Anger Enough

Mebenji

Brick created on 15/06/2008 @ 19:24

Your brick story

The chairs were like the purple one, with squared, tubular powder-coated metal legs. I used to stub my toes on them brother more often than I think would be more than chance.

I used to get drunk, wanting to knock myself out. I thought I'd wake up, sprawled on the floor - although in truth, I didn't want to wake up. I did want to experience being so drunk I would become unconscious. Never happened, though.

One day, while drunk, I felt such a furious outrage at my brother, who abused me - didn't really get it. He said, he was young. I was four years younger. He felt powerless - so, what was my power in relation to his? He at least had some physical strength, height, those broad shoulders, and that he was older and could be out of there sooner. he was physically attractive according to many sources, I was a skinny nothing who wore glasses, and as I grew into adolescence I barely developed a 'womanly' shape.

Damn him, I thought, and couldn't stop thinking. I wanted so much to take some sort of action, just to scream would be good. This day, even that wouldn't have been enough. I just cry. I can't scream, shout, yell, make noises by banging pot and pans, hammering on the table, or throwing plates, to make them smash loudly against the wall - nothing like that. It's all frightening to me. Accidentally dropping something on the floor scares me. A slip of the knife when I am cutting veggies, scares me. (not to mention noises made by other people, or the wind blowing something over)

Anyhow, I thumped my chair, the thickly padded back of the one I was sitting in. Maybe because i was drunk, it didn't seem too loud to do it again, and again.....I don't know how many times I thumped that chair. It even rocked, my weight setting it right again, thumped the floor - I guess I was too far into it by then to care.

It all felt to needed and useless at the same time, while I really wanted to get hold of my brother, (and some other people who came ti mind, in due course). If he'd been there, I am sure I would have. I thought I could kill him just then...if he'd been there. I thought I could kill anyone then, whoever, if they were there that day, time, place, and if they were unable to stop me. I didn't care for quite a while if the feeling never subsided - though it did. Much crying and I couldn't catch my breath, I had to stop.

I finished, feeling drained, exhausted.

That's the most physically expressive I have ever been about the abuse I experienced.

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Comments

16/06/2008 @ 00:44 UMxx said

Hey benj, I want to respond later in a more considered way. but right now I want to whack your brother too. I just think that it might be better to push that aside and first give you a big hug and let you know that this is a step ahead. Love you lots
UM xxx
16/06/2008 @ 15:33 Mebenji said

Hi UM,
It was years ago - those depths of anger have abated, or just get transfered onto such mongrels as the man in Austria, or all those people downloading thousands of imagaes like they are stamp collecting....or indeed I can direct such anger against Nippers adoptive parents...or that bastard who hurt Kaitty, or Jay T's abusers... & that it just goes on...generation after generation. That's what happens now. & that it feels so locked up inside when I would rather be able to DO something other than cry. Things that happened for a few years, I'm dealing with all my life, or trying to evade, avoid, or deal with in uneffective ways, damaging ways. I get awfully sick of this territory, but like my body, it is always there. I might not be as consciuos of it as when it is not in pain, notnetheless it is there.
16/06/2008 @ 15:34 Mebenji said

So, I try to use it, in my art and writing. Like, what else can I do?
17/06/2008 @ 08:49 cate said

Mebenji - the images are they your art work ? They project so much pain more powerful than words I think . With huge hugs Cate xxx
17/06/2008 @ 08:53 cate said

P.S. I left a comment for you on your crystal ball brick -- just in case you missed it , xxx
17/06/2008 @ 10:28 UMxx said

Well I don't know what else you can do - so I think you just keep doing what you do - keep going with the anger - they are worthy to be angry about - but there is nothing that we can do to stop what has happened. All we can do is be here for each other and others and help get it out of our systems. And we will remain sick to death of all of this stuff but it is what we do - what we have to do
love you lots UM xx
17/06/2008 @ 16:28 Mebenji said

