🎧 The Deepest Wound

A Father's Day gift to me, truth-telling and stories from a child

I dedicate this post to the child I used to be.

A beach in Japan with my father. I’m somewhere around 3 or 4. This photo could have been taken anytime between late 1958 to early 1960. Most likely 1958 or 9.

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Audio by Demian

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The deepest wound isn’t that my father sexually abused me. The deepest wound is that he told me he loved me.

It’s not that my boundaries were constantly crossed. It's that he used that as evidence our relationship was special.

It’s not the evenings we spent in the basement bedroom. It’s acting like me lying with him in his bed, in the dark, was normal.

If I felt anything was wrong, it was that I was wrong, defective more than defiled. Before I could comprehend abuse, I took responsibility for it.

This is what it means to be groomed. This is what it looks like to be deeply psychologically and emotionally manipulated.

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To be betrayed and sexually assaulted was egregious, to be certain, but the cover up—rewriting and recreating reality, redefining words like love and special to mask reality, my father handing his guilt, his shame to me as if they were mine, as if I were complicit—was even more egregious.

It’s here I broke trust with myself, when survival was never seeing or telling the truth, not even to yourself; when loving another meant betraying yourself, and love was usury, and loyalty, silence.

This is what I inherited. This is what I packed into my suitcase when I left home to embark on my life.

That was the deepest wound.

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Hey, Little One, what stories do you have to tell?

“Once upon a time, I saw a man’s bare chest above my bed.

By itself. At night. On the ceiling!  It was kind of hairy. No head, arms—I could only see the chest. I was so scared!

I closed my eyes, but it didn’t go away. I couldn’t breathe.

In the morning I remember a strange dream. But I turn it to sugar, and have it with my cereal.

I’m five.”

“Once upon a time, I saw a weird shape standing by the bed.

It looked like a big cigar someone drew with a skinny white crayon. I could see through it, through the cigar man.

Maybe it was a ghost. A line went across him near the bottom, close to my bed, like the top of his underwear, and a curve line inside. That’s how I know it was a boy ghost.

No arms, no legs, not even a face, but it had two dots for eyes. It looked down at me. 

I blinked my eyes hard. My hand was shaking. But I moved it across, like this, to make the cigar man disappear. It didn’t.

I didn’t know what to do.

I turn away and I look at Mommy. I’m lying next to her. Daddy’s away. I want to wake her up. Mommy, please make it go away!

But I can’t say it out loud. I can’t wake her up. She’d be so mad.

I look again. It’s still there. I look at Mommy. She’s still sleeping.

I stay awake. I pull my hair across my face. Maybe he won’t see me. I keep looking at my mommy. I don’t leave the bed. I don’t pee. I look at the cigar man.

Until I see the window getting lighter. And then I fall asleep.

I think the cigar man is afraid of the sun, and runs away.

I’m six. “

“Once upon a time, I drew pictures of monsters.

They came out from the edges of the paper to the middle, only their long heads, pointy and sharp.

I think they’re dinosaurs or maybe dragons. They have lots of teeth. They hurt.

Young girls, maybe princesses, with long hair like mine. They just hang there from the monster’s mouth. Their dresses are torn.

Their eyes are closed tight. I think they’re dead.

I draw lots of these pictures, and I leave them places… around the house.

I’m seven.”

Hey, Little One, I have a story.

Once upon a time, a little girl bravely fought to tell the truth, but no one could hear her.

So when floating chests appeared at night, she turned them into granules of sugar in the morning, and ate them up.

When a ghost appeared by her bed, she fought it with the wave of her hand, and kept watch until the sun sent it running.

When monsters appeared with sharp teeth, devouring little girls, she trapped them onto paper, and held them captive.

She gave voice to the unspeakable. But when no one listened, she dug a great hole and hid there, only coming out to protect herself whenever she thought she was in danger.

Then one day, someone came looking for her—I came looking—and in the dark, I heard a soft breathing, and the little girl, who belonged to the breath, told her stories, and I listened.

Under the secrets of my grown-up life, lie the secrets of your life. Under the pain of my hurting, I have felt the sharp sword of you protecting me.

Now, it’s my turn. Only, instead of a sword, I hold the pen. You’re safe now, dear one. I’m writing the rest of the story.

Our hearts together,

Demian & Elainé Yumei ~ Silent No More

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Silent No More is pro-democracy with focus on personal healing, creative expression and activism through the written and spoken word, and song.

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