Family Photo
It was about how things looked.
When I was eight years old, I went fishing at a family member’s lake home.
Photos were taken.
And that, years later, is what gets my attention.
At first, I had fun during this summer occasion. I loved hanging out with my grandpa. There was photographic evidence of my happiness.
And then, something changed, as was documented in the next photo.
I “should” have been happy. I was with my grandpa, and I had just caught a fish. It was a moment to celebrate, right?
But it wasn’t. Because, right before the image was snapped, a family member yelled at me, “ruining” the moment.
And it captured much of the theme of my family system.
Moments of celebration, holidays, and happy times were somehow compromised and replaced with abusive rage, shaming name-calling, and fear-inducing yelling.
Like this fishing photo of me at age eight, it was a case of “before and after.”
Before (The Posing): Oblivious Depiction.
“Before” represented the pressure-filled, image-obsessed focus on appearing perfect, happy, and aesthetically pleasing. Never mind that the truth was abuse, tears, and fear. Never mind that the occasion wasn’t happy.
If the camera captured everyone smiling, that was documented proof enough. It looked good.
Therefore, all was well. There was nothing to face, confront, or change.
Image Over Truth: The Prize.
The photograph itself can be its own trophy. This is the assertion that it’s more important that things look a certain way, not how they are.
This requires mandatory cooperation.
It can be a gradual process of grooming, set up over years, decades, and even generations. The appearance of happiness and flattering images is enough. Truth doesn’t need to support the façade.
Spirits are expendable for the system’s good.
Breaking the Spirit…
The lurking threat is always there though; “don’t get too happy.”
“Don’t be too much of your honest self.”
My “before” smile, next to my grandpa, with fishing pole in hand, was, I guess too truthfully happy for comfort.
I needed to be cut down to size.
Therefore, the yelling, the shaming, and the embarrassment.
A person needs to have their spirit broken. That was the emphasis here.
This spirit breaking tactic can exist with subtlety or obvious communication. But there’s always, seemingly, the “walking on eggshells” undercurrent. It’s the constant threat.
If it happens to be hostile against unpleasant emotions like sadness or anger, amongst individuals, it is a bit alarming that the same can be said about happy and joyful responses as well.
That can be the maddening, despairing, and confusing “reality” many of us are forced to adhere to.
“Don’t show anything apart from what we want to see from you.”
That seems to be the punishment sentiment.
And many of us collide with it after we show a real moment, one we weren’t permitted to display.
After (Seeing What Painfully Was).
And that brings us to the “after” experience of the minefields known as dysfunctional systems, individuals, and concepts of “image.”
The consequences of our real experiences, showing up somehow, is reflected in our crest-fallen and fearful faces… and our psyches.
Recognizing this debilitating reality can be traumatic, even years or decades later as we can, with time and distance, reflect on what we went through. Many of us do not discover until years later that we were abused. It was “normal.”
It is trauma to learn that “normal” was, indeed, abuse.
The photo was not happy. It was toxic and was not anything we should have experienced as children or as adults.
Breaking the Spirit…
“Breaking the spirit” is a collective tactic of control, manipulation, and support of abuse.
Why was this allowed?
Our human spirits, usually, at some core level, beg that question of our lives.
If things were, indeed, “normal,” there would be no need to question our experiences.
But it should not have happened. Our spirits were not created to be broken. The idea that breaking needs to happen is abuse.
It’s not an image that should be captured. It’s not photogenic.
Copyright © 2023 by Sheryle Cruse