My father wasn’t home, I was 7 or 8 years old. I was in our bathroom, standing in front of the sink, facing the mirror and screaming. My mother was standing behind me and was physically forcing a bar of soap into my mouth.
There wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t stop her. She was just too strong and angry. Back then they didn’t teach jiu-jitsu in 2nd grade so all I could do was scream and thrash. There was nothing I could do – she had me pinned against the sink and I was overpowered. Mangia!
“I’ll wash your mouth out with soap,” was one of my mother’s many trademark threats to instill fear in me – to keep me in line. Her sentences often ended with “… or else.”
Because I was facing the mirror, I was able to watch her angry, distorted face as we fought. She was manic – screaming – I was a terrible child, I was a liar, she wished she never had me – the bar of soap in my mouth was all my fault. I was inspired.
After she was done washing my mouth out with soap it was bath time.
I’m sitting in the tub. Miserable. She leaves the bathroom and comes back with a camera. She tells me to cover my privates with the washcloth and takes my picture. “Smile!” Click.
Pigs Do Fly
This is one of those memories I’ve had bebopping around my head for over half a century. It has always been there, but it just never made any sense. It’s like having a recurring memory of watching pigs fly. It doesn’t make sense because we all know pigs don’t fly.
But what if you found out later that pigs DO fly? Suddenly your memories of flying pigs make sense, the circular thinking in your brain ceases, your internal conflict goes away, and you stop thinking you’re crazy. Everything suddenly makes sense.
Gaslighting: psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.
Right about the year 2000 I began gathering up all the family photos to begin scanning them into a digital format. I collected boxes and boxes of pictures from everybody in my family and began going through them and scanning everything I found. There were thousands of pictures.
At the bottom of one particular box, I discovered the picture you see to the right. It was torn up, so I stitched it back together in Adobe Photoshop.
This is the picture of me in the tub after having my mouth washed out with soap. I’m holding the bar of soap. Behind the white box I am wearing the washcloth over my ding-a-ling.
Suddenly pigs are flying and I’m not crazy after all.
Psssssst!
These things didn’t happen when my father was home.