The Inheritance of Shame by Peter Gajdics

Author:Peter Gajdics
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781941932094
Publisher: SCB Distributors

17

BEFORE EACH OF MY remaining visits with Alfonzo, I continued to fluctuate between feelings of outrage over what had occurred in the therapy and a great deal of loyalty toward Alfonzo, my “surrogate father.” The Styx had been too much like my home life to see it for what it had become.

Then I’d sit across from him in his private office during all of my periodic “check-in” sessions and he’d continue to make derogatory comments about anything to do with my life without the therapy, or him. If I talked about wanting to travel one day, visit Europe, maybe return to university, he’d say that I would “learn” that all of those ideas were only childish pipe dreams. “Why would you want to travel the world when you can travel to the moon on the mattress?” he said, once. All roads—whether literal or figurative—would lead back to him, and he told me so. Eventually, my best defense was to say as little about my life as possible, get my prescription—if he wrote me one—and leave. No sooner was I out the door, however, when I’d start crying.

Finally, I called Natie, from one of my former groups, and arranged to meet. I’d always remembered the way she’d challenged Alfonzo during groups and spoke disparagingly about him behind his back. Her attitude had scared me at the time, yet later confirmed that she’d always seen him for who he was.

“I thought he was saving my life,” I told her.

“By doing what? Getting you to cook his meals and deliver them to his home?”

“I was drowning when I met him.”

“Define drowning.”

“Depressed. Miserable. Self-destructive. I hated myself.”

“That’s the point of oppression: fear of annihilation. Invisibility. Normalization of the oppression. Being a survivor of sexual abuse doesn’t help.”

Natie was five years old when a friend of her parents molested her while she was staying with relatives. As an adult, she’d made a profession out of counseling survivors. She knew what she was talking about.

“Alfonzo told you lies about yourself for years. It’s up to you what happens in your life, how you interpret your homosexuality. You’ve just imagined a life of one-night stands and loveless relationships because that’s what you learned it meant to be gay. But you can change that image. You can change how you want your life to unfold. We all end up living the life we’ve imagined, one way or another.”

“I thought he was going to save me.”

“From what? In the end, no one saves us but ourselves, Peter. Save yourself.”

|||||||||||

The last time I saw Alfonzo was in early August 1996. I dreaded returning to his office. Near the end of our twenty minutes, he turned and faced me.

“I’m concerned for all my children, especially for you,” he said.

“Don’t be,” I said.

He looked at me, surprised, but continued. “The world is filled with homosexuals, Peter, and you’ve stepped back into it. How is that going? It must be difficult.”

I was nearing the final withdrawals from the medications, taking 50 milligrams of Elavil and 1 milligram of Rivotril each day, but still suffering through sleepless nights.

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