I grew up as the daughter of an abused child. My grandfather, and his father before that, were the villains of our family. I grew up recognizing the symptoms of child abuse in my mother, and I learned how to handle their manifestations which often shocked or overwhelmed people who were not familiar with them. When I was about 9, I watched my mother yank a truck driver out of the cab of his semi. He had been speeding, tail-gating and menacing us on the road, and his threatening behavior flipped the little switch in my mother’s brain which had developed after years of abuse. Her rational brain shut off; she was on auto-pilot, reacting solely to what she perceived as a bully using his position to frighten and endanger her and her children. When she came to a stop sign, she got out of the car, stalked back to his truck and hauled him out. He practically fell on top of her as she was screaming at him. Luckily for her, he was a small man, and he was so taken aback by her fury, he just stammered something about her being “crazy,” scrambled back into his cab and sped away.

Despite her occasional scary outbursts, my mom never abused me or my sister. She was one of those amazing victims who was able to stop the cycle of violence, and for that, she will always be a hero to me. But I did have to learn to watch for “the signs” that the switch was about to flip. In any situation where she saw bullying, where someone bigger and stronger was threatening someone smaller and weaker, particularly if the bully was a man, and the victim was a woman, child or animal, I could see my mom’s back stiffen, her jaw would set, and something would come into her eyes that eventually became familiar to me, although I cannot name it. On more than one occasion, I have had to physically restrain her from going after a complete stranger who was behaving badly.

That’s my mom. She’s the champion of the little guy, and I love that about her, but it can be frightening. On a handful of occasions, she’s turned that fury on people she loved, though never in a violent way. Years of tangling with my grandfather - a very intelligent, ex-military, professional boxer - have turned my mom into a formidable fighter. She can argue with you for days! She will pull out all the stops too. If she feels threatened, that switch will flip, and you’re in for a long, nasty haul. As I said, I can recognize the signs and avoid the marathon arguments. Growing up with my mom taught me some very useful things about adult victims of child abuse.

Which brings me to the real reason for writing this blog entry. In 1996, I met the man who would become my husband. An ex-boyfriend of mine called me up and said he wanted to introduce me to his new roommate, Sean. (Yes, I know it’s unusual - I had a pattern of breaking up with guys without alienating them.) I walked into their quintessential bachelor pad - all high-end wi-fi stereo, big screen TV, video game systems, wires everywhere, a few mismatched sticks of ancient furniture, empty pizza boxes and beer cans and overflowing ash trays. My guy was standing in the middle of the room with an electric guitar slung around his shoulders and a lit cigarette tucked between the strings at the top of the guitar. It was love at first sight.

More than that, though, we were a perfect match, if there is such a thing. Partly because Sean is an adult victim of child abuse like my mom. I’ve always said that God sent him to me because there aren’t many women in the world who have been raised by an abused parent without having been abused themselves. Sean could not have married an abused person; he could not have married someone without the learned strategies for dealing with the symptoms. It had to be someone like me. Someone who had the knowledge without the baggage.

So let me tell you about that baggage. Like my mother, Sean has a switch. On a few occasions, I’ve had to restrain him from going after strangers as well. In fact, on one family vacation, I was sitting between my mom and my husband when a little girl came flying out of the restaurant in whose terrace we were dining. The little girl was about 3 or 4, and she was crying frantically. A split-second behind her came her mother, who looked like hell on wheels. She was furiously stalking her child out into the plaza, and when she caught up with her, she yanked that little girl right out of her shoes. Sean and Mom were on their feet in an instant, and I was clinging to their arms when the little girl’s father came to rescue his daughter from his overwrought wife.

Another odd and annoying bit of baggage from abuse has to do with food. Like my mom, Sean has myriad food “issues.” His abusive stepmother made chicken a lot. So chicken is a problem. If you’re a cook, you recognize what a major complication that is. Sean and my mom are both incredibly picky eaters. My 9-year-old is easier to cook for than either of them. I read an article that indicated many victims of child abuse have eating disorders because of the control factor. What they put into their mouths is one of the few things an abused child can control. They use it as a defensive weapon just as abusers will use it to punish them. Sean won’t eat peach-flavored foods, stewed tomatoes, cooked carrots and several other foods that he associates with his abuser.

Then there is the hypochondria. I read an article about this too. Abused children often develop it as a defense mechanism because many abusers will not be as violent if they believe their victim is already weakened from another source. I guess it takes the fun out of hitting the child. Nice, huh? Well, that hypochondria doesn’t go away when the child grows up and escapes the abuse. If you ask my mom or my husband how they’re feeling, they’ll give you a laundry list of ailments; their hair is falling out, their right earlobes are sore, their pancreas is twitchy, and their left toenails are loose - stuff like that. I try to be patient with that because sometimes, I swear I can see the 9-year-old version of my husband in his eyes when he is whining about not feeling good, and I remember that it’s not a character flaw. It’s a defense mechanism.

