Power of Denial Woven Through Life of Love, Relationship Addict
When I was 25 years old, I was attending theater school in a tiny town in Northern California. Smack dab in the middle of Humboldt County, my school was about as far away as you can get from civilization in the lower 48. Three hundred miles north of San Francisco, 300 miles south of Portland, rough and picturesque, the Pacific bashing the coastline into staggering beauty on the one hand, the coastal hills shrouding growers and loggers in a wine-dark mountainous haze on the other, Humboldt is the place where the real hippies of the early ’60s fled to escape the commoditization of their movement and where all the Deadheads flocked when Jerry died in the mid-’80s.
The spring night was foggy and chilly. Douglas firs guarded the secrets of the houses closely. Town is no place for loggers, but the local economy was depressed and there was not much work for the guys. With nothing but meth, booze and time on their hands, these strong, bearded men in their red and black checked shirts couldn’t find much in life but frustration, anger and despair. Over the blue-white glow of TV sets, the hiss of domestic violence crept out of windows and under door jambs.
I did my best to ignore it all.
Low clouds kept the forested hills invisible; the redwoods were up there, felt but not seen. Probably Bigfoot, too.
I had just walked in the door of the little 700-square-foot two bedroom house I shared with one of my classmates when the phone rang. It was an odd time to get a call, late-ish on a Tuesday night, and I was shocked to find that the person on the other end was my father. Apparently, there had been heavy drama happening on the home front. Miracle of miracles, my father was finally willing to entertain the idea that his eldest son had done some not-so-nice things to both his middle daughter and his youngest son (me) over a period of about eight years, some 20 years previously.
Whereas I had conveniently locked away the negative memories of this period in a vault deep inside myself and preferred never to talk about them or address their inherent implications in my life, my sister held her pain close to the surface and had repeatedly tried to tell our parents what had happened. My mother had silently accepted the facts some years before. But sadly, my father had never believed a word of it.
Now, it was being thrown in his face and he was on a fact-finding mission. His newest wife, my stepmother, had come to him in tears, telling him that her youngest daughter had told her a horrible story. Her daughter had told her that my brother had tried to do something fairly not-so-nice to her one night long ago. My father had called my sister, who said yes, she had been there too and could confirm the story.
When I realized where the conversation was going, I went out and sat on the front stoop for privacy. As I looked out into the dark, idly wondering what on earth was going on with all the noise coming from the house across the street, he asked if I remembered the night in question and began to recount his stepdaughter’s version of events.
Do I remember that night? He asked. When I thought for a moment, I realized I did indeed remember that night.
I told him what I remembered. He asked if I had seen anything specific and I said no, I hadn’t. He asked if I thought my brother was capable of doing something like that, and I said, yes, absolutely. Don’t you remember everything my sister tried to tell you about him? I asked. He said of course he did, but none of that was ever confirmed. He said he was sure my sister was making it all up for attention and that now he was sure they were both lying and making up this story, too. He asked me again if I had seen anything specific and I said no, I hadn’t.
He said goodnight and hung up.
I sat on the stoop for a while, staring into the night. The noise from across the street had flared up for a moment and then stopped. Everything was quiet and seemed peaceful. I stood up, stretching the stiffness out of my legs, took a final breath of the night air and went inside. I did my evening routine and got in bed. Just as I was drifting off, the phone rang again. It was my sister this time, in tears.
“Why did you deny everything?” She was furious. “You know what he did to me. He did it to you and you won’t accept it.”
“I didn’t deny anything,” I said. “I never saw anything that night. I was just watching TV. I heard noises and that’s it. I never knew anything happened. You never said anything. How was I supposed to know anything happened?”
“Here’s what dad said to me,” she sobbed. “He said: ‘Your brother denies anything happened that night. He says you are lying, that you’re probably making it all up. He says he didn’t see anything.’ Why would you say that? Why? When you know?”
I was shocked. In that moment, I realized the incredible power of denial. What my father had taken away from our conversation was astounding. I had no idea how he could have heard what he said he had heard from me, and I was flabbergasted that he could go so far as to say that I had accused my sister of lying. I told her as much. It took quite a while to convince her that yes, I was on her side and that yes, I had her back and that yes, I remember everything. Every little thing. She was not crazy. She was not a liar. She was not making everything up.
My father took his denial to the grave. He never acknowledged that the girls could have been telling the truth or that his eldest son had done anything to hurt anyone, at any time, ever. Though his denial disgusted me, even as I sat at his wake, I have to be honest: I understand denial. I understand how powerful it can be. After all, it took me another 20 years to accept that I was broken and sick and that it all began on a night just like that one.
Hi. My name is … not important. I’m a 45-year-old male. I’m a love, sex and relationship addict.
By Angus Whyte