Interview with Marynell Lund
Marynell Lund was born in Lake Benton, Minnesota in 1951 and grew up in a home of abuse and mental illness. Marynell weaved a childhood out of a life filled with mental illness, drug addiction, incest, and abuse. She grew up on a poor man’s farm trying to weave out her childhood in a very dysfunctional family. Marynell was in the army and stationed in Germany during the Vietnam era. Later, she went to college and pursued a B.A. in Sociology, which opened her world up to coming full circle with a lifestyle and then studying same lifestyle. She has given many speaking engagements on the topics of abuse, alcoholism, and incest. Marynell has also written articles on this topic as well as other topics. She has published short story articles for a local newspaper. She is a self-accomplished expert in the field of abuse and has taken her life of being a victim and turned it into being victorious. Tyler: Welcome, Marynell. I find your background and your book title interesting. What do you mean by the “Normal Side” of insanity? What is that normal side? Marynell: Looking back and looking at my family from the “outside,” we would have appeared to be normal by any onlooker. Mother, father, and two children living under one roof—what could possibly be wrong with that? When I use the word “normal” I am referring to the fact that I was the only one who was not abusing anyone, and in a “normal” family, a “normal” person does not abuse anyone. My family background: My father was seventeen years older than my mom. Mom had a hardworking mother who was beautiful and made of a strong domineering personality. At age seventeen, Mom married and moved from Louisiana to Minnesota, and not knowing a soul, it had its effect on her. From what I gather from the information I have, my dad treated her like a queen, and I often think she was more childlike than “wife like” with him. My dad was forty-two when I was born and old for his age. He worked long hard hours on his farm; he carried all the worry and no one to share it with as he shielded my mother from what normally would have been shared worries over income, crops, and making ends meet. Mom was mean and cunning and unpredictable with her moods and emotions and her reactions on what would set her into a rage. She was a very, very unhappy person and not capable of loving anyone but wanting everyone to love her in any way she saw fit. When we tried to show her love as any normal little child would, she could look at you with those questioning piercing eyes that seem to say, “Ya, prove it” and how does a child prove it? Children just do love their parents. My brother was an alcoholic by age sixteen. My uncle lived on our farm in a trailer, and he was a bad alcoholic. My brother was not accountable to anyone growing up. If there were a fight of any sorts, my brother would take off for the trailer, and of course, my uncle put no demands on him. Raised without structure can oftentimes lead to self-destruction and that is what I believe happened. At age six, I was thrown into the “adult” world having to cook, clean, and listen to Dad tell of his concerns about Mom and about the farm in general. I seemed always aware of the stress, the lack of money, the FHA wanting to foreclose on our home. I can’t tell you how young I was, but I can tell you I seemed always to be aware of these things. My father started molesting me at that age. The days were fine and the nights were not. My mother was not a mother in the way most are; by that I mean she was not protective over her children. IF she could get us out of the house or out of her sight or if she could just plain get in the car and go, that was her preferred choice. She should have never had children. She never knew how to love, not even her grandchildren. As I age, and as I distance myself from my abuse from my family and try to look at them from afar, I feel I have a very objective view of this “my family” and it was what it was. I have moved on to the edge of the circle of life from the center of my childhood life. Looking back, I understand what took place and why it took place even though it was not right. Tyler: Why do you think you were abused? Marynell: I do not have a clue as to the why; a child is of pure innocence when it comes to any form of abuse. Wondering why I was abused has never been a thought to me. Tyler: Are you able to understand the mind set of your abusers? Marynell: I think of all of them I understand my mother and my brother, but I have not a clear image of why my father molested me. I believe that my mother abused me because she was sharply judged by her mother and held to unimaginable standards by her mother. Although there is no excuse for abusing another I believe that is all she had to work from as far as being a mother. She saw her mother with other men, and I think she thought it was just that way and that she could do the same with me. I associate her actions with that of the “pecking order.” She was picked on, and not loved in the right way, so I was in line for her to do the same to me. I was constantly told that I was a lie and should have not been born. I was the one lie my dad told according to her. She was to have no more babies after having my brother, and then I came along. We both had a rough time at my birth, and I have always felt that she resented me for having been born, for having caused