“Do not be confused by what you say is most important to you. Watch what you do.
What you DO is what is most important to you.”
When I became a teenager, my brother moved down to Santa Monica with my father to help him with his business and attend college, and that was pretty much the end of any social contact with my brother. My mother became obsessed with golf, and I continued to raise myself, emotionally. Looking back to my youth, I do not remember one memory of my mother interested in anything but making sure that my dad was happy and that my physical needs were met. In the ninth grade, they sent me to a private Catholic school, telling me that I would NOT be able to handle the peer pressure of Arroyo Grande High School. Similar to the same reason that they moved the family up to the Central Coast from Santa Monica when I was nine. My father created fear that I couldn’t thrive in the larger challenges of life. Just another subliminal “you are not enough” message that I started to claim as my own. That year, my best friend found a boyfriend. DISMISSED. I felt abandoned and alone. Being the manipulator that I was, I begged my parents to send me to AG High sophomore year. They agreed. This is around the time that I remember my father becoming obsessed with me. He warned me that he had spies at the high school and even told me that he had once dressed up as a woman to watch my friends and I at a local festival. Of course, all in the name of love. When it came to dating, he often said that I was "the prize," and to not ever let a man control me. Oddly enough, that is precisely the way he treated my mother. I confused myself with his Jekyll and Hyde behavior, silent treatments, dauntless teasing, negative innuendos, and control tactics. In his constant quest to be my hero, he told me that it was because he cared more about me than most parents. I bought in and felt privileged. I even told myself that his behavior and my mother’s silence was simply because they loved me too much, still completely ignorant of the fact that you cannot love too much.
Throughout the years, I was convinced by my father that without his money, I would become a loser, a “low life." That I would never make it on my own and that most men were going to use me for it. At least, that is what he told me literally and energetically since I was knee high, projecting his own program onto me. When I would mention my desires (beauty school, singing lessons, or traveling the world, or...or...OR), he scoffed in fear that he was losing control over what he said was in my best interest. He truly thought that I wasn’t smart and savvy enough to survive life, so he planned it. And I let him.
I was to be a tennis player, pianist, and a nurse or dental hygienist. This is what I was told I could handle. I would work a few days a week, raise a GIRL (he didn’t want me to have a boy), and have a man take care of me (another dichotomous message). My mother would back him every time, being silenced if she dared to disagree. He would tease my childlike sense of wonder, and I would scream and argue like a teenager on steroids. Eventually, I would succumb to his will, just like my mother. Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
My subconscious escape from family hell was my friends and social life. After my horrific seventh grade year, I made the decision that I was going to become popular. I figured out how to do it, and having blonde hair and boobs definitely didn’t hurt. A perfect California combo. I’m not going to lie, I had a blast in High School. I became best friends with Tanja Louise Erickson, it truly was and continues to be a heart and soul connection. My first boyfriend sophomore year happened to be the very one who broke up with me in 8th grade because according to him, "I kissed like a dog." Thus, I created a grand contradiction. I was certainly "enough" because he chose me to be his girlfriend. I was not enough because I chose to be his girlfriend, thus keeping the mind struggle alive. My father made me break up with him the following year. Luckily, my first surfer boy moved, and I never saw him again. By the time I was a senior, I talked my parents into allowing me to work at a pizza place called, Jakes Take-N-Bake. My dad said that he did not want me to work too hard. I know now that he feared my independence because it would minimize his power over me. My mom’s silence continued to be her refuge. That year, I became “Top Ten Student” (to keep my parents satisfied) and Prom Princess. I remember being relieved when I didn’t get the “Prom Queen” title. After all, I was programmed to believe that I didn’t deserve it.
Every weekend was spent dolling up to make sure that I looked perfect enough for the next social event. I began drinking to escape my life’s circumstances, always keeping it to a minimum so that my parents would not send me back to Catholic school, or even worse, abandon me. My life became about survival and control. And frankly, all about me.
There were many times throughout my adolescence that I searched for God. I went to a Christian snow camp and became “reborn.” I attended church when my dad allowed me. (Yes, he didn’t want me to go because he feared that I would become some “God Freak.” Ha! Precognition, one might say.) But every time, I began to trust in the power of God, I witnessed judgmental hypocrisy there. An “Us vs. Them” mentality that did not compute. Where is Christ? I often wondered. The behaviors just didn’t resonate with my heart, so I put God aside. After all, I had another party to go to, anyway.
