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Rising from Adversity 9 If you asked me back then what the event was that triggered this super- power, I would have said very stoically that I learned it from my dad, a man who was extremely task oriented and showed little emotion. Nice response, but I’m nowhere close to the real answer. Plus, I can’t pinpoint it to one event. My statement is a generalization. If, instead, you asked me to tell you about the first event that pops into my mind when I think of a time when it was critical to my safety to with- hold any emotion—when it was a matter of survival—my response is totally different. My stomach tightens up, my breathing gets shallow, and my underarms sweat as an image immediately appears in my brain. I’m six, and my sister is eight. We are at the dinner table that we have set for the big Sunday meal. We are in our dresses with napkins and hands folded in our laps—the perfect picture of ladylike etiquette. Then my sis- ter blurts out that she doesn’t like the brussels sprouts. Not thinking of the consequences, I agree. A familiar red flush creeps up my father’s neck. His eyes become narrow, and his pupils contract into beady dots of pure black. My dad enters full-on rage mode. He’s screaming at the top of his lungs about how ungrateful we are, how lazy we are, and how hard he works. The hatred in his eyes is piercing through me. I start to cry. He continues to scream criticisms at me, but I can’t hear him anymore because I’m crying so hard my throat is clenching around my recently swallowed food. I’m taking in gulps of breath. He interprets my crying as a sign of weakness, and this brings forth a new tyranny of fury. The energy feels as if an out-of-control freight train is heading straight for me. He yells at me to stop crying. He bellows about how ugly I am when I cry, and he screams for me to suck it up and stop feeling sorry for myself. I look to my mother for support, but she has already numbed herself for the night with her usual two gin martinis before dinner. She now hides behind her glass of wine as if she is trying to make herself smaller. She has learned that if she intervenes, it will just make matters worse. I know I’m on my own. I choke back my tears and try to swallow my emotions down as far as they will go. I summon a mantra of “Don’t show any emotions! Don’t show any emotions!” It begins to work. I suppress the tears and shift my sadness to defiance. I stare at him coolly. His anger subsides. We finish dinner in silence. The rest of the evening continues as if nothing has happened. The next weekend my sister and I are riding our bikes. My dad shows up with his camera to take a photo. In his mind, he is the famous photog- rapher Ansel Adams, and this is a major photo shoot. Any misplaced hair or misaligned blouse is a reminder that his subject is not cooperating. As usual, I have dirt on my knees. This sets off another of his rage attacks.