“Until now I didn’t dare say anything like the word ‘home,’ though when I saw this valley, I thought I must stay here. It is too perilous to hope for something as impossible as a home, and we both know it.… There will come a time when it is all shattered—by something we find out that makes us realise we are living in fool’s heaven, or by something—or someone—from outside, bringing our past along to catch us. It’s bound to happen. It’s only a matter of time.… “Can’t seem to forget the time when I was a child that I had my nanny beaten because she—I can’t remember. She never came back. I thought she died of it. She was old. All I remember is my triumph. This was my world and I knew how to manage it. My grandmother gave me a present then…I have it with me still. Brought it to remind myself that I am what I despise. Or have been. That kind of blood doesn’t wash off. “I have wondered why I stay alive. I ran away. I stayed away. I told myself there was nothing I could do. I just survive to spite them, to make them fear something at least. Certainly not because I love myself as they seem to do here, without lives and torture on their conscience. What does it mean to be good? Everywhere I go there is a different answer. * “I am tired of the pain of this. There are people all around me in these mountain towns who have not had a life of such pain. I am starting to hate on account of it. Hate them for their happiness. Hate my family, even my parents, for the kind of world they made and live in. Hate myself, I suppose, too, for being trapped here. In these mountains, in this body, in this life. “I cannot imagine, right now, why I stay alive. I never questioned it in the years of struggle: life justified itself. But now that I am safe and sitting in these gardens, living in these easy households, playing with these carefree children, I cannot bear to live like this. I am a twisted creature without merit.… “But here in the mountains they have names for the things I want to become: happy, secure, gentle, kind, good.… “Can someone so hurt—here they call it ‘abused’—be good?” FearHealingChildhoodAbuseTraumaPtsd Book:Black Wine Source: Black Wine
“What in heaven’s name do you mean?’ “=Not the name of heaven. Just the place you come from.= “‘You don’t know anything about the place I come from.’ “=It is true I don’t know the place. But I know a great deal about the place now, after learning to know you. I know what kind of stories—not the stories themselves, mind you, but the kind of stories—they tell their children. I know what the children are led to expect from the world. Fair treatment. A happy life. Even that question you ask comes out of the mountains.= “‘Is there anything wrong with that? You make it look stupid.’ “=There is nothing wrong, and there is something wrong. There is nothing wrong with making a place where children can be safe. I can hardly imagine it myself, but it sits on the edge of my vision like a small sun. It’s a blinding glimpse of something. Safety. So very odd. And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with a modicum of safety, though I think my way one at least learns how to react quickly. But there is something wrong in the kind of complacency…= his sign is complicated: a cat after cream, a fat despot =…which lets you think you have a right to a happy life just because you can think of the idea.= “‘I don’t agree with you. Everyone should be able to be complacent in that way!’ As she speaks she illustrates the way by repeating the cat-with-cream sign. ‘But that other, that arrogance, I don’t think we are arrogant, in the mountains, like that—do you?’ “=Arrogant? I don’t know. Arrogant? A curious word. The arrogance of privilege. You had safety. That’s a privilege.=” ChildhoodAbuseSafetyPrivilegeTrauma Book:Black Wine Source: Black Wine