The Journey is a Saga of freedom, discovery, and Trauma.
Prologue Excerpt
Thomas Niles knew I was a threat to
core of his very existence, because he was an empty shell of a man, with a
fractured ego, whose abusive dominance and violence was substituted in his mind
for masculinity. Violent and abusive people exist within all genders, and every
diverse alteration thereof, as well as across societal spectrums. Not every
abuser is obsessive, possessive, and controlling to the point of becoming
murderous, but Thomas Niles was. When I chose to break his control over me for
good, I had to die. Thomas Niles announced it in advance and threatened to kill
‘every one of those kids,’ if I left with them, because I and his children were
his property. There was no way out, or so he thought.
In 1987, I and my five children fled
for our lives during an unseasonable February thunderstorm, with nothing, and
no plan. There are multiple types of abusive people, those who destroy the soul
with words that cut like daggers, and those who will do more than that-they
will kill you, body, soul, and all. Thomas Niles had killed before, and
I had no doubt he would do it again, this time, not as a soldier during
wartime. Thomas Niles saved up wrongs and collected them, he was what the FBI
calls an injustice collector. According to Thomas Niles, I had incurred his
absolute wrath, and in such a way as to merit execution. When I took action by fleeing
from Thomas to save our lives, Thomas Niles took the act as a high crime committed against his ego,
because in his schema of things, I stole his property. I slaughtered his
pride, humiliating him in front of all who knew him, and for that I deserved an
especially brutal and torturous execution. Thomas was homicidal when I fled so I
knew in advance that escaping would invoke an all-out, obsessive attack in a
fit of desperation, so I virtually disappeared without a trace.
After fleeing through three states, my
children and I thought we had broken free, and were safe. The
looking-over-our-shoulder was finally over, we were free to rebuild our lives,
and create happy futures. Thomas Niles had been the problem, the dark shadow in
all my children’s lives: he was the antithesis of what was right, the
antithesis of all I stood for. Once Thomas Niles was out of our lives, I
believed the trauma and tragedy would be over, but I was wrong. A family is a
small government, a society, a system, a school, in which children are the
students. In each day of every child’s life they are learning, silently
watching, mimicking emotional behavior set by example, being conditioned. No
child leaves a violent home without absorbing those horrific lessons and
adopting vile and broken attitudes that form their foundational system for
every decision they make, for as long as they live. The toxic and corrosive
environment in which we lived, created an impact that would reverberate like a
gong, for years to come. There would be many days in which I wondered who of us
could survive.
The Journey is Nostalgic, reminiscent
of happy childhoods and family memories; and it is dramatic, as it recounts the
perilous navigation of a family that is often in crisis. The systematic
progression of toxic dysfunction becomes a central theme of the story, as every
family member alternates between times of stability and success, and tragedy.
The author is narrating in first
person, as the author is an integral and vital part of the story. Societal
Stigma is a factor in families keeping dysfunction secret, as something
shameful, that should be hidden and denied. In The Journey, the Truth
about Family Dysfunction, and its invasive and devastating impact upon each
family member is revealed. The dynamic influences of siblings upon the family dynamic,
in both positive and negative ways, is outlined through the actual life story
of the Niles Family.
One of the strongest protectors of
family abuse, and dysfunction, is the Secrecy and Denial that acts to insulate
it from the truth. It is common for members of a family to come forward with
revelations of abuse or mistreatment, only to be discounted, and invalidated by
the family doused in narcissistic denial. It is also common for societies to
blame ‘The Mother’ for all that goes wrong in a family; or even
for the choices made by adult children, and to leave ‘The Father,’
blameless. The responsibility of mothers is far greater than that of fathers,
according to the unspoken ‘code’ of Societies steeped in patriarchy. Children
grow up in a world in which it really does ‘take a village,’ but there is no
village standing by, waiting to help for the long haul, only the zealous members
of society anxious to assign blame, then walk away in self-righteous
vindication. The abuse of children requires blame to be placed on the right
person, and responsibility taken by perpetrators who are held accountable. The
balance of justice requires this, but it is lacking in families, and it is
lacking in societies. Wounded Souls continue to spread toxic distress upon
others because of apathy, the voice of Justice is rendered silent. In this
unbalanced system, perpetrators are often, never held accountable, and the
victims are left without resolution. The best justice is The Truth, honestly
Told, and Honestly Felt, as the True Anathema to Dysfunction; and this Truth
starts in the same place that the Lie itself was born -behind the closed doors,
and the secret rooms, of The Families of Origin.
The Journey is about Telling that Naked
Truth. The Truths that Dysfunctional Families choose to shamefully hide.
