To Hold and Horrify
Thank you for your interest in my in-progress memoir, To Hold and Horrify. Please note that the following selection features themes of domestic violence, mental illness, and substance abuse. I recommend that you go to TheHotline.org for more information on some of the subject matter covered here. It is a wealth of information, and is safe place to explore these topics.
Chapter Four, Scar
This is me at my best. My living room has five nearly identical white bookshelves that I bought at IKEA. This is me doing well. My collection of books is organized by topic: Skills, Cookbooks, Feminist Theory, Political Theory, Queer Theory, Literary Theory, Autotheory, Fiction, and Graphic Novels. There are newly purchased books jammed into any open space. Set apart from the hundreds of paperback and hardback spines, loose pages, and various zines is a white sign with green lettering that reminds me to “grow through what you go through.”
I am no longer in a physically abusive relationship. I have not been hit, pushed, or even screamed at by my partner in nearly two decades. But my growth is still misshapen. It is crammed into awkward corners, trying to mimic normalcy. In Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, authors Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub write: “Trauma survivors live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, [the trauma] continues into the present and is current in every respect.” On a fundamental level, the abused are both deeply altered and continually haunted. I am living with a demon that cannot be exorcised, for it no longer exists outside of my own mind.
As I sit in my writing workshop, I feel my difference like bugs on my skin. People are joking, planning, living. I have noticed, just before taking my seat, that the chair has a stain. Is it chocolate? Is it shit? The others are talking, enjoying each other’s company. All I can think is: How likely is it that this chair has shit on it? Could it be mine? How likely is it that I would shit my pants and not notice? Anxiety starts to prickle at my skin. The fluorescent lights wink at me. The table shifts. No one talks to me. The chair creaks. My heart races. I can believe this about myself: I don’t deserve to be here. I am different. And the young girls talk about Chappel Roan and The Pitt. I am panicked, trying to look casual, professional. I am not trying to be a twenty-something; they were the worst years of my life. I am just trying to get through this workshop, so that when I get home, I can tell myself that I am safe, I am loved, I am where I’m supposed to be. But I never feel these things while in workshop.
I currently take two kinds of medication. One is to stop my anxiety long enough so that I can sleep. The other prevents me from sitting on a flattened and dusty tan carpet, in clothes I’ve been wearing for three straight days, staring out of the window to disengage from the goodness in my life. The medications help me stand up, take a shower, go to my MFA program, and be present for my children. The anxiety and depression are always there, floating just above my shoulder. My two medications are not a cure. They are treatments to assist with healing from complex post-traumatic stress disorder. These medications are what I wear so that others are not frightened or repulsed by what my trauma has made me into.
In the 1939 film, Wizard of Oz, a confused young girl, Dorothy (as played by Judy Garland), reprimands the Wizard “if you were really great and powerful, you would keep your promises!” Moments later, when it is revealed that “The Great and Powerful Oz” is nothing more than a buffoon hiding behind an extremely obvious curtain, he says: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” The promises she is referring to are the giving of strength, courage, and intelligence. It isn’t that Oz does not wish to produce these miracles; the simple truth is that he cannot meet their expectations. He can’t let anyone know that he is incapable, so he performs capability. As Oz, he can be someone who commands respect and authority. He is someone mysterious and powerful. He can obscure the undesirable parts of his humanity. Oz has tools that produce fire and smoke, a speaker to make his voice powerful. These play into this outward character, one more appropriate to the role he has been given. I have two medications, no buttons or levers.
According to ClevelandClinic.org, “Scars form as part of the healing process after your [body] has been cut or damaged. The [body] repairs itself by growing new tissue to pull together the wound and fill in any gaps caused by the injury… When a scar develops, collagen fibers repair damaged skin and close any open areas… Several treatments can make scars smaller or less noticeable. A scar’s appearance depends on factors including injury or event that caused the scar; size, severity and location of the wound; treatment received for the wound… Treatments vary depending on the type of scar, its location, what caused it, and how long you’ve had it.”
I have a scar on my knee, pulling like lips glued together into silver-white and pink strands. It sits next to a circular, brown birthmark; it’s a birthmark that my mother also had. I got the scar in my twenties by smashing my knee through a panel of glass on a French door in my friend’s apartment. My best friend and I were so drunk that we couldn’t stand. We spent the night crawling on the floor. The cut wept blood all night. I had to clean up the blood streaked across the wood flooring before leaving the house. After, I sat between thorny bushes on a metal grate until 3 am, watching it ooze as I sobered up. The blood soaked through many paper napkins and received no other treatment. It exists, in perpetuity, as a deformity that reminds me of a worse time in my life. The scar was my body trying to repair itself by creating something new – a deformed pretense of skin. It looks the same as it did when it closed, almost twenty years ago.
