60 Signs

A journey of recognition, grief, and healing

Content warning: physical and emotional abuse

The room is dark and small. There is a person kneeling on the ground with their hands folded together, forehead touching the firm ground. Behind the kneeling figure is a small window very high up on the wall, with three bars like in a jail cell. Between the bars, the window is pulsating with light—but not a single streak of it enters the room. Aside from the window, the room is silent, dark, and hopeless. 

———

I was eight years old and it was just another regular day for me. I had set the dinner table and was waiting for my mom to complete the finishing touches on the meal. I looked over to the empty seat next to where my mom was sitting and released a deep breath. Dad was not coming home again. It was just my mom and I at the dinner table, and it was just us two in the house—no siblings, no pets, and no dad. When I was about to start eating, I accidentally spilled a glass of water all over the dinner table. The water seeped through the place mats, the wooden table, my pants, and began dripping down to the floor. Before I even realized what had happened, I heard a scream. I froze as my heart began to race. I was sitting there, alone in the kitchen, water droplets dripping down my pants, waiting for the voltage to come—and then the lightning struck. My mom’s words had a voltage that crushed my heart into little pieces. Then I felt my head throbbing from my mom’s heavy fist. 

Now I didn’t feel the water dripping onto the floor—I felt the tears dripping down my cheek. The voltage and the throb kept coming until they stopped. The hands that had been hitting on me were now grasping her chest. She couldn’t form words. She was having difficulty breathing. She was lying on the floor. She pointed at the plastic bag on top of the kitchen counter. This was a panic attack. And it was just another typical day for me. 

This type of interaction was an everyday occurrence throughout my childhood. I learned how to cry in silence, because if I cried out loud, the beating got physically and mentally worse—it gave her another reason to tear me apart. I was raised with Christian beliefs so the only thing I would do to cope at this time was pray. Every single night I whispered, “Dear God, it’s me. Please don’t let my mom yell at me tomorrow. Please don’t let my mom hit me tomorrow. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.” I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I prayed until I couldn’t tell if the pool of water I fell asleep in was made up of tears or sweat from fear. I prayed for four straight years—I never forgot a day.

———

It was the same dark, small room. Still silent and hopeless. But this time, the vision focused on the figure. It was a person kneeling with their head down. Their legs were folded and their shins touched the ground. Their hands were covering their face, drenched in sadness and loneliness and fear. Their forehead, knees, and arms slowly became one with the cold ground. Despite the pulsating light in the small window, the person did not know what  true light looked like or even what light was. All the person knew was the dark ground they were facing and the dark room they were imprisoned in.

———

I assumed that the visions I kept getting were my imagination, a way for me to draw my despair and wounds into some singular place and escape. But I believe these visions were not from me—they were from God. The first time I saw the dark, small room was before I entered middle school, the second time was during my junior year of high school, and the last time was during my freshman year in college. As time went on, the vision got clearer, popping up every time I prayed. The word “abuse” seemed to trigger it, but I still wasn’t sure how the word related to them and, more importantly, to myself. I denied that the person in the room was me. How could it have been me? I grew up thinking that my life was normal. I grew up being told that I was blessed. I grew up believing that other children were also disciplined with harsh, manipulative words, and that even though it occasionally got physical, that was just another way of expressing love. I believed that the time I spent fantasizing about jumping off a 20-story building was typical for an 8-year-old. I thought that everyone struggled with the same feelings of despondency, sadness, captivity, hopelessness, and self-hatred.

Friends and family always told me that I looked exactly like my dad growing up. To most people this would be a compliment, or at least, not an insult. However, whenever people mentioned this, I felt guilty and ashamed. The way my mom complained about my dad, the way she framed and morally attacked him for everything that went wrong in her life was embedded in my heart. At that time, I thought that looking like my dad meant that I was also like my dad, not just externally but also internally, making me a terrible person. Because of this, my mom’s manipulation created a crooked image of my dad that made me want to change everything about myself so as to not be like him. The thorns she used on my dad were also reflected in my view of myself. My image of love was built on guilt and shame as my mom used her hurtful and manipulative words to achieve what she wanted. This was my everyday life, and I thought that people just got over it.  

———

Still the same room—dark and small, but things are starting to move now. The person slowly raises their head and they see where they are. They realize that the unresponsive ground is not the only thing around them. They are surrounded by darkness, but can see that there is a door directly across from them. It sparks their curiosity and slowly, gently, still shaking with fear and uncertainty, the person brings up their right leg. And slowly, one limb at a time, like a baby cub waking up from a long winter nap, they stand up to face the door.

———

During the summer of 2019, I opened up my laptop and typed in “child abuse” on my computer browser. I guess the topic had been in the back of my head since I first learned about it during health class in ninth grade. It just happened to spark my curiosity that morning in June. As I read through the descriptions, I learned that there were three different types of abuse: sexual, physical, and emotional. I was less familiar with emotional abuse. So I searched for “emotional abuse” next. The very first article that popped up was titled “64 Signs of Mental and Emotional Abuse.” As I went down the list, I counted the signs that I could identify. 60 signs. They included humiliating, negating, criticizing, control, shame, accusing, blaming, denial, emotional neglect, emotional isolation, codependence, and more. These 60 signs were my everyday life for ten years. They shaped how I perceived the world and how I was programmed to think about everyone else’s lives.

