Cracked Shell: Life as an Emerging Scapegoat

By Debby Shanahan

This book is from the perspective of someone who was belittled for her weight, stuttering, and learning disability. This book is from my gut on a level that I thought would never surface after being stifled for so long. It's a look at how I managed to emerge as a successful teacher and human being regardless of what others thought of me and how they treated me. The title "scapegoat" has followed me since a very young age. It was made to be okay to treat me badly; not anymore. This book is a representation and a guide to let people know that they do not bring you down without you lifting your way up and out from their influences, and words of negativity. I am doing this my way on my own terms without permission from anyone uninhibitedly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781490780603

Debby Shanahan

Debby Shanahan is the fourth out of five children. Debby has a diagnosed learning disability but holds a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education, and a Master’s degree in teaching leadership. She worked her own way through college with no assistance from anyone else. Throughout her life, Debby has won many awards for her writing especially in poetry. In high school, Debby was on the Speech Team, the Debating team, and the Drama club. She is hard working, loyal, and trustworthy. Debby is a teacher and has been for the past 11 years. Debby enjoys working out, driving, and taking classes in dance and acting. As do most writers, Debby enjoys her solitude. Her favorite shows are Happy Days, Will & Grace, and Bewitched.

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Copyright 2017 Debby Shanahan.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8062-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8061-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8060-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017901844

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Trafford rev. 05/12/2017

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To the people who brought out the best in me:

Donna M.,

Mimi S.,

Gil,

Buzz,

Nanci E.,

John Conrad,

and

Julie D. L.

Contents

Preface

Chapter One An Idyllic Life

Chapter Two What’s Happening?

Chapter Three Black Sheep + Scapegoat = Inadequate

Chapter Four Coping Mechanisms

Chapter Five Weighing In

Chapter Six Marriage According To Debby

Chapter Seven Know Your Role

Chapter Eight Pied Piper

Chapter Nine Shedding My Wool As A Black Sheep Scapegoat: Life Debby’s Way

Chapter Ten Laid Off

Chapter Eleven Accomplishments: Triathlon

Chapter Twelve Where Do I Go From Here?

Chapter Thirteen All My Love

PREFACE

This book has taken a lot of guts, tears, and research. I have been in counseling for numerous years, and the only way to get over the trauma of my parents’ divorce and its effects on me is to write about it. This book has no dedication and no fancy anything. It’s full of emotions, ordeals, tribulations, and a whole lot of factual events. I have been writing this book for the past ten years. I went through countless journals, diaries, and tapes I recorded, weeding through a vast amount of information.

I am someone who likes to be alone and in the dark, and I wrote till the sun came up. Over the course of these past ten years, I would go to all-night diners around 9:00 p.m. and spend numerous weekends writing there, where my family spent the majority of our time together. While there, I would be flooded with fantastic, warm memories of us as a family, and that stream of thoughts would lead to Where the heck did it all go wrong? We had a great life, and then it changed.

This book is not a poor me book, it is not a parent-bashing book; it is more of how the situation has made me strong, independent, and appreciative (yes, appreciative) of the circumstances. Instead of wallowing in the sad details and major life change, I thought I would make this book so hopefully people can relate to me and my situation and have the strength to carry on and use the people around them as well as their own inner strength to move on in life. I have shed countless tears over reliving this. The rest of the family has moved on, but I couldn’t seem to shake it all. I have gone through life writing about everything, hence all the journals I have found throughout my life. This is written with no one else in mind but me. It is only fair to me that I give myself a voice, when for so long I was hiding everything inside. Not many people would share this view, but to those people I owe nothing, to myself I owe everything.

I had so many titles for this book. At one point, I was going to name the book Divorce: The Death of a Family. I wrote a paper in sociology in college with that title. I got an A on the paper and the presentation. I was going to break it into three parts: before the divorce, during the divorce, and after the divorce. But I felt this was giving the divorce too much power. My life was extremely affected by the divorce, and as a gesture of fairness to myself, I needed to write this book for my own peace of mind. There is no one else responsible for me but me, and is it fair that I have spent countless hours in therapy, stemming from a suicide attempt when I was eleven years old?