And that brings me to the elephant in the room, the person I have seen only once for about 5 seconds from a distance in the dark. The person I would most like to believe is reading this blog, but she won’t - my husband’s ex-step-mother. My letter to her:

Mrs. Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is-Now (since you can’t get a husband to stay with you for long),

I’ve been dealing with the consequences of your cruelty for several years longer than you actually had the victim in your power. I believe your abuse of my husband lasted about seven years; I’ve been with him for over 14.

If you’ve actually read the preceding paragraphs, you can see some of the results of your abuse. In addition to having a hair-trigger reaction to bullies, difficult food phobias, and mild hypochondria, my husband is an agnostic. It’s a tribute to his logical mind and strength of character that he’s not a simple atheist.  I understand that one of your excuses for beating him was that you believed God wanted you to, but you were such a devout Christian, such an active church member, such a religious woman, no one would believe Sean’s stories. You told him he was evil and deserved the beatings you inflicted. Did you know that little boy used to pray every night, begging God to make him good so you’d stop hitting him? And when God didn’t answer in the way Sean expected, Sean decided He probably didn’t exist. Thanks for that, lady. I’m working every day to undo that bit of damage. Occasionally, I’ll feel like I’m making a tiny bit of progress, then Sean will hear Pat Robertson or some other televangelist make some ridiculously unkind pronouncement against an unfortunate bunch of people who obviously deserve their pain, and we’re right back. In those cases, he always mentions you. And when Sarah Palin was running for Vice President, he was reminded of you because of her illogical, holier-than-thou demeanor. I have to run interference, trying to live as a better example of a loving, forgiving CHRISTian than you or those other angry, paranoid posers so that Sean will perhaps, one day, forgive God for leaving him in your clutches for so long.

For all those reasons, your existence is often cursed in our home - by me, by my husband, sometimes even by our son, who is now old enough to understand the damage you did. In fact, your name is a code word in our family for “villain.” You are THE evil stepmother, the ogre, the wicked witch of all our bedtime stories. To speak your name, however, is to cast a pall over our home, so we don’t say it often. You’re the “Voldemort” of our family.

Yet, Sean, like my mom, is such a remarkable individual that he has chosen not to continue the cycle of abuse. He never touches our children in anger; he gets upset with me if I occasionally swat their behinds. Spanking is not a punishment in our home. He is a magnificent father, in spite of you. His children adore him. I know you cannot say the same of your children.

Sean has a great life. He has a good job that pays enough for me to work only part-time so I can stay home with our young kids. He has some terrific friends who think he’s brilliant and fun. He has two beautiful, healthy, smart, well-behaved children who think he hung the moon just for them. And he’s got me, his wife of 12 years. I believe that’s longer than any of your marriages have lasted, and we’re still going strong. I think he’s amazing. He’s a genius, did you know that? He’s smarter than I am, and I’m a National Merit Scholar, a college lecturer with 3 degrees, a published author. Sean blows me away intellectually. His family and friends continue to be impressed by his intelligence.

He’s kind too. Like the other men in the Mahoney family, he loves animals and has some weird cat attraction that brings every feline within a mile radius to our door. Like my mom, he won’t let any harm come to an animal or child if he can help it. His kindness is accompanied by bravery; for that reason, he’s the type of person bullies fear. Maybe that’s why my grandfather kept his distance on the three occasions he met Sean.

Sean has an amazing gift for sizing people up. He will meet someone new, and later in the evening, I’ll ask him, “What do you think of So-and-So?” And I always take his judgment to heart because he is always right. The people for whom he gets a bad first impression inevitably turn out to be unworthy of our friendship. If he doesn’t trust someone, we keep our children away them. Needless to say, you will never come near Sean’s kids.

Together, we have created the kind of rich life you can only envy from afar because people like you cannot manage it. We have a nice house full of love and laughter and happy memories. We take crazy family vacations to wonderful places like Disney World, the Black Hills, the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon. We drive for hours together, and we enjoy each others’ company.

So the damage you inflicted on Sean, the damage my deceased grandfather inflicted on my mom, and the damage so many other abusers inflict on their victims has some lasting, annoying side effects. But the smart victims, the strong victims, the lucky victims get the last laugh. They get to choose the rest of their lives.  I have been blessed to witness the lives of my husband and my mom, two remarkable people who are so much better than you, it seems a shame they have to share the same planet with you. You will never be as loved as they are.

May God have mercy on your twisted soul.

Jennifer Price Mahoney

My husband chastised me the other day because my blog’s been idle for a while. I admit, I’ve been lax, but I do have some really good excuses if you’re interested! First, I’ve been in summer school hell. Like an idiot, I accepted a double assignment which means I’m teaching two classes covering 15 weeks’ material in 6 weeks. I’m a lesson planning-student-email-responding-paper-grading automaton! Second, the novel that has been gestating in my brain for the past 8 years has decided it’s time to be born. So in between my manic teaching work, I’ve been spending most of my writing time writing that. And finally, well, most of my blog stuff’s been focused on current events, and the oil spill in the Gulf has been dominating that spectrum for a while. The whole fiasco simply paralyzes me with disappointment and anxiety. I am so angry with BP, disappointed in our government’s response, devastated about the environmental impact, and grief-stricken for the people of that region, I don’t want to write more than these few lines about it. Soooooooo…

My guilt-ridden conscience thus temporarily cleared, I can move on to something kinda fun.

