Shhhhh

Sexual abuse as a child and rape as an adult (if 21 is truly considered and adult) are both life changing things. As a child - it happened regularly. There was a routine that was followed - structure was present - and an understanding of "dont tell" was always in the air. Obedience was expected and demanded - disobedience was punished.

Rape, for me, was completely the opposite. There was nothing routine about it. There was no structure - for me it was complete chaos. He ordered - I fought - lost - eventually obeyed. I guess the last part was exactly the same. Obedience was expected and demanded - and disobedience was punished. As far as the "don't tell" part goes - yeah, that too was there. Although I often wonder WHY I didn't tell. Was it because he was the police? Was it because bad things happen when you tell? Was it because I was too afraid? Or too conditioned? It wouldn't have changed anything ...

Long Lost Friend

Cutting has always been my release - my coping mechanism - my "friend."  I don't remember how it started but I do remember how good it felt to release all of the pent up feelings of confusion and hurt and pain and numbness... the euphoric feeling immediately afterward was worth the scar it would leave.

I was around 14 or 15 when I started. I don't know how I heard of it, but the first time I ever hurt myself, I took a pair of cuticle cutters and snipped my skin all the way around my wrist. I had my own bloody bracelet. I felt better - relieved - and had something to show for it.

As time went on, I changed instruments from cuticle cutters to razor blades. If I couldn't find a razor blade, I would use anything else that was sharp. I even ventured into burning myself with an iron  few times - that, however, is much more difficult to explain. You can only "land" on an iron so many times before people get suspicious.

When my cutting got really bad, a friend of mine stepped in and "required" me to get help. I trusted one person and she "helped' --- ie held the can while I went through some major mental vomiting! (cue the purple crayon!) ...
            For some reason, anytime I've had to talk abot what has happened to me or what I was going through, I have always done it as if it were from someone else's perspective. I don't know that I have ever "owned" it and claimed it or accepted it as mine. Even the movies that play in my head are from someone else's viewpoint. hmmmm....

I have cut once in the past several years - I have a deep scar to show for it. It scared me a little - It wasn't a "surface scratch" (not that the others are but in comparison they are!) ... it was deep, clear into the fat layer of the skin cut.

Lately I have felt this urgency to cut return. It seems to surface when my life gets shaken up. My friendships change (although nothing has happened, I just feel abandoned), my job has changed, I've lost my father and a child unexpectedly - and things start to all around suck .... Cutting will make me feel better - hmmm... only temporarily. I have to keep telling myself that it isn't worth it.

I miss my dad - I miss my baby that I will never get to know - and I miss my mirror ... Guess it's just one of "those" days.

Six Hours

I have always had a hard time talking about things - and still do. Who would want to listen to someone go on and on about the trials they have been through in their life? We have all been through garbage, and if you are reading this, you have come out the other side. Whether it’s bruised and scarred or completely unscathed, it’s a remarkable feeling when you step back and realize that you did it. You went into hell and came out the other side… but at what cost?

That has always been my question to myself. Six hours isn’t a very long time in the scheme of things. Most people sleep more than 6 hours in a night. We usually work more than six hours on any given day. So six hours isn’t much … but when you are face to face with a demon, six hours is an eternity.

So why is six hours taking me 11 years to get through and still going? It took me a long time piece together the events of that night. It took me even longer to put those events into words. Immediately following that night - I told 2 people what happened - just that I had been raped ... I thought. One told me to sweep it under the rug and get past it - the other told me that it was a serious accusation and many girls who choose to have sex for the first time end up regretting it and call it rape. I'm pretty sure that I was raped - battered and bruised - ... yep.

Did I want it?

Maybe being hurt and violated as a child made the entire thing seem less of an issue than it really was. I NEVER contemplated calling the police - he was the police. I obeyed and did as he instructed - still to this day not completely understanding why or how I could just do it.  I still get disgusted that I willingly participated in pieces of that night - whether it was truly willingly or not. He told me over and over that night how much I wanted it ... I participated in parts - deep down, did I enjoy it????  That part goes back to that "forgiveness" piece - I still wish I had fought harder or been smarter. Really - how does this happen to someone twice? Losing your virginity unwillingly as a child - and again as an adult - no sexual partners in between.  It makes me tired to think about this ... I feel my brain shut down. I'm sure I need to talk about this more openly and deeply in therapy - it's easy to talk about it from someone else's perspective and not own the feelings and memories. It was a movie I saw - a bad, terrible movie that leaves that awful feeling under your skin when you walk out of the theater - but that feeling goes away with time. This will too - Its only been 11 years ...

Forgiveness

I've been hearing and thinking a lot about forgiveness lately. Whether people who have experienced rape or abuse are capable of forgiving their abuser is even possible? How do you forgive someone who knew better? Someone who was calculated and planned out every detail - even someone who went as far as to "practice" on others.

I was not the first person the asshole raped - far from it. I am sure there were many more after me - and there are days I feel guilty for those - but I did what was best for me after the attack. For that, I do (on most days) forgive myself for not reporting him.

Knowing I was not the first or last person the asshole raped - how do I even begin to forgive him? He knew what he was doing - calculated every detail - and ripped me apart. He left satisfied and I was left bleeding, sore, scared and numb ... among many other things. How do I forgive that? 

How do I forgive the things he did and said? I was humiliated and broken. He was powerful and demanding and cruel. I don't forgive him ... not now, not ever.

To delete or not to delete ...

