Chapter 3 - Indoctrination

““But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chests, how it lasts our whole lifetime, with longings so large you can’t even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart: This is mine, this is mine, this is mine.”

Dad taught me, lesson after lesson, to artfully survive. He busied himself with menial work when he wasn’t abusing. His hands now crusted with layers of conniving and nails darkened by cigarettes, he was a ready teacher. Controlling my emotions and implementing denial was the first weapon he gifted me for my arsenal of psychological tools. Denial became my gift as a child. Trust? A fucking joke. Trust lived nowhere near our street and never came inside our home. You must choose which voice to listen as a child. That’s what it really boils down to. Who do I believe? Not, who do I trust. Not in houses like mine.