Chapter 17 - My Own Childhood
Therapy made me remember things I had called normal.
Not because I suddenly discovered secret horrors.
Because context shifted.
At eleven I lied about breaking a window.
Walter made me hold a wall-sit until my legs shook.
At thirteen I talked back to Denise.
He slapped the back of my head.
At sixteen I drove after drinking half a beer at a friend’s house.
He made me stand under freezing shower for thirty seconds because:
“You want shock? Here.”
I laughed about that story in college.
At twenty-seven, with a burned five-year-old, it sounded different.
Did I consider myself abused?
I struggled with label.
Therapist said:
“You don’t need label today.”
Good.
What mattered:
I had learned that pain could be a legitimate educational tool if adult believed lesson important enough.
Then I rejected that intellectually as parent.
But emotionally?
When Walter hurt Lily, my first response after safety was pain.
Punch.
Threat.
Same family language.
Different moral target.
Still:
Pain to teach lesson.
I wanted Walter to understand:
Touch her and this happens.
Exactly what he told Mason.
That realization made me nauseous.
Not because my punch equaled burning a child.
It did not.
Because inherited logic can survive even when we reverse heroes and villains.
I told Ava.
She said:
“That’s why you’re doing the work.”
No absolution.
May you like
Good.
────────────────────
