Trigger Warning. Graphic and sustained description of physical violence and abuse against a child, and brief reference to sexual abuse.
It was early May when I came across my classmate Anjay’s Facebook post describing in graphic details the very violent and constant physical abuse he suffered from as a child from his father. It shocked me. I had no idea about any of that but of course that however is NOT surprising. We weren’t close to begin with. Furthermore, Nepali children don’t go around sharing their life struggle with people. Being a victim of abuse at home, conveniently, we have a stigma against, and so every Nepali learns to hide it from everyone else. (If interested, in the blog post Some Time You Just Can’t Win I have shared some of my earliest memories of him.)
No sooner had I finished reading the harrowing account, I contacted him and asked his permission to reproduce it here — which he gave me. The reason for reproducing it here, verbatim, is to raise awareness — awareness about the extreme level to which violence against children in Nepal have been and potentially can still be perpetrated. If you browse around, you’ll find other blog posts on the subject.
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Part I – draft of my Book
Today is February the 11th 12:59.
In one minute I complete my 51 years of breathing into my lungs the adulterated toxic culture of a taxing social environment and step into my 52nd year on this hostile earth as a survivor, and still much the same vulnerable human organism I was when I was brought into this world, except, maybe a few sizes bigger than i was back then.
It was the 12th of February 1970 on Saraswati Puja (Day of worship of the Hindu Goddess of Learning Mata Saraswati), at 5:55 am when I was born. Also born on that day are 2 of my favorites Abraham Lincoln- February 12, 1809 and Charles Darwin – February 12, 1809 whose life stories interested me even as a child simply because we shared the same birthday, and somehow by the age of 4-5, I had pretty much digested all the picture books on them that were available to a child at the time and Idolized them for abolishing slavery and the theory of evolution.
“Well you’re already on the right path” people tell me, and though I’m not a counselor, nor am I skilled in relationships, I am told, “I think you should continue doing what you’re doing now, trying to give yourself and your dad a chance, reaching out to him, keep it up ! “, They say, “One day he’ll come around ! ” and I nod my head neutrally, my thought are “I don’t think so !”
I will never forget the beatings, and it’s funny because, though I still have the nightmares every now and then, they have become more and more vivid as I have grown older and have long since ceased to present themselves as scary and terrorizing as they used to be , and now a days they seem to manifest themselves as more of a nuisance intended to ridicule and deprive my soul of the peaceful dreamless neutrally flavored blissful state of sleep that infants sleep, without a care in the world.
When I turned 3 years old I was branded to be a hyperactive ADHD child and was prescribed Ritalin for over year. My father used to denigrate me and belittle me telling me that I was a handicap and I was good for nothing.
Wise people tell me “Since you’re giving your dad and yourself the opportunity to regain the mutual love between father and son, you need to give yourself both time to adapt. Be patient and give time to rebuild your relationship under the new circumstances. Treat him like you want to get to know him better, let the little things go because there is a bigger picture, more important than any trivial history or past memory.”
” You may have to show greater maturity, invite him to spend time with you, go see him, talk more…essentially you may have to be the person making the greater effort and That’s okay, because if you regain your relationship with him it’ll be worth it. ” Only if relationships didn’t require reciprocity and just my efforts were enough !
I left home at 21 because of the way my dad treated me. My ruse was to go to Eastern Michigan University but It was the excuse I had needed to leave home. My dad may feel guilty and regret the way he treated me as a child and while growing up as a teenager, but he sure as hell is not be ready to acknowledge it. Whether or not he wants to eventually apologize, is up to him, and is not my end goal.
I thought I had forgiven him and tried for years to avoid even talking about things like these but It became really difficult after a while. Primarily because it always seemed like I was the only person who was responsible for whatever issue troubling him at the time. I could have overlooked that as well but it became unbearable when he started to abuse my Innocent Spouse and Children because he blamed me for his unhappiness and his career failures, a blemish on his reputation, the way he put it. He even ounce blamed me for his failure to become Vice Chancellor of the University he worked at.
They say Children learn what they live “If you raise a child with violence they learn to fight for themselves.” And that is what I learned. When a threat is identified there are three courses of action that remain left as options.