her pain, and she just plain did not want me. She always told me that dad said he had a rubber on and he didn’t and that my name should have been Trojan. I remember telling her I was sorry. Never again will I apologize for my very existence as no child ever asks to be born. My brother became an alcoholic because he had total access to it from my alcoholic uncle. I think he drank with my uncle and what he was given he just plain helped himself to. I often times wonder about what he had to make him feel good in his life, probably nothing other than the feeling he got from the booze. I am sure he did not feel loved by anyone just as I did not feel loved. Mom and he clashed at every word, and it was always a confrontation between the two of them. If he did not have the alcohol, he did not have anything. I think our uncle looked at him as the son he never had, and of course, he had not a clue as to how to raise a child. My brother had free will all around him, but he did not have love all around him. To this day, I do not have a clue as to why my dad did what he did. I think I was placed in an adult role and that I replaced all that he did not have with my mother, but why it was that way I do not know. He was the only one who bestowed love upon me so I know that is why it was only natural for me to migrate toward him. Tyler: Do you feel concern that your book will bring shame on your family? Marynell: I do not know if concern is the right word or not. I think it would be best to say that I did not write this book out of anger or to get even with everyone because no matter what a person does, there is nothing that can take away what has already been done. While I take the reader deep into my pain by exposing what I had been exposed to, I also take the reader beyond what was done and try to show the outcome I had through my years of living the cycle of abuse, to understanding the cycle of abuse, and wanting to make changes for others that I can’t change from my past. This book wasn’t written on the way “out of the door” to my past, but rather, it was written years and years later after much studying and living and experiencing life on my own and soul searching by myself a lot of the time. I was all alone and had to come face to face with my past, myself, my hurt, my anger, and then finding my way into the love of God. The need for the truth to be told was the need not to have to pretend any longer that everything was fine as it was not fine. There is no “getting even” with my life, but there is “getting on” with my life. I have a very deep need to help others and to reach out. It was important to me for the reader to see first that this book was not written to shame anyone. Tyler: Do you have a relationship today with any of your abusers? Marynell: My parents are deceased. My brother is alive and we have started talking, and by that I mean talking about the truth of what was. This is the first we have spoken in thirteen years. I think it is safe to say we both are taking baby steps at trying to build a relationship. I am so very happy for him that he has love and peace and the love of God in his life. He has a natural gift of preaching and especially enjoys his prison ministry he has started up. We are both amazed, since we did not have a religious upbringing, that we both have found peace and the love of God, so in the end, we are lucky and probably luckier than most. I might also add that my brother is going on thirty-four years of sobriety so I am also proud of him for that accomplishment. My uncle is deceased. He died a very painful death of liver failure from all the years of drinking. My cousin ended up committing suicide, and I am perfectly fine with that. I regret that he did not get to spend time in prison where he belonged and would have been subjected to what he had subjected his victims. Tyler: How did you get out of your abusive situation? Marynell: The overwhelming experience I got by going to college gave me the tools to work out my life. I feel so lucky to have been able to go and study sociology. I feel I have a complete circle of knowledge and of who I am and by that I mean I lived the abuse and then I studied and understood the abuse and the patterns. I have come complete circle. A lot of people study and then look at something with their book knowledge; I have the personal experience and the book knowledge that helped me better to understand perhaps better than most. Tyler: When did you first decide to share your memoir? Marynell: I think it all started and was initially shared in bits and pieces. I had written memories and feelings in tablets and always kept one close by to write in. As far as sharing, I did it in tiny bits, and when I did so, I always studied the person’s face for rejection as that is what I feared the most. When all you have experienced is abuse and rejection from those who should love you, it is hard to expect anything different even though as a victim one wants to experience love. Tyler: What about your story do you feel deserved to be made public and what do you hope will be the outcome of the book for readers? Marynell: I feel in order to understand the amount of abuse, the trauma of abuse, and the cycle of abuse, it was only proper to start from the beginning of my memories of the abuse. You can’t tell just half the story of abuse as it is like a puzzle and every piece has its place within