The Clown In
Search Of Self

By Elaine Brady

I am who I am.
I am on the road to finding the me
that was born one day a long time ago
that was some how lost in the abyss of those yester years
when abuse was my only world.
You see, there was me who was born to be someone special
was submerged underneath the torment, anger, violence, and disdain
from parents who felt abuse was the only means
for forming my personality.
There was never a way to find the real me that I was born to become.
Could I have been a famous artist utilizing the talent that God has given me drawing with a pencil on paper or a brush painting on canvas
or using charcoal or pastel chalk to create beautiful artwork?
Maybe I was born to be a writer creating the most beautiful pictures
from words to bring to life feelings and ideas
and writing a Pulitzer Prize winning novel.
Could I have been a therapist that could reach the hearts of many
with empathy to help change a life?
Maybe I could have become a chef making the most tantalizing dishes
that would exist and use that talent for feeding the poor and the homeless?
How about a clothes designer using my God given talents
to bring to existence the beauty of clothing
that could help cloth a world with love?
Could it have been that I could have found a way to use all of those talents
and make a difference in the world in the most wonderful ways?
Maybe make a bigger difference in the lives of children?
Maybe….maybes are always there to make us wonder, aren’t they?
I will never know who I was slated to be
as the person God created when I was born
that world left me full of scars and wounds that are healing now.
It takes time…so much time for that healing to happen.
I am patient.
I can wait.
After all, the outcome is being whole, feeling complete
and knowing who I am.
I can find a way to the deep inner soul of my being
to let the real me come to the surface
but in a new and improved way than I have had prior to now.
I am hoping that one day the clown will be exposed
and the me I find in the clown’s place will be someone I like
whom finds a way to make a difference in life.
The clown…
the me that has always been hidden from the human eye
and only felt by some with the heart…
is starting to take off the war paint of camouflage
that helped me survive the years of abuse as a child and as an adult.
I survived those formative years
hiding in closets and under beds afraid to move,
standing in corners for long periods of time
wondering if my little legs would continue to hold me.
I survived handling verbal assaults that stabbed my heart and soul
with long arrows directed at wounding my life permanently
and large gaping holes that would always leave a scar.
I survived being kicked, hit, beaten, verbally abused
and all hope being taken from my life with smiles and crying.
I survived thinking that normal
would always mean abuse and lack of real love.
I survived having my self-esteem totally deflated and voided
by those around who were my caregivers.
The clown covers the real person behind a mask of makeup,
face paint, and painted emotions.
Have you ever wondered what lay beneath the painted face
of that person who hides behind the makeup
or maybe even underneath its implications of a life that hurt?
I have many times.
As I look at the clown, I see the eyes.
The eyes are the windows of the soul.
They lead to the feelings held in the heart
and hidden in the deep hollow field of the soul.
Where would the path lead if we could see what lies behind those eyes?
I am not sure that it is possible to always find what lies there deeply
in the hidden disconcertingly haunting alcove of the soul.
Abuse disguises the real person behind fear, agony, anguish, and terror
that comes with each hit, each kick, each unkind word,
each emotionally haunting verbal assault
Behind the eyes is a heart that is crying in agony over something lost
but not knowing quite what is lost.
There is an emptiness that can only be filled by love.
The void that was left in my life is one that may never be totally filled.
Love may always be elusive to me,
as I was never shown what real love was when I needed to know.
I may always feel insecure about my abilities and my importance in life.
Maybe too all I need to find to fill the void and emptiness can be found
by finding the real person who lies beneath the clown face.
As the heart begins to heal,
those memories are securely locked behind a mask of unearthly discordance
that rises to a disquieting surface from the soul to the heart.
A life is forever frequented by the terror of feelings that lay dormant
and are never dealt with in the childhood
and long hidden away into adulthood for safety of living life.
Every time you see an abused child, look at the eyes.
You will see a deep sadness.
You will see despair.
You will see a lack of hope.
I know for I was there as a child.
I was there as a teenager coming to life in an adolescent body.
I was there as an adult.
If you looked at my eyes,
you would see that deep feeling of despondency and feelings of emptiness.
I never knew who I was.
I was a pretender of sorts for to be a real me
would mean almost instant death or the nearest thing to it.
To be me would mean that my life would never be safe.
I wanted to live so I survived to adulthood.
I fought like a fierce tiger for survival to earn the right to live.
I knew that life was worth living.
I just did not know what real living meant in scope of the world
and all of its needs or in magnitude of what my own personal life needed.
I have been searching a long time
for whatever lies hidden away from the world to see.
I am like all abused children; I need to know that I can find hope in life.
I need to know that my life can make a difference.
I am like the lost puppy looking for love in anyone
that will hold out her hand to tell me I am acceptable.
In search of my self, I found a need to grab a hold of life in new ways.
I had to go about relearning what normal life was.
I was floundering in life exploring what life meant.
I struggled to shed the clown’s face of disguise that had stolen all of my life
from birth to adulthood.
I fought to find a person inside of me that was acceptable to the world.
I tried so hard to fit in,
but since I had never been given any of the skills
that allow a person to fit into situations,
I was always on the outside looking into a world that could never be mine.
I had issues of trust in others and myself and belief in me as a person.
How could I ever possibly learn to trust anyone else,
and know that I was emotionally safe,
until I could learn to trust me?
As a child,
my emotions were always discounted
so that I could not trust anything I felt.
I was wheedled for feeling as I did
and told that I did not know how I was feeling.
I was told I was overly exaggerating my feelings when I was beaten.
I was told that it could not hurt that badly.
It was all in my head and did not exist.
I did not trust me in any form for I always felt that I was wrong.
As well, I had no confidence in what I was able to accomplish
and had this terrible, suffocating fear of rejection and adequacy
that I had to fight at all times.
To me, my competence was always in question and always devalued.
