When I was little, my father died, and my mother married for a second time. Since I neither knew nor remembered my dad, it goes without saying that his place was taken by my stepfather. And so a new family arose - my parents and the children, my sister, seven years older, and me. Returning to childhood memories is like looking through a faded photo album in which nothing can be made out any more, and sometimes I doubt that it is a real album, and only the fear of opening it reminds me that it is, after all, true. Many sections of this album I closed together with the course of therapy. Probably what I remember most is the meeting at which we drew a picture of our "ideal" childhood, the one we would have liked to have, and the real one. And then we had to say goodbye to that wonderful one, to throw it away. Unfortunately, this can no longer be averted or changed, it has already been; what is real must be accepted. Some truth stood before my eyes then - pain, sadness, anger, rebellion: why did this befall me, why can it not be better? Then the thought that it can be otherwise, better, but in the future, and if I concentrate too much on what was, I will not see what will be.
When I see myself in my childhood years before my eyes, to this day I feel sorry for that little girl who tried so hard, who wanted to be loved more. And again another experience, this time during a retreat, when I needed to care for others, because otherwise I would not experience what is good - only how to begin, when you do not know how. People always interested me, but I feared like fire that they would reject me; it seemed to me that I could have all or nothing: if someone did not call for two days, it meant I did not interest them, I was not worth it, one should quickly distance oneself, withdraw into one's shell of loneliness, surround oneself with thorns so that it would not hurt. My present experience as a wife and mother astonishes me; it blocked the road by which I used to leave the shell and hide. I am amazed by how much joy the look of clear eyes brings, a joyful meeting with a loved one; I am amazed by my children, who trust their parents not to do them harm. And even if I shout at them, they tenderly nestle up to me and hug me. It is they who thaw me, who teach me trust. Perhaps that is why I am so devoted to them; I have three, and I thank God for this trial. I thank Him also for my husband; he was the first who had to fight for me, to convince me that a declaration of love is one and unchanging. Even if we quarrel, get upset, experience stress every day, together we seek consensus. This is very important to me, because in childhood I was sure that my dear ones considered me insignificant. My father spent his time drinking; to find money for alcohol, he deceived himself and others, saying that there was no problem: "I drink, and if I want, I can stop drinking, but you, silly girl, will always stay the way you are" - I knew it by heart.
My mother took care of the household finances, struggled, urged her husband to stop drinking; a moment of sobriety and she was in seventh heaven, then another fall - she scolded him, threatened, begged him to stop drinking, and also solved his problems for him: she arranged for his absences, deceived others that there was no problem, covered for him. Probably she had no strength left to occupy herself emotionally with the children; our unwritten duty was "not to create problems", and my sister and I made every effort. For these efforts there was no reward, but a small mistake, a bad mark, bad behaviour, a squabble was enough, and an avalanche of accusations followed; the pretext for shouting and drinking was that I was not obedient enough. I heard scolding, cursing, but that was not the worst - it is hard to hear that I am a bad daughter, that I "dealt the last blow", that I am no longer mummy's daughter and she renounces me. These words were heavier than the beating I got; even if it hurt a lot, then it stopped, but the words kept sounding in my head. And so, even today, my relations with mother are very hard, and so many times my husband has wondered how this can be.
I joke (though it is a bad joke) that she cannot throw me out of the house, because no one will take me in, since my own mother does not want me. And these are not just words, because mother, after such a confession, for a long time does not speak, does not call, does not visit, takes offence, shifts the blame onto me, because I again did something wrong, did not say something, or said too much. When the emotions pass, the good, beloved mother and grandmother returns. It is such a cycle of violence and feelings that perhaps she lacks after parting with her husband. I began writing about the end, so it is time to return to the beginning.
