I am EricaNoelle and I am HELLA STRONG
I wrote this with the intention of competing at a Story Slam in November.
It was in Ann Arbor, at The Blind Pig . . .
True stories told live in five minutes, no notes. . .
That night there were 12 names in an NPR tote bag.
10 were chosen, I was NOT.
I’d like to share that story with you
There’s a trigger warning:
my story is complex, it contains abuse and relational trauma.
***
I listened closely to Michigan radio.
The theme for October was COSTUMES . . . great spin on Halloween!
I thought of my own, well-worn costume, a costume I’d chafed against my entire life; the not-so-cute, “family” costume that my mother, my sister, my brother and I were,
in some cases ARE, held hostage in.
When I was born, I was NOT wearing a costume, only my birthday suit.
My father, a young man of 26 was a new parent, a seasoned narcissist and a skilled sociopath.
***
He controlled with physical, emotional and psychological abuse.
I tugged at my mother’s costume, searching beneath the veil my father’d placed years before I arrived.
I had come to know my mother in the months I grew inside of her and in the millions of moments she and I were together.
In a vain attempt to appease our abuser, my mother controlled me.
My very first co-dependent relationship;
We were bonded by trauma before I could speak and long after she’d lost her voice.
As an infant I needed her and, for her sanity – to maintain her humanity. . .
she needed me.
My father, looking to exploit my mother’s propensity for anxious attachment, encouraged me to abuse my baby sister.
As a small child, I’d never hurt anyone . . . nor did I want to.
His insistence, and desperation scared me, his manipulation confused me. My body rejected it but my reptilian, survival brain understood that he was, if not ironically, important for my survival
***
Bright, red blood spilled from my sister’s soft, cherubic face. . . producing a scream that took FOREVER to arrive,
***
Alerting my mother who’d been in the kitchen warming a bedtime bottle whilst my father urged me (begged me?) to throw the
sharp keys
***
I was stunned silent.
Unable to access the words needed to question my uniquely surreal story,
our abuser provided myriad ways to question my worth.
Exhausted and unaware; cagey and hypervigilant, my mother was – UNDERSTANDABLY – afraid to leave me alone with my sister and – a year later – my infant brother.
***
My sister and I are sitting on the floor of the master’s bedroom,
rough carpet itches my knees, but I don’t dare move. Our brother, 3 months old, is between us. He has grabbed my hand and I am in love.
Chubby thighs spill from the sailor suit that hung in the closet before he was born.
I, humming the wedding march
Hmmmmmmm. . . Hmmmm. . . Hmmmm
Hmmmmmmm. . . Hmmmmmm. . .
Hmmmmmmm
And speaking for my sister, explain that we want to marry him.
Marriage, I intuit, MUST be the ultimate expression of love, since it is the sacrifice of one’s self.
My mother nods as she pulls her long, dark hair through the curling iron.
***
The four of us – my father’s costume – are on our way to a professional photographer. . .
An insurance policy: For justifiable reasons, my mother felt it was important to have a photo of us on my father’s desk where he worked a 45 minute drive from our seemingly idyllic home. Our father who – with three beautiful children and an incredible wife – couldn’t possibly be a criminal, sociopath.
***
I believed –
because I was told, incessantly – that my family’s problem was
ME.
Still, I HOPED someone would put my puzzle together,
that a neighbor, a teacher, a coach or a family friend might ask a question I’d be compelled to answer.
A question that I have, ironically, been asked at nearly EVERY medical appointment in the last 15 years:
Are you safe at home?
I am cunning but honest at all costs.
The answer?
NEVER. Not physically, not mentally.
***
October’s story slam topic was costumes,
November’s topic was WILL POWER.
Webster defines willpower as the ability to control one’s own actions, emotions, or urges
. . . also a
strong determination that allows one to do something difficult.
***
Life is difficult.
I am EricaNoelle and I am worthy.
It has taken me 45 years, decades of terrorism, countless hours of therapy and shelves of books,
to muster the will and conjure the power to free myself from the cage I was kept in.
It has taken will power to learn the truth about the person, the family, that my father constructed to hide his sociopathy in plain sight.
In it’s place, piece by piece, I’ve built myself.
In order to do so,
I remind myself every morning.
I am EricaNoelle and I am hella strong.
I am EricaNoelle and I am intelligent, intuitive, interesting and inspiring.
I am EricaNoelle and I am passionate.
I am EricaNoelle and I am beautiful.
I am EricaNoelle and I am loveable.
I am EricaNoelle and I am loved.
I am EricaNoelle and I am UNSTOPPABLE
*carpe diem*
Collecting Pieces of Me 