I wanted him dead

On hatred and murderous rage

When I was a child I used to think about murdering my grandfather. I had two ideas but I didn’t know how realistic either of them were. One was to soak his dentures in a poison of some kind. The other was to find a way to feed him too much sugar, because I knew he was a diabetic. These thoughts existed in the impossible place, the place where my terror and my rage and my humiliation resided. They were impossible thoughts, so in a way I could not have them. But they were there. Maybe I could murder him, I thought at maybe eight or nine years old. Maybe I could kill him to stop him from going further, from doing the also unthinkable thing that I knew he wanted to do.

I write a lot about the ambivalence that child abuse survivors can feel, about how it is common for us to feel love for our perpetrators. I write about how I love my parents despite everything. But I have not written about the fact that I never loved my grandfather, not once. Not for a single moment in my entire life. And, this is an experience many survivors have too. I don’t know why I haven’t written about it, except for maybe the legacy of my trauma itself — it is easier to be loved when I am being “good.” My grace and my ambivalence and my nuance are still more palatable and acceptable and easy to love than my unadulterated hatred.

The only feelings I ever felt about my grandfather were terror, disgust, and hatred. I often felt guilty for these feelings but that guilt had nothing to do with him. No part of me cared anything about him, then or now. I felt guilty because I loved my parents and my parents made it clear that I should respect my grandfather and that I should act like, and better yet — believe, that nothing dangerous or frightening or disgusting was really going on. But in the unthinkable thoughts I knew the truth. I knew what he was doing and what he wanted to do, and I hated him. I wanted him dead.