Healing begins with forgiveness

Mom and Dad got divorced when I was fairly young, not even in grade school yet. Wasn’t too long after that and my Mom was dating, then living with, and finally married to, a man she had met at work. I now had a step-dad.

He had three boys of his own, but they lived with their mother and only came over every other weekend. And so it was just the three of us most of the time, until Mom and step-dad starting having children of their own a few years later.

He was a huge man, a 6-foot, 4-inch Swede with tree-trunk arms and legs. I was just a small 4-year-old that was confused about the whole thing.

To make matters worse, while my mother kept working her day job at the county, my new step-dad quit to stay home and run his own business. So I was with him most of the time. And he was a horrible man.

He found it entertaining to do such things as viciously kick me after asking me to pick something up off the floor. Throw me across the room. Knock me down stairs. Sometimes it was because he was in a bad mood. Other times it was because he missed his own children and was resentful that I was there.

I looked like my father and shared his name, which wasn’t a big hit with him either. Often there was no reason at all. It was just entertaining for him.

Constant fear was a heck of a way to grow up. Kindergarten was half-day, and I would exit the bus with shaking knees, wondering if he was in a good mood that day, or if I was going to get punched, kicked, thrown, etc.

You have to understand that this was a time when concern for child abuse wasn’t what it is today. Schools would ignore it, pretend they didn’t see it. It made people uncomfortable. If a child was beat up so badly that they felt they had no choice but to do something, it usually meant nothing more than a call to the home to see if “everything was alright” (which guaranteed more beatings).

The years went by and the physical abuse continued to somewhere around late junior-high. But the verbal, emotional and psychological abuse continued clear up to the day I graduated high school.

When I graduated high school, I didn’t “move out” so much as I fled home. It felt like being released from prison, and I figured my problems were finally over. Boy, was I wrong.

I was too young to grasp the resentment and gigantic chip I carried on my shoulder. I was angry at my mother for allowing it to happen. I was angry at the world because nobody had ever said or done a thing while it was obvious what was going on.

But it never occurred to me just how damaging all that was. Even after I joined the Army and they forced me to see a counselor every week (I had problems with authority), I didn’t get it.

And so I entered my 20s a very angry, short-fused young man, which my step-dad learned to his detriment one day while I was visiting my mother. I was 22 at the time, very broad of shoulder and full of piss and vinegar.

He, on the other hand, still saw the same old kid that he could push around. And so, that day, when he balled up a fist and threatened me over some minor non-issue, I planted my feet and told him, “I’ve been waiting for this day for 20 years. I’m going to allow you to take a swing, and then I’m going to put you on the ground. Today is reckoning day, whenever you’re ready.”

He made the wise choice of backing down. My mother recommended that I leave, and that was that. He never threatened me again. Can’t say I left feeling much better though.

It wasn’t until somewhere around 26 that a mind-blowing reality hit me: I was still being victimized by that man even though I was years out of the house. Ironically, that just made me all the more mad.

But it was a healthy anger. I was resolved to no longer be controlled via negative emotions, distrust, distancing myself from people, by that man. I couldn’t keep dwelling on the past and allowing it to dictate how I behaved today. I figured that if I couldn’t change the past, my only choice was to accept that what happened. It was time to move on.

It’s not like it happened overnight, but I found that each time I’d slide back into that hole of frustration and anger, I was able to recognize it and pull myself back out. Each time, it became easier and easier to do so, and those episodes became fewer and fewer.

It wasn’t long before things starting looking up. I had more friends, my relationships were getting better, and my patience was like night and day compared to what it had been.

But I still had one more thing to do before I felt like I was truly healed – forgive. I had spent my life angry at my step-dad, and I had to let it go. So I forgave him.

No, I didn’t actually go to my parent’s house and tell him that. He wouldn’t have cared, and never believed that what he was doing was wrong anyway. But for my own peace, I forgave the man. The old saying wherein a “huge weight was lifted off my shoulders” never felt so real.

It sounds ridiculous to say that you can find the good in something as miserable as having to grow up that way, but time and time again I see what I learned from it. I became a step-dad and was so terrified of being “that kind of step parent” that I worked extremely hard to prove to my step-children that they were loved and respected on equal terms with my own son.

I had essentially learned what not to do. And in learning to let the past go and forgive something so awful as the way that man treated me, I found it easy to forgive others for transgressions far more minor.

This was a very difficult article to write, and I must honestly say that I have ventured far out of my comfort zone on this one. But a very good friend of mine is dealing with issues almost identical to those that I experienced back in my 20s.

I’m proud of him for recognizing that he needed help and applaud him for seeking it. But the thought occurred to me that there might be others out there who are also in a similar position and that, by reading this, might realize they are not alone.

The effects of child abuse linger and continue to damage long after we are no longer children. Sometimes we get lucky, like my friend and I did, and recognize it so we can begin to heal.

But if you grew up with an abusive parent and maybe, sometimes, find yourself dwelling on it and feeling angry all over again, stop and think for a minute and decide if you’re still letting yourself be a victim. I hope you find a way to find peace.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist. Contact him at bcompton1971@yahoo.com.