by Tracy Thomas

Created on: June 12, 2008

My nightmares as a child were nothing compared to my reality. Every day of my life I walked through the landscape of a dark and dreadful dream. But the monster that lurked behind my doors and around corners was made of flesh and blood and not merely temporary and dissipating works of my imagination. When the dawn would come and I opened my eyes to greet the light, those monsters did not disappear. They took up residence in the shadows of my home. They took on the form of a man, my own father, who was supposed to snatch those same terrifying dreams away and replace them with love and reassurance.

Reality became my worst nightmare, stuck in the middle of it, unable to run. My heart would pound, my veins surged with adrenaline urging me to flee the terror, but my body would remain frozen in time. I could not move, I could not speak, I could not scream. I was physically chained to his unrelenting brutality.

"Splitting" is the term used to define an out of body experience, realized by numerous individuals who suffer abuse as children. For me, trapped in this nightmare, splitting became a way to disassociate from the painful reality of my own father inflicting unspeakable acts upon me. I have no recollection of how I learned to perform this feat, but when reality became skewed and unbearable, I was able to click out and view his acts from a safe distance away from my physical body. Though I remained physically powerless against his actions, I found a sense of power in the ability to find some mental form of escape in the midst of his abuse.

Over time, the splitting became such a natural habit that I would find myself using it in life whenever I felt even remotely threatened. All it would take was a certain smell, a look that I would interpret as dangerous, or a sound somewhere in the distance. This stimulus was not directly connected to my father in any way with the exception of reminding me of some aspect of his actions. This defense mechanism became so ingrained and comfortable, that I often chose it as my reality, in order to make it through the day. Amazingly, I could maneuver my physical body through any task with precision, look as if I was completely engrossed in a conversation and even make love with the interjection of all appropriate comments and moves. But I was never really present. My spirit moved on in a soft adagio of suffering, terrified of connecting for too long with my physical body, fearing that if it stayed it might be snatched away once again by

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