Confrontation

I just spoke to my abuser's mother. My grandmother just called and wanted me to come to a family reunion. The family that raised me and who knew my abuser was "a dirty old man". That is what she calls him. She says she kicked him out when he was younger for molesting his sisters. He grew up and got married and molested me. He got divorced and remarried, to his cousin of all people, and molested her children as well. So anyway....

I just spoke to my abuser's mother to invite me to a family reunion. I told her I was sick, which I am, and could not come. I also told her that I feel very uncomfortable keeping my past from her. Before I could say anything she told me that she knew. She knew that he was harming me but hoped that her thoughts were not true. She knew he was a molester but hoped he would spare me the agony of a lifetime of dealing with his lingering touch and incestuous love. I barely got the words out, "I need to tell you what he did to me when I was little." She was so caring and understanding. This is not the reaction I expected. She told me that to heal I needed to confront him. She told me that he would apologize. She told me that he is sorry.

How can she be so sure? I told her that her beliefs were fiction and he would never admit to it. She assured me that she would be there, by my side, and if he denied anything she would "kick his butt!" Should I confront him? Is that really the path to healing? What would I even say? I really need help with this one.

Hangover

Have you ever noticed how the affects of abuse pop up like random hangovers? I noticed this with my current boyfriend. He is very animated when he speaks and one day he was showing me something and grabbed my arm quickly and without warning. I blacked out, saw him as a past abuser, and raised my fist to get him off of me. Both he and I were terrified. I felt numb at that moment. I had no idea what to say or do. I could only apologize and curl into a ball. I was trembling and he was so confused. He said, "I touch you all the time. I don't understand why that happened. You know I will never hurt you." It was true. He had never hit me or hurt me in anyway. He had never threatened me or raised his hand to me. Yet these moments happen out of the blue.

I remember one time we were arguing and he hit the wall near me. I felt my heart stop and then it began to race as though it would beat a hole into my chest. I became so frightened that I tried to run onto the balcony of our 2nd floor apartment. Realizing I was "cornered" I ran past him, pushing him away hard with my fists on his chest and tried to lock myself in any place I could, ending up on the floor of the bathroom. I was sobbing and screaming. Nothing seemed real. My world had changed. I was a little girl again, hiding from my abuser.

Just remembering these times are bringing on a flood of emotions. There are so many micromemories that just flash in and out. If someone talks quickly and use their hands wildly, I become uncomfortable. I feel my skin crawl when someone wants to hug me. I continually try to create this bubble of safety around myself which in turn offends those trying to interact with me. I believe my behavior offends many and keeps people at arms length. In a way, that is safest but it is quite lonely.

What I have tried to do to wash away the hangover of abuse is to look at people and say their name in my head to train myself to not see them as the enemy. I often find myself creating reasons to stay away from people. I create a world where everyone is gossiping about me so I must protect myself from them. This self-destructive thinking has kept me stuck for almost 3 decades. The world is not out to get me and everyone is not an abuser. If anything, most people have felt some pain as deep as mine. We may not share the same experiences but no one walks through the world without getting a few bumps, bruises, and inevitable scars. I have learned that trying to be in absolute control takes so much energy and you still end up hurting one way or another. I am learning to relax, to experience the realities of the world outside of abuse. The abusers are long gone but they taught me very well how to keep myself isolated, to break myself down, to abuse myself. The words and scenes play over and over in my head. They do not deserve that power anymore. I will no longer be drunk with the control and powerlessness of my past and have the hangovers of abuse. I am seeking my freedom.

When No One Believes

During your lowest point in life, when you have been beaten and battered, raped, molested, and thrown to the side the worst thing that can happen is to find your strength to tell and be called a liar. Our stories may be so unbelievable or outrageous or just too close to home for some people to accept. I learned quickly that telling was not always as safe as they tell you in the after school specials. As a child my mother did not believe although she had seen it with her own eyes. That taught me something and I learned it fast and it is anchored deep within me. It taught me that I am the only person that I can count on. Later on in life when the same man that abused me left me alone in his apartment in a very bad neighborhood, I was raped again. (I say again because I was raped 2 years before this, again under his watch). I was not only bloody but I was infected. I had no idea with what but I knew I was in pain. My mother called me names, "fast", "promiscuous", "hot in the pants" all the way to the doctor and all the way home even though I explained I was raped. I thought she would understand because she was raped as a child very close to the age I was that day. She did not believe me and I was punished.
Now people think that being raped multiple times in your life is unbelievable. I have been asked so many times what I think I did to bring on these rapes. Seriously? So what did I do? I started looking for reasons to blame myself. I started hearing the stories of rape victims and wondering what they did to bring it on. I started to call myself a liar. When no one believes you, it is hard to keep believing in yourself. I have had to rebuild myself, layer by layer, truth by truth.
I lost my innocence to the sodomy of my dad, I lost my virginity to rape and for a long time I lost my sanity at the hands of men. I have gone from one abusive relationship to another. I have repeatedly found male friends that mistreated me when they called themselves my big brothers. I stopped fighting. My "no" meant nothing. As loud as I screamed it, my "no" was silent to the men that raped me. I stopped fighting. I fought hard the first few times which left bruises and intense pain and a feeling of weakness. When I left my body and stopped fighting, as strange as it sounds, I felt I got my power back. They thought they were taking it, that they were controlling me, but what they didn't know was that my soul was already gone.
So here I am, speaking to the audience that believes, because they have been there. Here I am bringing up pains that I have pushed down for decades so I can heal them. I believe in my strength, although hard sometimes, I believe in my truth. So when no one else believes, I have to keep believing in me.

Being Strong?

