Shooting and Humiliation

So there I was. I'd gone to a clay pigeon shooting event and I'd done terribly. So terribly in fact that when they announced the "Bottom Gun" - out of around 65 people - they named me. I had to go up and pick up my "prize" - a 12 inch diameter clay. I felt so humiliated. I can't remember the last time my face went so red - maybe when I asked a girl out on the school bus and she said no..

There were reasons why I'd done so badly. To start with apparently I'd been holding the gun wrong (which the chap spotted near the end), and secondly I was wearing contact lenses meaning what I don't know. So. Bottom. My male ego shattered on the floor.

When I left and drove home I felt terrible. Angry. Humiliated. I knew that I was I was feeling was based on years ago - when I was at school and those sods made my life so miserable. Total humiliation. When my dad laid into me and totally humiliated me. Feeling powerless. Lord I've tried so hard to ensure that would never happen again. And there it was today. WHAM. BANG. Bottom. Men and women, all local business leaders. And I was bottom. By some margin. CRAP. And the bottom gun is Mark Andrew. Wonderful. I buried my face in my jacket. My face went deep red. I stood up and with grace accepted the "prize". The guys around me apologised. Told me I'd handled it well.

CRAP. I'd been humiliated. Something that somehow I'd vowed that I would never feel again. I'd never feel people's eyes on me like that again. I'd never be the worst. I'd ensure I was near the top. With every sinew and every fibre of my being I would ensure that was not me. And wham. There I was, it was me. And all the old emotions came flooding back.

Where did they come from originally? I understand with my adult mind that it's no big deal. I was wearing contacts, have something strange with my right eye and was holding the gun wrong. So what?

Yet my inner self was desperate. Old wounds opened. Torn open. Like a vulture picking at old flesh. That's what happened today. Open. Bare. Unguarded. Powerless. Lame. Weak.

Ring any bells my therapist would say.

Yep. My dad. Again. He used to drive into me and I was open, bare, unguarded, powerless, lame and weak. I could not stop his direct assaults on me. The real inner me where I was desperate to be loved, accepted and affirmed. No. Instead his personal attacks on who I was meant I had no defence. Meaning the kids at school could bully me with impunity.

Dad. You miserable sadistic bastard. You swine of a man. Why did you target me so? Why did you beat me? Was it because I was so small I couldn't fight back? Was it because you hated me? Was it because I wasn't good enough? Or was it because you were pitifully small on your insides that you had to make yourself look big in comparison to a four year old? You thought you would drive your fist through my spirit. Crush me. Dominate me. Intimidate me. Make me petrified of crossing you in any way. Ensure that I agreed with everything you thought and did. Back you up because you weren't big enough yourself. You needed your small son to do that too. As well as your wife, and my sisters.

You little man. You miserable man. How you continually abused me. Dominated me. Frightened me. Raised your fist to me. Shouted at me. Glared at me. Fought yourself to ensure you didn't knock a hole in me. Put me down. "I thought you were clever?". "I thought you went to a grammar school?". THWACK as the garden canes were hit across my legs. THWACK as the belt went across my bare bottom for stirring a potty. SMACK as the slipper landed squarely on my rump. "Ooo I could knock you into next week" whilst biting your clenched fist with the other raised across your head ready to knock me into next week. "I'll knock your block off". Big fists. Big angry fists with big angry six foot man. Small child. Frightened. Fearful. Petrified. Couldn't do anything. Lame. Weak.

Ensure I never feel like this. Work and fight so hard from thirteen years old to ensure I never find myself in that situation again. Run away from home to the furthest university I can find at eighteen. Put up with allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the crap that I don't phone home, don't visit every weekend (it was six hours away), don't come home for summer - WHAT DO YOU BLOODY EXPECT? I work for the church and dad reacts as if I'm working for the devil himself. WHAT? WHY?

Get married six hours away. Dad cannot handle it. Can't speak to me on my wedding day. Oh how that still upsets me to this day. You miserable sod. Our first child is born. They turn up on the doorstep within a couple of days. They walk in like royalty. They don't lift a finger to help. This is THEIR grandchild. The miserable sods. We ban them from visiting again. The rejection my dad has, for which he blames me in it's entirety. I've put up with it all my life.

And then mum. In the background. It's not his fault. Why are you rejecting me? Why don't you see us more often? We haven't been to your house. We never see the girls.

OF COURSE YOU HAVEN'T. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

You humiliated me as a child. You put terror into my soul. I was petrified of doing anything other than what you wanted me to. And when I tried oh so hard to do it, you STILL blew up at me. I'd still got it wrong, for only you knew the way for my life. You bullied me, terrified me, intimated me, mashed me, taught me that the world was against me, taught me to judge others, taught me to bury my emotions and feelings - for they were not to be trusted. Taught me that our family was better than any other. That the show must go on. That we were not to be honest. Real. That truth really had no part in our lives - despite all our preaching.

Bottom line. You were crap parents. You still are my mum and dad. And despite it all I know that there are aspects of you that I love. But right now there is so much pain, and so much realisation that so much (almost all?!) of my life has been so blighted by the negative aspects of being brought up by you that I need to allow myself to unsupress those feelings and allow myself to know truth in the inward parts. Oh how that hurts. To allow myself to feel how I felt when I was a young boy is so so so so so so painful. I wish I could spew it out. Deliver it like a baby to put into the dustbin never to see again. But these feelings are me. They are how I feel now, as well as how I felt as a child. Feelings don't lie in that sense. If I feel angry, it means I am angry. I need to allow myself to express that anger (in a right way yes) in order to free myself from it.