The Portrait of the Poetaster as a Man - Book XI - Complexities of family

These are difficulties with family,
I criticise in way that I see fair,
I wish to know through this just what went wrong
And then to compensate the best I can.
In most my family (and most is good)
I would not see real failings (falls from grace)
And these have been, not always, but at times,
A beneficial influence on me.
My mother saw to bring me to this world
What greater gift is granted anyone;
These people served to form me in my youth
To most of them I owe a gratitude.
As I grow older now their mould recedes
But still I see the parts of them in me;
I love my family (excepting one)
This love should add some weight to my critique.
Throughout my years there's been a stratagem
By which the members of my family
Apportion blame, exonerate themselves,
And demonstrate to minors wrong is right.
They first divide the group to strands of one
With blame located in another strand,
And one explaining says we must sustain
Injustice of the other, though unfair.
This ploy remains divisive to extremes
And makes for far more stress than it would solve:
"It's him who says you can't, as you can see ...
If it were up to me, I'd take your side"
And in this way the one would disagree
But would not raise themselves to then object
To other one that is the cause of it
To one that they continue then to blame.
And thus because (and only when it suits)
My family refuse to treat themselves
Collectively, just this is how I will
Refer to them, portraying as a group.
I speak of bonds of blood and bonds of vow
Limits of but one generation up,
Ignoring siblings as united strong
We struggled in our turns in swaddling-bands.
In truth in part, the reason I have grouped
Is in attempt to lessen caused offence,
Portrait is read by relatives of mine
I trust they find the reason in its rhyme.
In what I'll say of this I'll speak of woes
Although let me pre-empt what some might say
And state my woes as insignificant
Which were a calm to others' fired ferment.

The word that's love was never mentioned once
Almost as if it were prohibited
Or otherwise omission like a ban
Which left the word unused in family.
And since in adult life I noticed this
And made reference to that which strikes so strange
Another said to me he knew the same
Whose age and parents' class were similar.
This makes me think that this experiment
Was general thought of some 'progressive' caste
Who blurred the lines between one's kith and kin
And not specific to my family.
It's strange, I've never asked the reasons why
But viewing opposites perhaps less strange,
What child reared differently would think to ask:
"Oh mother dear, why did you tell your love?"
On thinking this I phoned one half and asked
And I was told it wasn't conscious choice
And further was proposed retrospective
Falsification as the reason for.
My memories against another one's
With thirty years of time elapsed since then,
Concordance won't be known from two extremes
Thus I rely on what I can recall.
Perhaps my parents knew a reticence
And they observed a taciturnity;
My brother first then, soon in sequence, me:
This parenthood was new to both of them.
Associated (which they won't deny)
Was stern dictate that stated not to use
Words "mother" also "father" (kith not kin)
Replacing them with normal Christian names.
No 'mother' and no 'father' and no 'love'
A true constraint in vocabulary
With which to venture forth into the world
And try to empathise with others' mode.
I never understood the family
I didn't see the close relationships
(Of note maternal and paternal bonds)
And thought my peers found independent state.
This, but expression of my social norm:
I fell below the nuclear standard
The facts of which I did not understand,
And there stagnated in my separate pool.
Deprive a child of normal family
(That happens all too often in this day)
But then deprive that child of words to know
And then in many spheres he cannot grow.

