I read Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler with my book club in 2007, and it only got a 6.3 out of 10 (but they are a tough crowd, and I am always shocked at what they like and don't like). I remember I liked it OK, but it wasn't earth-shattering for me.
This book was much better. It helped me to ponder my own journey with an abusive mother (something I am only now making more public 12 years after her death) and a father who couldn't be there all the time because he was 1) at work from 6:50am until 5:30pm five days a week and 2) in the garage working on things and with his friends from 5pm Friday night until 5pm Sunday night (our garage was a huge complex separated from our home by a backyard) only coming in for dinner. So, he did not see or hear most of the abuse. It never crossed my mind to tell him. When he was present, and she went off in anger about something trivial (one time is was about me saying, "It is so hot."), he did defend me and send my mother to her room (rather than me). When he found out he was dying of cancer when I was 25 years old, his first words were, "Who is going to protect you from your mother?"
My mom was the girl scout leader and supported me in everything I did. She bought me expensive clothes (and forced me to say that I loved her when she did) and cooked me breakfast every single morning (even when I did not want her to do so when I got older). She was a good mom 90% of the time, but those 10% were not pretty.
The mom in this book was a crazy monster 90% of the time and had 10% kindness (when she was making tea for some reason). It is interesting to see how each of the children handled their abuse. All three received it to some extent but the tender, compassionate one, Ezra, didn't receive it overtly (but I think his mother did passive-aggressively with him). In my family, my oldest half-brother (14 years my senior from my dad's previous marriage to an alcoholic crazy woman - hmm, do you see a pattern here for my dad?) and my older brother received no abuse. Nada. Nothing. I got it all when she went hysterical that 10% of the time. (I had a counselor think my mom had histrionic personality disorder but that doesn't quite fit because she did not have the "attention seeking" characteristics typical of that disorder.)
My mom apologized to me when I was 25 years old because she found a cassette tape of a conflict that I had taped when she started to escalate. As a teen, I hid my Panasonic tape recorder behind our brown rocker in our living room and hit record when it started to go south. I forgot about it and had put it in a drawer, and she found it about ten years later and listened to the whole thing. She called me and said, "I was really mean to you when you were growing up, wasn't I?" I said, "Yes," and forgave her. What is so weird about the taping is I never did it to have "proof" of her abuse but to see what I was doing wrong so I could learn how to not do it. (Enter a life-time addiction to people-pleasing and twisting myself like a pretzel so people will like me.)
The apex of abuse occurred when she twisted my pinkie finger in anger until I could hear the bones breaking. She made me lie to the doctor about how it happened. I never even thought about telling any adult or doctor about it. It was not until I was in counseling at age 30 when I was engaged to be married and my mother threatened to commit suicide because I mentioned that I was not going to have a receiving line in my wedding (and my aunt and uncle agreed that I was a disrespectful daughter and said, "And you call yourself a Christian" as they kicked me out of their house for it. Resulting in me making tearful apologies to every one for being so disrespectful). As the counselor dug deeper into my history with my mother, I casually mentioned that my mom had broken my finger in anger, and she said, "It is NEVER OK for a mother to break a child's finger." I had never even questioned this thinking if I weren't such a disrespectful daughter she would not have had to break it. A lightbulb went off. It is so obvious to me now, but I always thought it was my fault because of something I said that set her off.
These kids did not think about telling anyone either. They just endured and learned to cope in their neurotic ways as adults. The point of view changes from the mother to the three children. So, you don't quite get that mom was abusive when you read her point of view, but it comes out through the children's narratives into their middle adult years.
This is an important book. I wish I could have read something like it when I was younger to give voice to the craziness that happened to me growing up.
The happy part of my story is that I found a deep relationship with God through it. I had godly older women who mentored me. I received therapy, listening prayer, discipleship, spiritual direction, etc. It has all been good, and I have a sensitivity to abuse that has helped other people in abusive situations find wholeness because I have been comforted and made whole by God (2 Corinthians 2:1-3). I also married an incredibly, non-abusive, kind, generous man who comes from a very HEALTHY mom dynamic. I also did not pass abuse on to my children (as the daughter in the book did).
I ended up ushering my redeemed mom into heaven in the end, at total peace with her. So that was the happy ending that these children never got. That makes me sad.
This is way more than I intended to share, but I am glad that I read this book. It was more personal to me than I even realized.
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