By Anonymous
My stomach still tenses and my palms still sweat when I recall, and relive, a time I was mistakenly accused of something I didn’t do. Forty years have yet to erase the fear and confusion I felt the night my father woke me from my sleep while hurtling accusations and threats at me. In my half-awake state, it took me too long to realize what was happening, and when I eventually denied any wrongdoing, the timing made anything I said in my defense seem like a lie. That night was the fatal crack in the foundation of my father’s relationship with me, and one that was never repaired.
My neighborhood, once mansioned and gracious and occupied by physicians and factory owners with Southern manners, was still mansioned, but it was neither gracious nor well mannered. The expansive homes, far too large for a single family when they had been built in the late 1800s, had been partitioned into apartments during the Depression Years. Often four or six families lived in divided sections of the grand older homes on the street my family lived on.
When friends would drive me home from school or a party, they were always impressed by the looks of my house. Its exterior was certainly impressive, but I seldom invited anyone inside. I didn’t want to explain that my family’s apartment took up two rooms on the second floor of the stately house and two more rooms carved from attic space. I knew it wasn’t right to be embarrassed by my family’s home – it was clean and cared for, it had all the essentials – and yet at 14, I would rather have lived in an architecturally barren 50s ranch with no character. I longed to live in the neighborhood I tended carefully in my imagination – no ‘hoods gathering in the alleyway, no fist fights breaking out in the dim backyards, no strangers prowling in the hallways of my home.
I was a good kid at 14. The kids I hung around with were good kids too, all smart, ambitious, college bound. Instead of drugs or alcohol, we brought guitars to our parties and we played our music and sang. Not rock ‘n roll either. We sang our share of Beatles’ tunes, but we also sang “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” and “Kumbaya.” We also protested the Viet Nam War, not by throwing rocks at store windows and setting American flags on fire, but by wearing MIA bracelets on our wrists, with earnest promises that we wouldn’t remove them until the soldier whose name was inscribed on our bracelet came home from the war.
On that pivotal night, the night of the false accusation, my father returned to the apartment late. He had been drinking. This was a major source of stress in my family, and I often was awakened in the middle of the night by my parents’ arguments in the next room. But on that night I became a major player in the drama.
I was startled awake by my father who came storming into my room. He began hurtling accusations at me. He claimed to have found a bag of marijuana in the garage he rented behind our house. He wanted an explanation. He wanted to know what else I was hiding from him.
I stammered my innocence, but he refused to believe me. Repeatedly he asked me what drugs I used, who gave them to me, what else did I do that he wouldn’t approve of. When he pulled off his belt and started thrashing me, I burrowed deep under my blankets, trying to hide from his verbal and physical assaults. I shrieked, one loud, hysterical scream.
He stopped hitting me then, and left as quickly as he had come in, and for much of the night I stayed awake wondering what had happened. I wanted to pretend it had only been a vivid nightmare, fabricated in my dreams, and yet, the night silence was punctuated by angry bursts of words from my parents’ bedroom. I knew it was not a nightmare of my creation.
I never saw the marijuana I supposedly was hiding. It was never discussed again.
There was never any resolution. That, I think, was the hardest part about the entire incident. The accusation remained a silent wall, thrust up in the middle of a single night, and never repaired or torn down. I think now, if we had talked about that incident, we might have lessened the damage it did to our relationship. But he was a man of few words when he was sober. He was not one for talking through a problem.
And so, with a wrong accusation, a father-daughter relationship was irreparably harmed.
-Related to topic post WRITING TOPIC – 3 QUESTIONS. [NOTE: This Writing Topic refers to three questions mentioned by actor and writer Anna Deavere Smith in an interview with Bill Moyers (see link). She talked about the questions in the context of interviewing people and listening to them. The three questions came from a linguist Smith met at a cocktail party in 1979; the questions were, according to the linguist, guaranteed to break the patterns and change the way people are expressing themselves. QuoinMonkey, ybonesy, and frequent guest writer Bob Chrisman take on the three questions by doing a Writing Practice on each. A red Ravine reader, who wished to remain anonymous, also sent us a piece, based on a 25-minute Writing Practice on the second question, Have you ever been accused of doing something you didn’t do?]
-Also related to posts: PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman), PRACTICE — Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (QuoinMonkey), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Been Accused Of Doing Something You Didn’t Do? (by Bob Chrisman); PRACTICE: Have You Ever Been Accused Of Doing Something You Didn’t Do? (by ybonesy), and PRACTICE — Have You Ever Been Accused Of Doing Something You Didn’t Do? (by QuoinMonkey)
Such a powerful story and so well written. Thank you allowing the piece to be posted.
Silence is such a powerful thing and can cause such harm.
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I also just sent a note to the writer to inform that the piece was up, and that was my comment: What a well-written piece!
It captures so much in such a short space, such as the tone of the relationship between the daughter and father. (BTW, I guess the piece does not necessarily give away that the writer is a woman, and I don’t think it compromises anonymity to say that it is a she, as one of the tags indicates.) I wanted to also say that relationships between teenage daughters and fathers are, perhaps by their nature, already challenging. Girls have so much more in common with their moms.
But how helpless, too, the feeling of knowing in one’s heart that you are innocent, and especially at that age, yet not ever being assured that you are believed.
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yb, don’t you think that many teens suffer from their parents’ disbelief in their innocence. Maybe not to the degree that Anonymous did, but to some degree.
One of my closest friends in high school never did anything wrong, but her mother hounded her about her alleged sexual activity (she didn’t have sex) and her use of drugs and alcohol (she never drank or used). Her mother seemed intent on making just the one daughter’s life miserable.