I had scarce grown but saw an attitude
Towards pretence of an equality
Between the parents' and the children's state:
The same? How can it be? The stance is wild.
Encouraged to compete on adult terms
With adult members of my family
I would but fail the test as I was young
And sit and wonder what my difference was.
It was a race between a horse and foal,
A bird persuading fledglings they could fly
When truth be told they'd plummet to the ground,
An ugly duckling never changed to swan.
The way it functioned was competitive,
An adult would congratulate themselves
If they succeeded to outsmart a child
And show a better formed intelligence.
This taught a love of what is scholarly,
For being right is what both are at heart;
But saying that, in greater scheme of things,
Put plain, such skills remain academic.
But some competing were without a fault:
And they would rage at any failings found
And if (as sometimes might) things proved them wrong
They would refuse to give apology.
These theories were accomplished sophistries
And introduced false logic to the child:
If you maintain what's incorrect as right,
Ignore the morals, it becomes correct.
And thus the child was never really taught
A moral framework (such as most will know)
But given independent building blocks
Constructing out of these, from which to learn.
These sophistries appeared to me as strange
As other children's parents (so I guessed)
Adopted different means to discipline,
Dealt more with what's in hand, more to the point.
The crux would seem as best expressed like this:
There is an overlap between the start
And end - dependence and independence -
With every parents' aim to smooth the change.
What here I bring in doubt, might be applied
Towards the end (and then and only if
Hypocrisy can be removed from it)
But it's not suited to the start of things.
Regardless, as I said is how it was:
The one remaining thing to touch upon:
I'd alter this completely if I could,
My hindsight changing things to be as should.

Adults in life were manipulative:
Responding they might say, the children too
But you would wonder where they got it from
If not passed down a generation's span.
One thing above the others sticks in mind
Is mother and my father didn't speak
(When they were separated and divorced)
And found a novel means to have their say:
Whereby the adults spoke through their children,
Or rather child would act as messenger
And then on leaving either's company
Would be entrusted with some words to learn.
And never did I feel the messenger,
I ever took a part in what was said
And took a side, I was in every way
Included in parental argument.
And looking back it wasn't such a weight
But who knows how its influenced me since
Transmitting light of vehement exchange:
Thus words of hate were spoken through my mouth.
And there were other stratagems they used
(In what at length became internalised)
What seemed to be the war to put me down
And sap the natural growth of self respect.
By one repeatedly (and not the rest)
An attitude problem was diagnosed:
Now I would ask if it was his or mine,
But then I felt the crack of one more lash.
And then if some did say I was no good
Their bland critique did nought to heal the fact,
Indeed their condescending platitudes
Might make the very harm they warned against.
And then the adults would manipulate
Not only us, but other adults too
And normal everyday activities
Became a battleground to win or lose.
The planning for a summer holiday
Might have attached a hidden attitude,
Depend upon a calculated spleen,
As far from fun as anyone could think.
One manipulated another one
To break a vow concerning children's keep
And its financial cost remained far less
Than its profound effect on harmony.
Some furniture was ordered for my home
And even this became a focal point;
Intransigence matched with intransigence,
Manipulation taking place of sense.

And there existed tried and tested ways
Whereby a promise was extracted from
Unwilling minors: take place centre stage
The adult realm of family meetings.
Most don't know this feckless institution:
For those of you who never knew or cared
It rears its ugly head around those times
Parent's authority evaporates.
This institution is a pillar built
To prop a rotting edifice that sags,
The most do not rely upon support:
In this adults adulterate themselves.
With near and dear the drive to justify
Authority of those least justified
Distilled itself to pained obfuscations
And machinations labelled as "meetings".
The adult's feelings and their attitudes
Were aired in form of actualities,
The minor's left unsaid through minor's lack
Of will or talent to manipulate.
Things were discussed, and those in adult terms,
And feelings analysed by those who could,
Projected on those claiming innocence:
If told you felt some way there was no 'no'.
Resulting in extracted promises
The meat of which when frills had been removed:
"I'll do something I don't want to", that or
"I will pretend to like someone I don't".
And as the chance of even mild dislike
Was one ignored, as seen beyond the pale,
As minors grew to independence, then,
The lost control meant incomprehension.
I guess there was some sense in it for them:
At heart they know that I dislike someone,
Through these they force me to say otherwise,
And thus they win my tongue towards my mind.
And if at stages 'kids' were off the rails
(This held as fixed idea by one adult)
Then wild through lack of some encouragement
Not lack of meeting's social discipline.
The "meetings" simply served to lend support
To failing parts of family affairs
And those who lacked in their authority
Would use them most, debasing means and ends.
With same logic that suggests it's not wise
To have a child attend psychiatrist
I would not urge such an analysis
Of children's place in social synthesis.