I only remember how my stepfather abused alcohol; at first I saw no problem in it, I wondered why mother was shouting, but we were glad when the next day the stepfather brought flowers, and for us coloured pencils. In primary school it was already different. The first feeling I remember is shame that my classmates or the kids in the yard would say that my father lay drunk in front of the house; and it happened that he no longer had the strength to get home, and simply fell asleep somewhere on the grass near our house, and when the craving for alcohol tormented him, he walked along the street and drank - it did not matter what, as long as there was something - and when he could no longer leave the house, through the window he called out to passers-by and gave them money for alcohol; some brought it, others took the money and did not come back. I remember the fear that the neighbour women would come again and say to take father home - I was seven then, and how was I to take him on my back and carry him home? Sometimes I went only to fetch the change, because I had been taught that the money, if there was still any, must be got back (besides, we everywhere searched for the remaining money in his pockets - we were masters of searching, and father of hiding; he could hide money even in a little pocket specially sewn into his underwear - very creative). I feared he would come drunk to the parents' meeting, and so it was; I remember how the next day the kids laughed that some parent had come in a drunken state; luckily, they did not know whose father it was - their parents did not tell them the details.
I never invited other children home, because I was ashamed. I remember one birthday, already in secondary school, when my friends came unexpectedly; the stepfather was already asleep after a binge, but woke up and threw everyone out of the house... because he could not sleep it off. I lost my temper, I was ashamed and hurt, but my friends simply left; in my opinion they loved me, because no one commented on it, no one returned to it in conversation. Even then this pained me, but by turns... Father's drinking hindered us more and more; there were no more flowers, but rounds of the pubs lasting several days, the paying of his bills that came for damage done while drunk, the lack of money to buy clothes and for school trips, constant frugality, loud quarrels. I behaved like a superbly trained hunting dog; I could guess by the smell, watching the expression on the household members' faces, I knew what was happening, whether things were good or it was the calm before the storm - and if so, one had to act quickly. If it was still possible, one should do something nice, hug father and mother, boast of a good grade at school, say a kind word - perhaps a quarrel could be avoided, mother cheered up. If it was too late, one should quickly eat something, or go out to the yard to a friend, or shut oneself in one's room.
I tried to be the very best child, so that no one could shout at me, to satisfy everyone, to help everyone. In a situation where everything revolved around drinking and not drinking, no one noticed this; I do not remember anyone praising me, I felt more and more neglected, lonely, undervalued (back then I could not yet name it). Mother's bad mood, a father who had been drinking, and I became the object of a domestic quarrel; sometimes I got less, sometimes more, a few times it ended in bruises. And again, the next day, shame at school. The last such hard incident happened in the third grade of primary school; father dragged me out of the bathroom (at that moment I was washing), and I got the belt; on a wet body bruises appear more easily, and the next day there were many of them, even on my neck. At school I explained that I had been playing with the cat at grandmother's, and it had scratched me - nothing better came into my head. Worst of all was when mother, bandaging my wounds, did not say a word that father had done something bad; she did not stop him, did not comfort me, never returned to it, and now she says she does not remember it. Such situations happened rarely, but I was always to blame; my behaviour was the impulse (every child has its own naughty day), but the punishment was disproportionate to the deed. In this way one could vent all one's malice; probably the cause was alcohol, though I remember that father was not always drunk.
I remember that the stepfather, "in his cups", was often lenient, would lie down to sleep, but became aggressive when he sobered up, or when someone told him that he lived badly and should be treated, or that he was an alcoholic. At the same time I was hurt with mother, because she was not a support for me, and it was enough for father to be sober for one day, and then the whole world revolved around him, while she, exhausted, in a bad mood, shouted, humiliated, could hurt me with a bad word more than father with the belt. In secondary school this had already sincerely wearied me - I began to protest, I solved the problem in such a way that I avoided home; after lessons I walked around the town, slept over at friends' homes, only so as not to be at home. I think we all suffered because of father, but we never talked about it, never helped one another. For my mother it was a repetition of the ordeal, because she herself had spent her childhood years with a drunken, aggressive stepfather, from whom the knives had to be hidden and one had to flee the house; in the end he hanged himself. When I tried to complain, she always said that it had been a hundred times worse for her, that in part she had not lived as well as we did. And that indeed was the truth; her and grandmother's stories present my grandfather as a real monster under the influence of alcohol. Yet my grandmother was a real angel for me, she valued me, showed much love and interest, she was proud of me. I owe her much; these forces of goodness help me now. Grandmother had many children, she loved them, was proud of them, even when her grown-up sons fell under the power of alcohol (two of the three sons were alcoholics), grandmother often recalled what good children they had been. Grandmother is for me an example of maternal care, of devotion to every child being born; even when things were hard, the child was a value to her. By that time I was already able to yell at the top of my voice from helplessness and anger, just as well to strike with a word at painful places, and even to hit my drunken father. Slowly, in my behaviour, I became the kind of person I did not want to become.