the dynamics of abuse. The outcome I would hope for my book is for every crisis, domestic center, and clinic to have one copy of my book readily available for victims as well as educators to have at their disposal. I would love to see the book used in a classroom setting for discussion because my experience is not about black and white and right and wrong, but it gets one to think beyond the easy answer or solution to the outcome. I would love to write the workbook for discussion. Tyler: When did God come into your life to play a role? Marynell: As a child I did not see God there for me. I loved the stories but they never made it feel like God could love me in the same way, and I suppose the deeper sense of that was wondering why God could let this happen although I did not have that thought process as a child. I guess when I looked at other children and families, I saw smiling happy faces. I knew at an early age my face reflected the pain and hurt or at least that is what I saw when I looked into a mirror. Growing into religion is not an “Okay, I arrived” feeling but rather a step-by-step process, and then you look around and say, “God, you really are here; you were here all along only I didn’t see it at the time.” God gives us each a road map, but often times, we are traveling wherever we want and by any means we can, and it is only when we take the time to allow ourselves to reflect and look back, do we see the road map. I believe now that I went through the childhood that I did so I would have a better understanding of how to treat my children, how to love and appreciate life and people. My experience gives me a keen sense of understanding and insight that I know I could not have gotten without the love of God. In the past, I worked with kids who had profound seizures, people who had cancer, and victims of abuse, alcohol, and drug addiction. Then my daughter came down with cancer, and she had seizures as well. If God had not placed me in situations where I experienced these things, then I do not know who did. Going hungry and living out of my car in a field approach taught me how to survive and how to appreciate the expected things in life and learn that what we expect may not readily be available and so we have to make do. Tyler: You mentioned your children. Did you have trust issues having a relationship with a man and raising children because of your abuse? Marynell: Yes, I did have trust issues with a man, but never with raising my children. Having my daughter helped me to deal with all the abuse since I could no longer keep my fears and past hidden. I was horrified at the thought that she might experience anything like what I had during my childhood. The thought of her dad changing her diaper was a real worry for me. The worry was not based upon any of his actions but solely on my past. I wanted for her to experience a carefree, safe childhood. I have problems to this day with a man babysitting children; there are a few exceptions, but overall, it is a fear I have, and I am always aware when a man is around children. It is just in me to watch and be aware of such a setting. Do I hate men? No, of course not. As I learned to trust my abilities and judgment more, I was capable of trusting men to a large degree, at least around myself because I have finally learned how to take care of myself. When I reflect on my daughter’s childhood, I see her skipping through the tall grass in the backyard catching fire flies—that is a memory of innocence and what a childhood should be. I loved my children the way I wished I had been loved. I tried to instill in them respect for each individual they encounter in life. Tyler: Marynell, what advice would you give to people in an abusive relationship or who have just come out of one? What hope can you give them? Marynell: It is okay to grow and change. When you realize you can no longer live like you did, you will go through changes, and that is okay. Learn to love yourself and nurture yourself. Also, it is important to believe in yourself. I know it is hard since I had no one to believe in me until I had one good friend who did. Develop what I call a “looking glass mirror” concept. By that, I mean to try and place positive, loving, people in your life. Do not hang on to people who only bring you down even if it means to give up family. No one deserves to be held back or held down. Write, write, write any and all feelings no matter what they are because it is safe to write anything on paper—you don’t have to show it to anyone. You will in time look back on what you first wrote and see how you are evolving on your own. The sky is the limit once you learn to love yourself. That is easy to learn perhaps for some, but for me, that was a very hard thing to do. I always used to be able to pray for others but never for myself since I thought I was not worthy. The greatest gift you can give yourself is to know that you can survive by yourself but that it doesn’t mean that you have to. Tyler: Thank you, Marynell, for the opportunity to interview you today. Where can readers find out more about “The Normal Side of Insanity”? Marynell: For further information and insight please feel free to look at my website: www.coming-full-circle.com Tyler: Thank you, Marynell, for sharing your story. I hope you continue to grow and inspire others and yourself. |
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