How to decide how much to reveal about yourself
People ask me all the time how I can be so honest about my life in my blog. They want to know how I can write about marriage, sex, abortions, or running out of money over and over again. It's an endless list really, of the stuff I write about that people can’t believe I'm writing about.
But each of you has a list of things in your life similar to that, it’s just a list you don't want to talk about. I'm not special—I don't have more stuff that is difficult to talk about. I just have more difficulty not talking about difficult stuff.
This is why.
I’m going to start by telling you that I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. I was in a post-traumatic stress support group afterward. People were divided into groups of ten based on their experience at the site—how bad things were for you that day. I was in a group comprised mostly of people who narrowly escaped the building before it fell and, as they were running out of the building, were splattered by body parts from people who were jumping out of the building.
We had individual therapy as well. Here's what my therapist said to me: “Your childhood was so terrible that your experience at the World Trade Center was nothing compared to what you experienced as a kid. Your post-traumatic stress therapy needs to focus on your childhood.”
That was the first time I really had a sense of how bad my childhood had been. I knew everyone in the world thought things at the World Trade Center were terrible. So this must mean that my childhood was really terrible.
I was 34.
When I was five, I knew something was not right. That's when I started therapy. I was never totally sure why my parents were sending me.
When I was seven I knew something was not right because the neighbor came over to our house when my parents were smashing picture frames over each others' head. The neighbor said to me and my little brother, “Come with me.”
Then my memories get blurry. The next thing I remember is my high school homeroom teacher. I skipped a day of school and then came to school with a black eye and a note from my dad that said I had been sick. She said that she was not accepting notes from my dad anymore. She said I could not come back to school the next time I miss a day unless I called the police.
I don't remember what I thought when she said that. Except that I thought, “Does she know what's going on at my house? How does she know? I never told her anything.”
I remember the next time my dad beat me up though. I called the police and they came. Like always. And my dad said nothing was wrong. Like always. And then the police started to leave. Like always.
But then I said, “Hold it. Wait. My teacher won't let me back in school unless I get a note from you that says I called you.”
I don't remember what else happened. I remember the police asking me if I want to leave. I remember my mom saying, “Yes. Please. Take her away. Please.”
I went to my grandma's to live. I spent all of high school living at my grandma's. The school social worker spent the rest of high school trying to convince me that my parents did something wrong. My grandma spent the rest of high school telling me that my parents were completely irresponsible. Except at family gatherings. When my parents were there, with my three brothers, and everyone pretended that everything was normal and that I did not live at my grandma's.
I don't remember very much. I went to college and spent my time trying to sort things out: abusive boyfriends, bulimia, anti-depressants, and cutting. Getting nearly straight-A's for a lot of the time. I sorted very little out.
I went to a mental ward the summer of my senior year. My parents visited me. They told me they were happy I was in the mental ward. My extended family visited me and they did not mention my parents. No one talked about why I might be there. My parents were anxious and loud in the family meetings: Begging the doctors to keep me from going back to their house. But even the doctors could not quite figure out why I was there: I worked on my senior thesis, I was a model patient, and I started dating a doctor right after that.
After I graduated, I moved back to Chicago, where he lived and so did my parents. I couldn't figure out how to support myself and there were so many opportunities for me to try nude modeling jobs. The doctor thought it was ridiculous. He thought I was too uptight to model. I said I probably was, but I wanted to try because it was such good money. I said they first test you out in a swimsuit.
He said, “Don't you need some sample photos?”
I said, “Yeah. I have some,” and I pulled them out of my bag.
The doctor looked. He smiled. He said, “Who took them?”
I said, “My dad.”
The doctor flipped. He went nuts. He couldn't believe it.
I was mostly surprised. I had no idea that my dad taking the photos was weird.
That I didn't know it was weird made the doctor even more upset. I remember trying to figure out why I thought it was okay. Or why he thought it was not okay.
I was 22.
I didn't tell anyone about the pictures. I started having nightmares about having sex with my parents. I started not being able to sleep. I didn't tell anyone though. Because I thought I was crazy.
Then my dad visited me a few years later, when I lived in Los Angeles. He wanted to go camping. I went. I was so nervous about being alone with him that I read almost all of One Hundred Years of Solitude before I went into the tent.
Then he took off his clothes, down to his underwear, and snuggled up next to me, with his arms around me and his penis up against my back.
Then I knew.
Or I thought I knew.
I slept outside the tent. I didn't talk the rest of the time. I don't think he even noticed.
I know the street in Los Angeles we were parked on when I finally asked, “Dad, did you do sexually inappropriate things with me when I was younger?”
He said, “Yes.”
I had no memory of what, exactly, he did. I still have no memory of it. And I was scared to ask him more. I asked my mom the same question. She gave me the same answer.
