Lori Sokol - She Is Me

Copyright 2020, Lori Sokol

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2020

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-63152-715-9

ISBN: 978-1-63152-716-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020904740

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She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

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To my daughter, Rebecca, who serves as my perpetual sounding board, and who often knows me better than I know myself.

To my son, Jason, and his husband, Olivier, who live with complete honesty and respect for human rights and the sustainability of our planet.

To Angela, who has shown me the true meaning of love.

To Brooke Warner and She Writes Press, for guiding and supporting me throughout this book writing process.

And to all of the women who have believed in me unconditionally, freeing me to become all that I am capable of, especially:

Loreen Arbus
Amy Ferris
Rudrani
Lillian Spin
Gloria Steinem

I am possible because of you.

I would say that each of us has only one thing to gain from the feminist movement: Our whole humanity, because gender has wrongly told us that some things are masculine, and some things are feminine which is bullshit.

GLORIA STEINEM, author and activist

W hen I was five, I wanted to die. I was lying on the plastic-covered living room couch. It was a sixties thingwrapping couches and chairs entirely in plastic to prevent the furniture below from showing signs of wear. It also blocked any feelings of warmth or comfort emanating from the soft fabric inside.

It was a hot, sweaty summer day. No air conditioners were allowed in the Brooklyn, New York, public housing complex where my parents, my older brother, and I shared a small two-bedroom apartment. One large gray fan stood in the middle of the living room, circulating warm air in one direction. Still, I wrapped my entire body in a blanket. It felt somewhat safer inside a cocoon-like covering; encased, protected. While watching a cartoon on the black-and-white television set a few feet away, I stopped breathing. I did not move or call out for help, however. Finally, peace, I thought. I gently closed my eyes.

The terrorist I lived with was standing no more than ten feet away, in the kitchen. As a father, his temper flared almost daily and spontaneously. My only warning sign was a behavior that was very confusing to others, but for my mother, brother, and me, it was all too familiar. He would stick out his tongue just far enough to protrude outside his mouth, immediately roll it underneath into a ball, and then harshly bite down on it with his upper teeth. Instantaneously, I responded by turning my back to him in hopes of lessening the pain from the physical blows that followed. He always used his right hand, his fist landing mostly on the left side of my head.

My father must have found me lying alone on the couch that day, not breathing. I dont know how, exactly, since I had fallen unconscious, and reopened my eyes to find him with me in the back seat of a taxi taking us to the closest hospital. I was ultimately diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia, remaining in the hospital for eight days. Once the x-rays showed that the pneumonia cleared my lungs, I returned home to his home. The hospital, which had served as a safe respite, now faded from view.

The blows I suffered from my father were never warranted. Truly, how could any parent hitting a child ever be warranted, since it always has more to do with the abuser than the young and innocent victim? But he always found a reason that made sense only to him, whether it was because I spoke too loudly, cried too deeply, or breathed incorrectly. Stop breathing with your stomach going in and out instead of up and down, or else youll get a fat stomach! hed yell. A strong man, a macho man, who was compared by many who knew him to Jack LaLanne, the American fitness, exercise, and motivational speaker often referred to as the First Fitness Superhero of the 1960s and 70s, my father was also named Jack, and often referred to as a hero and legend by friends and neighbors. He was admired for his ability to run and complete marathons until the age of sixty-five, yet our family superhero was also paralyzed by the most mundane thingsunwilling or unable to drive a car, correctly dial a rotary telephone, or properly use a paper clip. These lapses, which reflected basic abilities for most, kept him guarded and scared. His fear of being exposed and humiliated compelled him to control those closest to him by abusing and belittling us, all to help reduce his inner feelings of insecurity and shame.

Patriarchy not only befitted him, it engulfed him, providing the ultimate mask to conceal his failings, while justifying his violent outbursts to keep those closest to him diminished. Females, he believed, were secondary citizens, alive only to serve as his punching bag, his doormat. It was a belief my older brother, Kevin, learned from him all too well. It is not uncommon for physical aggression and antisocial behavior to occur among childhood victims of physical abuse, since they learn to view such behavior as an appropriate means of resolving conflict. So, my brother projected his failuresmounting ones at school and in sportsonto me as well. But he used his left hand as well as his right, pushing me into tables, doors, and chairs; anything with a sharp edge.

My mother sometimes came to my rescue, but only slightly and temporarily. Handing me a handkerchief filled with ice cubes to place over the ensuing swelling appearing just above my eyes, she made me remove it before my father returned home from work. Dont let your father see, she warned me. Her first priority was to protect my brother. This is common for wives of domestic abusers who have internalized their misogyny, protecting the (often male) abuser over the (often female) victim.

Still, my mother did provide me with some hope to have a better lifeonce I became an adult, that is. In fact, she named me Lori to help ensure I would. My name was meant to bring me luck, but not just any kind of luck, like being born with intelligence, or with a musical, artistic, or athletic talent, or with any other quality that could help me achieve independently in life. No, the only luck my mother could possibly envision for me would come from someone else: a man. Lori was the name of the lead actress in the popular 1950s television series, How to Marry a Millionaire. By naming me Lori, she hoped that I, too, would grow up to marry a wealthy man, since she had not. What she refused to acknowledge, however, was that it wasnt being married to money that mattered most, but being married to a man who didnt abide by the patriarchal rules of power and dominance over his wife and children.