RealMental

Walking the hallowed halls of my son’s school, I am faced with awkward sensations and feelings. As a human, I tend to project my “issues” outward. Therefore, it is no surprise that a much younger version of me comes out and walks simultaneously with the grown up part of me, clomping through the halls together looking like only one person.

In the beginning of the school year, I was angry that I had to experience these sensations and feelings, thinking it was unfair that I could not just walk into the school and enjoy it.

Why do I always have to look for “the dirty“? Why am I always on alert, afraid to miss a “sign”?

An old belief, built within my psyche was that, as a child if I could’ve “seen it coming” I could’ve stopped it from happening. (Or so that belief would like for me to believe).

If we just stay on alert for the rest of our lives, it’ll never happen again. Not to me, not to you, not to anybody. As most survivors know, this sets up some very stringent mental puzzles and maneuvering that make you weary from lack of rest, and close relationships almost impossible to have.

One of my favorite things when walking the halls to my son’s classroom is scanning the pictures/poems/projects that the teachers hang outside of their classrooms on the cold cemented walls. The kids’ artwork, projects, lists of things they love to do, and what they would do if they were president.

Very rarely do I ever see other “grown ups” reading them with the fervor of being at the Guggenheim as I “think” I do. Then I wonder if that means there is something wrong with me, since I don’t see other parents doing it. The voice that tries to tell me once again, I am not measuring up.

Hey voice, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Sometimes, the kids in his class tell me things that make me want to grab them up and save them from their futures. I watch them with wonderment, and I know I am not looking at them through my adult eyes, but rather the younger version of me that didn’t have the freedom to be a child when I was a child (due to being “on guard”).

I love observing children, it’s like the feeling of awe you get when you see the ocean for the first time.

Some times, the kids in my son’s class tell me things. One child recently told me that he is trying to stay out of trouble because he loses private time with his mom when he gets into trouble. One told me that they couldn’t afford napkins, she is also the one that always grabs me desperate for a hug. These things make my heart break a little, knowing it isn’t up to me to rescue every one.

This is vastly different than what I would have written a few years ago, back then I thought I could rescue them all. Each time I go, it gets better. It is a slow process, right in line with the work I am doing in therapy for this stage.

And, I do know that each one that I hug, praise, smile with or laugh with has the same chance that I did. I still remember those people in my life from my youth that made a point to stand out and listen to me. While they couldn’t save me, they certainly left their mark of kindness on my heart.

Who’s to say that wasn’t rescue enough for me? I am one of the lucky ones, I will keep surviving. Anything less would make it seem that the bad people have won. I can’t live with that.

I wrote this in part (in comments) on Belinda’s post about Kendra’s Law and wanted to elaborate considerably:

My 15 year old cousin is showing severe signs of Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar. My grandmother’s mother seems to have had it, my mother had it, and now this (female) cousin.

This isn’t teen angst – we all know what that is – it’s clearly, most certainly, 100% Borderline Personality and possibly Bi-polar. BPD isn’t often alone.

She has left home, is living in a drughouse with her 18 year old boyfriend, is violent to the point of knocking my 26 year old female cousin out with a glass mug. She skips school, swears at everyone, yelling, screaming death threats and worse, and at times is docile, shy and sweet.

There are rumors flying through her small town that she has been promiscuous and involved in sexual experimentation with more than one person at a time, been filmed, and possibly took money for favors.

Her parents (my uncle is the brother to my mother) have gotten her an appointment with a psychiatrist at a high financial cost and just tonight, she agreed to go. Here (we aren’t in the states) there are no laws to force anyone of any age into treatment. Even despite my cousin having hurt family members and completely outlining to her sisters how she is going to kill them in their sleep – detail by chilling detail. The only way they could force her into help should she change her mind now is to call the children’s aid authorities and place her in a group home — and obviously that is a mess they don’t want to bring on to the family, reason one being that they would lose her trust and possibly lose her forever.

We tiptoed around her at Christmas, with my grandmother agreeing to send food with her to the boyfriend’s drug house, just to avoid an eruption. Had she said no, we are certain this cousin would have gone crazy for not getting her way.
Everyone in the family is terrified of what she will do if her parents force her to give up the boyfriend and come home. She is a time bomb at all times.

If she hadn’t agreed to see this professional, I really don’t know what my uncle and aunt would have done. I do hope she gets the help she really needs, which will include therapy and drugs, probably for the rest of her life.