Both parents have said they were sorry. But that is not my point. My point is that my childhood was ruined by secrets.
In hindsight, so many people kept the secret: my family, the police, teachers before my freshman year. Decades later, when I asked my high school friends what they thought of me in high school, two of them told me that everyone thought I was nuts coming to school beaten up so often.
I'm not kidding when I say that I thought I was keeping that a secret.
So what I'm telling you here is that I'm scared of secrets. I'm more scared of keeping things a secret than I am of letting people know that I'm having trouble. People can't believe how I'm willing to write about my life here. But what I can't believe is how much better my life could have been if it had not been full of secrets.
So today, when I have a natural instinct to keep something a secret, I think to myself, “Why? Why don't I want people to know?” Because if I am living an honest life, and my eyes are open, and I'm trying my hardest to be good and kind, then anything I'm doing is fine to tell people.
That's why I can write about what I write about on this blog.
And when you think you cannot tell someone something about yourself, ask yourself, “Really, why not?”
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wow…you are such an inspiration. Gives me wattery eyes.
jana
Thank you for writing this. I have PTSD, too, and most of my childhood is a blank. I know there has to be a lot of us out there. Statistically there must be, but no one talks about it still. I hate the imposed silence and that other people make so much drama when I try to speak about experiences of mine. So, let me not do that to you. You’re a courageous woman and I appreciate what you share on your blog. Maybe if people keep on like you are there will come a generation that is no longer paralyzed by the silence and avoidance of it’s elders. God bless you!
Magdalena
*Virtual hug*. At least you survived.
Yes. Thank you.
Love,love,love to you,dear Penelope.
Respect for finding it in you to forgive(you obviously have),live your life with passion and dignity and go on to have a great family of your own,like the own you wish you had when you were their age.
Gratitude for writing about it so that people can read it and be inspired by your courage and honesty.
Many virtual hugs to you,girl!
Okay, I read this one a little late but I had to comment.
Thank you for being you, for being honest and for sharing your life.
Everyone wants to know they’re not alone and if we just shared what we want to keep secret more often then we just might be able to create a world without stigma.
I live with the truth. You inspire that.
Much love,
Trish
In this entry secretiveness is mentioned. Kids need the truth, whatever it happens to be.
http://well–yeah.blogspot.com/2010/01/below-is-something-i-wrote-long-time.html
love, Val
Penelope, I so admire your courage and I am so sorry for your sad childhood. You are unlike anyone whose writing I’ve ever read and I almost quit reading you once (mad about something I interpreted you wrote as anti-feminist) but was drawn in again to your writing, pretty much every blog since. I also had a terrible childhood and a lot of the same things happened to me. Because I also have a child with Autism (Aspergers’-like), well actually, a father, too, I get your blunt honesty and where that comes from.. I can’t help but think that those on the Autism spectrum are somehow more pure than typical folks in their bluntness/honesty and lack of political correctness. Bless you and wish for you healing for all the wrongs perpetrated against you. You are a good person and you fully deserve all your successes!
Hey. I emailed you just about an hour ago.. I also had a not-so-great childhood with non-verbal learning disability (not quite as severe as asperger’s, but more similar symptoms in kids.. the clumsiness, spatial skills, not being able to handwrite ‘properly’, do art, tell time.. etc) Also my parents have a very dysfunctional marriage, he abused her as well and the problem is that she never divorced, due to dependency and vulnerability.. maybe it’s better for yourself you don’t remember those incidents with your dad. I think it is. Why would you really want to remember harm and pain? At least it’s just a blur for you now & you can fill in the future with happy memories.
In university I also almost developed an eating disorder and pulled my hair .. you said you picked your cuticles I used to do that too (but not to the point of bleeding or anything like that), but pulling my hair is a condition called trichotillomania and it’s shitty and still trying to get over it… I love complex people, and the rawness of your writing and richness of thought & life experience now convinced me that if you can do it.. i can too. thank you so much. I also used to be very blunt about sharing my experiences, but now for professional reasons i’m more discrete… I do wonder if I tell too much to acquaintances/friends. But it’s refreshing to see someone who used to be as open as me, sharing their life publicly. All the best.. talk soon I hope!
You’re a sordid attention seeking nutcase.
and you anonymous guest, you are disgusting, and should be ashamed of this awful comment, but you won’t cause you don’t have a soul.
You’re a sordid attention seeking nutcase.
Wow,I am really sorry…
I read some of your blogs…I am new to this, but have things to share as well..any advice or tips? I have a story to tell and want to help others who need an outlet…therapy is not an option any longer, as I am unemployed..Thank you, and if no response, I can keep pressing on..huh?
I wouold like to start my own blog.
