Chapter 2   I STRIP FOR GOD Part 3

“Mephistopheles”

 

 

All characters described are fictional.  Any resemblance to persons

living or

dead is coincidental.

{Mempho for short} She was Monster Mom’s best friend. If Mom was president, she was vice-president, & when Mom died, she filled her office. I shall begin shortening ‘Monster Mom’ to MM.

Mephistopheles came into our life when I was a child – she older, wiser & a bully. One of my first memories of her was I was 7 – she a teen. It was Christmas, we had, as usual, several Lithuanian visitors. This wonderful lady, blonde, lovely, young, was visiting us with her little son, he being about 5, the spitting image of Jon Provost of Lassie, as cute, innocent & sweet as he.

Myself, siblings & this boy were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying pastries, while his Mom & mine were in the living room sharing the local news of the day.

The little boy loved the white crème-filled puff pastries. Mempho asked,
“You like these?”
He said yes. She said,
“Then have another one.”
The boy was full but since it was asked, he did eat another. Then Mempho said,
“Eat another.”
He said,
“I’m full. No thanks.”
She said,
“You said you like them, eat another.”
He refused, but she insisted, she forced him to eat about SIX PASTRIES until he threw up.

Flash forward about three years. A 3 year old girl, whom I adored, my siblings & I are at the kitchen table, with Mempho there again. The baby loves the buckwheat pancakes we made. Mempho asks her,
“You like the buckwheat pancakes?”
She says yes. Mempho says,
“Then eat some more.”
“No, I’m full,”
“You said you like them, eat some more.”
“No!”
“EAT SOME MORE!”
She insists, again & again, & forces the child to eat. I am cringing. Finally the baby throws up.

We’ll begin the channeling with this. I say,

ME: Mempho, why did you force those children to eat so much they threw up? What sort of a reward or pleasure did this give you?

MEMPHO: It made me feel strong. They were small & weak, I felt big. I made them do something they did not want to do, I used force, they tried to resist, it made them unhappy but they did it – I prevailed.

ME: Are you a bully?

MEMPHO: Bully is my middle name.

ME: Why did you obey my Mom when she turned against Dad & told everyone in our group to hate him – why did you do as she said & turn away from him?

MEMPHO: Why not? He wasn’t living with us any more, he meant nothing to me. I knew which side my bread was buttered on, loving him in the face of the Monster would have been a challenge. I didn’t care if I hurt him, I was indifferent.

ME: OK, now for the hard questions. Why do you pretend you don’t remember the past – when we were kids – & you go crazy if I ever bring it up & command all those under your influence to never discuss the past with me. In fact, you have prevented some family members from speaking to me for many years.

MEMPHO: To discuss the past opens a can of worms. We all know what went on – we abused you. I am in denial of that, I don’t want anyone to know, I will deny each & every incident that ever happened. I deny what I do today against you, I pretend to love you, & I deny the past & the present wrong doings – {like making sure you were not invited to the most recent family wedding. It’s obvious I cared not for your feelings.}

ME: You get hysterical when I even broach the past, without accusing you of anything, just saying ‘I had a dream about Jimmy {my brother}’ & you began to scream to your spouse that I was attacking you. Why the hysteria?

MEMPHO: Because I am hysterical about exposing the past, I cannot, will not, discuss it, as I cannot explain it away. And so I pretend I remember nothing – I wasn’t there – I was away at school or working – & every claim you make, I say, is a lie.

ME: OK, now we get to the nitty gritty. Why do you want to hide what happened? You know how forgiving I am – Mother tortured me & I forgave her, prayed for her every day before her death, for six months. All you have to do is admit how you guys treated me, say you’re sorry, ask for forgiveness & it’s yours. But you refuse. Why not come clean?

MEMPHO: It isn’t you forgiving me that I care about – it’s the public. Even if you forgive me, if the public knew I was part of the mistreatment of you, they would think less of me, I’d be the villain. That is what I’m trying to prevent. I want to be respected, admired & loved {things we did not give you!}. I don’t want to be seen as a cruel, uncaring, nasty person. Look up to me, don’t look down on me, is what I want.

ME: On the scale of cruelty, who was worse, Brother Dearest or you?

MEMPHO: I was, because I was a leader, he was a follower. He was a pathetic clown, I was more intelligent than he, I did not have to be as mean as I was.

ME: OK. I was the youngest until one more was born. You guys, family & associates, began to abuse me concertedly {by a pact I shall describe later} at my age of 10. My brother, yourself & other members of the group were all older, I was an easy target. This went on the entire time I was home & reached beyond when I left. Now what did you guys think would result from your treatment of me? Conversely, what hopes did you have for yourself, for Brother Dearest? What did you imagine for each of our futures?

MEMPHO: I can tell you what I saw for myself. I imagined, & still do, that I am superior to most people, & for no real reason, just pride. I saw myself becoming very rich, whatever way it took. I partially succeeded in that effort as I put all my heart & mind onto it, I’m not dumb & some of it came to pass.