The fact that there were "meetings" does suggest
That there were frictions of whatever kind:
Certain there were, and it remained the case
That minors weren't the first ones to obey.
That or perhaps the regimental ways
Were such that any taken path of youth
Would draw opposing sides towards conflict
Through disagreements, be they large or small.
Regardless, frictions led to reprimands:
From one, a portion of these reprimands
Were coloured with an anger (and intense):
Verbal aggression, fulminating rage.
Perhaps correct if sovereign rule was broke,
Or there was danger of a loss of life,
Or violation of that held most dear,
Or threat to mainstay of the family.
But then to demonstrate a rage and ire
When hair is found in plughole of the bath
Or simply when authority is crossed
Or an inflated ego is opposed.
Perhaps it was a way to introduce
A certain attitude that some may have:
A free expression of the thought and mind
(And this is how emotions run on screen).
Extrapolating such an argument
(And making but a trite analogy)
It might seem sound and good and wise to teach
A child to swear because some adults swear.
My introduction to this spoken rage
Arrived and at a time inopportune;
Earlier, I would have grown used to it:
An infancy would make accustomed child;
If later, same I would have met elsewhere,
Through others, and developed strategies
And gained an understanding of the ways
And ambiguities of anger's modes.
It's just the time it came was such a time
That left a youthful me without resource
To deal on terms I could with spoken rage,
To feel unequal force of impotence.
And that is how, then, I was spoken to,
And still I think the mode and means unfair,
Again one grown was speaking to a child,
If an exchange, clear not an even one.
Perhaps this was their way to raise a child:
To try to scare to form behaviour's mould;
They made attempt and left a bitter taste
And one which has not been erased with haste.

And then, the arguments which went towards
An atmosphere of terror in my youth:
With these were times devoid of normal sense:
A purity of animosity.
And these two adults just took turns to shout,
Sometimes exchange would last for hour on hour
With smaller sibling screaming all the while,
Ignored, of course, as all else was ignored.
Antagonisms did affect my youth,
Infused a sense of ire and impotence;
You were incensed by word's intensity
Yet powerless to stop or stem their flow.
Trapped in a rut they would but rant and scream
And take no notice of the clear effect:
Producing stress within the family
When their clear roll should be to lessen it.
And they would argue over anything:
At times whose turn it was to drive the car,
At other times the weight of what was said
(Or what was said in times past memory).
And they argued with exclusivity,
One absolutely wrong, the other right,
A single word would prove the case as true,
Or single word would represent a hate.
And they would argue with an importance
That swept considerations to one side;
An infant left to scream in its distress,
Utmost in mind was who could score a point.
And they would argue with a vehemence
That made some other's anger show as calm,
And it would seem that others merely played
And you could see the love beneath their ire.
At times like this a kind observer's eye
Still would be pressed to find a reason for
Continuance of this relationship
As it was ruled by strife and argument.
This couple found a means to coexist
And live in coming years, but at what cost!
Recalling flaw supporting other flaw
And with the weight born by the vulnerable.
And so I think you get the basic point:
Within my home, adults argued with rage,
And I would think that they were worse than most,
Although to some as roses blown in dew.
Ignoring relative severity
I found the animosity which was
Between the couple (and the overflow)
A sharp and sided, keen felt source of woe.