Have you started a blog Michelle? They are free – if you haven’t check out wordpress.com – it’s a cool site. Some people also like Blogger. Use a false name. Some secrets are okay to keep.
That’s why you are married to the farmer – an abusive man who god forbid might do inappropriate things to your sons – some pedophiles (if he is one) don’t care about a child’s gender. You had a horrible childhood and I am sad to read that. Now you are an adult and you can prevent that from happening to your sons. And yourself. You are a highly intelligent woman. You know what you need to do. If not for you at least for your children.
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I hate your mom almost as much as I hate your dad. He did it to you and she let him, from the sound of it. I was NEARLY sexually assaulted by my father when I was 11. I was confused and told my mother, and to her everlasting credit, she believed me. But she didn’t TALK to me about it . At all. She just got mad at my father, and so I felt bad because one again they were fighting, and this time because of me.
God. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to breed. If I ran the world, NOBODY would be allowed to have kids unless they took tests and had training, just like people have to do to drive or own a gun. Here it is the fucking 21st century and people are still so blase and blind about the fact that ANYBODY can have a kid, even if that person’s a nut, a pedophile, a sadist or whatever. What the FUCK is wrong with human society? Why don’t we get a grip and understand the harm and waste and destruction unwanted kids and unfit parents cause the world – and then DO something about it?
Filed in Evernote under “Inspirational.”
I disclosed to my new bf some of the abuse, and behavior from my family. It’s hard to tell. It feels so confusing. I can honestly relate to the violence you experienced. The reaction of the police (or lack thereof), and my family trying to put me in locked down psych wards as a teen, as if they had to dispose of some secret.
I don’t know if he supports me. He says he doesn’t know me well enough. And that is hard. Feeling truly supported when you are an abuse survivor can be an ordeal in itself.
I don’t know how not to be honest. I don’t know how not to tell my secrets and my story. I find it cathartic and I love that my openess empowers other people to own their secrets.
Wow. I just read this post. As a woman who grew up in a nuclear family full of secrets, i can say that nothing feels better than being able to speak freely today about things that others avoid. It’s my victory over a dark and sad past. THANK YOU Penelope.
If there is 1 thing that everyone who mistreats us in life is counting on…it’s that we will not tell anyone.
You may not be able to undo what was done, but you sure are a great example of this:
“Tell your truth. You never know who you’ll set free.”
In this case, I hope it’s YOU.
Penelope, I’m not a big risk taker, but I’ve posted a ton of comments over the last few days in spite of what the Internet tells me about you, and lies and cookies and blah blah.
I’m only going to tell you this once. Sit your ass down and make yourself write that book. The one you were already paid to write and didn’t. You can do this. I know you can.
I’ll be writing mine, so if you want to, think of how you aren’t doing it alone. It seems fake to say it, but I love you. I feel as if I’ve always known you. Write the book. It will save your life.
XO
You know (if you remember) I think you’re the greatest writer of all time. I must have read this before but I read it again today and now I know you’re also the bravest! Love you! Keep writing! DR in NY.
There are so many of us Penny. I am comfortable with my dysfunctional life. I don’t much care for others opinion, only that they look me in the eye before casting a stone or stabbing me in the back.
I love you Penelope.
Drew.
You’re so brave. Thank you.
Your parents and your childhood sound horrendous!!!
Bravisimo! I found your blog via a forum of women who swear up and down you are nuts. But I think they are the crazy ones for beings so dang uptight. Thank you for shining the spotlight on the monster under the bed, in the closet and in the attic. THIS right here is the kind of stuff ppl should be writing about.
That was awesomely powerful.
I wish you the best luck in your personal and professional life, which seems that they both are getting really fine.
Hugs
I want them to know my feeling but I don’t want them to do anything about it … sound impossible
I now understand completely why you share what you do. The real bravery in this world is honesty and I honor you for sharing yours.
I think you are amazing! and you being so brave to speak your story enlightens me.
Hallelujah! Hells yes.
Dear Penelope,
In reading this post, I am moved to comment and to say how important I feel it is to eradicate family secrets. I believe everyone has the right to privacy when it comes to choosing what we reveal and what we do not. People, families especially seem to have the mistaken idea that silence helps, when in actuality it produces the opposite effect. Silence hurts and wounds us. As an artist, a lot of my work has centered around silence and not the silence of healing, but the silence of hurting. For myself, I don’t care what the truth is, I want and need to hear it. I applaud you for your bravery.
Apryl Miller
Thank you
You, Penelope, are amazing.
Wow!.That is sooo amazing how you managed be where you are now given such a horrible past!!…It’s healthy that you are being open about the secrets. I understand now, and it moved me to tears. I’m so terribly sorry for what you endured. Thanks for sharing this and being so brave and choosing to not let the past ruin you!