Hi Cate, and thank you. Yes, this is one I started a while back, on my computer. Took a while to decide how to continue, and a couple weeks to execute once I had decided. As usual, lots of mucking around, fixing mistakes until I finally think "good enough"
Thanks UM. sometimes I really do wish I didn't have a conscience - maybe I wouldn't feel so powerless about it. That's also a scary thought, knowing what I would do if I could act without thought or feeling...gives me the creeps knowing some of the thoughts that have gone through my head, like fantasies, clear and brutal and scary and satisfying. ('you're not supposed to admit to that!' my brain says - people get really uncomfortable, maybe scared for themselves.)
-Mebenji
18/06/2008 @ 03:31 cate said

I think we all have scary fantasies of what we could do in rage . Creepy thoughts happen to us all as well .Your brain is just protecting you from disclosing in an unsafe situation . Writing it out is a safe way isn't it and usually we feel better for it . Same with your art Mebenji - you are able to release some of t that deep hurt.
With love , Cate xxx
18/06/2008 @ 11:14 UMxx said

Yeah benj, I'm with Cate, I think that we are all very imaginative and creative people and that is why we can deal with some of this stuff - albeit in our own ways and time. My particular fantasy involves a stilleto heel and skulls of people who I feel strongly about - well not just the general people who annoy me but really really make me angry. While I think this is kind of weird funny - nobody has ever seen me in a pair of stilletos - it is just a fantasy a way of releasing anger somewhere.
I know that I have an awful temper - just goes off bang and is white hot. I always enjoyed having a minder who could steer me if I looked even close to losing it. Not that I have ever done anything really bad - but I am wary. I think the worst I have ever done is pick up a stapler and pegged it with my left hand and threw it through my office door way. I threw it hard enough that it was embedded in the gyprock. About 5 seconds later a person walked passed and I knew how awful it might have been if the stapler was thrown at this time. I haven't trusted myself since.
As for you - you don't scare me anymore that I reckon I scare you :) lots of love UM xx
20/06/2008 @ 13:12 Jomo said

These images are very powerful. It strikes me that as you have been disempowered for a large part of your life, that you use the art to express how powerful you are, and that is a great gift. Expressing anger is vitally important - and keeping yourself and others safe at the same time.
I hope that your shrink is allowing you to express this anger and helping you deal with it constructively.
I wish I could help you - I am so lost in my own maze, all I can offer is a shouted hello over the top of the walls of the maze - but be assured that I will listen and speak and talk and whatever you need, whenever you can.
Jo xxxx
20/06/2008 @ 13:38 UMxx said

Well Jomo, you shouted at me over a wall when I probably needed a piece of 4b2 over the skull but it worked nonetheless. When you so eloquently told me to make my shrink earn her money I got a straight thought about using her rather than trying to relate to her and I am getting more out of the sessions - both in terms of getting stuff out but unfortunately also more of the ruffled stuff too - but hey it's better than sitting through sessions playing power games. I think those shouted hello's are very important. Although I quite like a yoohoo too, UM xxxxx
21/06/2008 @ 04:33 Mebenji said

Why, when a "Coo-EEEEEEEEEE! will do?
Thanks you lot, muchly with many hugs if I can catch you ... I don't high jump anything. Oh, that's something silly/embarrassing I did! I've been trying to remember something....

'cause i don't high jump, 'cause I was scared of the metal bar, or hitting it, so one day when the P.E. teacher insisted I jump this thing which was not more than three feet off the ground - I slid under it! Can't remember just HOW I did that, just did.

& another day, during the sports day carnival, I was running last place, well behind the field, probably out of my lane as well, when I slammed full on into a teacher walking across the field. I didn't see him because my hair, he had come from my right side, and my glasses were bouncing up and down while I ran - so....!

I've copied these things and will post them to the silly things TA, when I find it. See ya 'round.

-Mebenji