Boogie Man in a Suit

My dad fits your standard respectable clean cut look.  He practically lives in suits.  When I was little he wore a suit to work and to church.  Only on Saturdays did my dad wear casual clothes.  Very respectable don't you think?  (Rolls eyes, because it is the respectable look he is going for)  Even today now that he runs his own business he wears a suit.

It is interesting to me that my previous blog post about the boogie man included this above image of a man in a suit.

A while back I had a nightmare.  It was triggered by two things.  First off I had been intimate with my husband that night, and second in the middle of the night I developed a rather severe stomachache.

In this dream I was young, I estimate about seven.   A man that looked like my dad let himself into my bedroom.  He was clean shaven, his hair was cut and styled very neatly.  He was wearing a suit.  He was in a position of authority in the church.  He informed me that he and I were to be married.  I was confused and wanted to know what that meant but I was too shy to ask questions of such an important man.  He then started to take sexual advantage of me.  I did not understand what was going on.  But my childhood brain hoped it meant that I got my own little house to play house in.  The dream then started to parallel the intimate encounter I just had with my husband, but this time I was a little girl and the man was an unknown man who was an authoritative position in the church.

After some time I was left curled up on my bed, under a blanket, without clothes, feeling ashamed.  The man was playing with a young baby that somewhat symbolized my own youngest child, and somewhat symbolized my younger sister.  Then my young mom and my young father opened the door.  They were appalled that I let myself be taken advantage of. They politely thanked the strange man,  now fully dressed in his suit again, and politely escorted him to his car outside the house.  Then returned, looked on me with shame, and closed me in my room.

I lay there dejected, full of guilt, and clothesless.

Then my bigger, protective, determined sister, the one just older than me, come into the room.  Only she was upset for me.  Only she cared and felt anger towards the stranger.  She ran to see if the stranger had left. He had.  She then called the police.  Then she picked me up, wrapped up in blankets.  She took me to the hospital to be examined.  I lay on a hospital bed, with no clothes, wrapped up in blankets, unresponsive to the world, immersed in horrible emotions.  The nurse and her talked around me in very hushed tones.  I started to convulse and go into shock. I was glad that the pain and anguish I was feeling inside was displaying itself in a way others could see outside.  Then the dream ended.

No wonder men in suits give me the creeps.  No wonder why I don't want my husband to be clean shaven.  I look back now and realize I have always felt nervous around clean shaven, respectable looking men in suits.  Which basically is most all church leadership.