Her appointment is in January and all of us are holding our breath, waiting for her to blow up at her parents the next time around and refuse to go. If she does go, this could all go sour anyway – she is an expert liar and we have no idea what will come out of her mouth. Her recollection of angry outbursts are minimal, or she claims to remember nothing. She takes no accountability for any of her actions, she owns no blame for her situation and everything is someone else’s fault. She would rather live in the boyfriend’s drug filled, filthy, dangerous apartment, where his female roommate deals crack cocaine, and have the boyfriend’s roommate (another female) pick on her, use her toothbrush to clean the toilet and be abused in the house she is in, then go home and be without boyfriend. We as a family simply don’t understand this self abuse.

When I reached out to her, I was slapped in the face with “I’m smart and strong. If I need help, I’ll tell you. Stop worrying.”

I’m trying hard to understand how both my mother and my cousin ended up this way — both have been raised in loving homes, free of abuse and full of family time and lots of love. I welcome any insight, advice, whatever.

My next therapy session is mid-January and my focus has shifted to my cousin so I haven’t really thought too much about the re-telling of history I have been doing with the therapist. She did mention EDMR as a therapy we might try for me.

As a young child, her siblings would tie strings to her legs and exclaim, “when does the balloon take off?” At the time, she was the youngest child in the herd. She was overweight. She was born premature, only weighing four pounds.

Her real father wasn’t around much, he liked to drink. Eventually they found him dead in his home having drunk himself to death. He had been there for a couple of weeks before he was found.

Her step father had a desire for young girls. He touched her. She was abused by her older siblings, and both of her “parental units”. Once, when no one knew she spit on the step fathers pants. It wasn’t too menacing of an act but it was all she had at the time.

Soon, another child was born and she was no longer the youngest. He was the spawn of her mother and “him”. Him is how she refers to this person. He deserves no other name.

She is a good catholic woman, she tried to do all the right things, get good grades and follow the rules. Following rules means you are safe. You won’t be molested, raped or beaten. Or, so we think. This is only a part of her story.

Flash forward to 64 years old. This woman sits alone, in a chair by the door surrounded by her hoard. She’s created a safe place that only requires a few steps amongst her hoard of things she thinks she needs.

These are her walls. She is still protecting herself from bad things. She doesn’t realize those bad things are gone and she can come out.

That little girl still exists in the big woman’s body, telling the big woman that she needs these things in order to keep them both safe. I am trying to reach in and grab that little girl’s hand, to let her know that everything is ok now and that I can help her.

If only she’ll let me.

by StormyBluez

Since I haven’ t ate a meal in a week, my dad took me to eat the other day. He bought me a beer at a Mexican restaurant and a steak. We usually just sit in comfortable quietness and joke sarcastically a few times. But, I was feeling quite lonesome and numb that afternoon. If he hadn’t come along I probably would have gouged in the bathtub and cryed all day, so I was glad he saved me from an episode.

I attempted to indulge in a conversation & asked ” Ta, you ever want to go back to Mexico someday?” He shook his head told me ” Why would I want to go back there, nothing there but a bunch of thieves and poor people you can’t help.- gypsies!” my dads was born in Mexico – “Family did nothing but steal from your grandfather …” My heart turned BLACK … My Grandfather … I couldn’t hear my father anymore I just kept looking at his eyelashes thinking I could never break his heart and let him know what kind of bastard my Gramps was. Then our steaks came.

Not only the Ancient Poison dart to the heart, but 3 Mexicans were gawking at me from behind my fathers back, I couldn’t eat. I went to the bathroom.

I’ve always done my best thinking- crying- writing- dieing in there, I had a flash of me in shorts, me in a 80s dress as a little girl, to close to that old fuck. No one noticed, I was just a child 5 or 6. A Mouse with a mouse hole.

I remember when my Grandfather was dieing NO ONE came to see him in the convalescent hospital. No one but my dad and me. I was 18, think I went jUST to see the suffering in his eyes, never consulted him. Just watched.
I remember being left alone with him once, (my dad had to sign something) I wanted to pull the life support- rip the IVs- strangle him with a pillow, OD him, or just burn him with a cigarette, anything. This frail old man Knew I came to Watch him die and I Smiled about it. I acknowledge that I am still so angry. I need help.

Its 5:37 AM its weird I can smell his disgusting stench.
My mother knows about my abuser. I begged her not to tell my father.
I’ve never held that time of my life at fault for my dark habits,
so much more is at fault.
Although my recent episodes tell me maybe I need to go back to the start, Ive always avoided it. I’m exhausted of being here in this place of gloom and doom.

My eyes feel a flame, I should at least sleep since I don’t eat.
I tried ReAL HArD today not hate myself so, but it creeps, it seeps deeply at night but now its morning.