- find an amicable solution- Which I could not, since the violence continued at all levels, of the Physical Mental and Emotional aspects of my life
- eliminate the threat- Also which I could not do, which left me no other option but
- distance myself from the threat. – And so that is what I did.
I am lucky in the sense that my character grew stronger and tougher which I think is because I had one of the best spiritual educations from my mother who was also a great spiritual devotee while she was alive and insisted that I go to St Xavier’s High School under the tutelage of Jesuit Priests. This is where the real mettle of my character was forged, under the fire of the tutelage of Fr. Casey Baily, Fr. Robins, Miller, Coyne, Brooks, Downing, Moran and Chambers ! – “Your character must succeed against all circumstances” said Fr. Casey Baily. ” I would rather you fail your exam than be a bad person, I am not here to produce educated criminals ….and without morals and ethics… that is exactly what you become.” He used to say.
I started Doing pot since the age of 14, I started smoking cigarettes at 13, I started shooting Heroin at age 19 because I could not deal with the emotional pain of sobriety. I was never a bitter person, nor was I violent, or ever a bully. I did heroin for 22 years and entered a harm reduction Methadone program for close to 10 years, with 3 Failed Serious Suicide attempts. I felt like even death had cheated me and I had lost the will to survive.
So today, I decided that I was going to write about my experience from the bottom of my heart just to let my father and the whole world know how much he had abused, tortured and destroyed me. I have since had to rebuild my whole destroyed psyche from scratch and reorganize my value system to accommodate for the Trauma. I am not made up of much but what little I am made up of, I am still a self-made.
I was only two years old when my Dad first attempted to Kill me. I do not think he intended to try to kill me on purpose, but, such was his un-restrained rage at the time, that he was unable to control his temper and as a result his actions. In one of the most frequent night mares I used to have, ever since early child hood that I can remember, the event of that fateful day often played out in my dreams over and over again like a rewind button that I just could not control. And this is how things unfolded I am on the floor pinned down by my dad sitting on my legs and he is pinning down both my arms with his legs and him slapping my face down hard with his adult palms on my mouth squirting blood from my lips with every strike, I must have passed out because the next thing I remembers was my mom coming running in, crying, scooping my limp body off a pool of blood in the middle of the living room floor, and then I must have blacked out again because the next thing I remember waking up in the hospital with doctors trying to sow some suture into my mouth somewhere.
It would only be fair to narrate the events leading up to this incident to gain better understanding of the actual events transpired. As a Nepali two year old, kid, I had just arrived in Austin Texas, Brackenridge apartments and I did not speak English that well. I had a neighbors kid named Emily aged two as well. She and I used to play quite amicably. One day there was slight strong breeze and Emily was blowing tiny little spit bubbles into the wind. The wind carried the Spit bubbles a couple of feet before they popped and we thought that was amusing. And So I joined Emily spitting bubbles into the wind. How could we predict that we would get the spit blown back onto ourselves and by the time Emily’s dad found us we were both a slobbery giggling mess. Emily’s dad picked her up, and said ” that’s enough”. He walked over to our apartment door and rang the Bell. My dad showed up at the door and Emily’s dad told my dad that the children had been spitting on each other, that he was going to talk to Emily and suggested that my dad have a talk with me too. My Dad shook his head and beckoned me home. The moment I walked in through the door, he just grabbed me in his rage which I could not understand why ? He then pinned me down to the living room floor and started slapping my face down hard with his adult palms on my mouth squirting blood from my lips with every strike. And that s when I must have blacked out the first time when my mom came running in crying to scoop me off a pool of blood on the floor.
My mother had never seen this side of my father ever before and it scared her. It scared my little baby sister and the Doctors at the hospital flagged my case to the University Police. I later learned that there had been a preliminary investigation/inquiry into the incident and my father almost lost his PHD scholar ship and almost got deported back. The thing that saved him was my mother somehow managed to change her story and save my His skin. They made him sign some conditional document that said he would never lay a land on his children ever again else he would lose his scholarship. To this day I have failed to understand the source or the intensity of his rage, but one thing is for sure, I think he somehow held the grudge of that incident against me all my life, which is why the violence re-manifested itself some years later as I became and adolescent and young boy.
