I had another nightmare about Mom. Nightmares about Mom are not unusual. She is usually sadistic in them, sometimes mocking, sometimes chasing me. I think the most common theme in them is that I am running, running, running. I try to dodge behind things, I try to get ahead, I try to zig, zag, and circle back, but no matter what I do, she is always right behind me. If I think I’ve lost her, she turns up suddenly. When Jon and I first got married, I would wake up from these dreams and immediately have a panic attack.

The dream this time was different. It started out the same; Mom was not much of a personality, just a mindless beating machine. She was beating someone always. In the dream, Eric was about five years old and I was concerned she would kill him.

I was not angry at her this time, I didn’t feel helpless. I knew that what was happening was wrong and I simply couldn’t let it continue. I did what I could to stop her in the moment. I hid the boys, and possibly Gracie, in the attic. I also took Mom’s stick away, grabbing it with my hand as she swung it at me. The next day, the church was coming over, Crossroads, the church I grew up in. We conveniently had a small amphitheater in our backyard to host them with. Gracie and I had a plan to save us from Mom’s beatings before she killed one of us. As the people from church were arriving and Mom was getting ready, Gracie and I went outside, took the boys with us and locked her inside.

Instead of church starting, I went up on the stage and told them everything that was happening. The church was shocked and totally silent but I knew that they believed me. As I was getting down off the stage, sobbing uncontrollably with relief, I was aware that an ambulance of some kind was already arriving to take Mom to a psych ward. I knew I she would be cared for, I would never have to see her again, and it was over. I cannot overemphasize my feeling of relief. I wondered what I would do with my life now that this was over. For so long, it was the only goal I had. I couldn’t stop sobbing.

I woke up with my body acting like it was trying to sob but I didn’t actually have any tears. Pretty quickly I was crying for real. I cried because the dream was so bad, yes. But I think I cried more because it wasn’t real. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that my Mom never really beat us within an inch of our lives, that I remember. But we were abused, and the abuse was no less real or long lasting, because it could have been more severe.

In real life, our abuse never stopped. Other people didn’t know about it, not even our closest friends. In real life, if we had even been allowed to stand on the church stage and start talking about how our family really was, no one would have believed us. Even if someone was willing to believe us, what could we tell them? The abuse was too subtle and hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it themselves. More importantly, it was all we knew as kids. For myself, I didn’t even know that the abuse was abuse. I didn’t know that it was even bad. I thought all loving parents spanked their kids and sometimes bruised them.