I grew up as the daughter of an abused child. My grandfather, and his father before that, were the villains of our family. I grew up recognizing the symptoms of child abuse in my mother, and I learned how to handle their manifestations which often shocked or overwhelmed people who were not familiar with them. When I was about 9, I watched my mother yank a truck driver out of the cab of his semi. He had been speeding, tail-gating and menacing us on the road, and his threatening behavior flipped the little switch in my mother’s brain which had developed after years of abuse. Her rational brain shut off; she was on auto-pilot, reacting solely to what she perceived as a bully using his position to frighten and endanger her and her children. When she came to a stop sign, she got out of the car, stalked back to his truck and hauled him out. He practically fell on top of her as she was screaming at him. Luckily for her, he was a small man, and he was so taken aback by her fury, he just stammered something about her being “crazy,” scrambled back into his cab and sped away.

Despite her occasional scary outbursts, my mom never abused me or my sister. She was one of those amazing victims who was able to stop the cycle of violence, and for that, she will always be a hero to me. But I did have to learn to watch for “the signs” that the switch was about to flip. In any situation where she saw bullying, where someone bigger and stronger was threatening someone smaller and weaker, particularly if the bully was a man, and the victim was a woman, child or animal, I could see my mom’s back stiffen, her jaw would set, and something would come into her eyes that eventually became familiar to me, although I cannot name it. On more than one occasion, I have had to physically restrain her from going after a complete stranger who was behaving badly.

That’s my mom. She’s the champion of the little guy, and I love that about her, but it can be frightening. On a handful of occasions, she’s turned that fury on people she loved, though never in a violent way. Years of tangling with my grandfather - a very intelligent, ex-military, professional boxer - have turned my mom into a formidable fighter. She can argue with you for days! She will pull out all the stops too. If she feels threatened, that switch will flip, and you’re in for a long, nasty haul. As I said, I can recognize the signs and avoid the marathon arguments. Growing up with my mom taught me some very useful things about adult victims of child abuse.

Which brings me to the real reason for writing this blog entry. In 1996, I met the man who would become my husband. An ex-boyfriend of mine called me up and said he wanted to introduce me to his new roommate, Sean. (Yes, I know it’s unusual - I had a pattern of breaking up with guys without alienating them.) I walked into their quintessential bachelor pad - all high-end wi-fi stereo, big screen TV, video game systems, wires everywhere, a few mismatched sticks of ancient furniture, empty pizza boxes and beer cans and overflowing ash trays. My guy was standing in the middle of the room with an electric guitar slung around his shoulders and a lit cigarette tucked between the strings at the top of the guitar. It was love at first sight.

More than that, though, we were a perfect match, if there is such a thing. Partly because Sean is an adult victim of child abuse like my mom. I’ve always said that God sent him to me because there aren’t many women in the world who have been raised by an abused parent without having been abused themselves. Sean could not have married an abused person; he could not have married someone without the learned strategies for dealing with the symptoms. It had to be someone like me. Someone who had the knowledge without the baggage.

So let me tell you about that baggage. Like my mother, Sean has a switch. On a few occasions, I’ve had to restrain him from going after strangers as well. In fact, on one family vacation, I was sitting between my mom and my husband when a little girl came flying out of the restaurant in whose terrace we were dining. The little girl was about 3 or 4, and she was crying frantically. A split-second behind her came her mother, who looked like hell on wheels. She was furiously stalking her child out into the plaza, and when she caught up with her, she yanked that little girl right out of her shoes. Sean and Mom were on their feet in an instant, and I was clinging to their arms when the little girl’s father came to rescue his daughter from his overwrought wife.

Another odd and annoying bit of baggage from abuse has to do with food. Like my mom, Sean has myriad food “issues.” His abusive stepmother made chicken a lot. So chicken is a problem. If you’re a cook, you recognize what a major complication that is. Sean and my mom are both incredibly picky eaters. My 9-year-old is easier to cook for than either of them. I read an article that indicated many victims of child abuse have eating disorders because of the control factor. What they put into their mouths is one of the few things an abused child can control. They use it as a defensive weapon just as abusers will use it to punish them. Sean won’t eat peach-flavored foods, stewed tomatoes, cooked carrots and several other foods that he associates with his abuser.

Then there is the hypochondria. I read an article about this too. Abused children often develop it as a defense mechanism because many abusers will not be as violent if they believe their victim is already weakened from another source. I guess it takes the fun out of hitting the child. Nice, huh? Well, that hypochondria doesn’t go away when the child grows up and escapes the abuse. If you ask my mom or my husband how they’re feeling, they’ll give you a laundry list of ailments; their hair is falling out, their right earlobes are sore, their pancreas is twitchy, and their left toenails are loose - stuff like that. I try to be patient with that because sometimes, I swear I can see the 9-year-old version of my husband in his eyes when he is whining about not feeling good, and I remember that it’s not a character flaw. It’s a defense mechanism.

