It seems as though most of my days and weeks are flying past me at an increasingly faster pace. I know that aging plays this trick on us all, however I have begun to realize the finiteness of a lifespan more acutely than when I was in my teens. This is particularly fascinating, given that when I was a teenager I did not expect to live past the age of 25. Given my then untreated Bipolar Disorder and my family's immense dysfunction, a hope for an early death seemed perfectly normal to me.
And it was normal, because of the warzone I was living in. The beasts of my parents and my mental illnesses were battling so ferociously that no true family could have existed in that world. We were completely incapable of even mimicking a loving family, living instead in a fiery tumult from one nano-second to the next. It is a miracle any of us got out alive, and for some of us, the burns and the wounds will never heal.
I am an only child, however, for sake of full disclosure, I do in fact have a stepbrother, the son of my father's mistress/2nd wife. We are 8 months apart in age and we lived under the same roof for only 2 years, the first 2 of the 6 years that my father's then mistress (now wife) lived in the second floor apartment of our home.
He and I were 14 and 15 and by the time we were both 16 he had left home for good and begun a new life halfway across the country. We are both only children of older parents, and our time together involved more illicit and often illegal activities than either of us would ever care to admit. It was a time of great turmoil for all of us and we were each other's port in the storm. We both loved and hated each other, as brothers often do, and the violence of our young lives was forever spurring those extreme emotions in our souls.
And it is because of this that he and I have not had any form of contact in nearly 10 years. It is not out of malice or anger, but because the pain we suffered during those years together was so devastating and traumatizing, that the flashbacks become present time realities. We are the only 2 people in this world to have endured that ghoulish hell, young and afraid, and when we are together, the enveloping pain is too great for either one of us to bear.
For some of us, the burns and wounds will never heal.
Those 2 years were a blinding hell as 2 grown women were completely controlled by 1 man, and 2 young kids were bullied, verbally abused, and physically beaten by those 3 "adults"who were supposed to be protecting them. The bile and the hatred between the 2 women was as strong as the stench of burning tar over a freshly filled pothole in the road. The violence of the man was the taste of salty bitter tears mixed with vomit and booze. The violence of the women was the feeling of flesh being torn from your body, as a mother tore down her only child to make a man "love" her more. The fear of the 2 young kids were the sights and the sounds of broken glass, hammers, fists, rodents, crumbling walls, cracking icy, and the whoosh of fire as it ignites. And all of these senselessnesses came without warning, without provocation, and without a hope that it would be the last time. Because there was always another time. There was always another indignity to be suffered. There was always more hatred to go around.
For some of us, the burns and wounds will never heal.
As anyone who has experienced both physical and verbal abuse will attest, the verbal abuse is more damaging than any hit that you receive. To be sliced to ribbons by a parent's or a partner's words is the ultimate torture that anyone can suffer. I know this because I have been both the receiver and the giver of this most heinous crime. The harm I caused was aided by the beast of mental illness that I allowed to rule my life. I have said and done things that some people would find totally unforgivable, and by the grace of G-d I have been able to rebuild those relationships, rebuild the trust, and create a new way of being.
I have been given the gift of forgiveness from a woman whom only G-d could have granted me. I am becoming the father that I didn't know how to be. I am becoming the husband that a woman as incredible and loving as my wife is truly deserves. I am becoming the man that makes a positive difference in society, something I never imagined I could be.
And the words of hatred spewed at me, and by me, have created lasting pain that may never be fully erased.
For some of us, the burns and wounds will never heal.

And I have chosen to show them all. I have chosen to show my burns, my wounds, my scars, my brokenness because it is what I am called to do. Each time I reveal a scar I allow someone into what was and what can be. Each time I uncover a wound I allow another to understand who I was, who I am, and who I can be. Each time I show my burns, I show the healing process, and how I am becoming a better man than I was before.
And each time I show and share these places of brokenness I find that others want to share their brokenness with me. And I sit, and I listen, as they tell me how it happened, what it felt like, what they thought, and who they are now because of or in spite of it. And together, we both heal a little more.
Thank you for sharing in the healing process.
Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.
-Ari