With this book, I want to be heard. People heard me in my life, but not many really listened, starting with my own family. I liked to talk, perhaps too much. Whenever I told people I had a story, my brother said, "Give us the Reader’s Digest version, two sentences or less." This book is a heck of a lot more than two sentences. It has chapters of my stories, my feelings, and my situations that all add up to me and my life. If you write a book about your entire life, you could be writing forever. You hear a song or see something on TV, and that provokes a memory, and then you think of something else to write about during that time in your life. The things I have put in here are about me. I have written about all the things in my life that are my interpretation, my experience, and my opinion. I am having a hard time moving on in life full force, and I am having a hard time moving on in life full force, but I have promised myself that I would, and the only way to do that is to write about my life. This is a good way for me to release the past so I can have an unbelievable future like I have witnessed so many others do. We all have one thing in our lives that we can contribute to be the thing that changed our lives and defined who we are.

I think we all have a story to tell, and this is mine.

CHAPTER ONE

AN IDYLLIC LIFE

When you are a child, there is such a thing as idyllic and perfect. When your basic needs are met, and when there are enough people in the house so you are never lonely, that makes for perfection. We lived in a two-story Dutch colonial house with an attached garage. Our neighborhood was a typical suburban setting where the houses were cozy and the yards well manicured. My dad made the outside a perfectly landscaped oasis. The trees and flowers he planted were bright and colorful. On the weekends, we would actually go tree shopping and find the most beautiful flowers. Everyone in town knew my family. We were well liked because of, I think, my dad’s persona and my mom’s beauty and charm. They were a good-looking couple with great kids and a great life. My dad was an interior designer and owned a business in an affluent neighborhood. He was talented, actually gifted, and sought-after. I do remember him being fun and funny. My parents were magical, and I was magical. I was a part of something magical: my family. We got the latest and most expensive toys, gadgets, and anything we asked for at Christmas. But the beauty of that was that we were all nice kids. I’m one of five children. The others are Jillian, Greg, Glenn, and Emerson. I remember a snow day. It was the coolest day, and I was spending it with my family. My dad made a big breakfast, and he read a book about a boy who had a snow day. In the beginning, we had a great life. People tell my mom how fantastic of a job she did raising us five. But the honest truth is we had an excellent foundation.

My parents were married for twenty-two years. They were extremely well liked by all. They were the Barbie and Ken in the family and the community. In that time frame, they had five children in eleven years. My dad earned enough that my mom could stay home with us. We had dinner every night as a family. My mom cooked and cleaned and was there for us to raise us the way she wanted. In fact, when other moms were excited for back-to-school season, my mom would miss us. She and my dad were actually a great team together. All our basic needs were met, and there was love and someone in charge of us. Sundays were celebrated, as were Saturdays. My dad would make milkshakes and build a fire. He made popcorn in our fireplace. Life was good … actually, great! We were respectful and expected to behave. My parents were not afraid to tell us how it was. We had a house for sixteen years and lots of toys: boats, motorcycles, snowmobiles. Christmas, when we were kids, was incredible. We NEVER, EVER wanted for anything. We had the latest and the greatest of everything and anything a kid could ever want. Life was NEVER lonely because there was always someone around. Christmas morning would take hours because we all had so many gifts. Were we spoiled? I would say yes, but we were also taught to be appreciative and grateful.

My mom raised us with a dramatic flair. We were dressed to the nines always. We were well mannered, and we weren’t allowed to answer the phone unit. My mom (Joyce) practiced with us on a toy phone. It was fun. We couldn’t wait for the phone to ring because we were then able practice. It was cool. She was a good teacher and a good mom. She was fun. One time, we were running late for school, and she was not at all irritable and crabby. Instead, she sang the I’m Late song from Alice in Wonderland. We sang that all the way to school. It was so cool. She was a theater major. She had a dramatic flair about her and a presence.

We had a horse. Well, Jillian had a horse. She would compete in horse shows. She was pretty darn good at it.

