I had the dream when I was three years old. I woke up terrified and lay in my bed, alone. To this day when I think of the dream, I see it all. I relive it all. In fact, it is the single most vivid memory of my preschool years.

And finally, I understand. What it means. What it told me then. What it tried to show me all my life.

I was almost four; my sister, just-turned-two. In the dream, she and I were playing in our small back yard. We looked up to see a single-engine prop plane sitting on our lawn. We decided the plane was Uncle Bill’s.

Delighted and eager to explore, my sister clambered up on the passenger-side wing. Responsibly, I told her we shouldn’t do that. Undeterred, she opened the door to the cockpit, climbed inside and scrambled across to the pilot seat. I went in after her, sat in the passenger seat, warned her not to touch anything, begged her to get out.

We were so small we couldn’t see out the windows, just the cramped insides of the cockpit itself.

Somehow, my sister started the airplane. I started yelling for her to turn it off. But she had no idea what she had done or how to undo it. And, still, she thought it was all great fun.

Somehow, we took off, climbed and leveled off – my sister taking it all in stride and me, helpless and terrified. I was old enough to know: What had gone up would come down. We had no idea how to land safely. We would crash and die. And it would be my fault because, at 3, I had not stopped my younger sister from being her naturally curious self.

The setting

In real life, Uncle Bill was a Navy pilot. I don’t recall whether he ever owned a small plane. But perhaps he did, or had taken us up in one, because many aspects of the plane and the flight in my dream were very like the real thing.

Uncle Bill was married to my dad’s sister. They had two children who were roughly the same age as my sister and me. Whenever Uncle Bill visited, the whole family came.

But in the dream, there were no cousins. Even more telling, there were no adults.

In the dream, when I saw the plane, I looked past it to the closed, silent house. Matter-of-factly, I decided my aunt and uncle must be in there, visiting my dad and mom. I did not think it strange that no one was watching my sister and me.

No one had warned us to stay away from the airplane parked in the yard. No one threw open the door to scold when we climbed aboard. No one ran to us when the engine started. No one cried out in distress when the plane took off with us inside.

In real life, my parents never physically neglected us. But emotionally, there were no adults around. With both parents focused on getting their own needs met, we kids were on our own. By age 3, I thought it normal to know that someone was home but no one was watching. Already, I felt enormous responsibility to take care of my sister – and enormous fear that I would get us both killed.

The terror that prompted the dream and seared it into my memory spurred me to take the only way I saw to survive. I did what both my parents had done: I dissociated from reality and opted for fantasy.

More specifically, I opted for Daddy’s fantasy.

The contract

Mama rejected me from the start. She was broken. I know. But rather than identify the real sources of her pain – the adults who had caused it – she blamed her newborn, her firstborn. Her fantasy labeled me Scapegoat. It told me, “This is all your fault.”

Daddy exploited me from the start. He was broken. I know. But instead of daring to be vulnerable and real, he used me, as he did everyone, to feed his insatiable desire to be admired. And oh was he admired. People “just loved” him. He mesmerized us. And the fantasy he offered me was as alluring as my mother’s was shaming. It told me, “You’re not a Scapegoat. Oh no. You’re a Star.”

I trusted my father and desperately wanted to believe him. Surely he loved me! Surely my mother did too! Surely they saw me for who I was and wanted the best for me!

After the dream, I quit halting – between what I knew in my deepest being, and what I had to believe to survive. I said yes to profound denial. I accepted the role of Star.

When I buried the terror, the loneliness and the shame by grabbing hold of what appeared to be a lifeline, it did make for a much more palatable childhood. A Star is applauded, not rejected. A Star does not have to parent younger siblings. A Star just has to shine. Able to shine in the ways my dad wanted, I grew into adulthood playing the role he assigned. I grew up believing that the role was me, and that both my parents loved and supported me.

At 3 and 23 and 43, I did not know: While still unable to write, I had signed a contract designed to destroy. Still unable to read, I had completely missed the fine print where Daddy hid the details of our pact:

Deborah, you are a Star … as long as you admire me and make me look good. As long as you see me as perfect, I will protect you from your mother’s scapegoating. I will make her rejection of you seem so inconsequential that you no longer realize it’s there. And as long as any praise offered to you always comes back to me, I will make sure you continue to be a Star, especially here – in this place, this culture, this church culture – where people see what I want them to see.

But if at any time you do anything to embarrass me, this contract is null and void. At that point, you will immediately and irrevocably become a Scapegoat. I will simply step back, and look innocent and good, and let your mother do her worst.

The fallout

In adulthood, I continued to be rejected and used:

• Rejected by people I had not harmed, but who saw they could dump the blame for their pain on me.
• Used by people who made me feel protected and special so that I would admire them and make them admired.

I kept experiencing it without seeing it.

I saw the Rejecters as hurt but harmless, cantankerous but winnable, if only I would persist in showing them I was doing them good. I saw the Exploiters as people of integrity, who believed in me, promoted me, championed me.

I denied all evidence to the contrary. I tried to be the kind of Star that would make them proud.

At times through the years, I would recall the dream and smile at my childish fears, unaware how bound I still was by the contract I had made in its wake.

And so life passed. Until I did something courageous and good. I dared to be me. I dared to follow God.

I thought my champions would approve. I thought they would continue to champion me. I had no clue how embarrassed, how furious, they would be. Yet in that place, that culture, that church culture, I immediately and irrevocably became a Scapegoat. The Exploiters simply stepped back, and looked innocent and good, and let the Rejecters do their worst.

The nightmare

When I was a child, a nightmare exposed my reality. To survive, I embraced a fantasy and grew into adulthood thinking it real. The illusion that promised to save me grew more and more toxic as the decades passed.

Then, one day, I awoke in terror – and realized, oh so slowly, that the nightmare was no dream. I was surrounded by shunning and abuse. I had no clue how I’d gotten there, or how to get out.

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Photo courtesy Outerzone

So what happened?

• I choose light
• Behind the facade in the SBC
• Going with God
• Other posts that tell some of My Story