Frozen Teardrop

by Lucinda Ruh

  My physical change and growth as a human spirit and soul were frozen and nothing was done about it. Either we didn’t see what was happening or we just turned a blind eye for the sake of my skating, convincing ourselves that this was the normal way to do things. I didn’t think I was missing out on anything when I didn’t even know other things existed. Nothing seemed to be a problem because no one else made an issue out of my circumstance. I was so isolated in my mother’s and my own world. We were in the bubble we had created. We both unfortunately didn’t have enough courage to pop out of it for fear that our life, as we knew it, would collapse.

  While I was around Japanese women who are for the most part more flat-chested than Europeans or Americans, nothing seemed to be a problem with my not developing. In school we had to wear white shirts with our uniform and I remember starting to see the other kids wearing bras under their shirts. I was so proud that I didn’t have to wear one yet, because you can understand that in sports (well, I speak for skating) it’s a nuisance to have breasts or hips or butts. We want to be flat-chested and skinny so that we can skate faster and jump higher and rotate quicker. Because of this anything will be done to delay puberty. Puberty is especially hard for a girl athlete in a sport like figure skating that ends when women are so young.

  I remember overhearing other Japanese skaters saying that they did not want to get breasts because then they wouldn’t be able to jump. They were laughing and teasing another girl who had developed a little. They said they bandaged their breasts tightly like the older generation used to do with their feet to keep them small, as a sign of beauty. That really struck me, and so then and there I decided I also wouldn’t get breasts. I would wear tight tops and would stay skinny enough not to get them, and if I noticed them growing that meant I was gaining weight and I would have to get rid of them.

  I never told anyone what was going inside of my head but a lot was turning and turning inside of it. Plus, I thought, what is the use of telling anyone? Everyone is doing it and my mother is doing everything possible for me to skate so I must take responsibility into my own hands and do everything possible for me to keep this body as it is and skate well and train hard. She was doing her job; I must do mine.

  Injuries were a huge part of my skating life. I wasn’t being trained in a proper or smart fashion by my coaches, and wasn’t getting any physical care such as massages, and so the end result was that I was being injured. I was in pain every day from the age of eleven. I was so tired every day as well. Whenever my mother asked me how I was, I would say, “I am so tired of being so tired.” And we would laugh at the expression. That was the only way I could express it. But for us that meant I was working hard and it was a good sign.

  The first serious injury I had was when I was eight. I broke my chin open on a spin and had to be rushed to the hospital to get stitches. Then I had a serious ankle injury when I could hardly walk, a broken toe from the trampoline class, and to top it off, a serious stress fracture in my spine when I was twelve, which had me off the ice for just a little while before guilt set in and I returned to training. Concussions from falls were ongoing too. This was just the start and many more injuries were to destroy my body. From the age of around eleven years I don’t remember skating without pain.

  My mother never, ever missed bringing me to a practice. We were at the rink no matter what, even if I was sick, or had a fever, suffering a concussion from falling on my head, or even if there was a flood or a monsoon. Even one time when my mother had surgery, the next morning she pushed herself to drive me to the rink at five in the morning. Half way there she was so dizzy that she couldn’t drive me further. She ridiculously apologized profusely, as if what she had wanted to do was even remotely possible. She had to drive back home and, not wanting me to miss a day of skating, she dropped me off at the train station so I could get to the ice rink. Even when we once were victims of a car accident she stayed behind but arranged to get me a car so that I could get to the rink. Her dedication and strength was absolutely remarkable and incredible. She would and still does just drop everything, to do anything for me.

  Still to this day I marvel how and where she got that strength. It could only be the deepness of how much she loves me as love conquers all. My mother is truly incredible. Sometimes we were the only ones at the rink. Not even my coach would be there because no one but my mother bravely drove through any kind of weather and circumstance to get me there. There was no way I would miss my skating practice, not even if hell froze over, not even if the sky collapsed, maybe not even if I lost a leg. It was done from the mentality that skating will cure anything. As long as I was at the rink and could skate, I was okay.

  But it didn’t come from me and I don’t think it even came from what my mother believed in. It came from exterior pressures. For me, I was so young that all I wanted was for someone to tell me what to do. I wanted to be guided. By that time I had already chosen to skate so there was to be no more discussion if I still wanted to skate. That would be absurd. If I chose it I must always want it. Also, if I had a bad practice, my mother said, “Oh go to your room and paint.” It was something I loved to do, but at those times it would feel like a worthless thing to do.

  Everything became less important than skating. Everything became of lesser value than skating. Everything else was put down because skating was elevated, high up on the list of being worthy. I even wanted to do ice dancing but at that time ice dancing was regarded as the failure of single skaters. But since when did what other people think and what society ranks high become so important in life? I think my mother didn’t realize what made her think this way. She thought that she had the responsibility to produce a great child, a responsibility to my coach, to my father, and to herself. She thought her obligation was to get me to wherever I needed to go, well-prepared, dressed and fed, and then I should be great. Pleasing my teachers was our first priority. Then, for me, it was pleasing my mother and father. I was not important to myself. I felt guilty that so much was done for me so I thought the least I could do was skate and be an A student. Even if I answered one question wrong on my tests, I would feel so unworthy.

