Perception.

Everything in our lives is influenced by, or comes down to individual perception, be that how an object is marketed, likes or dislikes, how we form our own personal goals or more commonly how we view each other, our lives, our values and even our worth. Generally what one person sees as garbage, another sees as gold. A good example of this is my car. Lots of people close to me can’t understand why I drive the car I do, she’s nothing special (in fact, she’s a bit of a bore…sorry!!) just your average arthritic, asthmatic 24 year old Mercedes saloon, not a sports car, not even that flash. Some people see it as a bit of a banger, old and lumbering and not nearly financially viable. I absolutely love her simple, angular styling, her clean, uncluttered interior and bright and airy feel from lots of big windows. I’ve had her for such a long time now that one of the reasons that I shell out a large amount of money to keep her on the road is she’s quite simply part of me, part of my identity. One of the other reasons is my dad.

I get my love of all things motorised from my dad. Growing up he and my mum had taxis and due to his limited mobilities from a very young age I would help him to fix the cars when they broke down, and they ALWAYS broke down! By the grand old age of 14 years old I could do a full brake service on a Mk2 Vauxhall Cavalier with my eyes shut. This proved to be a blessing and a curse for me. Invariably it would always be late at night or over weekends that a taxi would break down and I would be the holder of the torch, or the fetcher of the sockets for him because once he was under a vehicle it was always really hard for him to get up and down, easier to send his wee gopher. This meant two things for me. 1) I got to spend time with my dad, got to help him and 2) I wasn’t upstairs at the mercy of my brother. Despite our typical father-son struggles, cars have ALWAYS been a strong bond between me and my dad and Mercedes has ALWAYS been his brand. Part of why I hang on to mine is so that he has access to it if and when he wants it and that to me is worth more than money. What some folk percieve as a bit of a bucket, not worth the (flaking) metal it’s made from to me is a very real and tangible source of pleasure I can share with my dad.

Perception can be a funny thing, if for any reason it becomes altered it can be extremely difficult to put right. I know that i can be a stubbord, single minded nightmare and if I get something into my head it’s very difficult to change it. My perception of my parents was always that they would never believe me if I was to tell them of what was happening to me so I became determined that I wouldn’t, couldn’t ever have this conversation, besides at the time I didn’t really know how to word what was happening. I mean it wasn’t like it is nowadays, people didn’t really talk about things like that, the word ‘abuse’ wasn’t really bandied about so in my wee head I couldn’t really know what to call it. What actually qualified as abuse anyway? During my childhood there were a spate of high profile kidnappings and subsequent murders of young boys around the early eighties and I remember thinking that what was happening for me was nothing compared to what was happening on the news and as time progressed I think I allowed myself to begin to question my own perception of what I was suffering, and to a degree I think I still struggle with that, was it that bad? Maybe i should just man up and shut up…

Abuse is accurately described as “ the improper usage or treatment of an entity, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit and can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices; crimes or other types of aggressions” and part of my struggle in coming to terms with my experiences is when it comes to myself I’ve always felt that in the grand scheme of things what I suffered wasn’t all that bad; I wasn’t dead, I was still with my family and I couldn’t see that I was broken. If things weren’t really that bad who was I to even think about telling my parents anything? As years became decades my understanding of my abuse grew and I became more comfortable with the term and more free in accepting my experience. As I became more comfortable sharing my past with my peers my desire to protect my parents’ memories of our collective childhoods became the main reason I didn’t say a word to them. Even latterly when I began to reassemble myself I was resolute that I would never have ‘that’ conversation with them.

A few years back a chain of events began that to unfold that would absolutely force my hand and maybe a year or so ago these circumstances dictated that, as always is the case, the thruth outed itself and my parents found out what had been happening, general information-no details, and what I absolutely didn’t want to happen began to; their perceptions began to change. My mother began to get fixated on how scared my sister and I must have been, my father was clearly struggling to understand why we didn’t say anything at the time and the memories they had of our childhoods began to change. That was the point that I realised my own perceptions had actually came full circle. What happened to me wasn’t the worst thing in the world, it certainly could have been a whole lot worse and right now protecting my parents is still the most important thing. The difference now is that I don’t have anything to hide from anyone. I can see my past for what it is and my future for what it promises.

Do you see what I see?