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CHAPTER 1
The Running Man
I've always been a runner. I've always been in some frantic hurry, struggling to stave off an inevitable confrontational situation, or trying to split the atoms of time so I could not only meet and accomplish all objectives, but simultaneously fight to shave corners, to carve out time in the hope of being able to lower my shield in order to feel safe.
As a small child, I was trained to perform an endless list of chores with impossible time requirements, with scraps of food as my possible reward. My perpetrator mother would command me with a snap of her fingers, and if I did not move fast enough to stand exactly three feet in front of her, with my chin locked down to my chest and my hands glued to my side, I was assaulted without mercy.
I would sit on top of my hands for hours at a time, either at the bottom of the darkened stairs of the basement or on piles of rocks outside in the fog-filled backyard, my mind racing. I would formulate ideas to ease the throbbing pain or come up with seemingly over-the-top schemes to steal food.
As I ran to school every morning with my tattered long-sleeved shirt flapping in every direction, I'd pump my pencil-sized arms and stretch my legs to gain speed, hoping to snatch pieces of food from inside the treasure-filled metal lunch boxes of my classmates before school started.
Later, at age twelve, after I had been rescued and placed in protective foster care, my spindly legs and my bursts of speed helped keep me at arm's length from the roaming packs of hardened schoolyard bullies.
And even though I was finally safe from the constant torture, dungeon-like isolation, and degrading humiliation, I still did all I could to flee from the slime of my past. Fragments of my history bubbled to the surface, penetrating my hardwired black-and-white sphere of logic. My emotional side began to contemplate ways I could win the approval of my sick abuser.
As a young teen, while others explored their privileges of youth, I raced from job to job, putting in forty hours a week or more while in junior high and then as many as eighty hours while in high school. Terrified of being homeless and starving when the day eventually came that I departed foster care, I blazed to stay ahead of my peers who had the safety net of their loving families.
At the age of eighteen, I found my footing. I continued to push myself with a razor-sharp focus. I became tenacious when it came to my new ambition, enlisting with the air force. They, rightfully, had little interest in a stuttering, outwardly awkward high school dropout. Yet, even with little education, low admission test scores, and the stigma of coming from foster care, after six months of pestering the recruiters on a daily basis, I was finally allowed to sign up.
A few years later when a handful of specialized paramilitary slots became available, while others trained by trotting a few miles a week, I ran fifteen miles per session, several times a week, in boots. At the same time, I had to fight to deprogram myself and believe that I was worthy enough to attend a college class in basic algebra, and even though it took me three separate attempts, my drive made the difference.
The ultimate military marathon came in over two years' time. I had repeatedly applied for a coveted air crew member slot in which my substantial paperwork was either mishandled or lost time and again as my days of enlistment dwindled away. Yet through stubborn perseverance, I was fortunate enough to eventually land a position with the highly secretive SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.
As my divine dream of donning a flight suit began to take hold, I momentarily stopped to survey how lucky I truly was compared to others who seemed to be standing still, or (without their knowledge) slowly sliding into their own self-made sinkholes. My reflection instantly connected me to the guilt I carried over my brothers, who were left behind when I was removed, and how they were faring as young men making their own paths. My stillness also instantly reconnected me with the painful memories of my father, who literally stood over me when Mother made me swallow ammonia, only muttering about the possible need to "feed the boy so he won't steal any food." Then, years later, I stood over the former San Francisco firefighter, holding his hand and gently kissing him good-bye as he drew his last breath before passing away. Up until that very moment, I believed with childlike logic I could accomplish something that would somehow instantly repair years worth of suffering and damage.
It was during this time, in my early twenties, when I discovered that whenever I wasn't in some form of forward trajectory, an invisible lead blanket of shame seemed to cover me and suffocate my being. The strain of the immense weight and all it represented was too much for me to even begin to deal with.
A short time later I married the first girl I had a relationship with. We had a beautiful baby boy. For someone who carefully analyzed aeronautics, I paid little heed to interpersonal relationships. Whenever a marital crisis erupted and I felt my trust was violated, I was saved by jumping on a jet and flying away from my problems for months at a time.
* * *
But one day while at base housing, I didn't shy away from confrontation as I had countless times before. Across the street from me, I observed a young child being yelled at before being struck in public view. The shrill echo and raged-filled eyes of the child's mother reconnected me to my very own perpetrator.
In an instant, the event flipped a giant circuit breaker and changed my entire life. From the deepest part of me, I detested deliberate cruelty toward others. While others became upset, some saw red, even black. My recessed rage was pure molten white.