  Sometimes on the car rides from school to the rink I wished for a lot of traffic so I could nap longer, or for my ballet teacher to be stuck in traffic so I would not be able to have my lesson. I was so exhausted but I knew if I said something I would sound too easy on myself and my mother might erupt. I never wanted to make my mother upset. I was to become very frightened of her.

  As I have said earlier, coaches hit the skaters but my coach never touched me. He only would continually complain to my mother that she did not prepare me enough to perform for him. He instructed her to bring me to the rink on a silver plate, saying it was her responsibility that I skate perfectly every single time. Unknown to me, he put all the stress on my mother. I was about ten years old when, because of pressure from my coach, or for some other reason, my mother decided she needed to physically punish me in order to make me a better skater.

  My mother started to routinely scream at me and hit me. This sentence is so hard for me to write because I still would like to be in denial that it happened. I know my mother never meant for anything bad to happen to me and I love her so much. I want so much to protect my mother. But without telling this, my story cannot be written truthfully and in no way do I blame my mother for any of this.

  I became terrified and was truly petrified of my mother. My mother told me that I was always hit because I did not fight enough on the ice. How ironic that I was taught to follow the three monkeys, but now in this circumstance I needed to fight for my success or I was to be hit. The ice rink became a frozen prison for me. There seemed to be no way out and if I did get out for a while, it would also be a hell outside of the prison. At least when I was in the middle of the ice I couldn’t hear anybody. When doing my jumps or spins I didn’t want them to end because when they did, I was required to hear my coach complain and criticize me, and when I went off the ice it
would be my mother’s turn. That’s why I liked to spin and was able to spin for so long. At least for that period of time I couldn’t be touched or spoken to. It was my piece of heaven in the prison.

  I’ve wondered at times if others would like to be the best spinner in the world if they knew my mental and physical torment. But everything happens for a reason and I truly believe that without the sorrow I wouldn’t have been such a good spinner. I am blessed with a gift among the curses. Others might have relied on drugs or escaping from home to relieve their pain. My spinning was my drug, and although it might seem like it isn’t as dangerous as drugs it might as well have been as dangerous because it made invisible what was happening to me. It was my escape when, even though I longed to rest, I dreaded getting off the ice because then the time of torture would start and I wouldn’t be able to rest either mentally or physically.

  I should explain that I am writing about my emotions at that time but without the knowledge that I have now of what was going on in my life then. It is only clear to me now that I have healed and become my own person. All the time I was skating and going through this I had no clue whatsoever of what was happening. I had reactions when events occurred but my mother and I were blind to the reality of the situation. We never once thought there was anything wrong. That is what can happen when you are experiencing something like this. You continue to live for your goal that overrides all else. Only later in my life, when I had no choice but to look at the past and understand the heavy consequences of the affects of skating on my body, were my mother and I able to unwrap the blanket in which we had so tightly covered ourselves and reunite in ways we never had before.

  At that time I was confused and completely stressed out. Being overweight was not the issue for me since I was over-trained and too skinny. Everyone thought I was anorexic but I ate a lot. I just was doing more than my body could handle. I didn’t know about bulimia or anything of that sort at that time, and if other skaters were going to extremes about eating, I was oblivious to it until I went to America later on.

  The issues and my mother’s frustration were always because of my skating and mostly because of my jumps, nothing else. Jumps did not come that easily to me as I grew older, maybe because I was not correctly taught technically, maybe because they were hard for me to do, or maybe because when I started missing them I was hit. That consequence terrified me so much that fear would overpower me and I would make more mistakes, and so it was like a catch twenty-two.

  But I truly could not understand why I was being hit. If I had not given it everything I had or if I had been lazy and spoiled about it I would have then understood. But I was someone who tried so hard and never gave up. Yet I was condemned for the things I was trying the hardest to do, and I felt misunderstood. I was working so hard, but I was told that wasn’t good enough. I wished I could have clicked my red shoes and magically made my jumps happen, but all I could do was give it everything I had.

  It was all so confusing and hurtful, especially for me to have my own mother to do this to me. I think when someone outside the family like a coach abuses you, you can distance yourself from it, but when it’s your own flesh and blood it is more emotionally hurtful. Even more than the physical pain it caused, I just couldn’t come to an understanding of why she was doing it to me when I thought I had done everything for my mother. The only support I had, the only person I trusted, was hurting me the most. But since I trusted her so much I believed I was wrong. I had to be wrong. There is no possible way that my mother could be wrong. She was doing it out of love, for certain, and therefore I must accept it since I deserved it. So I worked and worked harder and harder, longer and longer.

