The Dream
By
Erin Maloney
I had a dream last night; it was really a nightmare.
I honestly don’t know where it came from, but it was the most
terrifying nightmare I have ever had… but it was only a bad dream.
In my dream, I was a young girl, no older than seven or eight.
I was talking to this boy about the same age... He was my cousin.
He was taller, but I was older…we were up to something, but I didn’t
know what. I knew it was something
bad and that we could get into a lot of trouble if our parents found out!
As the dream progressed, I could see what was going on… we were playing
“grown-ups” and “kissing” like we saw our parents do so often before. It was innocent and somewhat cute to see these two little
kids pretending together and saying nice things to each other.
The
scene progressed and I saw the same two little children, still the same age, but
this time they were not “pretending” and playing together.
No, the boy was giving me an “Indian Rub Burn” and saying things like
“I hate you.” What a sad,
confused girl! What a confused and
angry boy!
The
dream went on and I saw the same boy and I a year or two later…
I was pudgy and looked like I was developing early, he was taller and
thin. We still played “pretend”
but this time it wasn’t so innocent. It was the proverbial “I’ll show you mine if you show me
yours” but I was the only one “showing.”
I asked in the dream why this was so and the scene shifted again.
This time I saw the boy pushing me into the dresser and felt the
wrenching pain as he twisted my arm with the new judo moves he had learned from
his cousin. Ah… so that was it…
I preferred touching to beating.
The
scene changed again, the children now in their pre-teens.
We were playing cards… strip poker, our old game of pretend now
corrupted into something unrecognizable. I
watched as I played cards for hours with him, doing things that would make a
stripper blush and keeping it a secret from everyone…
the longer he was with me, the less time he had with my sisters.
I cried as I watched myself come up with as many ways as I could to keep
him with me… suggesting things that I knew would keep him busy… even if it
meant putting me in the hot seat.
The
scene changed again, I saw us getting progressively older, and me becoming
increasingly distant and ashamed, but still doing what I thought to be the only
way I could protect my sisters. Allowing
the boy… the boy I grew up with, played pretend with, and had loved… to do
things to me that no person was allowed and should have been allowed to do.
Then
the scene changed again and I saw the boy throwing ice out of a third story
window at me. I watched in slow
motion as the ice flew from his fingertips and connected with the soft tissue of
my forehead. I cringed in horror at
the blood that rose to the surface and looks on the faces of the children I was
in charge of at the time.
I
watched so many horrifying incidents just like that flash before my eyes; so
many I could not count them any more. Then
the scene changed again and I saw myself… though this time the boy was not
there. I saw how I interacted with
the people around me. How soon
after my eleventh birthday, I could no longer give my father a hug and a kiss
without consciously thinking that this was OK… that I could not look my uncle
in the eyes. I watched as I shied
away from all conversations dealing with sex… closing myself off to all
physical advances and making up wild stories about not being allowed to hold
hands or kiss a guy.
I
watched myself with my high school boyfriends… how I would not go past holding
hands, cuddling, and sometimes kissing in High School.
I watched as in Middle School I almost let a guy who was a complete and
total stranger take away what little bit of innocence I had left because I
thought that was what my “boyfriend” at the time wanted.
I also watched myself stop, thank God.
I watched myself in college, now almost 10 years after this ordeal began,
and only 2 and ½ years since it ended, and I see that I am no better.
I
watch myself lose a little more happiness and self-esteem every passing year,
month, week, day, and hour… I
begin to lose myself in the shame and terror I feel about carrying this horrible
secret with me every day. I feel
the discomfort when the topic of sex is brought up and I watch as I try to
escape ever having to be intimate or close to a guy ever again by coming up with
this hair-brained scheme that I am going to become a nun. I watch as in High School I think about becoming lesbian, but
reject that idea as something that just wouldn’t work… I don’t like girls in that way.
I watch as I become terrified and ashamed of myself around guys…
I watch the weight pile on in a vain attempt to disgust the boy so much
he will leave me alone… and to make myself less attractive to other guys.
I cringed and cried as I lived this dream as if in a movie that had gone horribly wrong. The scenes I witnessed were nothing shy of atrocities perpetrated by the lowest scum on the face of the Earth. The horrifying events of my life dominate all aspects of who I am, now. I still feel uneasy when someone touches me without me knowing that they are planning to do so. I still feel threatened when I look into a man’s eyes… in fact I cannot say the word “man” or “woman” without the overwhelming shame of this nightmare coming back to haunt me. Then a terrifying though crossed my mind… this happened to so many people throughout the city, county, state, country, continent, and planet that it was almost common place… this was so many peoples reality. Yet, this was only a dream… right?