I was living the adventurous life of a secretive air crew member and had my loving, beautiful, blond-haired boy by my side, and even though I knew my marriage was sliding into an abyss, I felt I had been given so much.
Maybe too much.
I felt more than a mere need to assist, more than a knee-jerk reaction to help. For a plethora of deep-seated justifications — for my brothers, my broken father, my teachers who rescued me, my foster parents who guided me, the dedicated social workers, for anyone who kindly gave me the time of day, and even for my tormented mother and her then-unmentionable past, I had to step up and do something.
With the purest of intentions, I began a journey on an unexpected path. Over time it became an all-consuming mission, every free second of every day.
I couldn't run fast enough to keep up.
And beneath my internal shield where I hid even from God Himself, the Kryptonite of my past slowly killed me. The more I helped, the more I gave of myself, the more my life force spilled away like water circling down a sink's drain. My mission became a virus that fed off of my need to cleanse myself by doing even more. And it affected more than just me.
After decades of work that spanned the globe in my one-man, dragging-my-own-cross crusade, in the end, I only ended up coming full circle with the two specters that I had fled from for my entire life: my perpetrator, and the child called "It."
CHAPTER 2
Justifiable Denial
I used to run so well. I had rhythm, flow, and the strongest of hearts. I had an inner drive that could go on and on, and when I was depleted, I could still excel. My determination was endless. But it took a second failed marriage and a worsening medical situation that stemmed from my childhood for me to begin to stop racing and truly study the repercussions of my life's choices. Yet I felt changing my behavior was like trying to pull the lever to the brakes on a mile-long runaway locomotive.
For a multitude of reasons, or even justifications, I ran to remain as far away as possible from the filth and shame associated with my past. I didn't recognize then my need for perpetual motion. And after thirty-five years, my defensive habit morphed into a natural condition. From the inner recesses of my brain, I conditioned myself to believe if I kept moving forward, I could possibly create a clean barrier between me and my past.
Running became beneficial. I quickly found out that my ceaseless motion meant I was constantly "out there," helping others, and the more I was out there, the less time and energy I had to examine my side of the street, so to speak, and all of my peculiar internal issues.
When it came to assisting others, I was absolutely sincere. With a newborn son, I began to open my eyes to the world around me. I thought there was nothing more deplorable than to turn a blind eye on any helpless child being mistreated. I'm sure part of my process might have stemmed from the deep well of resentment I carried like a lead bucket from my former life, as Mother's prisoner. So many people knew of my situation, but for whatever reason or excuse, refused to intervene with even a simple word or kind gesture.
What began as a few hours a month with the county as a youth service worker turned into a part-time position in juvenile hall. It got to the point where I would land from a late-night mission with the air force, sprint to my car, drive hundreds of miles, and volunteer at some event early the next morning. In a short span of time, as I crisscrossed the entire state, the thrill from helping even more began to overtake me.
When I hung up my flight suit and became a civilian, I began to travel throughout the country, adding even more by giving hundreds of extensive certified presentations based on the concepts of resilience and self-reliance, no matter what one's past. By then, not including time at airports or sometimes driving throughout the evening, I was pulling in sixteen-hour workdays.
All the while, I longed to do something special for those who had intervened and saved my life. I wrote a series of long letters that I later combined into a book. I then proudly presented the actual first copies of my tome to my teachers on the very day of the twenty-year anniversary of my rescue.
As my crusade progressed even more, I was fortunate enough to receive several prestigious accolades. But it was twenty-four months after my first book was published (four years after it was initially printed), when it became a best seller, that I was suddenly labeled as somebody.
Then, all hell broke loose. With my newfound commercial success, I was constantly being pushed and pulled in every direction. I couldn't possibly do enough to satisfy all of the requests. At times, people demanded heaven and earth, and even proclaimed my past was an elaborate fabrication. It didn't matter that I had already been heavily vetted with top secret clearances by the air force and the highest offices for my awards, or that extensive interviews were held with my teachers and my foster parents. For some, my situation seemed too much to be true.
To me it seemed obvious and so simple to fix: by chasing after the approval from those who treated me the worst. Because of my high value of integrity, coupled with my sensitive ego, I actually fought to defend my validity. But the more I did this, the more I sank into a vast pit of quicksand. By then I was spending more than two hundred days a year on the road, often sleeping on the floors of airport terminals and surviving on cold, soggy fast food, my only reward for completing my duties for the day.
After a while the cycle seemed so normal.
After all, attempting to survive in the midst of chaos was engrained in me.