One of the strangest things that ever happened to me after that first major incident of getting beat up bloody by my dad at age two, was that I lost my fear of spankings and beatings from that day forward. I realized that the physical pain of the beatings were something I could in fact tolerate and endure till the pain subsided. Any reasoning and explaining that could have been more effective with my desired behavior change was always lost on direct violence, for even the most pettiest of mischief or inadvertent mistakes. Most of all, the most violent and bloodiest, cruelest most inhumane beatings were triggered instantaneously on the mere made up complaint of a jealous relative without verification. Here are some of the worst beatings I have had in my life from my dad and other relatives ( and cousins who painted me out to be a chronic nuisance, and beat me with impunity with the unspoken approval of my father).
When I was 10 in Grade 3 my cousin Sana Dai, my dad’s own orphaned nephew, who was exploited as a child labor broke a heater accidentally and my father, without word or warning beat him to within inches of his life. My cousin Sana Dai was begging for his life, weeping, ” please forgive me, please don’t kill me, I won’t do it again,” so vicious was the beating. As was being beaten and he made me (
and my sister (6) watch. My Mom received 50% of the blows intended for Sana dai trying to protect him and she had bruises all over her body.
When I was 10 in Grade 4 we had just moved into our new house. There were some leftover sweets from the party which I ate without asking. The fashion back then was men wore steel belts made up of steel plates chained together like army Dog Tags. My dad beat me up with his double ply steel belt under a cold shower in the cold of mid- January. The wet shower masked my tears, and to me, that was my victory. As the years went by I grew less fearful and more defiant of my dad.
My mom wanted to send me to boarding school and I look back and think that she probably did what she thought it was the only thing that could get me out of that abusive situation under my dad, So I ended up in St Xavier’s Godavari for 2 years. In grade 7, every one became a day scholar again, and so, moving back home, things started all over again.
My father used to denigrate me and belittle me telling me that I was a handicap (for being declared ADHD) and I was good for nothing and he seemed to enjoy the effect it had on me. He was always disappointed in the grades I got. Till this day I cannot recall even one single instance when he ever consoled me when I was sad, or groomed me, mentored me or purposively spent time with me, encouraged me or appreciated me for doing good in school. He would criticize my school and my teachers without ever considering the impact of his negativity on me. And it was always Lecture, Lecture, Lecture. We lived in a volatile family where my Dada ego was at the head of the hierarchy and I saw my mom and dad fight and argue pretty much every day. Since I was sometimes allowed to spend the night with mom approved friends, I used to envy my friends and the families they had because I never saw them quarreling like we did, ever.
My Sister was also getting frustrated and used to tell me how she wanted to get away from all this one day. I glad she finally did break away. My father was also functional alcoholic for many years and when my mom was not around and I was in boarding school, my Father would roam the house completely drunk and naked in front of my 9 year old sister and other children. I have seen him fall into ditches and embarrass himself, bust his knee, drunk out of control, up until the time my Mother was Diagnosed with Cancer in 1993. My mom died in 1995.
When we came back to Nepal, my Dad used to Invite his friends over when we lived in Kirtipur and I was in Class 2-3. Once they got Drunk, He would start bagging about how strong he was and Pick us children up with one hand and pick up a chair from the bottom of its leg. Most of all we used to feel safe to ask him for things when he was drunk. HE made a lot of promise but never kept any. He would promise to buy me a bicycle and shatter my hopes. He would brag about what great Karate Player he was when he was drinking and he promised to enroll me in Karate school and that never happened either.
One day I came home a bit late around 8 PM from a known relatives house. Oh how I hated going home. That day he beat me with his fist till he broke his own hand luckily nothing of mine was broken and he had to have a plaster cast for 2 months.
One day a troubled student in my college class assaulted one of our best Physics teachers. I could not accept that. We regarded our teachers with great reverence. Because I had the support of my science class I dragged this guy to the Principles office to hold him accountable. Many professors thought it was noble of me to do that and were praising me. One of the professors who happened to work with my dad Also taught at my college and somehow relayed the story of my noble act to my father. That evening my dad came home and started picking a fight with me for doing something considered noble in my college that everyone appreciated.