Turns out the mother should have been more vigilant with her younger daughter and her son who could appear on the Jerry Springer show with their life stories.
My friend and I have talked about her mother’s unrelenting screaming and accusations. Her conclusion: My mother is nuts.
They haven’t spoke more than a few words in the almost 40 years since we graduated high school.
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I know it must be the case that many teens are falsely accused, but…here’s my Pollyanna wish: that parents are more evolved now. Some of us may have been those very teens, and so maybe it’s not quite as common as it was back in the day. That’s probably way too wishful thinking, right?
My mom used to say that she could tell when someone was telling the truth. I thought it was just something she said to scare us, but I have to tell you that I feel as though I have this same sense. Maybe it’s all a bunch of crazy-thinking, but especially with my kids, I can see something there.
Of course, I’d hate to be so sure that I know what the truth is and then find myself in a situation where I’m completely wrong. Truth is such a strange thing. I still sometimes wish there were a way to flip a switch and be able to see who’s lying and who’s not.
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I think the idea that parents know when a child is telling a lie is something that parents tell children so they won’t lie, not because they really know. If you accuse a child of something, the child will react to defend themselves, regardless of their guilt. We all do (at least I do). My first reaction is to deny that I did something especially when confronted by an angry person.
And parents accuse, in my limited experience with the parents I know. They don’t present their reasons for believing their child is guilty and then give the child a chance to explain. They accuse or say, “Prove to me that you didn’t do it.” How do you prove your innocence? You can’t unless you have witnesses to support your side. Most parents don’t allow their children to call witnesses.
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A very powerful story! It must need a lot of courage to come out with the story in public, even if its annonymous. I went through a similar situation, with my math teacher who accused me of cheating during my test – it was a devastating experience since I had not done this but had no way of proving it. I still carry the scars and the anger. It must be much worse for this writer since it was with a parent. I am sorry to hear that it was never resolved.
Speaking of people who are not able to speak through issues are very damaged I feel, and extremely pessimistic. They also affect people around them negatively wherever they go.
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While reading your story “False Accusation” I visualized myself as your hero and didn’t think that was impossible, because of the tremendous difference between me and your scenes (our houses/environment have nothing in common) Nevertheless I was reading your story as my personal diary.
What could prove better than the above confession that you wrote good post? Thank you.
Welcome to http://trustlight.blogspot.com/
This blog tried to reflect the life of art therapy club that was forced to stop its activity. Consequently the blog was stopped too. Thus the link on above should illustrate the False Accusation theme that was so lovely depicted by you.
http://artbytomas.blogspot.com/
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The scariest thing, perhaps, might be being a 14 year old who has never been taught the tools or skills needed to repair a primary relationship in her life nor been given the opportunity to see how to repair a relationship by modeling her parent.
One more key reason for working on communication skills as a lifelong commitment and also for teaching such skills to your children.
Thank you for publishing this. And thanks to redRavine (QM and ybonesy) who take great care to provide a sense of community in writing. It speaks highly of your success when you can inspire other writers to take up their pens and write. That can only be a good thing.
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One more key reason for working on communication skills as a lifelong commitment and also for teaching such skills to your children.
That’s so true, Bo. I spend a lot of time in my work talking about “soft skills,” one of which is communication. The ability to listen, which is, of course, what Anna Deavere Smith’s three questions (those of the linguist she met) help us to do. It comes full circle.
And thanks for the compliment. Inspiring others to write is about the best thing that can happen in terms of what we want to get out of the blog.
And Tomas, once again good to hear from you. That’s a cool thing to say, picturing yourself as the writer’s hero.
Aurita, wow, that would have been so traumatizing to be accused of cheating. Especially if you were considered “guilty” because you couldn’t prove innocence, then I can see how that would leave permanent scars and a sense of anger.
Recently my daughter took a standardized test as part of a school admissions process. She was so nervous about the test. I got online and found some hints and tips for alleviating the nerves. We talked a lot about the test and tried to gauge more realistically the importance, since it was just one factor among a much larger number of factors. So test-taking can be challenging as it is.
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I guess the parents I know, Bob, are pretty enlightened as parents and human beings. I don’t have at all the same general sense of them as being nearly as closed-minded as you describe. Not that I don’t believe that there are bad parents; there must be many.
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yb, I don’t know that it’s close-mindedness as much as slipping into the role of parent and authority figure. It’s a hard place not to go when you are the person “in control.” I’ve watched good people go there and they have usually regretted it and apologized later.
Yes, there are a lot of really horrible parents.
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My gosh. After reading this moving piece, it left me stammering and speechless! It was not only well-written and concise, but also every word counts in this prose! Not a wasted breath.
Anonymous, thank you so much for sharing this painful piece with us. This is an example of why I want to help families like this (and I hear somewhat similar stories to this just working at a psychiatric hospital). Things are not what they seem, or as my motto goes: “Some things are misleading.” I have to say that you have such beautiful courage to share something so intimate with us. I don’t know if I would be able to do it! I can relate to how some aspects of relationships or some relationships cannot be repaired especially when you know you have done no wrong. There are some days when I wake up worrying about the patients because sometimes I feel that the parents do not always understand their teens. Sometimes, it’s a neverending cycle of blame and bottled-up rage, bitterness, and frustration.
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I hope the writer feels some relief from having written down this account. We can forgive, but it’s hard to forget. In the telling of our stories we heal.
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[…] Do You Know The Circumstances Of Your Birth? — 15min (by ybonesy), and two Guest practices False Accusation, Almost […]
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