2006 10: Breaking the silence

The Star online. Lifestyle. Arts & Fashion. Sunday October 29, 2006

DONNA McCullough was the first person in the United States to make me cry. I had newly arrived from Malaysia and my husband Scott and I were hanging out at her house. Scott asked her to tell me about her project – a collection of mannequin sculptures built around the theme of child abuse.

At that point, I thought only of my niece, whose parents were resolving their own marital issues. I could imagine what Michelle was going through – being made to feel like she was “defective”; that she deserved to be punished; the chaos of a household filled with shouting matches.

Then I had the chance to help McCullough prepare a short essay about the project for publicity purposes. I surprised myself when I realised that I had gotten under her skin and knew how she felt. It wasn’t just my niece that I connected with child abuse. It was me.

I had used the word “child abuse” on myself before, but often with a wink and a giggle. I would explain to people that the reason I had only partial hearing in my left ear was because my teacher slapped me silly in Standard Four. They would be mortified, but I thought of it as just a cheap thrill to shock them.

But McCullough’s mannequins – the eerie, disturbing, headless, armless mannequins modified into unnatural shapes, colours, textures and permutations – continued to draw me in an uncanny way and made me confront parts of my past that I thought I had resolved a long time ago. I suddenly realise it wasn’t just my teacher who had “slapped me silly”. I had been a victim of prolonged abuse that shaped who I am today.

My older sister made me feel like I was ugly, dirty and loathsome when we were children. She told me that no one loved me because of that.

I’ve often wondered why she hated me so much. I always thought the reason was because she was unprepared to have a younger sibling usurp her position as the only child in the house. My presence threatened her. Thereafter she took every opportunity she could to make my life miserable.

I would secretly play with her toys, read her books (which she kept in a locked cabinet neatly shelved according to size and colour) and touch her things because they were always so much nicer, while mine were often broken or worn with use. And she would invariably find out and thrash me. But it didn’t stop me.

For some reason, I felt that I deserved to be hit and humiliated because I really believed I was ugly and loathsome. And because I wanted so much to be like her, I took the abuse – little realising that it was changing who I was.

I think it was this feeling of deserving to be hit and humiliated that spilled over to what happened with my teacher. I was 10, hyperactive and precocious. Mrs Lee had my older sister in her class a couple of years before and had experienced our family’s propensity to correct the teacher’s mistakes. She disliked my sister and might have been on the lookout for me.
I admit I was talkative and didn’t always pay attention, especially in English class, because I already knew what Mrs Lee was teaching. Not to mention that she sometimes made mistakes. So I snuck in story books and read while she taught.

But she also taught Math, which I sucked at. Anyway, what I remember of that year was that she would pull me up to the front of the class for talking when we were supposed to be doing our work, grab my right ear and hit me across the left side of my face with her right hand.

The slaps hurt and I would often feel my left ear ringing after that. I would cry from pain and anger, and be angry and ashamed of myself for crying. I was also terrified of Mrs Lee and that terror translated into panic, and I would forget homework, giving her more opportunities to slap me.

The year passed in a haze of slaps, fear and anger. It was just like McCullough’s pin-cushion sculpture. It never stopped and you didn’t know when the next one was coming. Yet it never occurred to me to breathe a word to my parents. I felt like I deserved Mrs Lee’s abuse because I had been naughty and didn’t do my homework.

About a year later, I realised I couldn’t hear very well in my left ear. My parents thought it was just a convenient excuse to not answer them whenever they called. Later my father thought it was earwax and took me to the public clinics to get my ears cleaned. Since then I’ve been obsessed with cleaning my ears, but my hearing never came back.

Strangely enough, I never associated my experiences with abuse until I saw McCullough’s sculptures. The awareness that I had been abused suddenly made sense of why I had so much anger and frustration as a teenager.

On the surface I was obedient, got good grades in school and was happy. Inside, I had built walls to protect myself from further humiliation and pain. To make up for all my years of crying, I hardened myself to never cry. I talked tough and humiliated others before they could humiliate me. I felt anger at my parents. On hindsight, I must have unconsciously been angry with them for not protecting me from my sister and teacher. And I became an abuser in turn.

My younger sister bore the brunt of it. I would pick on her and give her hell. I hated her and didn’t understand why because I thought she was sweet and adorable as a baby. It all came to a head when my parents and older sister were away one day and I was left at home with my two younger siblings. We were late for church. My younger sister was watching TV with her friends and I yelled that we had to leave NOW, or else. She sauntered out of the room and I totally lost it and slapped her across the face – just as my teacher had.

She did not cry. She stared at me with dry eyes, full of anger and defiance. I suddenly realised that I had turned into my teacher and my older sister. The enormity of what I had done struck me like a bolt of lightning and I panicked that I might have destroyed my sister’s hearing. I never touched her again.

I have since made my peace with my older and younger sisters, and my teacher. But the effects of what they did to me are not so easy to erase. The feelings of inadequacies and guilt have become part of my psyche.

For a long time, each time I looked in the mirror, I saw someone ugly. Each time I did something wrong, I loathed myself. When-ever I felt that someone did not like me, I thought it was my fault. I strove to be perfect. And to protect myself from hurt, I made sure there were no chinks in my armour.

I have often pondered on what kept me from being one of those self-destructive people who are the common products of abuse. I think what saved me was my tenacious belief that I was valuable in God’s eyes. So, no matter what anyone said or tried to make me believe, eventually that faith would enable me to reject the abuser’s attempts to undermine my self-worth.
I would like to say that my past is now behind me. But I’m still fighting the feelings of “not good enough” and of shame and guilt each time I make a mistake. Fortunately, I have at least broken the silence. – By L.W.