My dad used a pillow as a seat, and we would go on a bike ride down to the river by our house. We would sit and listen to nature and just chat about the things around us. I loved it.

My dad could make looking at deer a cool thing to do, as well as looking at cardinals. He appreciated the simple things, and we did too. My parents would take us to museums and plays, and we dressed accordingly. He would read all the plaques of information at the museum. We got a real appreciation for things at museums and the history and meaning of it all.

When I was little, I remember my dad leaving for work every day in a suit and smelling so good. He always looked so sharp. I remember how he and my mom would kiss each other goodbye, and he looked like he loved being a dad. That’s when I knew that when I grew up, I was going to marry a man that left for work smelling good and wearing a suit with slicked back hair. He was so cool. He would also leave every day with a mug of coffee. The smell of coffee and cologne, I loved it. On the weekends, we would wash the cars. My dad would have us clean the garbage out of the cars, and he would give us a quarter for each coffee mug we found. After that, he would drive the cars to the side of the house—we lived on a corner. One of us was in charge of something, whether it be getting the cleaning supplies and rags, or making buckets of soapy water. I used to love to do the tires. You had to scrub them with cleanser and a scrub brush. That was how we spent our Saturday mornings. My dad always kept our yard looking like a prize winner. He built our deck with a friend of his, put in French doors leading to this deck, had a friend pour the concrete for our patio, dug a hole, and made us a waterfall that cascaded into a fish pond (this was my favorite place to sit). He also planted flowers every year, took us along to buy trees that he planted, and built a grape arbor. Marigolds are still a calming and happy scent for me. The same went for our Christmas lights. In fact, one year, we were gone for an evening, and when we returned, there was a man taking photographs of our house all lit up. He apparently was a photographer. He gave copies of his pictures to us. My dad would often take us tobogganing at this park near our house, where we would also swim in the summer. If we weren’t tobogganing or sledding, we were snowmobiling around the house and at this field nearby. When we would go sledding or snowmobiling, my mom would bake an apple crisp. We would also go to our vacation place and snowmobile and cross-country ski there because in the winter there was practically no one there. Summers were fantastic. We would go to the pool, come home, and eat bologna sandwiches and chocolate cookies while watching reruns of our favorite shows. Those were the times when we would be out all day with the neighborhood kids riding bikes. I was usually a loner. I would often visit the elderly people in the neighborhood. I loved talking to them. We would come home for lunch, go back out, and come back for dinner when my mom rang a bell in our backyard. After dinner, we would go play with the neighborhood kids. When it was time to come back in, my mom rang that bell. Usually, when we see it getting dark and lightning bugs start to come out, that was our cue to go in. We would have baths and watch television as a family. All five of us went to a Catholic school, first through eighth grade. We were known in the community. My mom was very into us and loved our friends who loved us. If you did not like us kids, my mom did not like you, plain and simple. I like to drive around the old neighborhood where we grew up. I cannot get enough of it. I still visit some of our neighbors. One of the many places I miss besides our childhood family home is the backseat. Yes, the backseat of the car. The driver’s seat is a lot of work, and it’s tiring. The mom sits in the passenger seat and the dad in the driver’s seat. The kids all sit in the backseat, or the way way in the back, as we called it. It was safe back there. I like to think of a mom and a dad as bookends—a parent on each side and the kids in the middle. We took car rides together. They were aimless but fun. The feeling of having a parent in the driver’s seat looking in the rearview mirror and smiling at you is such a great feeling of acceptance and love. We would go everywhere and look at boats or RVs. We would stop somewhere for lunch, and just talk and laugh. We had a boat, and we would go there in the evenings to take an evening boat ride; on weekends we went to water ski, swim, and just hang around. My dad and brothers took classes on boat safety and how to take care of and drive a boat. My parents loved being parents, and that was a fact.