Ever since posting the details of that night, I am often feeling the urge to sign back in to my blog, edit and/or delete that post, and carry on. I am proud of myself for NOT doing so. I promised myself that when I started this, I would be completely open and brutally honest with myself. My own personal online journal where I can just be the "me" that is in my head instead of the pretend "me" wearing the many masks that I have in my closet.

11 years later - I still struggle with reading those details. I still can't make it though the entire thing in one sitting. I have let 3 people read these details in my entire life ... one of which is my therapist ... and one my mirror. I cannot help the shame that I carry around - although my brain understands that it was not my fault; that I could not have prevented it; that he knew what the night would hold even before he rang my doorbell. How could I have been so naive? So stupid? So trusting???

 That seems to be my biggest fault in life - I am too trusting - which is odd considering my past.  Even with friendships, I pour myself into them, jumping head first when I truly trust someone - and the moment they hesitate - I bolt. I don't know why so many aspects of my life are affected by this. I don't want to be hurt - so if I think you are going to hurt me, I beat you to the punch. Even now with my mirror, I feel abandoned ... My heart knows she is probably just busy - but my head is saying - Slam the door and run...

Happy Anniversary, Asshole

It's been almost 11 years ... I am stronger than I was but far from where I want to be.

The path you choose

Everyone reacts to trauma in different ways. Some like me - I strived even harder for perfection. It was my job to make everything look even prettier on the outside than it really was. I had a perfect home life, made perfect grades, was the perfect daughter ... that was my fiscade.

My sisters, however, was quite different. She became withdrawn and joined "the vampires of the night" - sneaking out of the house and being as eccentric as she could (black fingernails, black hair, white make up, etc). She flunked out of school and was ALWAYS in trouble.

I don't know why I went down one path and she went down a compeltely different one ... we were having the same experiences - or so I think.

Eventually she ran away from home at 15, got drunk, shaved her head and was taken to a youth shelter. That youth shelter changed my life - as strange as that sounds. It was at that shelter that I met my mirror - although little did I know how our lives would be so entwined.

I went there to meet with my sisters counselor. To drop off school books and tie up loose ends. I clearly remember the way her office looked and felt. The way she looked - She was nice - but she challenged me too. "Why are you the one coming out here instead of your mother"...ohhhh - she hit a soft spot. Protect the family - at all costs.

I was the adult at this point ... I came to the family counseling sessions - I brought things to my sister as she needed them - I got a tour of the facility. At some point, I got comfortable - I told her my secret.

The next image I have is sitting on her living room floor, drawing a picture of that night with a purple crayon.

She didn't judge - and little did I know she would turn out to be my nearest and dearest friend - the one who would get me though another night of hell - my mirror.

Lessons learned

I still have frequent flash backs to my childhood and the many nights that I endured him. Laying in bed, the air is cool, my sheets are clean and have that "fresh out of the dryer" smell. I snuggle down into the bed and close my eyes ... and boom - there I am. 13 years old - in my old house - in my old room - in my old bed. I remember everything about that room. I had a beautiful teal and maroon and white quilt/bed set - I had painted a wall in my bedroom a deep teal and the others beige. I had a huge poster of Reba on my wall - She would watch but never stopped it ... I would imagine crawling up into her lap and being rocked through it all. That was much better than what I was going through.

My dresser was on the wall next to my bed and my mirror reflected everything that occurred in my room - after the house went to sleep. That's how I see pieces of it - as if i am watching it in the mirror.

Looking back - the beginning wasn't so bad. It started with him coming in just to look; to touch.
It was always at night - I was never allowed to lock my door or completely shut it. He did that when he entered.

I never said anything to anyone - I've grown up protecting the secrets of the family. What happens in the family - stays in the family. You protect it at all costs - all costs.

My sister broke that rule - She spoke out - DCF came to investigate at the house - he laughed his way out of it - and they left us to pick up the pieces that would quickly shatter. "It can always get worse ..."  I learned what "worse" was that night.  ...  and I would never again talk about it with anyone - until I met my mirror... but that's a whole different story.

Less than perfect days

There are days where everything is fine - the world rotates on its axis and makes perfect sense. Fear is not hiding in every dark corner or staircase and every man does not have "that" look in his eye. Today was one of those perfect days. My spirit feels free and alive and often unaware that danger may be lurking close by.


There are, however, many days where "he" haunts me. "He" watches me and knows the moves I make even before I make them. How does he do this? How does he still have so much power over me after all this time? It's been 10 years - not all of them terrible. For a while I chose not to acknowledge what had happened. It happened - ok - I am ok - move on. And that's what I did ... until I slammed face first into a brick wall and had no option but to sift through all the shit in the box that I thought was locked away forever.

Survivor???

Originally the idea behind this was for me to have a place to release all of my thoughts out into the  great unknown - not knowing where they might land was and is part of the excitement...but as time moves on, I am realizing my life is not all about what happened to me ... About rape and molestation (yuck I said it). I am complex! I am creative! I am so much more than a victim - and I hate to say it - but yep - I'm a survivor (cue Beyonce!).

Oh I haven't always felt this way and I can admit that there are many days where I don't feel that I deserve a strong title like "survivor". Sometimes I feel like I should wear the title of "chicken shit" and hide under my covers until the boogeyman disappears.

(This is so true for me!)





 I'm learning each new day is just that - a new day. If you screw it up, there's always tomorrow ... as long as you give yourself the chance to fix it tomorrow. It has been difficult for me to accept believe accept that this statement is true. I almost didn't give myself the chance of tomorrow. I know how hard it can be to wake up - to not live in constant fear - to not freeze or run away in fear everytime the asshole makes another appearance in my life ... I'm learning ....