Broken Human Bonds by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Author’s Note: I originally wrote this in the fall when Andrea Robin Skinner started going public with her own story. It has taken me a while to contemplate posting it. It feels like this is such a common story that it needs to be shared. We all need to know that we are not alone and that each of us is lovable.

Whenever I hit a personal and/or emotionally raw topic, my first instinct is to turn to Tarot cards to see what lessons I need to learn. I use Rachel Pollack’s Shining Tribe deck (more on that later). I have been finding myself in this situation recently with the revelations of Andrea Robin Skinner, daughter of the renowned Nobel Prize winning writer Alice Munro. Andea waited until her mother died before she revealed publicly that her step-father began sexually abusing her when she was nine years old. When she had told her mother about it, Munro blamed Andrea for damaging her marriage. The stepfather at issue publicly called Skinner even though a child at the time, a “homewrecker.” He did this in a letter which included death threats. Abuse, blame, threats tools of patriarchy all. Skinner’s own mother didn’t seek to protect daughter but chose instead to shield the abuser. A betrayal of the most primal sort!

My own emotional turmoil came because I had a similar relationship with my own mother (who died in 2018). My father abused me from a very young age, not only did my mother not protect me but denied it was even possible.

“It’s not possible,” she told me when I explained what happened, “I was always there.”

“But mom,” I said, “didn’t you have to sleep sometimes?”

Another tool of patriarchy – gaslighting. For years I thought I was the crazy one.

This dynamic ruined our relationship.  The decision she made to ignore my abuse became a rotten core that we could never excise while she was alive. It’s taken me a long time to forgive her, and I still have more work to do. When she did eventually divorce my father, it wasn’t because he had abused me but because she, herself, was being affected by his alcoholic rages. 

I love that Skinner spoke out, that she reclaimed her own voice, and that she is being believed. In fact, I’m a little jealous. To this day, there are still those who don’t believe me.

My immediate family never doubted but we belonged to a small religion called Ethical Culture. I grew up in it and I raised my own children in it. They viewed my mother as saintly. When I spoke my truth at her memorial, I received hostility. I know my mother had bad-mouthed me in the years before she died because some of it got back to me. People truly felt, and I imagine, still feel, that I wronged her. Only one leader of the Ethical Culture movement even expressed condolences. (And that particular one has since defriended me on Facebook.) None of the other leaders from Ethical even sent so much as a condolence card. It is as if the dysfunctional relationships of our family bled into my relationship with the religion of my childhood. It is an unhealed wound. I miss Ethical Culture. It is too hard to go back.  

A few years before she died, my mother had a meningioma which is a tumor in the skull that presses on the brain. She started hallucinating, got stuck in the bathtub and had to be rescued by an emergency unit. The first thing she asked when they got her out was “why did Janet leave me here?” I can only speculate about why I got blamed other than I was her perennial scapegoat. Perhaps like Skinner, I was guilty because she thought of me as “a homewrecker.” At the time of the bathtub incident we didn’t even live in the same state so I couldn’t have abandoned her as she accused me.

Skinner describes debilitating migraine headaches once the abuse started which continue for her today. Like her, growing up and into adulthood, I struggled with migraine headaches. I called them “mommy migraines” because I noticed that they seemed to appear when some stressor related to her arose. I have done some major healing because since she died 6 years ago. the proof is that I can count on one hand the number of headaches I’ve had since then. 

Can you imagine telling your mother you have been abused and your mother turning her back? It is more common than one would think. A writer Jonny Diamond in an article titled Crooked Parallels: On Alice Munro, Andrea Skinner, and My Mother’s Failure to Protect Me, wrote of his experiences. This is patriarchy at work in its most foundational – breaking the bonds of loved ones. This poison seeps into families and into surrounding communities.

Which brings me back to the Tarot cards I picked for this situation.  I won’t note the specific cards since Rachel uses a different system and she has 5 “special” cards that she added to her deck (which are indeed quite special.) In my first draw of 3 cards, I got two of the special ones. They are all about healing and goddess energy. I thought, that can’t be right, I was supposed to get cards about betrayal and pain. I picked three more (just in case I mis-picked). They were also about healing. My second pick included Rachel’s two of trees (wands) that says on it, “pleased is the mother who has given us shape.” 

AHA! I didn’t get cards about betrayal, I got healing cards because that is my task. In fact, it is the task of all of us. Now, more than ever, we need to stand hand in hand, heal ourselves, help to heal each other, and let our collective voices ring out. I have been advised to send this article to the people at Ethical. EEkkks it scares me because it is particularly painful to speak one’s truth and have people stare daggers at you. But communicating from our hearts opens the doors to healing people and communities. We need this more than ever. I will have to consider it deeply.

Here is a small poem I wrote using a line from Rachel’s book from each of the 6 cards.

To be touched by something overwhelming.
Reminds us of the power of our experiences and what we learn from them.
To enter the space where practical and spiritual matters are truly the same. 
Brings radical revolutionary change.
Pleased is the mother who has given us shape
Opening the gateway that breaks through to deeper knowledge of life

I want to say this to Andrea Skinner, thank you for your courage in speaking up. It does get better especially as you are now speaking out with your own truth and in your own voice. I hear you and I believe you. I hope your migraines diminish as you heal. Know this, there are many of us who not only stand with you but will be healed by your work. Your courage does have meaning!

Here are some of the articles with Andrea’s own words. Her first editorial was in the Toronto Star. I am including it in the links even though it is behind an expensive paywall.

wbur cognoscenti
vox
The Toronto Star
The GateHouse