Everything was an adventure, and it was fun. Going to the car wash was fun. We would go to get our school supplies, and when we returned, my dad would scatter them all over the dining room table, and my mom had our lists and she would separate them. We all got to pick out a metal lunchbox; I would usually pick Raggedy Ann and Andy. There is nothing like the taste of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a tin. My mom would write me love notes sometimes, and put them on my napkin or a piece of paper: Deborah, have a fabulous day, and know that I love you more than anything in the world. Or if there was something going on that day, she would write a note of encouragement. Getting ice cream was always awesome when my dad would bring in a holder of big vanilla and chocolate ice cream cones. Nothing beats when my dad would bring those cones. We would eat them and drive around. Those were among so many special moments that we had. I used to love to play school. My dad brought home two students’ desks used in a model house for me to play with. Santa Claus would bring me a new chalkboard every year. Each year it was bigger and bigger. I loved that my dad was handy and could put together anything, and fix everything.

There was a boutique we used to shop at as kids; it smelled like air-conditioning and expensive clothes. It was a boutique in our hometown; I loved it there. They would give you butter cookies, and they knew my mom and loved her and us. We felt welcome there. Then later, I worked at a retail company, and one of the ladies that worked there I worked retail with. I remembered so well. I told the story of how much I loved her, and she was so friendly and wonderful. So coincidental, the people you meet down the road that you may have once known or been connected to, and then you are reconnected. I absolutely love that. It has happened to me often in my life. I think it is God. He reconnects me with the people I adored and who genuinely loved me for me. I had an imaginary friend I named Janey. Janey would come with us. I remember we were on our way out to dinner, and I asked my dad if Janey could come. He said he already made reservations, and if she’s coming, let him know so he could call the restaurant. Then I pretended to call on the basement telephone, and he talked to her on the phone. He said, Is this Janey? Hi, Janey, this is Ed. Are you coming to dinner with us? Oh you can’t make it. Okay. Then he gave the phone to me, and I said, Yeah, Janey can’t come with us, Dad. It was so cool that he went along with that. That’s what I remember in that moment. Okay, did he know he’s talking to no one? Clearly he did. It was so cool that he did. One Christmas, Jillian got a Billy Joel album; we cranked that while getting ready to go to our grandparents’ house. Dad put together toys; my mom was getting our clothes ready and cleaning up to go to my grandma’s. My grandparents were always beyond excited to see all of us. We were all happy and content. What I also loved were the lights that showed through my room at Christmas; he loved it, and my mom decorated the inside. We all did the tree.

There are three out of the five of us who have birthdays in the same month. We would have these fabulous parties every time. The preparation for these parties was so incredible! Going to the grocery store at nine o’clock at night was the coolest thing ever! My dad went one time and let us go with him. I remember being afraid that we would get arrested as kids because we were out so late. My dad said so matter-of-factly, It’s okay, you’re with me. I am your dad. Cops will know you are with me and not out alone. We went to the liquor store, to the soda pop store, and we had to have nuts and lots of ice. We always did. I do that to this day. I have to have nuts and ice when I give a party. All this was preparation for the birthday party. My parents made a great team. My dad had us washing lawn furniture and hosing down the patio. My brothers cut the grass and edged the lawn. It was so cool to have our relatives arrive—from both sides of the family. My mom would coach us before everyone came to greet everyone by name. She would tell us to give everyone a hug, make them feel welcome, and take their coats and put them on her bed. I went to a child’s birthday once years ago, and when I came in and said happy birthday to her, the response was, Yeah. Whatever. She just stood there. In that moment, I looked back to how my parents had us be respectful and how grateful I was and still am for the way they raised us. Our parents loved us, and my mom was an advocate when it came to what people would say about us, but behind closed doors, she would question our behavior. I remember being on the phone once when I was about fourteen. My mom asked me to get off the phone, and I ignored her. She asked me again, and I told my friend my mom wanted me off the phone, but I didn’t care. She then pulled the phone cord toward her like she was playing an aggressive game of tug-of-war, got the phone away from me, and said to my friend, Hello, this is Deborah’s mother, she’ll have to call you back. She then said to me in a very strong, authoritative voice, "Don’t you ever tell me or anyone else that