And they would view emotional blackmail
As fair and reasoned means to turn a child:
To tell the tale the way it happened then,
Opposing youth they hit below the belt.
I wished to do a geographical
When I was only aged about sixteen:
I told the parent that I lived with then
Desire to move to other parent's home.
In order to prevent this happening
The parent that I lived with then disgorged
The "facts" about the other parent's life,
Of time together in antipathy.
And these barbed "facts" dissuaded me from move
And not because the other seemed unkind,
But as the one who told the "facts" displayed
How much offence the move as planned would cause.
And there were other instances whereby
My arm was twisted and I chose a choice
That was not on the list of things in mind
When I set out with plans of what to do.
The ploy that I described at Book's outset
In which an adult blames another one
And through this step aside is not accused
In essence is, emotional blackmail.
In this emotions that attach to one
Are drawn upon forgiving other one:
The gambit runs: trust me, I'm on your side
Forgive the other one's few minor faults.
And not as much emotional blackmail
(Although emotional frontal assault)
Were ways and means some used to put me down
Which polarised my way of thought and mind.
I polarised: divided life to strands;
I did the two things which I know cause harm,
Exacerbate those weaknesses I have
And generate illness where once was none.
Much later on (stretched over ten years) stood
My diagnosis of disordered moods:
Emotions' stress and moods - the two are linked -
I see in this a kind of genesis.
Not quite creation (standing on its own)
But certainly a setting of the scene,
A preparation for a later fall,
My ills were not conceived in adulthood.
Not just the blackmail, but emotions too
Were overwhelming for one ill equipped:
At heart dysfunctional the family,
Square pegs, round holes, there was anomaly.

And there are institutions which are free
And these my parents chose at every turn
In order to offset the child's expense
That might be met and claim it from the state.
It was the tightest of economies
Insisting first that nothing would be spent:
A sure fire way of moderating costs
Whereby expenditure was kept to nil.
Perhaps to lean towards these sparing ways
Would make the most of then limited means,
But to adopt them in the absolute
Has disadvantages for those concerned.
If all is seen as free, is seen a right,
The motivation for the taking part
(Appreciation) may evaporate
And might just leave he who partakes unmoved.
It's not to say that if it's free it's poor,
But it is difficult to sense the worth
In what is gifted when there is no scale,
No measurement of what is good and great.
That was a minor hiccup of my youth
But now this love of free institutions
Takes on a novel form in adulthood,
The sort of game I'd rather wasn't played.
Those close consider it to be the case
That social services meet all my needs,
A call to them (or psychiatric team)
Would solve then any, every woe of mine.
They do not see that call to services
Is not a passive chat with helping hand
But indication of emergency,
Is an alarm to those with power to spare.
My family, they think to help my cause:
In actual fact they harm or threaten to;
And though they make a claim to offer aid
There help is but alert to services.
It is one thing to take what's offered free,
A total different thing then to assume
That all and everything that's given free
Must be because of this beyond critique.
And that is how some relatives see it:
They think psychiatrists cannot be wrong
Despite that one of mine was held to rule:
Their utter faith in this tendentious field.
My family will state it's for the best:
For good or bad healthcare is free to me -
But state beds in London's psychiatry
Are far from what asylum's meant to be.

To old and young throughout my family
Emotions seem a source of ridicule,
A dirty word whose mention just provokes
A snigger or a condescending look.
And were a son or daughter (I was son)
To find themselves in homelessness (I did)
There'd be a need for well thought out support
And in its place arose what seemed a jest.
Not only my hysteria, but cause
Was plain ignored and I was patronised
(Such as you'd chide or treat bad tempered child)
And that at times as harsh as harsh can be.
What they'd suggest: "Turn up to A&E" -
I did this more than once - and told to "Go!" -
And when my relatives were forced to care
They rather chose to get the police involved.
And such a parent touched by honesty
(With probity and not an agenda)
They could have said: "Begone and leave this place!"
Instead: "The Mental Health Act's on our side!"
Perhaps they had the right committing me -
If so, in this they'd be Draconian,
Supporting laws infringing human rights
They'd never wish including them, the sane.
Of course this legislation's just the type
Enacted on the weak who threaten strong
(Perhaps the more in thought than deed) the thrust
To outlaw threats, intentions, even thoughts.
Let us ignore this transient aside
That criticises our Mental Health Act,
My topic was my closer relatives
And how they interact (as they see fit).
They show no tendency to share my state
(Although my state has been at times removed
From normalcy) they fail to understand
Objective facts, realities in it.
A step too far (I claim satire though true)
I ask of them some water for my thirst
And they refuse and recommend to me
A mental institution for my need!
This ethos I described of what's for free
Pervades my family's comprehension
Of what entails a need - how can one want
When government supports the welfare state?
And theirs and my reality depart
(And more of that before we end this Book),
My relatives don't feel the same as me,
In other words they lack some sympathy.

