid car wouldn’t be dead if I hadn’t had to give my old car back to my mom. I wouldn’t have needed to give the car back if I hadn’t had to cut off my parents. I wouldn’t have needed to cut off my parents if they responded to me better. And they wouldn’t have needed to respond to me better if they had kept me from getting abused in the first place. (My mother knew about the abuse earlier on and didn’t respond in a nurturing way so my anger was more directed at her than my father). So obviously it was my mom’s fault that my car died when I was 23 because of things that happened to me when I was 6.

It was around this time that I realized I would never heal until I could forgive them, which I was absolutely against. Fortunately over the years I developed what I now call ‘the rope’. The rope is what I imagine some folks would call intuition. It is a pull I feel at my core that presents itself when I need to change and it seems to lead me where I need to go. I felt the rope when I cut off my parents and I was feeling it again. It was time to confront my anger, and my time was running out. I found out via my cousin that my father had been diagnosed with Melanoma and it was terminal. At first this did not make a difference to me. Everyone dies, and I shouldn’t have to reopen my wounds because of a natural event. I ignored the entire situation for months.

I underestimated the persistence of my rope. Every day the pull got stronger, and stronger, until I knew my only option was to go back to Utah and confront the demons that remained within me. My goal was to be there for one year, and to stay true to myself. I was there for me, not to prove anything to anyone. It was hard to stay focused because not only was I angry but I also had to deal with intense fear. Even though I wasn’t there to prove anything I wanted my parents, especially my mom, to know that I am Ajé Summerly and there is nothing wrong with me.

The first time I spoke to my dad it was over the phone and it was hard. I had never heard him cry before, but he was dying and it’s probably difficult to separate oneself from the feelings of loss. That was the day I found out that my dad didn’t know about the abuse from my childhood, he only knew about the abuse that happened later, which he responded well to. All of the hate I had for him disappeared in that moment, we had finally connected, and I ached for the time we had lost.

When I spoke to my mom I was terrified. Most of my family issues were with her, so I met her in a public place where things couldn’t get too ugly. I wore thin straps so she could see my tattoos, I ordered beer, and I said “fuck” more times than I can count. Looking back it wasn’t the classiest way to present myself, but at least she finally realized that I was not the little, silent, Mormon girl she had wanted me to be. Before leaving I vocalized all of my angry feelings. I allowed her one hug and then told her to her face that I never wanted to see her again.

A few months passed and I received a text stating that my father was in the hospital and they didn’t think he had much time left. With a lot of support from friends and the people at work I mustered the courage to visit him in the hospital. It had only been 4 years, but the chemo had aged him terribly. The strong, independent man I remembered was now a withered bag of bones. His mustache was still fabulous though. It was a bit overwhelming being at the hospital because many of my relatives were also there. They had also viewed me as an emotional wreck during my youth and I wasn’t sure what they had been told about my absence. But I decided it wasn’t about me anymore. I spent some alone time with my dad telling him about the crime shows I was currently watching that I thought he would like. Then I broke down and couldn’t stop apologizing for letting my issues with my mother affect our relationship. He told me something I hope I will never forget, “you have to do what you have to do in order to survive”. He had forgiven me.

As I was leaving the hospital that night I tried to converse with my mother viewing her as a woman who was about to lose the love of her life. She was scared and heartbroken and it wasn’t the place for my anger to reveal itself. I understand now that is known as mindfulness (81). It was uncomfortable, but she needed a hug and I could not deprive her of something so simple. During that embrace she told me something I had wanted to hear for years, “I am so sorry.”

I went home that night and spent a couple of days trying to soak all of this in. I made it back to the hospital the night my father died and was even holding his hand as he passed. I asked if I could speak at his funeral and found myself recalling happy memories that I had forgotten along the way. I even arranged it so that everyone could take a shot of Pepsi at the luncheon that followed, as Pepsi was my dad’s favorite drink.

If I thought leaving my parents was difficult, coming back to them was twice as scary. What I learned was worth the struggle. I realized for the first time that my parents were simply people. They may have fucked up along the way, but everyone does. I made the mistake of assuming my parents should know everything and should have been able to respond to me in the ways I needed them to. Looking back I think they would have been more willing to help me if I had been able to articulate what I was feeling. But none of us were expecting that our lives would turn out this way, and none of us had the tools needed to fix the damage. Both of my parents had grown up with injunctions (75) telling them that speaking out about emotions was wrong, so we were all just wandering around hoping that things would just magically get better. It saddens me that it took so much extra pain for us to heal; there’s a good chance I would still be avoiding my family if my father hadn’t become ill. I suppose that isn’t the issue though. As my dad used to say, “It is what it is.”