I always felt like a great woman, as no one ever put me down, I was empowered, praised, treated fairly, supported & encouraged at home. With each accomplishment I praised myself & felt greater things would come. As most young people I had fantasies – ‘Great Expectations’ – most of them did not come true. I told you I would write a book about myself & it would be a best seller, but I never did. I felt my life was special, but compared to some others, my life was not. I met a couple famous people, had affairs, but they weren’t super famous, like a President or Arnold or Sylvester Stallone, no one you could write a book about. They were little stars & small affairs & nothing unusual happened. I told you no one would want to read or see your life because that’s what I was hoping, & that is my greatest fear – that people would listen to you & believe you.

About your brother. I knew he had faults but I only magnified his good points – I felt that if MM {your Monster Mom} & I propped him up, he could become a success. But this never happened. His Mom did all for him she could have done. We kept thinking,

“Any day now, he will succeed.”

But his success was limited to what others did for him or gave him, he did not initiate anything great or big. He got by on the efforts of others. In other words, he was a loser, a passive player on the plateaus of life. Of course, I never say this, I always praise how great he was – that is the family policy.

On you, haha. In my mind, when we were young & we made fun of you, spat on you mentally & emotionally, you were the scapegoat – we ran you off the cliff. We did all that could be done to demoralize you, which means destroy you. Did we expect you to land on your feet at the bottom of the cliff, pick up, walk away, & start a new life?

As for my imagining what you would become, I figured you would probably lead an ordinary life, get by with an average husband, work an average job & get nowhere. I did not see you rich, or famous, I couldn’t see how – as you seemed not to care about wealth or status. I just saw you being ordinary & myself becoming great. I did not anticipate what your life became in my wildest drams – never dawned on me you could be anything.

ME: Mempho, today, I have got a lot of accomplishments done. How do you wrap your head around these & come to the conclusion that I am not great, not worthy of admiration, not worthy of status? Because I know that’s how you feel, so explain how you do it.

MEMPHO: I have mixed feelings about your work & ‘accomplishments.’ To the degree that society approves of you, I approve. But where you are considered notorious, an adult trade worker, I want no kindship with you – that is why I’ve never invited you to my house, as you know, I fear someone in my circle or worse yet, my job, would see you & know we are close. That would bring discredit upon myself & could even compromise my job. Probably no harm would come out of it, but I am paranoid.

I have mental gymnastics to perform. Every time you do something ‘great,’ let’s say, write & publish another book – in my mind I must demean it, think why it’s unimportant, irrelevant or even scandalous. First, I think, well no great publisher accepted it, you did it yourself, which anyone can do. I don’t see your ability to write, or create, as meaningful, because I don’t want to. I don’t see most of your subjects as important or meaningful because you are not accredited as an academic or expert in any field, & so, society does not recognize you as having done anything great, & so I also agree, you have done nothing great. Each book, in my mind, gets dismissed.

You ask why is it important that I dismiss your accomplishments? Because, & this is CRUCIAL, so listen, to give you CREDIBILITY, ADMIRATION, APPLAUSE OR HONOR denounces what we did to you – that we convicted an innocent child, who grew up to be this. The more esteemed you are, the more villainous we seem, the more disdain you get, the less guilt we suffer.

But on the other hand, you were also a strip teaser, & a ‘pornographer’ {although you did no sex in your videos, society thinks you did} & that makes you a Pariah in the eyes of many – & this JUSTIFIES our treatment of you. Because if you have any moral taint or sin inside, it must have been so in the first place, when you were young, & so beating you up wasn’t so serious.

Now if you had gone into the academic world & become a professor & did books, & were good in the eyes of society, we would have little defense for abusing you. But you getting into the adult trade more or less takes us off the hook, you understand? Because then you’re the bad guy & every sin is projected onto you, so what was done to you {as a child} might have been deserved. In other words, the seeds of evil might have been there, a criminal in the making.

ME: Yes, I do understand Mempho. OK what did you really think of my Mom, & why did you obey her in evil? How bad were you inside?

MEMPHO: No, I was not as evil as your Mom. I just went the easy route, the path of least resistance, whatever rewarded me the most & challenged me the least. Had I stuck up for you the way you used to stick up for us, she would have let me have it, too, so I did the ‘beggar they neighbor’ routine.

What did I think of your Mom? She was in power, she put me ‘next in charge,’ I obeyed for the benefits. Did I admire her or agree with her? For a while I let her brainwash me, by the time I became an adult & got educated, say, 25 years of age, I knew she was full of rubbish & I changed my ways. I also wasn’t that dependent on her. Of course, I stayed loyal to her & still am, I carry her spirit, I do her will.

ME: That spirit thing really bothers me. I thought the persecution would stop when she died in 1979 but it never did. Because of her influence, spirit & will, she influenced many in the family / friend network to ostracize me. So she lived on in you people, although she is now in Heaven, the evil against me, that she left on earth, lives on, does it not?

MEMPHO: It lives on. One by one they died but there’s always someone left with that evil spirit, & that spirit is against you, what she was but no longer is. We carry that negative inside us, no cleansing or closure is made, & that’s how it’ll be until we die.

ME: One last question – your good deeds. Why did you do so many good deeds to me? I can’t list them for obvious reasons.

MEMPHO: I’m not all bad.

ME: I get the feeling, however, that you know I’m on to you & have figured you out. Do you sense this?

MEMPHO: Yes, I was mortified by your latest presentations & know ‘the gig is up.’ I’m shaking with the thought ‘what’s next?’

from Rasa Von Werder 1-15-21
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