As well as sympathy there's empathy
And someone showing one may also show
The other, just the same as lack of one
Portends, as likely then, the lack of both.
The art of fully comprehending and
Projecting personality into
The object which is contemplated - thus
The dictionary defines its empathy.
And working with this definition's words:
Can family profess, if they request
Good health (nought less) before the helping hand
Of empathy extends to soothe a smart?
Must diabetic leave the family
Simply because blood glucose levels fall?
And just because there is a history
Will this disease replace the relative?
In some respects I'm handled in this way:
As close to empathy as I will get -
I'm seen as polarised, as good or bad,
And patronised as either flawed or sound.
And thus I'm never seen in sinusoid
But in an analogue as on or off:
I'm either fit for institution's care
Or capable of taking on the world.
So relatives attempt to empathise
But cannot see the mix that is my life,
I am composed of parts of health and pain
And they can only see the wholes of parts.
The challenge is as great when I'm perceived
As healthy - obstacle on obstacle
Is littered in my path, and I must deal,
As if there's nothing wrong with me at all.
And so with drinking - topic of Book VI -
I mustn't drink and yet my relatives
Assume that my resolve is strong enough
That some will drink like lords in front of me.
And it's thought fit for me to live alone
With some support which is conditional
Upon the fact that I am not to chose
To live nearby to either parents home.
And it's thought fit for me to face the world
As if I were as able as next man
And God! I'd need to be to face the woes
Which mostly I have heaped upon myself.
However family may try, and think
That they succeed, they fail at each attempt
To put themselves in someone else's shoes:
They fail to empathise - and all will lose.

If lacking sympathy and empathy
Then quite as sure as one and one makes two
We lack a common frame of reference:
Put plain, we do not even understand.
My experience is so far removed
From that described to be normality;
Thus lacking common frame of reference
Perhaps would come as no surprise to some.
But then my father and my mother were
(Before retiring) one psychologist
And academic specialising in
Broad social policy - they'd understand?
Perhaps they do and I am in the wrong;
Perhaps I lack the strength of mind to see
And grasp reality the way they do;
Perhaps the lack of resonance is mine.
It just might be my disability
Reduces me and most to different stock
And even when I'm relatively well
There are byways of health I just can't walk.
No sympathy? No empathy? As said
Of course results in linked deficiency
Of common frame of reference, the bond
That's needed lacking those adhesive ties.
And if the fault is mine I cannot tell,
I can't, and yet I know mismatch is there,
Me and my relatives don't seem to view
Each other eye to eye in honesty.
Perhaps the gap of years is amplified
By passing time (as things solidify)
And thus divisions can't be harmonised
Through multitude of cultural differences.
I start to feel I've some impairments too
Beyond my given harsh diagnosis,
And these may play a role in my affairs
And could distance myself from relatives.
What stands above is how I have disclaimed,
And now some lines rewritten from my verse
Some which I penned thirteen long months ago
(When I was angry with my family):
"I suffer from a disability:
You've claimed humanity your whole life long
But simply lack some, all capacity
Of sympathy for any but the strong.
Death threats at hostel: 'Your door has a lock'
In desolation's jaws: 'Just get a job'
With nothing: 'We won't boost your wallet's stock';
Such travesty our bonds of blood will rob."