By Saviabella

I was spending some time with a friend of mine the other day and the topic turned to a good friend of hers. His name sounded familiar, some details sounded familiar, and then, the realization of who she was talking about hit me with such force, I felt as though I were struggling through a foggy haze. Nausea, dizziness, fear, anxiety. This couldn’t be happening. This is not possible. How can this be for real?

He has a last name. He has a neighborhood. He has a wife, who also has a name. He has children. He has friends who think he is a really great guy and feel sorry for him because he took it so hard when his mother died.

None of these people know that he molested a four-year-old girl 27 years ago.

I hadn’t heard that name for 15 years. I kept my tone as even as possible and forced my face into a mask of neutrality. There were a million questions I wanted to ask, but I only asked one, to make sure it really was him she was talking about. It was.

Part of me had always wondered what happened to him. If he was still in the city. If he had children. If it was only a one-time thing or if he had done it again and again and again. If he ever thought about what he had done and regretted it. If he ever looked at his own children and realized how horrible it would be if anyone did to them what he had done to me. Or even if they were his latest victims.

I’m not really sure how I made it through the rest of the morning or lunch, but I managed, and then got the chance to go to my room and be alone for awhile. But I really didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts, because they were coming at me so fast that I couldn’t make much sense of them. I didn’t know what to think or what to feel. I tried to call Schmutzie, but she wasn’t there. Then, I tried Superstar, who must have been on his phone, because the voice mail picked up right away. As soon as I put down the receiver, I got several sharp pains in my stomach and felt my insides curl up into a ball. I ran for the bathroom and was violently ill.

There was something about emptying my digestive system of its contents that made me feel a bit better. I think I finally understand why so many people who were sexually abused have eating disorders. I understood the binging and overeating aspects of it before – that made sense to me because food fills a physical and emotional void and adding layers of fat to your body can feel very comforting and safe. But I never got the purging thing until now. It feels like you’re expelling this poison from your body, like a purification, like it’s taking the anxiety with it, even for a moment.

Still dizzy and shaking, I lay down on the bed. So many thoughts, so many questions. Do I say something to my friend about it? Would she even believe me? Is it even worth it to dig up this skeleton from his past? Maybe he was just a really screwed-up 16-year-old who made a stupid mistake and then went on to become a decent person? But then again, what kind of person is he if he ever made that kind of “mistake” (I mean, I certainly would never have done that)? Did the fact that he was almost caught mean he never did it again or did the fact that he actually got away with it mean he knew he could do it again? When he told everyone I was lying about it, did he convince himself of it, too, burying it in the recesses of his unconscious mind? Why does he get to have a normal life while I’ve had to struggle with the aftermath of his actions for the past 27 years, having it affect all aspects of my life, my view of myself, my relationships with men, my self-esteem, my body image, my health, my nightmares, my burden, my secret? And the guilt and disgust that I feel every time I think about the possibility that he may have done it to someone else because maybe I should have tried harder to get people to believe me, even though I only was four years old.

And, now, 27 years later, it comes down to the same thing: my word against his. No proof, no evidence. Just everyone wanting to believe that he could never do such a thing, that it was just too horrific and absurd. That the child must be making it up. Because toddlers have such intimate and detailed knowledge about penises and what you do with them, don’t you know?

I had a quick talk with Marlena, a friend who probably knows me better than anyone else, and a long conversation with Superstar that made me feel a bit better. (Verbal purging is definitely higher on my list than physical purging, thank god.)

“Do you want to know the answers to all those questions?” Superstar asked.

(long pause)

“…yes, I do. I do want to know. But I’ll never know the answers, because even if I go and confront him, which I could do, what are the odds that he’d tell me the truth about his life or even admit to me or himself what he did? I want to believe this was a one-time thing. I want to believe he was just a horny 16-year-old who didn’t really understand what he was doing. I want to believe that me telling put enough of a scare into him that he didn’t even think of doing it again. I have to believe that, because every time I think about the other option…” The wave of nausea began to rise again.

“…it’s hard to say. He was young. Maybe he was just curious, as sick and fucked up as that sounds…”

“I had to live next door to him for years after that. He was our paper boy. I remember walking by him on the street when I was seven, looking him straight in the eye, smiling, and saying , ‘Hi, ____.’ He never said ‘hi’ back. He only glared at me. Glared at me with such hatred that I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. Because it was my fault he had almost gotten caught, because I didn’t keep our little secret.”

“Sounds like you scared the hell out of him.”
“I guess I was pretty fearless, even back then.”

Originally published at Savabella on April 25, 2007.