He said to me, ” Do not try to be a smart ass because someone could break you in half, he said you should mind your own business”.
” I can handle myself , ” I retorted.
The next thing I remember is that he picked up a solid wooden barstool and just flung it at me, and I had to duck to prevent getting clobbered. The Barstool shattered into 15 pieces as it impacted the floor. I was OK, but then I lost it too. I ran to the Kitchen to grab the Big Khichuri Knife there and my cowardly father ran away, locking himself inside his room asking my yelping for my mother to console me and calm me down. I would have killed him that day. We did not speak to each other for 2 years but he continued to do things to make me feel isolated and unwanted. One of the things that was very traumatizing for me was that he always challenged me to get out of the house or just told me to get out.
One day I ran away from home, my first year of college. Three days later he sent someone to spy on me my at my friend’s house and convince me to come back home. I did not want to go home but he promised he would let me leave it f I just came home and talked with him.
Once I got home he said ” You Know I said things when I was angry but I did not mean it so it’s up to you whether you want to stay or leave “.
Since I was getting Bigger and had started going to the Gym with good results my abusive father exercised every opportunity to discourage and ridicule me, Until one day he realized that I had been making some serious progress.
I was never a bad student and mostly had good grades throughout, but the day he realized I was making serious progress at bodybuilding, he started to undermine my self-discipline by discouraging me by saying ” Oh you could never make progress with a Nepali Diet”, or “Oh you just don’t have the right kind of genetic material in you”.
My dad was wife beater and my Mom took the brunt of it. My childhood was emotional abuse and both physical, but my responses and results were the same as any damaged person. My mother was also the victim of my father’s rage. He threatened divorce if she took sides with me. He resorted to direct physical violence most of the time, and he was unpredictable, and destroyed things often, playing cruel mind games.
I knew I did not want to be like my parents, especially my father but my own well of anger was as deep as my father’s. I would have outburst and i once accidentally killed a person with a punch and spent close to a year in jail only because it was an accident. I do not like not having dependable control of myself.
My father was also unfaithful with my mother and although he always claimed to be a man of morality, one of the lesser known facts is that Despite Having a PhD he is also a Porn addict and family members have not had the heart to call him out on his pedophilic tendencies. He provided residence and paid tuition for one of his teenage nieces to exploit her sexually, whom he use to put his arm around like a friending gesture and pinch her nipples. This has happened on more than one occasion with different nieces and sister in laws, while neglecting the needs of his own children. He is also a pathological liar. A brilliant academician , but with no morals. A narcissist who thinks he is the center of the universe.
I am writing this because I am afraid of myself. I do not hate my father but feel sad for him. Much like the sadness when one has to put down a an ill pet who is terminally ill. I have extremely violent night mares because I have not even scratched the surface of what I have been through. I have a young son and even the birth of a new born grandchild did not touch his heart.
I WOULD BE Content to leave things the way they are but my father owes me something. He has swindled me of my right to my ancestral property, a birthright of mine. He has forged legal documents and lied to the courts to satisfy his greed and I have not spoken with him in over a year. All I want is my rightful inheritance. It is not for me but for my children. I have two children who are in their formative stages and I and my wife are both living with a terminal condition. I may not be able to win the court battle so I must find a healthy way to appease the wrath I have been suppressing for years. I have no desire to ever have a relationship with this man ever again, because he is the kind of person who would not hesitate to abuse an innocent child to get back at someone.
I’ve done lots of grieving for the losses of my childhood and I am still learning about how the physical abuse compromised my ability to have healthy relationships and grow emotionally. I learned to stay away from, or leave any situation or relationship that could trigger me. My hyper awareness of verbal abuse won’t allow me to tolerate it at all.
My mother tried too but my father never embraced his part in my traumatic childhood. He says he beat me less than his own parents, therefore I should have been fine, but I am not. I am a highly sensitive person, and I absorb and internalize pain of others. It has become one of my strengths, because I am highly empathetic soul. My father made my childhood traumatic, and it has the potential to drag me down again because he does not want to man up and take responsibility for his part.
to be continued