We constantly played games entitled "everything is okay"; mother would phone the workplace that her husband was ill, asking that he not be dismissed from work. We never said, even to grandmother, what was happening with us; it was a forbidden subject; on the outside we were an ordinary family, though the neighbours must have been deaf not to hear the quarrels. Grandmother saw what was happening, she guessed; we were often at her home for several days, grandmother came to us rarely, in fact only for communion; her trouble walking was only an excuse - "then we will come and fetch you". Mother several times cried to her own mother, that is, to grandmother, and I remember that she did not get sufficient support. Grandmother said that Andrzej was a good husband, and that it had been worse for her (see how history likes to repeat itself: again it had been worse for someone, and this became a consent to the existing situation). I remember that the feeling of shame was displaced by anger, rage and ever greater loneliness.
I very much wanted to have a friend, or someone "exclusively for me", fulfilling all my needs; I was a little like ivy around my friends, but at the same time I did not believe I could be important to them, so I distanced myself and avoided them, and so it went in circles. On top of this, a depressive mood, the weeping that accompanied me, the fact that what was hard during growing up met what was hard in the family, with the alcohol problem. I myself began to smoke, to go to parties where there was alcohol, drugs; I tried, but feared it would destroy me. That sensation that it might kill me, from who knows where, became a guard against going in that direction; on top of this, my perfectionism, my heroism, so as not to show myself to people from the bad side. Then mother suspected something, said she did not like that I was constantly away from home, but she had nothing to find fault with - at school I was still a good pupil, I almost never came home drunk. Today I do not drink - for almost 10 years already, not because I dislike alcohol, but because, meeting abstainers in adult life, their life seemed interesting to me and I myself wanted to try to live that way. I convinced myself that alcohol is of no use to me, and knowing the family history, I fear it may destroy something.
I probably had enormous luck that I could meet young people with similar trials. It was a shock to me when a friend "shared" her experience with me - she had a respectable, educated father who drank at home, but was essentially absent. It was after a quarrel, when I turned to her with a request to sleep over; she was already working then and living on her own. In my opinion Monika guessed something and told me about her trials - in this way she opened before me a door that is called therapy. After finishing high school I entered university and began therapy, a hard, too long, exhausting process, when I had to stand face to face with the image of my childhood and family - the real one, and the one that had arisen in my head.
What did it bring me? Much, which today I can say: knowledge about the situation at home, about the illness of alcoholism; the chaos became like a jigsaw puzzle that can be put together. A somewhat different view of father and mother - they took on a different, more human face; today I see much good, I remember the good times I spent with father (but, contrary to appearances, there were few of them - I remember how father taught me to ride a bicycle, how in the morning he brought me pastries when we were alone at home, how after a bout he asked which university I was actually studying at). I see and value my mother's efforts to live normally, her wounded life and her hopes for a normal family; I would very much like my mother to begin some therapy that would show her that life can be happy and joyful, and that she influences what happens around her, but it is her life and it is not for me to lecture... I slowly freed myself from this deception, revolving around drinking and not drinking; with this are connected changes in the family: my sister moved out of the house - she had been an adult for a long time already, then I did, and finally mother. I began to think differently about myself, and because of this I made many decisions, continued what I had begun, did not lose heart and did not break off; I was more resolute, I looked at myself when making decisions, and not only so that things at home would be okay. My self-esteem changed for the better.
