This is a practice presentation that I did for the Ohio Local History Alliance a week ago. The live presentation was delivered yesterday at 9am. I actually think I did a better job here because I was more relaxed and not worried about the time. I hope you like it!
I was listening to Insight Timer, one evening, several weeks ago and decided to have a story read to me so that I could go to sleep. Generally, I put the volume down, very low, and I drift off into slumber land. I choose the tales of young girls or older women whether old fables or new ones. On this particular evening, I saw the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I had not heard this story in a very long time and so I decided to listen. I also liked the name of the reader “Glenda Cedarleaf,” which sounded like a nice fairy tale name. Glenda is the good witch from the Wizard of Oz and leaves from a cedar tree sounded equally comforting to me. I did not turn the volume down though. Instead, I decided to turn it up and listen to the entire story. Within moments, I realized why. The story she had condensed and revised suddenly had me thinking of all the symbols and what they might mean. I knew immediately that this was a story about a narcissistic mother (queen) and her vulnerable little daughter who became her scapegoat (Snow White). I decided to contact Glenda for the story so that I could do an interpretation here for you. Thankfully, she was more than happy to allow me to do this and now I will present my thoughts here for you today.
A victim of domestic violence has a lot of anger inside toward the perpetrator. Before I escaped my ex-husband I attempted suicide because I did not know that I could escape his prison. I did not know I had choices. I could walk away, although it wasn’t easy, or I could just sit there and not take any control over my life or my son’s.
There were many times when I thought about attempting suicide and there are many things that I wrote, much of which makes no sense now, during those brief periods of depression. My writing helped me to think things through. Consequently I have many journals that I will probably burn some day.
“As a parent, I have often wondered what it would be like to raise a child.” Here I sit, 15 years later – still without my son.
My parents said they had wanted to help, “Don’t worry about anything daughter,” my dad told me, “You just take care of yourself. We will take care of the baby.”
My social worker told me “You have a choice between foster homes or a relative. In a foster home, you will never have a chance to get your son back, because he will just get lost in red tape.”
I am a huge fan of the Song of Bernadette with Jennifer Jones (1943). In fact, that movie changed my life spiritually. More recently, I read the non-fiction by Franz Werfel and this moved me even more – his story was included; another miracle from the Lady of Lourdes. I am also a psychotherapist for a living and if a movie is made correctly, I can figure it out from the get go. If you have ever watched the Poirot series by Agatha Christie, recall the scene where he is watching a play with his side kick, Inspector Hastings. Poirot is telling Hastings what will happen but it doesn’t and he is confused why it was written that way. That is me in a nutshell. This was written correctly (spoiler alert!) but the ending was way over the top and unnecessary. It was almost like an American film where they have to make everyone feel good. The ending closed up character plot lines but this could have been done in a dialogue – perhaps with his wife. She needed her husband back!
A memoir published but now archived from 2002. It is about domestic violence, abuse and the loss of a child.
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