Victoria Orifice

Victoria Orifice

Closeted Skeletons Still Collect Dust

Here is a secret that no one knows:

When I was in high school we had an assignment—write about a moment that transformed us. I had a growing list of traumas and failures, only some of which I felt comfortable addressing with my therapist at the time. I went with the moment I found out about my parents’ divorce, the lead-up, the emotional labor I put in as a child of only nine years to get these grown-ass adults to get their shit together.

That part isn’t the secret.

The secret is how my parents reacted.

I never could have imagined the outrage. It was like I’d been arrested, expelled from school, gotten pregnant, even murdered someone. For parents who told me they’d love me no matter what, there was this sense of betrayal behind me doing something as innocent as telling my story, outlining my experiences to a teacher and mentor. Like somehow they’d get in trouble for the unexpectedly quiet conversation on the edge of their bed, for the anxieties spinning circles in my brain.

And yet, this simple high school English class essay seemed to them like I was outing their dirty laundry to the entire world. Like it was going to be published in the newspaper or they were going to end up trending on Twitter— which didn’t even mean anything at that time. It took me a long time to understand that their reaction was born of deep embarrassment, of fear of retribution, an instinctive response to knowing they handled a situation poorly and hurt someone they loved in the process. And, unfortunately, their response was to unknowingly fall in line with the choreographed pattern like a marching band.

I wonder, sometimes, if my teacher had known the emotional fallout, whether he would regret assigning it in the first place.

The ensuing panic attack was not one of my finer moments, but I have the wisdom now to realize it wasn’t my fault. I’ve realized a lot of things weren’t my fault as time has passed, and the journey towards self-compassion is easier some days than others. It’s been a long seven years since that essay was written and finding it again while working on college applications was a punch to the gut.

There was the burst of memories from reading my description of the wallpaper— “rows of flowers like prison bars” —and the fear of my parents hurting each other, not from any experience, but from shows like NCIS and Law and Order: SVU which made entertainment out of domestic violence. Perhaps the first time I realized how important representation is because I had no context at the time for divorce being anything but a messy, loud, and painful affair.

I don’t know why I kept it to begin with, why I filed it away with all my other old essays instead of burning it to ashes in my backyard the instant I graduated. I don’t know why I didn’t throw it out when I pulled it out of the folder. Some sense of nostalgia or maybe just plain fear. I’m not a person who can throw something like that out without reading it again, and while I’ve grown and healed a lot as a person, I’m not ready to press on that scar just yet.

I don’t want to revisit being that small, terrified child who felt so, so sick every time they left the house. I don’t want to revisit the arguments, the fights, the panic attacks, breath coming in such wild pants I thought I’d never breathe clearly again. I don’t want to remember the exhaustion which seeped deep into my bones, every nerve on fire almost every day for years on end. I don’t blame my parents for that—they did the best they could with what they had. But I’ll be damned if I don’t admit I wish they’d done just a little bit better.

In all fairness to them, they wish they did too.

The years have passed slowly, steadily, and somehow in the blink of an eye. Wounds healed. Apologies were made and accepted. Hard conversations were had that couldn ’t have been had in the emotional warzone that my household had become due to mental and physical illness and a society that wouldn’t accommodate them. Empathy and understanding grew as I aged, as I realized and understood the pressure they were under, and empathy for myself grew as I realized I couldn’t blame myself for not thinking about them. I was just trying to survive.

We were all just trying to survive.

I don’t need to read an old essay to know that.

But still, maybe I should, if only to see the evidence of how far I’ ve come, to the work I’ve put in to break the unhealthy patterns etched into the grooves of my brain.

Want to hear another secret? This one hasn’t been a secret for long.

I think I’ll be okay after all.