Gratitude first. Many thanks to Bridget Phetasy from Beyond Parody for this prompt. As with many writers, sometimes we need a kick in the pants to get words on the page, and she provided that for me today. Little did she know, this also gave me the last push I needed to start this Substack. So, thank you Bridget!
Five minutes is going to be a gross underestimate. It’s like when you tell your kids, “Just a minute,” when they call to you. Or when you tell your significant other, “Be ready in 10!” We all know it’s going to be at least another half hour until you walk out the door.
Because life stories don’t happen in five minutes. When we die, I highly doubt that our entire lives will flash before us in an instant. More likely, it will be something mundane like “Did I leave the garage door open?” See, I’ve already taken more than five minutes in my introduction.
So let’s dive in.
It’s 1978, Salt Lake City, Utah. Two 21-year-old Mormons get married after having met five months before. One is secretly gay. The other is carrying baggage from being raised by an alcoholic mother. Of course, they don’t know that yet. I begin there because my favorite story-trope is a present day opening scene immediately followed by a flashback. Like in The Usual Suspects. It keeps you reading.
Everything that follows is set upon that foundation. Secrets, unresolved psychological baggage, lies, religion, alcoholism, topped off with a demand to make it all look nice on the outside. One of my most poignant childhood memories is when we had to take a family photo when I was about 6 or 7. The Mormon church was holding, as it was prone to do, free family photo sessions. I was the oldest of four kids (soon to be five), and a dedicated tom boy. I HATED dresses. I was also a pretty determined kid. Nowadays I would be labeled “Strong-Willed Child” and my parents would be watching Dr. Phil for tips to make my inner leader emerge. In the 1980’s, though, I was just difficult.
Can you picture it? A secretly gay father (he had already started having affairs with men by that time), an incredibly damaged mother (although she had no idea), an expectation to be a perfect smiling Mormon family, and one small stubborn dress-hating little girl. The story goes that my father beat me until I submitted and wore the navy blue dress with a giant bib and gaudy bow across the chest. My mother’s words to me, later in life, were that I “never tried to get my own way again.”
I don’t remember that part. All I remember is sitting there in that awful dress, fuming and embarrassed, trying to smile while holding my infant brother. For years after, every time I saw that family portrait on my wall, I felt a mix of fear, anger, defiance, and shame.
Really it’s somewhat predictable from there. Good writing takes the specific and makes it general, and that’s what this story is for me. My father abused me, my mother conspicuously absent. My strong will smoldered until it imploded into a life of substance abuse, depression, and anxiety in my twenties. Ideal fodder for the string of therapists and psychiatrists and one-night stands I left in my wake.
Fast forward to January 2023 (with another favorite plot tool). Spoiler alert - I turned out alright. Well, mostly. Here comes the five-minute part:
1990 - Alcoholic grandmother died.
1991 - Dad came out. Parents divorced and excommunicated from the Mormon church.
1996 - I left Mormonism at 17. Went to College.
2003 - My first marriage. Descent into alcoholism.
2008 - Husband wants to be a woman. My divorce. Transgender ex-husband/wife/person.
2009 - Rehab. Rehab again. Recovery.
2011 and on - Met second husband. Baby number one. Baby number two. Unbelievably beautiful life in rural Northern Colorado.
2023 - Thirteen years of sobriety, and a quiet Sunday morning writing my life story for strangers in an attempt to help them make sense of their lives. And a partridge in a pear tree.
I started this Substack, and I started writing decades ago, to try to unravel this convoluted life I’ve led. I found the beginning of an answer in the book by Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score.
He says, “For the abused child, the whole world is a trigger.”
That short sentence put everything into perspective. In our current world, there’s a lot of talk about “being triggered.” It’s thrown around as an accusation, a warning, an excuse, for behaving like shit. “It’s not my fault that I acted like an asshole, [your actions, your words, that text, that event, that post] triggered me.”
Well, sunshine, as they say in recovery, “The bottle is just a symptom. Let’s get down to causes and conditions.”
We live in a Triggered World.
It is an inevitable characteristic of our current world that there are going to be triggering events everywhere. Anything and everything can cause you to react negatively if you allow it to.
But the point is to not allow it to. How do we live in a world that is constantly trying to get under our skin? How do we teach our children to be compassionate and stable in a world that is screaming vile in their faces? Welcome to my Substack, The Triggered World, where I will provide all the answers you’ll need to those questions.
Ha, no, not really. My only hope is to walk with you on this journey through and out of this mess we’re all in.
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