By the time I was eight, I had already been Mother's selected target for nearly four years. One sunny afternoon as I returned home from school, I found Mother, who had been alone all day, in her typical foul mood, but worse. After a few rants and slaps, she went on to state how I had made her life a living hell and how she had planned to show me "what hell is all about."
After burning my arm just above the gas stove, Mother went on to inform me that because of the pain I had caused her, she intended to make me to lie down on the gas stove and burn for her. Terrified as never before, and facing the reality that we were alone and she could do with me as she pleased, out of raw, desperate fear, I came up with a plan to stall Mother and prevent her from burning me further. As commanded, I would stand up, but rather than take one second to do so, I'd fumble and take four seconds or more. Then, instead of standing exactly three feet in front of her, I'd stand a few steps farther away, just out of striking distance. It meant receiving slaps, punches, and kicks, but it was a small price to offset the alternative.
For the very first time in my life, and after years of being completely conditioned like Pavlov's dog, I thought for myself and developed my own form of control.
Afterward, alone in the darkened basement where Mother allowed me to reside, the shock of the episode subsided and I inspected my latest injury. I then foolishly licked my blistered arm, which immediately gave me the sensation of jamming my finger in a light socket. But as I wept from another form of pain, I realized that if I could feel, I was alive, I had made it. And, through my own actions, I had stopped my perpetrator from her sickening evil plan — I had done it.
From above, I could hear Mother coo to my eldest brother, Ron, how immensely proud she was of him. In a flash, I realized that I was not the demon child that Mother had brainwashed me into believing since before my days in kindergarten. I was not the sole reason Mother was so unhappy. As a small child, I had sensed that something was wrong. But as I examined my bubbled blisters, I came to understand that that something was not me.
It was then that I became conscious of the seriousness of my escalating situation. I finally came to accept that it was becoming increasingly bizarre and gruesome. It was out of fear and sheer desperation that I had to determine my fate on my own terms. I could either continue to remain passive, hoping and praying that things just might suddenly change, or I could try to do something, anything, for my well-being. I could try. I could do it for me.
Alone at the bottom of the basement stairs, with tears in my eyes, I stood up and raised my arm in a pledge. If I could change the equation and continue to accomplish what I just had, then I could, I would, do anything possible in order to survive. That afternoon, with Almighty God as my witness, I vowed that I would never cave, and from that moment on I would do anything I could in order to survive.
My zealous oath, which literally saved my skin countless times as Mother's prisoner and then later throughout my life, catapulted me beyond any unimaginable dream, but this came at an immense cost.
At times I felt shut out. Or in a flash, out of panic or resentment, I would shut down. I had grave issues with trust, let alone getting close to anyone beyond my own son. And above all things, I felt I had to remain constantly vigilant.
This all fed into my continued need to remain on the run.
And then as a man well into my forties and having been on my crusade for nearly two decades, all I had to show for it was yet another failed relationship.
Sitting in the expansive living room, I noticed how still the house had become. For the first time since moving from Northern California, there was no screeching echo from Marsha's exotic bird, no endless high-pitched barking from her three overly hyper bichon dogs, none of the personal drama of me fighting to solve yet another financial blunder caused by my wife's continual shopping sprees.
After our tumultuous times as husband and wife, as well as the high-strung intensity of trying to work together, I thought that with Marsha gone, all of my problems would have naturally fled with her.
I was alone.
Beginning to reflect, I took in a deep, clean breath. While slowly massaging my throat, I thought maybe now was the time to finally stop and take inventory of my deep-rooted beliefs.
I felt the boa constrictor — like tension around my throat begin to ease. As I stretched it further by leaning backward, I closed my eyes. I could hear the faint rush of air suddenly escape my larynx. Overwhelmed and tired, I felt myself become overtaken with sleep.
From the far side of the house, I heard a deep creaking noise. In a flash, my internal hyperattentive radar was reactivated. The sound itself instantly set off one of my primal triggers.
One Sunday after the burn incident, Mother announced to me in front of my spiritually broken, passive father that because I was so much trouble for her, I no longer deserved to be a member of the family. She spewed out a stream of new rules, including my no longer being allowed to make eye contact with her, my father, or my siblings, my name never to be mentioned, and my new sleeping quarters to be next to the kitty litter box under the kitchen table. I was also commanded to perform even more chores, and then when finished, I was to stand for hours on end at the far side of the entrance to the garage.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Too Close to Me"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Dave Pelzer.
Excerpted by permission of RosettaBooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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