Leaving my family and coming back to them were both intense experiences that helped me grow and get closer to becoming the person I envision. Because of those decisions I gained emotional independence, also known as autonomy (71). To me, being emotionally independent means that I decide who I am and how I feel about it, and don’t depend on other people to decide those things. It also means taking responsibility for me, throughout the course of my life, including things I did/thought before discovering my independence, because those events helped lead me to my current state. It also means that I can love myself for who I am even if I don’t fit the expectations of others.

I know that I like myself, but there is still a part of me who fears that my autonomy will not last and one day I will just fall apart. Sometimes I find myself comparing my successes and appearance to the successes and appearance of others. This isn’t a daily thing with me, but when those comparative thoughts get in my head I lose sight of myself until they pass. It’s difficult to be my own person when I convince myself I am supposed to live up to the expectations of other people. I assume their opinions differ from mine and I often feel like I am required to explain myself to everybody. I know this isn’t true, and I’m getting better at dealing with my inner critic (81), but I would prefer for these thoughts to go away completely.

If there is anything I could change about my past it would be for my young self to know that I had a choice about how to feel and how to respond to any situation. I spent years living without this knowledge and made many decisions that resulted in a more difficult life. As a child one of the messages I chose to receive from my parents is that I don’t have a right to my emotions. I developed PTSD in my youth and acted out emotionally often. I was always told that I was dramatic and exaggerated things and I was never taken seriously. I still feel like people do not take me seriously, and I often second guess my opinion because maybe my views are exaggerated or wrong. When I get flustered I immediately feel like I am a giant screw up and am not capable of dealing with whatever is happening. This way of thinking is something I would like to change as it leads to insecurities and loneliness, not to mention that it triggers my inner critic and leaves me vulnerable to comparative thoughts.

When I am being truly honest with myself I can admit that I am doing a fabulous job being me. The parts of me that are still hurting are smaller than they have ever been which is even more of a reason to nurture them. It’s not difficult to overlook them when I know things are getting easier every day. Most of the people I interact with know who I am and accept/love that person regardless of how many aspects there are to my personality. It’s people I don’t know, or people I knew in my past that I get the most insecure around. My current long (but getting shorter) term goal is to go to my 10 year high school reunion next summer. Not only do I plan to go, but I intend to go as myself without feeling that I have something to prove. I’ve learned the thing I find the most empowering about being independent is that I can do what I want and be happy. Fuck society’s expectations. I want to go to my reunion and be proud of who I am.

As a child I was given a life script which taught me that success is measured by aesthetics- nice house, expensive clothes, shiny car, tons of material possessions, and a respectable outward appearance in every way. I was also taught that speaking about serious issues was not appropriate. My family has generations of silence about who knows what. If it could be ugly or look bad in any way it gets buried in the closet with all the other skeletons. Growing up I did not agree with the life script I had been given and experienced many injunctions designed to eliminate my worth as an individual and convince me that I would never be good enough unless the whole world approved of me. However, as I’ve grown I have learned that the script I was given is open to interpretation. Maybe the people I grew up with would look at my life as though I am a failure, but there are plenty of people who would view my life as a success. I do what I love, I am who I am, and I generally stay true to myself even if someone else thinks me foolish or embarrassing.

I am fairly sure that I had these same ideas during my adolescence. I remember being my own person, and feeling like that’s what we were all trying to do. It wasn’t worth it to give each other grief. But over time I was broken down. I could say I was broken by my family, my church, or my peers. I could blame it on a plethora of experiences. But in order to fully come into my autonomy I will have to take accountability for this loss. I did not know I had a choice, but I’m the one who gave up on me back then. There is no possible way that someone could take my beliefs from me. They are mine. They have always been mine. They are inside of me and cannot be stolen. I didn’t know that then, but I know it now.

I could still argue that it would have been nice to just be accepted as I was, regardless of how I differed from others. But if I wouldn’t have experienced opposition I may never have come to appreciate the person who is typing these words. I wouldn’t know that I was strong enough to survive the psychological beatings. I would rather suffer and watch my strength unfold than live a life that didn’t challenge me to grow.