It Happened…
All throughout my life. I remember knowing it was wrong but still feeling like it was “normal”. No matter where I moved or who I met, they always found me, like they had some horrible radar that could sense out victims and I had this huge flashing beacon in me.
But it all started around 2 or 3 years of age.
It Was…
It started with my uncle. He had a physical disability due to a seizure when he was younger but was still capable enough for my parents to leave me home with him while they ran errands, I think his condition contributed to them not seeing it as a possibility. Like many others, there are so many black spaces where memories should be and I thank god for that fail safe in my brain. But now that I’m in a safe place in my life, I can feel the memories trying to come back and needing to pour out of me.
The most distinct one that is starting to fill in is when I was 4. I remember walking out of my room and into the living room, it was sunny and my brother and mother were getting into the car. My uncle was there and I remember being terrified. I asked where my mom was going and as he said the store he started to take off his belt. I ran. Screaming and crying I ran, knowing exactly what was coming because it had happened so many times before. I went behind my bedroom door and tried to wedge myself between the wall and the door to keep him from being able to come in, but I was too small and he came in anyway. I cried for him to stop but he didn’t. He raped me, he tore my little body apart and broke me, over and over again.
I Told…
No one. I couldn’t articulate at that age and my home life was so volatile otherwise with a veteran father who suffered from PTSD and drug and alcohol addiction and a mother that could only tread water, that no one thought there was another reason I behaved so badly. Fits of anger, hopping the 6 foot fence to get out of the yard. They never stopped to consider that a toddler could be suffering from PTSD. Or why my privates hurt so bad sometimes I had to put a cold rag on them to stop the burning.
My husband now knows generalities, but I’ve never shared the horrible details and I don’t know that without the anonymity, I ever can. But telling it here and now, I can feel the wheels starting to turn and the forward progress towards healing beginning.
It Made Me Feel…
Abandoned. Adults are supposed to be aware, to watch, to protect their children from the monsters and no one did, not for me, not ever. It gave me such a distorted view of what sex was, of what my body was and who it made me. I found myself in the hands of others, a neighbor who in the same time period as my uncle tricked me into wanting to be with him because the way he touched me didn’t hurt the way the horror of my uncle did. And then classmates. And then the grown men thorough my teenage years because sex now held a prominence in my life. I felt dirty because of what they did and what I did as a result.
I Survived…
At first by developing observation skills. A survival trait that while I never really escaped that world, cut down on how much I had to take. I have no idea how I survived my teenage years, I could easily be dead with all the situations I got into.
Now at 33, I survive, no thrive because of my 2 beautiful and wonderful daughters, they saved my life. And I will fight till the end for them and for me.
I Dream…
That we can find a way to protect everyone’s children. These are all our babies and we’re all responsible. Being able to share my story here, in this safe space is a start and I hope others will share themselves here too.
I Want…
Others to know that you can take your power back. Some days you’ll be strong and others you won’t and that’s ok. And for me, I had to decide that these monsters do not get to take away my life by consuming me with their sickness, they do not get to make me lose sight of the beauty in this world and they shouldn’t get to do it to you. You are beautiful, you are strong and you are loved.
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