As an English teacher with a couple of degrees in literature, I am often asked for summer reading recommendations. Now if you were talking to me in person, I’d ask you several questions about your personal tastes before I would presume to recommend anything because the possibilities are really endless. Plus, I have some rather particular tastes in reading materials, especially the stuff I read in my free time.

Since you’re just reading this blog, though, I’ll list my personal favorites. Please bear in mind that I read some rather heavy stuff for my professional work, so in the summer, I tend to read fun, low-impact books. I love Dante, Shakespeare and Henry James, but I’m not going to recommend them for light reading on the beach. Please don’t hold the fluff in this list against me!

In no particular order:

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher: A memoir of Princess Leia’s life, growing up in a celebrity family. Painfully funny, it is particularly fascinating if you are remotely interested in Hollywood history. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it wasn’t three times as long.

Fool by Christopher Moore: A retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear from the fool’s perspective. I’ve been a Christopher Moore fan for years, but I was leery of his taking on my beloved bard, especially Lear, which is my favorite Shakespearean tragedy. Moore is irreverent, hilarious and dirty, so I had my doubts. I needn’t have worried; it is hilarious, and his love for this magnificent play is obvious just behind all the four-letter words and naughty bits.

Angels and Demons/ Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: Imaginative novels about Catholic conspiracies. If you’re one of the few Americans left who haven’t read these, pick ‘em up at your local library or used book store. They’re fun, fast-paced, and intriguing, especially Angels and Demons, which moves at a near-breakneck pace that keeps your nose in the book right until the rather farfetched end. I can’t recommend the third one because I haven’t read it yet. I refuse to shell out $30 for a hardback, so I’ll wait until it’s available at the library.

Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich: Series of mysteries about an unlikely bounty hunter in New Jersey. These are pure fluff, but I was hooked when my sister lent me the 9^th book in the series, and I read the line: “Punky Balog had an ass like Winnie the Pooh…big and fat and furry.” That was the first page, and it just got funnier from there. They’re all filled with wild characters and improbable fumbles – the kind of stories I have to stop and read pieces aloud to my husband now and then.

Sex with Kings/Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Herman: A whirlwind tour of European history via royal bedrooms. I’m a sucker for European history, so I love Herman’s books. They’re not your high school history textbooks, for sure. All the juicy particulars of romance, passion, sex, and political intrigue are woven into real history to make it come alive in lurid detail - everything from tsarist Russia to Prince Charles and Princess Di.

Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie: Murder mystery with a twist before twists were cool. My mom has read every Christie novel. I’ve read about a dozen or so, and the Hercule Poirot stories are my favorites. This one is a classic. Think M. Night Shyamalan before his father was even a twinkle in his grandfather’s eye.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: The monster classic. I taught this to freshmen a few years back, and I was worried. The course was designed for non-majors, and I feared the 18^th-century language and sensibilities might turn them off. I warned them to forget about watching any of the film adaptations and faking their way through discussions; this is nothing like what you think you know about Frankenstein. They loved it. It’s actually an easy read despite its age, and it is still fascinating and disturbing and thought-provoking.

Dracula by Bram Stoker: The other monster classic. Again, forget what you think you know. Even more so than Frankenstein, Dracula has been done some terrible disservice by Hollywood. Stoker’s novel is far richer in characters, plot and paranoia than any of the film adaptations. This novel is what I started to write my Master’s thesis on, so it’s a personal favorite. I’ve read it about 20 times. A couple scenes still give me chills!

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: An adventure tale about an OCD British gentleman who makes an outrageous wager. If you ever watched “Frasier” with Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde-Pierce, you’ll recognize Phileas Fogg’s type – fastidious, exacting, particular, and over-educated. But you can’t help but fall in love with him as he battles his way around the 19^th-century globe. I read this to my 8-year-old son, and we had a blast following Fogg’s travels.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold : Historical fiction about a magician in 1920’s San Francisco. I love historical fiction done well. This novel is full of surprises and keeps you guessing until the end. Supposedly, it was just picked up by Warner Brothers for a film adaptation. That’s been a rumor for a while, though, so don’t wait for the movie.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr: Historical fiction about a profiler in turn-of-the-century New York City. Sherlock Holmes does Jack the Ripper in the United States. Sort of. This book is dark and twisty with cameos by great historical figures like Teddy Roosevelt.

Alice In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll: Classic children’s fantasies. Most people (including myself, obviously) label these as children’s books, but they are so deep and full of tricks and word plays children would never catch, I think it’s a shame to dismiss them or relegate them to a genre where adults who never read them as kids will feel foolish picking them up. They are amazing, and I find myself quoting them all the time: “If you do such a thing again, I’ll have you buttered!”

So there you go. I wish I hadn’t read any of these so I could read them all this summer for the first time. They are such fun to discover. If you’re fortunate enough not to have read some of them, I envy you.

Meanwhile, I shall trudge off into the unknown bookshelves, mining for gems. Happy reading!