And that brings me to the elephant in the room, the person I have seen only once for about 5 seconds from a distance in the dark. The person I would most like to believe is reading this blog, but she won’t - my husband’s ex-step-mother. My letter to her:

Mrs. Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is-Now (since you can’t get a husband to stay with you for long),

I’ve been dealing with the consequences of your cruelty for several years longer than you actually had the victim in your power. I believe your abuse of my husband lasted about seven years; I’ve been with him for over 14.

If you’ve actually read the preceding paragraphs, you can see some of the results of your abuse. In addition to having a hair-trigger reaction to bullies, difficult food phobias, and mild hypochondria, my husband is an agnostic. It’s a tribute to his logical mind and strength of character that he’s not a simple atheist.  I understand that one of your excuses for beating him was that you believed God wanted you to, but you were such a devout Christian, such an active church member, such a religious woman, no one would believe Sean’s stories. You told him he was evil and deserved the beatings you inflicted. Did you know that little boy used to pray every night, begging God to make him good so you’d stop hitting him? And when God didn’t answer in the way Sean expected, Sean decided He probably didn’t exist. Thanks for that, lady. I’m working every day to undo that bit of damage. Occasionally, I’ll feel like I’m making a tiny bit of progress, then Sean will hear Pat Robertson or some other televangelist make some ridiculously unkind pronouncement against an unfortunate bunch of people who obviously deserve their pain, and we’re right back. In those cases, he always mentions you. And when Sarah Palin was running for Vice President, he was reminded of you because of her illogical, holier-than-thou demeanor. I have to run interference, trying to live as a better example of a loving, forgiving CHRISTian than you or those other angry, paranoid posers so that Sean will perhaps, one day, forgive God for leaving him in your clutches for so long.

For all those reasons, your existence is often cursed in our home - by me, by my husband, sometimes even by our son, who is now old enough to understand the damage you did. In fact, your name is a code word in our family for “villain.” You are THE evil stepmother, the ogre, the wicked witch of all our bedtime stories. To speak your name, however, is to cast a pall over our home, so we don’t say it often. You’re the “Voldemort” of our family.

Yet, Sean, like my mom, is such a remarkable individual that he has chosen not to continue the cycle of abuse. He never touches our children in anger; he gets upset with me if I occasionally swat their behinds. Spanking is not a punishment in our home. He is a magnificent father, in spite of you. His children adore him. I know you cannot say the same of your children.

Sean has a great life. He has a good job that pays enough for me to work only part-time so I can stay home with our young kids. He has some terrific friends who think he’s brilliant and fun. He has two beautiful, healthy, smart, well-behaved children who think he hung the moon just for them. And he’s got me, his wife of 12 years. I believe that’s longer than any of your marriages have lasted, and we’re still going strong. I think he’s amazing. He’s a genius, did you know that? He’s smarter than I am, and I’m a National Merit Scholar, a college lecturer with 3 degrees, a published author. Sean blows me away intellectually. His family and friends continue to be impressed by his intelligence.

He’s kind too. Like the other men in the Mahoney family, he loves animals and has some weird cat attraction that brings every feline within a mile radius to our door. Like my mom, he won’t let any harm come to an animal or child if he can help it. His kindness is accompanied by bravery; for that reason, he’s the type of person bullies fear. Maybe that’s why my grandfather kept his distance on the three occasions he met Sean.

Sean has an amazing gift for sizing people up. He will meet someone new, and later in the evening, I’ll ask him, “What do you think of So-and-So?” And I always take his judgment to heart because he is always right. The people for whom he gets a bad first impression inevitably turn out to be unworthy of our friendship. If he doesn’t trust someone, we keep our children away them. Needless to say, you will never come near Sean’s kids.

Together, we have created the kind of rich life you can only envy from afar because people like you cannot manage it. We have a nice house full of love and laughter and happy memories. We take crazy family vacations to wonderful places like Disney World, the Black Hills, the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon. We drive for hours together, and we enjoy each others’ company.

So the damage you inflicted on Sean, the damage my deceased grandfather inflicted on my mom, and the damage so many other abusers inflict on their victims has some lasting, annoying side effects. But the smart victims, the strong victims, the lucky victims get the last laugh. They get to choose the rest of their lives.  I have been blessed to witness the lives of my husband and my mom, two remarkable people who are so much better than you, it seems a shame they have to share the same planet with you. You will never be as loved as they are.

May God have mercy on your twisted soul.

Jennifer Price Mahoney