I got news today that my boyfriend's mom's cancer is changing her brain. She is psychotic and she may have permanent brain damage. All this from smoking most of her life. We have been through chemo, radiation, ER visits, and hospital stays. We have seen ups and downs for our relationship and his family's bond. How do I stay strong for him when I can barely hold myself up right now?

The situation I am in currently is feeling disgusted with myself, my body, my mother, and being confused about telling my biological father what happened to me as a child. I am in a place mentally where anyone seeing my body, including me, freaks me out. Being touched right now creates a reaction of crawling skin and stomach turning. This all stems from going to a baby shower recently. I had to bring a baby picture. My mother, the oblivious one, tells me about how he, the rapist asshole (no pun intended), is holding me up in the picture. This shatters my perception or daydream about my life before the day he sodomized me. I think that at least I had 5 years of purity before this man took away my innocence. She explained in detail how I could not yet hold myself up and he was behind me holding my around my waist so I could get my picture taken. My smile is bright and shining. I had no idea that this touch that made me safe as an infant would shatter me as a child. So now what?

I am a basket case working to get back to normal. I am writing positive affirmations on sticky notes all over the place, I am standing naked and forcing myself to look at the body in the reflection without judgment or disgust. I am telling myself that I can handle this. I am blogging these feelings to get them out. I cannot let him control my feelings right now. My boyfriend and his family need me to be strong right now. I cannot be a blubbering idiot, I cannot be moody, and I have to be prepared to comfort them through their pain and grief. I always put others first.

Why can't I just feel how I feel right now. I am terrified that his mother will die or lose her mind permanently. I am terrified that this is my future since my boyfriend also smoked and still does occasionally. No one is safe from cancer. No one can predict the future. No one can change the past. So here I go, putting on my "strong" face and going into battle for the man I love. I wish I could battle my own issues half as well. I have done well in some respect to education, career, pet mother, and friend or maybe I have gotten really good at mimicking the behavior of those around me that seem normal.

My Story Part 1

It is hard to decide whether to start from the beginning or today. Everyday for me is a new beginning so I will start from the little girl that was 5 or 6 and had no idea how her life would be changed.

My biological father was unknown to me and my mother was young when she decided to get pregnant with me. No matter the reasons or the errs in judgment, my mother married a man and let him sign my birth certificate. This in turn made me believe that the man that lay in bed with me was my dad until I learned otherwise at the age of 14.

I was 5 or 6 years old and my mom worked nights and evenings. My "dad" would take care of me when she had to work. This usually consisted of him drinking and rough-housing with me. For some reason, this night was different in that the memory of it is fresh with me today. He took off his clothes and got into bed. He told me to come lay in bed and watch tv with him. It was strange because I can't remember seeing him naked before but I thought it must be alright. I got into bed and he lifted up the covers for me to lay with him. I got another glance of him naked and wanted to keep my distance but did not want to make him angry. He told me that if I wanted to be a big girl I would have to learn to be near a man. What little girl doesn't want to be considered a "big girl"? I lay there next to him and ended up falling asleep with him lightly touching me all over.

I woke up that night, in the darkness, only the light from the street lamp or the moon coming into the window. I woke up with pain. I woke up terrified. I woke up with this man next to me doing something I would later learn is called sodomy. He told me to touch him. He told me that I was being good and I would grow up to be a good wife someday. He kissed me. He rolled over.

I was no longer a little girl at that point. I was broken. I was bleeding. My mother was not home. I had no one to help me. I hid in the bathroom until I heard the doorknob turn and I knew my savior was home. He had to go to work so he was quickly out the door. I went to my mom and told her I was bleeding. I had no idea how to explain it and I had no idea what had happened to me. Was it my fault? Did I do something wrong? I just knew that my mom was the one that could make it better.

"Mom, I hurt." I told her. I remember I was crying because I did not want her to be mad and I was so scared. She asked me where. I told her my behind hurts and she told me to show her were. I pulled down my underwear and showed her that I was bleeding. I told her what happened that night in a very censored way. I said that my "dad" had hurt me there. That he made me bleed and he was naked in bed with me. My mom quickly washed me up and rubbed a cream where there were cuts and wounds. She said, "Sometimes if you push too hard in the bathroom, you will bleed. I bet your dad was just trying to help." I was as confused as a small child could be about what happened. I knew it didn't make any sense. I knew that she had not heard me say that he done this to me. Her reaction was calm and caring. She told me to let her know if it started to bleed again and she put a maxi-pad in my underwear. We didn't discuss it that day or the next. We didn't discuss it ever.

I brought it up to my mother at age 14 when he had allegedly abused his step-children. My mom simply told me that she doesn't remember me telling her that when I was 6 or ever! She said that she remembered him being weird with me once or twice but that there was nothing major like molestation. She said he just didn't know how to deal with children and since he was a boy he had even inappropriately touched his step-sister. This was something he just dealt with in his life. His entire family knew, and wrote him off as just being "sick." We didn't speak of it again, until now. I brought it up on Monday, April 18th in the morning from my office, over email. I refused to give her details or to even type the words incest, molestation, or abuse. I simply said, "I am having trouble dealing with what he did to me from age 6 until you divorced." What he did to me? Is that what the description of almost a decade of abuse had come down to? My mom again says she had no idea anything ever happened to me. He knows what he did, as do I, and everyone else whose life he tried to destroy.

This is my way of healing the wounds that have been covered for 20+ years in scar tissue. It is now time to speak out and share with others that we are not alone in this. It happens everyday and my mother was not the only one that turned a blind eye for her own warped reasons. This is my self-help and my gift to those that need a forum to share. Women, men, old, young, all races and backgrounds. Transgendered, androgynous, gay, or straight. Incest, rape, molestation, abuse happens to too many for us to keep silent.

I will continue to blog about my vast experiences that seemed to build on this one day but ballooned into a cycle of destruction. More to come.....