Before this, I believed that mental illness was a hoax because every symptom of depression that I heard teachers talk about was exactly what my life looked like. I found it pathetic because I didn’t believe that I was depressed. I felt like I was “superior” because I could push myself to the limit and get over it. However, when every one of those 60 signs of emotional abuse described what I went through for exactly half of my life, the stigma I held against mental health started to melt away. I felt like Truman Burbank from “The Truman Show,” like my whole life was made up. Like my life had been set up for a show made up of nightmares and gray skies. A part of me felt free and happy because I was finally realizing that the way I had lived my life was not normal— it had been miserable and depressing. However, another part of me was terrified because the darkness had become routine. The shame and guilt had become a part of me. I was afraid of change—I wanted to stay exactly where I was and not deal with the pain. I wanted to numb myself. 

——

Driven by curiosity, the figure approached the door step by step. They stood in front of it for a long time, not understanding exactly what it meant. Though the door resembled the walls, it was distinctly framed with dim lines of light, offering a way out of the dark, small room. There was an ordinary round door knob, and slowly, still constricted with fear, they grabbed it. It was cold, as if no one had touched it for a very long time. After another long moment of trying to understand what a door knob was, and what its purpose was—click. The door unlocked.

———

There are five stages of grief. The first stage is denial. I was in denial for a very long time. Even after this summer when I realized that I had been abused, I denied it for an entire semester. I tried to act normal behind the bars of shame and guilt I had built in my heart. I was in denial of the fact that I had lost myself while coping with the weight of wondering who I could have been if I hadn’t been chained and dragged down by abuse. I didn’t know who I was or who I was supposed to be. I couldn’t recognize myself anymore. The person that God made me to be—I had lost all of her. I mourned this loss, I cried my heart out, I felt the sorrow and pain in my heart that I had buried deep down since I was eight.

But during this time of grief, I replaced the cry with a roar for all the times I had cried in silence. The times my mom would grab my head and throw books at me. I would feel my body slowly filling up with fear. And that fear turned into tears, but I couldn’t cry out loud. I was mad, which was the second stage of grief: anger. I was angry at my teachers, my friends, and my dad for not noticing the abuse that had been going on for ten years. I was mad at my mom for treating her own daughter that way for half of my life. But, most of all, I was mad at myself. 

The third stage of grief is bargaining. I told myself that what I went through was not abuse, that it was merely an obstacle. Even though I had read all 60 signs, I sometimes would act as if they had not happened to me. Then came my time of depression. My grades started to fall as my time spent in bed went up. Being a good Christian girl, I numbed my depression with Netflix instead of with drugs and alcohol. I never went outside even to grab a meal. When I wasn’t watching TV, I was crying. I cried so much that my head would hurt the next day and I couldn’t open my eyes because they were so swollen from the saltiness of my tears. I cried and cried until I couldn’t. I mourned and grieved for the loss of myself. 

———

The door knob was turned, but the door was still closed. It wasn’t budging. The fear that the person felt since they first saw the door was at its zenith. Their hands were shaking but their heart was at a magnitude 10 earthquake. They felt a spark of hope, but they were exhausted from getting up, walking over to the door, and finally turning the door knob, given that they had spent half of their life in that darkness. Was this it? Waves of doubt, fear, and hope rushed into their heart. For the last time, they pushed. Through the cracks of the door poured streaks of white light, raining down onto their head and then into their eyes and across their arms and legs. The door was now wide open. They stood in awe, trying to cherish every moment they had in that dark, small room because darkness was the only thing they knew, the only thing they were comfortable with. One foot after the other, they stepped into the light. 

A field of colorful flowers, healthy grasslands, radiating sunlight, and flying butterflies was waiting for her. She was free. She felt joy. She was laughing and skipping around the meadow. Her smile was radiant. She was radiant. She found herself.

This past summer, I went backpacking in Wyoming for a month. On the drive to the campground, I saw a double rainbow canvassed across the bright blue sky. In the Bible, a rainbow symbolizes promise. It can also represent good fortune and transformation. The first arc represents the material world and the second arc represents the spiritual realm. On a hike one day, we came across a meadow identical to the one in my vision.

Since acknowledging my void of depression, I started seeing a therapist and taking medications. I started to accept that mental disorders were real. I got diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Abuse is real and it happens to people. Long-term trauma and abuse leaves dents in so many lives. Coming to terms with what I have been through has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. I felt alone and didn’t want to ask for help or open up to other people. However, going to therapy and taking medication helped me reach me where I am today. I now realize that the darkness in my vision represents the abuse from my mom, and the light represents real love. The love I felt growing up chained and imprisoned me. During my childhood, love meant abuse. But the light in my visions revealed what real love looks like. It is freeing and joyful. 

———

Currently, I am behind the door and I have turned the doorknob, but I am still stuck in the room, still constricted with a little fear, not quite knowing how to push the door open. I am doing it bit by bit, just like the steps that I took while I was backpacking in Wyoming. The first step with a heavy footprint left in the untouched dirt, the next step triumphing over fallen-down tree trunks, the next step resisting the powerful river flow that could knock me to my knees, covered in sweat, gasping for air, muscles aching, blisters popping, a 40-pound weight on my back. The meadow is nowhere in sight. All I can see is the dirt and the top of the 12,452-foot mountain pass that I need to go over. All I want to do is give up because I cannot see the end of this trail. Then I stop. I stop looking at the summit and I stop looking at the vertical pass that I have to go over. Instead I look down at my feet, focusing on my steps one by one, cheering myself on for every little obstacle I overcome, and looking back at how far I have come. The further I go with my steps, the more encouragement I feel from the progress I’ve already made. These steps give me the power I need to move forward and reach the meadow. And for that reason I have hope. I know that there is a freeing meadow full of peace and color still waiting for me behind that door.

By Grace S Lee

Childhood Issue | May 2020