My father still drinks - he is already a finished man, cannot walk, his skin is constantly bluish, alcohol dulls the pain connected with the digestive system, his mother cares for him, suffering greatly because of his alcoholism. Since I moved out of the house, I have met him only once, to show him my first daughter. With my mother I keep close but still difficult relations; mother carries within her all the trials, which blend into one; sometimes I am to blame for all her misfortunes, because I do not behave as she wishes; by turns I receive enormous love and real rejection ("you are no longer my daughter"). The strength to which I turn, to which I entrust what I cannot change, is God, and to Him I entrust my life; I thank Him for all the trials, because they shaped me and taught me to value what I have, to understand people better, to work with them; by education I am a teacher.
I would like to write about something more. First, we, the family members, fought many times for the compulsory treatment of father, but the matter was halted at the level of the Commission for Resolving Alcohol Problems - I do not know, perhaps we made some mistake, but it was painful for me; on the other hand, my efforts to do something in father's stead came to an end. I was angry then that the commission, in which people are trained to help, could not help, and for me it was a great shame to begin that procedure; today I do not even remember why we broke off that process, but probably we in the family did not hold together, there was no unity, we were not ready for changes, it was better to let it go - sometimes it is simpler to leave everything as it was than to change; for that you need strength, patience and persistence... After a second court case (on the application of the stepfather's mother), he was directed to compulsory treatment. When the course of treatment ended, he began to drink again. This shows that we can do nothing if an alcoholic wants to drink. Father repeated many times that he had no goal, that there was no one and no reason for him to stop drinking - indeed, we left him, because we could no longer live like that. The doctor with whom the stepfather's mother spoke said that no one can do anything, because he has no desire to change.
Second, until I began therapy, I always liked boys, men, who drank or behaved "on the border of the norm"; among them I felt free and was sure that I would succeed better than my mother. In fact I do not know why exactly this happened; in a crowd I could pick out such a boy; luckily, after a while such unions fell apart - it was I who ended them, when some bitterness seeped in. Today I think it was Divine Providence and His care. I prayed, through the intercession of Saint Joseph, for a good husband. After therapy, for some time I was alone, though I dreamed of a family; still during therapy I met my husband. I was then working in a women's centre helping victims of domestic violence; the centre was run by nuns, and my future husband led self-defence classes there, and at first it never even entered my head that this would be my husband; such meetings turned into affection; he drew me in by the fact that he submitted to values and faith, he had a healthy attitude to life, did not drink alcohol, and seemed to me an interesting person (DEO GRATIAS). Although he never declared abstinence, he maintains that alcohol was not his path, that he does not need it, that he occupies himself with other things - sport, trips, and now work, family, and above all the children, of whom we have three. I value greatly that I have never seen my husband drunk or tipsy. Today I know that my husband is not an ideal, and neither am I, but the time of my marriage is for me a time of peace and joy; most of all I value the certainty that we can keep trying, despite problems, that my husband loves me, and even if there are problems, I will not be left overboard and accepted only when I am "polite and nice".
Do I notice today how alcohol problems in the family influence one's growing up? Yes; first, I have a heightened empathy, I sense others' moods precisely; already at home I learned to "see, hear and feel" others' moods, which is very useful, especially when you work with people. Sometimes it hinders me; it happens that a situation reminds me of something in my home, and then I get upset inside, just as at home, such tension from which it is hard to free oneself. Besides, my professional path has been shaped by experience, by the choice of university, then by professional activity - a programme for the prevention of alcohol abuse, the women's centre helping victims of domestic violence, guardianship. What hinders me is my quick temper in a quarrel; when something does not go well, I cannot talk, I take offence or shout; it is hard for me, consciously, to stand face to face with complicated situations, I would rather flee from them. I could probably write much more, and perhaps it would be easier to answer concrete questions, but I have already grown tired of this journey into the past; I am going to drink a cup of grain coffee, I will prepare dinner, then I will go for a walk with the children, I will wait for my husband, and when he returns from work, I will probably hug him tightly, and then thank God that he exists. A pathetic style - perhaps I had such inclinations; in my Polish-language compositions there were notes: "too pathetic". This time, it is real life.