By madam diva

When I was 16 I frantically tore out the pages of my grade 8 diary and burnt them on my back porch. I was terrified that someone had been in my room and had read the gut-wrenching rendition of my rape.

The first time that I ever voiced the words out loud I was well into my twenties.

For many years there was no name to the awful secret I carried with me. Just the heaviness, pulling me down day after day. It was so painful, and I felt so humiliated and ashamed, like I had done something to cause it all.

He was a year older and quite a bit bigger. We had been dating for what seemed like forever to a 13 year old girl, but what was probably closer to 4 or 5 weeks. It was my birthday, he was my first ‘real’ boyfriend, and I was napping in his room after school when it happened.

Many of the details I have tucked away in the back closet in my brain, but the things I do remember where the physical weight of him pressing down on me, the pain, and the overwhelming feeling of fear and helplessness.

Afterwards he told me over and over again that he loved me and that I wanted it, that that’s what good girlfriends do, that now that we’d “done it” it was okay to do it all the time. I dated him for 5 months afterwards because I wanted to be a good girlfriend, and everyday I became more withdrawn and so unlike myself because I believed everything he told me. Every time we “did it” afterwards I felt worse.

I didn’t know about “date rape”, nobody did. I thought that all rape was done by strangers who hijacked you in the park. The after affects were devastating to my development in relationships. I was pretty sure that you had to have sex with someone so they would love you. I never clued in to why guys had no problem fucking me didn’t want to have a real relationship with me – because who would want to establish something real with the girl who’ll give it up on the first date?

I also allowed myself to be pushed around by the guys I was dating. Never to the point of physical abuse, thank God… but I put up with a lot of verbal abuse – and feeling like I was worthless, but sticking it out to be a good girlfriend.

It wasn’t until I started dating B-rad, now my husband, that I realized that I had worth as a person, not just as a sexual plaything. He made me wait. And wait we did. At first I thought he didn’t want me, that I wasn’t good enough, and it was very confusing. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to have sex with me. But he assured me that it would be worth it. We waited until we both knew we were in love. He was the first person who ever ‘made love’ to me. And when you’ve finally been made to feel special and worth something after so many years of feeling like you were insignificant and disposable, it was overwhelming. I almost didn’t know how to handle it. Me being the more ‘experienced’ one, I’d never had experience being in love before. Real love. Not the ‘love’ I was used to getting in exchange for sex.

Being with B-rad saved me from God Knows what kind of future. It was only after dating him that I became comfortable enough to start opening up about my ‘sordid past’. I was so afraid that he’d think I was worthless or that I was dirty in some way. But he was so amazing. You can’t even put into words the relief I found in telling him. Giving my ordeal a name after so many years of nothing helped me to begin to heal.

After the first time telling someone, it got easier and easier. Like the more I spoke, the less power it had over my life. Even as I’m typing this, I can feel a little bit more of it slipping away and being filled up with something more, something better. Hope and Trust.
I doubt that B-rad really knows how he practically saved my life. And someday I’ll tell him. But for now, I’ll just tell you.

Looking back now, I am comforted at how far I’ve come as a woman and how I’ve been able to rebuild the trust in the human race that I thought was utterly destroyed. But I can still remember the release of watching the pages burn. Reading past entries in my own journals has been very rewarding and sometimes a little embarrassing… but growth is a beautiful thing.

By Saviabella

Pain from my past has been bubbling to the surface lately, making my world feel unsteady, making me wonder if I even know myself, making me doubt that I’ll ever feel “normal” (though what is that, really?) I was going through some of my old journals tonight and found this. It says it all.

My inner child

That little blonde curly haired girl
who was me
but who I am not.

She left when I was four.
Where did she go?
Is she in purgatory somewhere,
serving penance for what a twisted sixteen-year-old did?
No, it’s not dirty
I washed it today
it’s just like sucking on a bottle
a baby bottle
Is she safe there
or continually being molested for all eternity?
Locked in a dark box
nowhere to hide
except from me.

But if I could find her
I would protect her
because no one else did
or could.

I could save her by rewriting her story
by writing me into it.
I would walk into that living room
and grab her away from him
and stop it all from ever happening.
I would embrace her
and stroke her hair
and tell her that everything was okay.
And she would still be naive
and a child
instead of gone.
She wouldn’t even understand
the significance of my actions
or why I was there.
But I would.

Saving her is a nice thought
but would I truly want that?
Would I even exist
if she hadn’t been crucified?

Maybe it has to be this way
Two fragments of one soul
one lost
and one found.
Originally published on March 24, 2006 at Saviabella