Who Am I?

[AbuHossam]

Well, my name is Chase. Wow, I will be turning 60 this year and I cannot even begin to count the times I have asked this very gut wrenching question, especially since I basically did not have loving or caring parents, and who I did not know very much at all; very distant, lot’s of verbal and emotional attacks; physical punishment included, which could be overly explosive on so many occasions (leaving not just horrible physical wounds, but over time, deep psychological and emotional ones, as well). This, I remember, happened on what seemed to be most every day.

We were eight children, now six. I am the third youngest. I remember very early on our family of 10, 8 children, now six, living in a barn for a good while with just mattresses on the floor, and we at at a table and sitting on benches that were made completely made out of cement – it was cold, it struck me many years later as being cold like my parents – I don’t really care sitting on cement benches to this day.

Our family did not enjoy a good reputation in our small northern town, I remember this very well, as we were considered to be an outcast family, basically people to avoid, with others crossing over to the other side of the street, looking on in disgust, and when two or more were together, one could tell very clearing the chuckling and the scoffing. It was hard.

We were very poor, my father a ranch hand, coming home drunk on almost every Friday evening, often tripping, while roaring drunk, on the front door steps and injuring himself. I remember seeing his blood. He would barely make it to his bed, where he would pass out in a drunken stupor, often times being naked, with his soiled clothing strewn about on the floor. My mother would verbally pummel each of us to “get his pay check” (he got paid in cash every Friday after work), and that meant either confronting him about the money or even going into his room to go through his clothes to find it. And when she was not successful in getting one of us to do that, that the words "go to hell”, or “I hate you”, were so commonplace, and then at times, she would physically stand behind the opened front door with a frying pan – I don’t really care for them to this day, either. She would wave it at him; I don’t remember her actually ever striking him with it. OH, how I learned very quickly to deeply despise Friday evenings, I remember trying to “just not be there”. I was a very small built boy, feminine, constantly being teased by my peers, as well as experiencing great emotional, verbal, and yes, much sexual abuse – so I knew so well that being especially hated and scorned by that small town; so going to sporting events or dances, etc., at my school was out of the question, and so I just tried to disappear off to a place where I could be alone, shouting at times at the very top of my voice, to who at the time I did not know, “Who Am I”?