I felt like I was lost to a world of negativity
that would always engulf my heart
and give me the feeling of not having worth.
I grew up in a world looking through a pair of glasses, so to speak,
that were colored in shades of violent outbursts, angry attacks verbally
and physically abusive mannerisms that left me broken and bruised
inside and outside.
I was molded with a modeling clay impression that said each punch,
hit, slap and kick were because I deserved them.
I was shaped in the image of adults being violent,
siblings being abusive and people being contemptuous
no matter what part of the world I was living.
As I grew from being a toddler to a small child to an adolescent,
the only life I had ever known was one of violence, distrust and disdain.
This perception I had that the whole world
was the way my home life was took its toll on me.
I was too young to reason that life could be different.
As an adult, and as I found the safety of Victor in my life,
I was able to start dealing with the issues of my childhood
that led me to be the person I am today.
I was able to start wandering tentatively
through the terrifying jungle of emotions that came to me
from the hidden crevices of my heart and soul.
I was able to touch those feelings and bring them out
so that I could begin a healing process.
Healing has begun.
The journey that grants me the privilege of remembering and healing
is one that I can complete because I have a supportive person in my life
that values me as valuable and worthwhile.
He gives me the support I need to deal with the erupting emotions
that go up and down like a tidal wave goes up and down
in the path of its destruction.
I am in search of me even now.
I am in search of the person I can find acceptable.
I am in search of the me that is hidden away, safely tucked away,
like a hidden pocket is hidden inside a pillow to hold precious items.
I don’t know who I am at this point in time.
I am receiving a clear picture of what I would like to do with this life,
where I want it to lead and what I am capable of doing.
What I need to do now is not sabotage my successes
and learn to live with each one knowing that I am deserving of it.
What I also need to do is gain confidence in my ability
to do anything that I want to do.
I fight the demon of a lack of confidence all of my life.
My view of me as a person is as different
to the person on the outside looking in,
as an elephant is different in size and shape from a mouse.
I have never found the key to knowing
how not to feel totally obnoxious to all who enter my life.
I remember the day that someone told me
that if a person could ever get past the camouflage of my inner self,
of my hidden emotions, of all of the hot air I blow off all the time,
then that person would be someone whom would know the real me.
I realized then that I was hiding so much
and not sure that anyone would ever accept me as I was
if I truly let how I felt and thought out there for the world to see.
I did not intentionally keep anyone from knowing me,
I did it all with ease since I had to exhibit that behavior from childhood.
It was important in growing up through abuse
that the world not know or see what was really happening
inside of our home where closed doors kept the world out of view.
It was important to my parents that they be the pillar of society
and the world they lived.
Appearances were the most important of all to successfully make happen.
Those appearances were so vital that when someone came to visit our home
all he or she ever saw was perfection fine-tuned to leave the impression
that all was impeccable in image.
All the while,
I sat in this world not knowing what was real and what was not real.
I could not trust the emotions of the world
that was one minute abusive and the next minute nice,
or the world that said this time the smile was wonderful and encouraged
and the next time it was slapped as inappropriate.
Those were the rules I had to live by while growing up
that means the search for me and myself is harder
than it would ever look to the average person.
I will find me.
I will find the damaged me and be able to help that me learn to heal.
I will find a way to have fun and let my inner child out to play.
I will be able to look at what lay hidden in my heart and life
and let my talents come to the surface to find a way to help others.
I will look at me deeply and find the person I am to be in life now
and let that life fulfill my emptiness and void I feel all the time.
As the saying says, I must fill my emptiness and loneliness alone.
I take that to mean that until I feel fulfilled alone,
I will feel this pending sense of loneliness and being empty.
I won’t be able to shake it until I can find out
why it is there and how to relieve it.
I will find the real me.
I will not any longer sabotage my successes,
as I used to become afraid to succeed,
unintentionally and subconsciously.
I will be able to find a way to publish my poetry
to help others with child abuse issues.
I will learn how to create my own graphic artistry
as I learn how to use the software programs to do this.
I will be able to take my art work and turn it into something
that can help those who need help with healing through child abuse.
I will be able to take the designs I made
for the Raggedy Doll and Stufden Animal Project for child of abuse
and send them to these lives that need to know love.
I will be able to take all of my talents and use them for helping others.
I will know that in using my talents
I can make a difference in the lives of many and leave an imprint
n this world that says my life mattered in some way to life.
For now, as I struggle through healing and finding me,
I will learn how to overcome my lack of confidence in my abilities,
my lack of belief in me and my lack of feeling worthy and worthwhile.
I will take those lessons of my life in growing up
and use them as building blocks to a life full of meaning
I used to only dream about before this time.
As I struggle,
I will know that it is always one step forward and two steps backward
but progress will happen.
Healing will come about in the end.
The emptiness will leave and fulfillment will replace emptiness
with contentment and peace.
The clown will take of her makeup and allow her real self to be let out.
One day, the clown will retire and Elaine will surface to face the world
and all of its fascination, adventure,
and glory that comes with leading a life that is fulfilled.
There is hope.
There is hope that one day the wounds will be healed
and the scars will lessen in strength.
Those scars are only reminders of the past
and the present goes beyond the imprint of them on my life.
Those scars will be shaped into new pictures of success and confidence.

I do have hope and the healing is on its way
as I wake every day to say,

 "This is the first day of the rest of your life."
This is the first day of the rest of my life.

Copyright © 1998 - 2003-Elaine Brady

All Rights Reserved
and as such may not be copied, reproduced or used in any manner
without the strict written permission of Elaine Ruiz

Wow ... This Is Powerful!

My Heartfelt Thanks to Elaine for sharing!

Please visit her site

and send her an email