When Did the Tears Stop?

TRIGGER WARNING: This article discusses child abuse and suicidal ideation, which may be triggering for some readers.

When I reflect on the earliest parts of my childhood, from approximately the ages of four to eight, the thing that stands out to me the most is how much I cried.  And those weren’t just ordinary tears but heaving, gulping, breathless sobs, often to the point that I became hysterical and couldn’t breathe.  To this day, I can still hear those cries of pain, harsh, guttural sounds, almost like nails down a chalkboard.  Sometimes I have an urge to put my hands over my ears to drown out those awful noises from so long ago when I flash back to that time of my life.

My childhood was filled with abuse, sexual, verbal, and physical, by my mom and the many sick men she brought into our lives.  We moved frequently, from city to city, state to state, and school to school.  Too many moves to count.  Due to the many moves, I never had the opportunity to form long-lasting relationships with my childhood friends, nor did I get to know my extended family.  I grew up a lonely, depressed, and terrified child, and those feelings only worsened as the years passed.

My earliest childhood memories of my mother were of her constant yelling and anger.  Even though my mom was one of the biggest abusers in my young life, my love for her ran deep, a love that, to this day, I still struggle to describe.

Despite the daily abuse I suffered, I tried everything in my power to make my mom love and accept me.  A smile, a word of encouragement, maybe even an occasional hug would have meant the world to me.  Unfortunately, it seemed every time my mother looked at me, it was with eyes filled with hatred.  But in those early years of my childhood, my head was firmly buried in the sand to my mother’s many flaws.  I overlooked it all, desperate for her love and acceptance.

Often, my mother would get so angry at my attempts to get close to her that she would start yelling.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME?  I OWE YOU NOTHING!  GODDAMNIT, NOTHING!  I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE AN ADULT!”

I never knew what to make of those words, but I heard them often.  Sometimes my mother would get so angry that she would start hitting me.  Repeated slaps to the head were my mother’s favorite form of discipline, and it wouldn’t take long until I was in hysterics, crying so hard that I couldn’t breathe.

My mother hated loud noises, and when she heard my cries of pain, that would start a whole new level of verbal abuse.

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!  GODDMAN IT, MORRENE, STOP THAT FUCKING CRYING!  RIGHT NOW!”   

By the time I was in fourth grade, I had learned to swallow my tears of pain and suffer in silence.  No tears, no talking while I was being abused.  Nothing.  Without my realizing it, that stoic attitude that I had adopted while I was being abused left me with the inability to cry.  Some days, it felt like the painful lump in my throat of unshed tears was the size of Texas.  As much as I yearned for the emotional release of a good cry, the tears wouldn’t come.  And on the rare occasion when I could squeeze out a few tears, they left me feeling guilty and ashamed as my mom’s cruel voice from the past would echo in my head SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!   

A few years ago, I went to a three-day music festival with a couple of friends.  The only accommodation we had to sleep in was a tent and some sleeping bags.  I was in my mid-50s at the time, and sleeping on the hard ground in a tent does not ensure a good night’s rest, at least for me, but I went anyway, desperately needing some excitement in my life.

I first started experiencing insomnia when I was seven years old, and that painful condition only got worse as the years went on and the stress in my life increased.  The only thing that helped me sleep was taking sleeping pills.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring them with me.  Everything was working against me that night as far as getting enough rest.  Little did I know, even though I was frustrated by what I was sure was going to be another sleepless night, this was setting me up for a fantastic healing moment from my childhood.

That night, as my friends and I retired to our respective sleeping bags, after I lay down, I silently prayed that I would get some sleep, any amount of sleep, even if a few hours.  Unfortunately, I got none.  Not one wink.

The next day, I was exhausted.  After my friends and I ate breakfast, we walked around the festival, looking at the various arts and crafts available for sale and listening to the music.  After a while, we wandered back to our little campground to rest.  I was tired and decided to lie down and see if I could get some sleep while my friends sat outside and talked.

After I lay down, I could feel my tight muscles relaxing, and my mind started to drift.  As I lay there in a half-wake, half-sleep state, suddenly I was transported back to the bedroom of the house we lived in when I was 15 years old.  I was arguing with my mother’s fourth husband, who was one of my biggest abusers.  I had always remembered that argument we had that day and how angry we both were.  I remember him slapping my face, then everything went black in that memory, almost like a curtain closing after a play. Completely black.  The next thing I remember was hearing the crunch of car tires on the gravel driveway as my mom and my stepfather left to go somewhere.  I remember going into the bathroom, desperately searching through the cabinets looking for something to commit suicide with.  I found nothing.

For years, that was all I remembered.  But the biggest question in my mind when that memory flashed in my head was Why did I want to commit suicide?  There was a lot of fighting in my house at that time.  What about this particular fight would make me want to end my life?  That was a question I asked myself for years, each time that memory popped up.

But that day, everything that happened in that room came back to me with terrifying clarity.  In addition to having my face slapped, my mother’s husband grabbed me by the arm and slammed me up against the wall.  Then he threw me on the bed and violently raped me.  As this scene played out in my head, my breath came in short gasps, my heart pounded nervously in my chest, and terrified adrenaline raced through my body, the same feelings I felt that day.

And, let me tell you, the floodgates opened as far as the tears.  Finally, FINALLY, I was able to cry.  And I cried just like I had as a young child before the tears stopped, great big heaving, gulping, breathless sobs.  Instead of my cries sounding harsh like I had remembered, they sounded like beautiful music to my ears.

As the tears spilled from my eyes, they felt like liquid silk as they flowed down my face, warmly caressing my cheeks, dripping down my chin, and onto my chest.  It seemed those just tears wouldn’t stop.  And I welcomed every one of those healing tears, thankful that I was able to release the pain.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

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