-
Chapter 4, Scar
This is me at my best. This is me doing well. My living room has five nearly identical white bookshelves that I bought at IKEA. My collection of books is organized by topic: Skills, Cookbooks, Feminist Theory, Political Theory, Queer Theory, Literary Theory, Autotheory, Fiction, and Graphic Novels. There are newly purchased books jammed into any open space. Set apart from the hundreds of paperback and hardback spines, loose pages, and various zines is a white sign with green lettering that reminds me to “grow through what you go through.”
I am no longer in a physically abusive relationship. I have not been hit, pushed, or even screamed at by my partner in nearly two decades. But my growth is still misshapen. It is crammed into awkward corners, trying to mimic normalcy. In Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, authors Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub write: “Trauma survivors live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, [the trauma] continues into the present and is current in every respect.” On a fundamental level, the abused are both deeply altered and continually haunted. I am living with a demon that cannot be exorcised, for it no longer exists outside of my own mind.
As I sit in my writing workshop, I feel my difference like bugs on my skin. People are joking, planning, living. I have noticed, just before taking my seat, that the chair has a stain. Is it chocolate? Is it shit? The others are talking, enjoying each other’s company. All I can think is: How likely is it that this chair has shit on it? Could it be mine? How likely is it that I would shit my pants and not notice? Anxiety starts to prickle at my skin. The fluorescent lights wink at me. The table shifts. No one talks to me. The chair creaks. My heart races. I can believe this about myself: I don’t deserve to be here. I am different. And the young girls talk about Chappel Roan and The Pitt. I am panicked, trying to look casual, professional. I am not trying to be a twenty-something; they were the worst years of my life. I am just trying to get through this workshop, so that when I get home, I can tell myself that I am safe, I am loved, I am where I’m supposed to be. But I never feel these things while in workshop.
I currently take two kinds of medication. One is to stop my anxiety long enough so that I can sleep. The other prevents me from sitting on a flattened and dusty tan carpet, in clothes I’ve been wearing for three straight days, staring out of the window to disengage from the goodness in my life. The medications help me stand up, take a shower, go to my MFA program, and be present for my children. The anxiety and depression are always there, floating just above my shoulder. My two medications are not a cure. They are treatments to assist with healing from complex post-traumatic stress disorder. These medications are what I wear so that others are not frightened or repulsed by what my trauma has made me into.
In the 1939 film, Wizard of Oz, a confused young girl, Dorothy (as played by Judy Garland), reprimands the Wizard “if you were really great and powerful, you would keep your promises!” Moments later, when it is revealed that “The Great and Powerful Oz” is nothing more than a buffoon hiding behind an extremely obvious curtain, he says: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” The promises she is referring to are the giving of strength, courage, and intelligence. It isn’t that Oz does not wish to produce these miracles; the simple truth is that he cannot meet their expectations. He can’t let anyone know that he is incapable, so he performs capability. As Oz, he can be someone who commands respect and authority. He is someone mysterious and powerful. He can obscure the undesirable parts of his humanity. Oz has tools that produce fire and smoke, a speaker to make his voice powerful. These play into this outward character, one more appropriate to the role he has been given. I have two medications, no buttons or levers.
According to ClevelandClinic.org, “Scars form as part of the healing process after your [body] has been cut or damaged. The [body] repairs itself by growing new tissue to pull together the wound and fill in any gaps caused by the injury… When a scar develops, collagen fibers repair damaged skin and close any open areas… Several treatments can make scars smaller or less noticeable. A scar’s appearance depends on factors including injury or event that caused the scar; size, severity and location of the wound; treatment received for the wound… Treatments vary depending on the type of scar, its location, what caused it, and how long you’ve had it.”
I have a scar on my knee, pulling like lips glued together into silver-white and pink strands. It sits next to a circular, brown birthmark; it’s a birthmark that my mother also had. I got the scar in my twenties by smashing my knee through a panel of glass on a French door in my friend’s apartment. My best friend and I were so drunk that we couldn’t stand. We spent the night crawling on the floor. The cut wept blood all night. I had to clean up the blood streaked across the wood flooring before leaving the house. After, I sat between thorny bushes on a metal grate until 3 am, watching it ooze as I sobered up. The blood soaked through many paper napkins and received no other treatment. It exists, in perpetuity, as a deformity that reminds me of a worse time in my life. The scar was my body trying to repair itself by creating something new – a deformed pretense of skin. It looks the same as it did when it closed, almost twenty years ago.
-
I hope you've enjoyed this sample. For updated information on this project, and other works, please follow me at deerichardswrites.medium.com.