  The hitting me was getting more intense every year as I entered middle and then high school and would only get worse. The fear of my mother hitting me started to overpower the pain of the actual beatings. I remember when I was about twelve, that before one of my skating tests my mother lashed out severely at me. I can’t tell you why, because to this day, I don’t know why. But I was hit and screamed at and spat at. I never, ever, fought back. A few hours later I was on the ice with my sparkly costume and smiles on my face and passed the test with flying colors.

  My mother thought she saw that after hitting me I skated better. Sometimes this was true. Maybe the adrenaline would rush through me, or from so much fear I would skate faster, or maybe God gave me a gift to skate well so I wouldn’t be hit again that day. So maybe she was correct that it did work. But a reprieve from the hitting definitely didn’t last long because the same thing would happen day after day.

  The evening car rides home from the ice rink became a torture. I would be happy to have another skater with us since their bullying me was better than having my mother hitting me. When I had no such luck, I was instructed to sit in the front passenger seat, although I always begged to sit in the back so that I could rest and so that my mother’s hand could not reach me. But my mother would order me upfront and my mother, while driving, would hit me with her right arm and hand across my face, chest, and legs during most of the trip home. When I was let out to run the rest of the way home, I cried as I ran.

  I was so afraid to open the front door upon reaching home. I was scared and sad because I wanted so much to be able to understand why my mother was so angry with me. I wanted to be able to take it all away from her and be her sunshine. I loved it when my mother laughed and smiled. I would go straight to my room since my mother would tell me I needed to go to sleep. Doors were never closed in my family’s home and falling asleep frightened me even more because I wasn’t sure when my mother would pounce back in the room and wake me up and start it all over again.

  This happened often, and one time in particular I remember well. It was one of those terrible evenings, and I had fallen asleep while crying softly so my mother wouldn’t hear. At around 2:00 a.m. my mother suddenly came into my room and pulled me out of bed while screaming and hitting me. She demanded I go for a run since I didn’t work hard enough that day. So in my pajamas she threw me out the door and I had to go on a run.

  It’s amazing that I just didn’t sit outside somewhere and cry and wait for some time to pass. I actually ran. I ran for at least an hour all around my neighborhood with my pajamas and sneakers on, crying the whole time. I wished I could run longer. There was also this feeling inside of me that I wished something really bad would happen to me so that all this torture would stop and she would feel sorry. I felt bad for thinking it, but did not know another way of stopping this whole thing. No matter how much I tried and worked I just did not seem to be able to do what my mother wanted.

  I was so afraid to come back home but, on the other hand, I wanted to see my mother because I still had this little candle of light and hope burning inside of me that she might actually be proud of me and say, “wow, good job, good run,” hug me tight, and smile and apologize. I longed for her to apologize, and I had hoped that the run would have made her anger go away and that she would be smiling upon my return. I think God gave me the strength to keep that hope alive all though my years with my mother. Otherwise I don’t think I could have survived the torture inflicted on me no matter how well it was meant. What I just could not swallow was that my mother would do this to her child for the sake of a sport. For skating? I could not believe she would put skating before me, her child. This was very hard to accept as a child.

  Strangely, when my mother hit me I would look into her eyes and it was as if another human being had entered her and it was not my mother hitting me. Either I was trying not to really see my mother in fear of it hurting me even more, or maybe some other spirit really did enter her and engulf her to do these things. This made it possible to take on the beatings. I felt that I would succumb to being her punching bag; that much I could do for her. I felt she had so much anger and frustration with the whole situation that I was the only person she could take it out on. I was the only one who would just take it and not fight back or say anything. Also, I was the cause of th
e frustration. Without skating, or me, there would be no problem. I was the stimulator of this and I didn’t know how to fix it.

  Later on in my life, when I graduated from high school, my training schedules changed and dinners were at home together, and this period was incredibly frightening and scarring for me. These times were excruciating. Dinners became hostile environments and sometimes for hours I would be hit nonstop while I cried and screamed. To my astonishment not once did neighbors or anyone else say anything. I once entered a competition all black and blue from the beatings and really too tired to even care how I would skate. I was nineteen by then and hope started to fade.

  Maybe the reason I could endure this for years to come was that when I awoke in the morning, my mother would be all smiles ready to start the day full of energy and determination in her eyes to make me happy. She would act as if nothing had happened and nothing was ever said about it. I swallowed my hurt and followed the lead, believing that my mother had realized what she had done and wouldn’t do it again. When that did not happen, I would just pray and pray for the day not to come to a close for fear of it. On the ice I became very petrified to make mistakes, as I knew the consequences.

  As I grew older holidays and birthdays were the worst because my mother asked that I give not material gifts but gifts of execution on the ice for her. I would want so much to always give her the best gift ever. It didn’t matter what holiday it was; for me it was always her holiday as well. Even on my birthday I believe a mother remembers the event more than the child, and so I wanted to make her as happy as she had been when giving birth to me. The least I could do was to give her a gift. My mother didn’t want a gift money could buy. She wanted a gift that was the hardest for me to give, because that would mean the most.