My Story cont…
This is the second story that I wrote about what happened to me…
It was written on July 29, 1997.
O.K.-I'm gonna try and sort out some of these feelings...
First of all, and this might seem crazy, but Marlana says that I need
"reprogramming" and I DO -- but doing it is proving very, very hard... Yikes!
This brain was programmed 14, 15 years ago.
It started with the fact that, even though my grandfather molested me when I
was 3, we still visited them as if nothing was wrong -- HELLO?! That's a great
message to send to a 3-year-old... It reads: "Grandpa loves you -- it's wrong to
do that -- but it's o.k. -- we can forgive it." Um, hi! Don't/didn't MY feelings
matter?? To me, that's like saying that this kind of thing is normal... Even that
day, my loving grandfather told me while he molested me that I was a good girl
and didn't that feel nice?!
Then, my loving parents act as though nothing happened!!! What was I
supposed to think??
Then, I'm 4... I have a best friend... she lives right next door... we could and
did play together all the time... funny, my memory's pretty much wiped of any
of those good moments... it's hard when you can't remember playing when you
were little... no matter how hard I try, I remember 3 times playing with my
friend... once on fireworks day, once on a swing set in our side yard, and once
in our garden... I have one good memory of being at her house... we picked
vegetables from their garden and ate dinner there... raviolis...
I remember playing hide and seek at her house one day... her bastard of a
brother was "taking care" of us... f***ing a**hole has messed with my head...
my thoughts, feelings, my worth, my friends, and one day I will tell him that. I
pray to God that he doesn't have children of his own and that he tells he loves
them while he molests them...then again, God hasn't really done a good job of
protecting the children of this world...
I remember my friend calling my name as her brother and I "hid" in his
room... he told me not to answer her... inside this room, I learned that
childhoods are not as blissful as they are made out to be... I was, I am, forced
to be an adult before I was ready and THAT wasn't fair.
The biggest guilt that is hard to shake off is the fact that I PARTICIPATED in
the abuse... he made me perform oral sex on him and I find that the most
difficult thing to admit to myself, to TELL anyone else... especially when you
remember it PERFECTLY... every single thing that was said... it's very
embarassing... I know that the bastard also RAPED me on one or all of the
three occasions... memories of this are cloudy...
I know that I escaped the pain and shame by dissociating, by leaving my
four-year-old body on that bed while my mind, my eyes stared, fixed on some
object in the upper right hand corner of the room.... That is how I learned to
dissociate, to deny, to pretend, to avoid, to run away; it is the only thing that
saved me then, the only tool I had 14 years ago... but I AM an adult now with
adult feelings, pains and realizations. I remember that the sick guy who raped
me, emotionally and physically, told me not to tell anyone, or he would KILL
me!!! It was "our little secret"... I was 4 -- he scared the sh*t out of me... was
that love? I don't know what I thought back then... I didn't tell anyone for
weeks... it must have been shocking.....
I remembering telling my mother everything, then being taken to the police
station where I told male police officers what happened... I was embarassed
and I didn't know what I had done wrong...
No charges were ever laid... my loving parents didn't want me to go through
being questioned in courts... I don't think THEY could handle it... I was 4... I
had already told the police... what difference would it have made? Now, I have
to deal with it on my own... he was set free to abuse again... it's my fault for
that -- not really mine -- more like my parents'... he should've gone to jail...
I don't remember what went on in my head from then till 5 years ago... grade
8... I HATED myself... I dissociated from everything... the whole year was
black... I wrote suicidal poetry... I wanted to DIE... the abuse was always on
my mind... at 13, I was too young to know what to do...
My mom found the poetry I had written... she told me it was selfish to kill
myself, which I DO actually believe, and her advice to me was to "put the
blame on the right shoulders". Right then and there I turned away from her...
and I haven't looked back....
When I got to grade nine, these now familiar feelings of depression hit me yet
again, and they scared the sh*t out of me... I was scared of MYSELF!!!!! This
time I reacted differently... I didn't write anything down... I kept it inside and it
ate away at me... I started cutting my arms and legs with knives and razor
blades, praying that in that way, the pain would somehow leave my body... I
didn't know what was wrong with me! I could no longer control anything in
my life so I chose to control something I COULD -- my weight -- I weighed
under 110 lbs at the time and I had this goal to weigh under 100 -- not eating
was easy -- every time I did eat something I felt sick -- I left class once to throw
up, but I just sat on the floor in the bathroom and cried for a few minutes
before I got myself back together... A friend and my boyfriend at the time both
called my parents -- they picked me up from school and took me home to talk to
me -- I was so scared, I thought I'd pass out -- I was in trouble... I let my mind
go to happier places while they talked to me -- I don't remember all that much
about it -- I denied my feelings, laughed most of it off, hid behind my flawless
personality. I DO remember my dad telling me to forget about it, that "kids
experiment all the time like that"... my mom decided that was a good time to
tell me that her father began raping her when she was 9 till the time she left at
17. She told me that, "What happened to me wasn't half as bad as what
happened to her". These were my PARENTS, they were supposed to care for
me, to have my best interests in mind. I believed them, I only learned 8 months
ago that what they said was WRONG -- but that "programming" is still in my
head and everytime I venture to think differently, it slaps me in the face...
I am anxious to get out of this house, to start over, to make something of
myself, my thoughts, my feelings; they are MINE, and they COUNT! They are
NOT my parents' -- they belong to ME! As does my story of abuse -- and of
survival. I want to be a vet -- I want to be important and I want to tell "him"
someday that he did not kill me.
But... there are many things standing in my way, my "programming" being
one of them... Marlana says I MUST change it... but it's not easy... I AM gonna
try though...
I got these battles in my head, good side vs. bad side... sometimes I KNOW that
I should say something, to reach out, but then my body, my mind, my feelings
shut down... and my control is lost... I got to get it back... I can talk to myself
all day long, but it's not sharing the pain, the feelings, so they never lessen, and
then the bad side starts winning again, telling me I'm stupid for dealing with
this now -- well I am NOT stupid to be dealing with it!!!!!
My best friend says so, Renee says so, Marlana says so... And I can change the
way that I think -- with work -- but I can do it -- funny how everyone who
knows says it's NOT stupid, but my parents... Me? I've been stuck in the
middle... but deep down I KNOW -- I've got to!! That it is NOT stupid to be
hurting because you were taken advantage of when you were too small to
protect yourself -- it hurt me then -- I felt/feel betrayed, and it hurts me now --
and that's O.K. -- cause they're MY feelings! I own them.
I always think that I can turn away from it and it'll go away -- I know it won't
-- it'll keep coming back and I'll be 40 and married with kids and I still won't
be a whole person -- I will not let it take my life -- I will take it back -- after all
-- it's mine...
I know that today and the last few days have been difficult and have been filled
with A LOT of decision making -- but I have made my decisions! I choose to
believe, to trust, to hope, to accept, to fight, to conquer, to LIVE, and I have
wirtten these decisions down so that I can never ever go back on them. Some
days will be weak, some strong, and sometimes I will pretend that it never
happened, that I am not dealing with it, but I will come back and read what I
wrote, cause I wrote it, I did!! No one else... my life is MINE now, and no one
else's...
I can't change what happened then, but I CAN change what's happening
now... and I WILL!!!! I AM!!!!! And no one else can take that away from me
-- no one can hurt me -- not the "people" who did it, not my parents... I am the
only one left who can hurt me...
...and I choose to HEAL me...
This story also continues…