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abuse

Books + Art

Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away will break your heart and put it back together again

Some Bright Morning, I'll Fly Away, memoir, Alice AndersonI’ve just read the last words in award-winning poet Alice Anderson’s new memoir, “Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away.” I wiped away tears underneath my fogged-up glasses. My chest is teeming with heartache for what she and her sweet three—that’s what Anderson calls her children—have endured over the last 15 years and beyond. Before she married and had children, Anderson was raised by a father who repeatedly raped her and a mother who ignored Anderson’s pleas to notice, to know, to make it stop.

Later, when Anderson married, the man she understandably thought would love and cherish her instead began abusing her with bullying taunts, gas lighting and the revolting emotional control only a person with psychopathic tendencies can perfectly master.

Eventually—as these things tend to go with abusers—the abuse escalated into the realm of physical, when Anderson’s body was brutally battered in front of her children. But Anderson defied the odds and escaped. She took her children and she fled for safety, away from her husband, a wealthy doctor in the small town of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It wasn’t an easy journey, as the whips of abuse kept coming in multiple harrowing forms, including a traumatic brain injury for Anderson and countless and long-lasting emotional damage for her children, who both witnessed and experienced their father’s wrath.

Alice Anderson, author, Some Bright Morning I'll Fly AwayBut Anderson (pictured, left) and her children persisted, never giving up on their dream to be free from the man who hurt them all. In “Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away,” Anderson begins the prologue with the line, “We make chapels of our scars.” “Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away” is a story of “the chapel” that was built from Anderson and her sweet three’s “scars,” written with such evocative and poetic language that it made my heart swell and burst while lapping up every page of this searing story. Anderson’s powerful and breathtaking memoir broke my heart and put it back together again.

Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away, St. Martin’s Press, is available Aug. 29, 2017. Buy it on Amazon or support a local bookstore with your purchase. 

August 12, 2017 by
Essays, recovery, trauma

Mothering as a survivor of abuse, sexism and racism

 survivor mother

I am a survivor of racism, among other things. It makes me a hypervigilant mother. You can find me on the lookout for teachable moments: cultural appropriation in music video costumes, generalized assumptions based on race, and every children’s show or movie from Disney.

I am a survivor of sexism, among other things. When I bring my car in for repair, I bring my son with me. He is 9. He watches the repairman talk over me repeatedly before stepping in. “I saw it happen,” he says, and the mechanic suddenly believes me and sees the problem too. We talk about gender privilege on the way home. My son says, “I will never be like that man,” and I know he won’t.

Some days I do not function. I sit on the couch and hold my head together with my hands. Repeat mantras to stay present because I have children I love and want to care for. I am told to shake it off. Just push through it. Take some medicine. Get some therapy. I am the survivor of ableism. I tell my kids Mommy is having a hard time today and I need extra help. We work together to make it to bedtime.

Those days I do not function are because I am the survivor of abuse and assault. Individuals in positions of privilege have controlled my body to get what they want. Their actions stay with me even with medication and therapy and shaking it off and pushing through it. And when my children throw tantrums, I am sick to my stomach. I scream at sudden motions or sounds. I cry when we’ve made it through to the end because a piece of me is still a terrified child, a terrified young woman, a terrified adult.

But the flip side of this is awareness; the ability to draw attention to social inequality and discuss the ways we make it better. First, we notice. Second, we speak up. Third, we do not repeat the transgression. Safe touch, safe speech, safe action. Solidarity.

Together, my children and I learn how to extend radical compassion without excusing violent behavior. We are allies to Others who, like me, have survived/are surviving. We acknowledge their realities and offer support because these actions are healing. This world needs healing.

***

My favorite moments are the quiet ones. When the toys are put away and we cuddle together, book in hand. We read of underdogs turned heroes. They defeat their evil, protracted metaphors for Othering and abuse. When we read, we all get to be the hero. Our voices are never silenced. There is no limit to what we can accomplish.

The couch transverses time, space and reality. We forget our world for awhile. Even the stunningly beautiful parts. Ice cream, birthday cake, a fire in the fireplace, parks, friends and animal companions. There is other beauty in other worlds to discover without the responsibility of now.

There is nothing quite so beautiful to me as my children in my arms. Those moments when we all rest and breathe together and do not think about learning or teachable moments or injustices. We simply are. We slip into another story even as we are writing our own.

 

Shawna Ayoub Ainslie is a writing coach and essayist who writes on issues of race, place and survivorship at The Honeyed Quill. Her work has recently appeared in The Huffington Post, The Manifest-Station, Medium, Art Saves Lives International and Role Reboot. She is the content editor for On the Verge, an online magazine for everyone, and is currently coordinating a series of writing competitions to raise money for her son’s service dog. 

 

February 18, 2016 by