Not many that know me know that I am a survivor. Not from cancer, or some huge car wreck (though I have). But a survivor of abuse. I have been beaten, cursed at, abandoned, molested, raped, and tortured.
I have no interest in harming others or forcing anyone to feel the way I do.
I do however have a lot of anger left over from those days when I was too helpless to do anything for myself. I did not understand the causes of the abuse and tried my best to learn how to survive it.
As a kid, I had a very tough time getting along with others, not because I was foolish, rude or otherwise undeserving, but because my step father would follow me around and ambush me. Taking any item he may carry with him as evidence to prove to me, and anyone that might have bothered to be a "friend" to me at the time, that I am a terrible kid, I have ruined my parents lives, and why can I not learn to grow the fuck up? (yeah,..um... 10 years old was hard.)
One particularly embarrassing event was after I had started being touched in the middle of the night by my mothers friend. I became a bed-wetter and even started trying to never poop. I guess I did this in the hopes that if I was very gross and such, I would maybe get messed with a little less. I never did understand the behaviors at the time. Someone wanting to look at me, touch me. It was better than being beaten with a belt, screamed at, told I am unwanted or burned with cigarettes. Sure, NOW I know it was not a good thing, NOW I know that I should be in the very least a bit embarrassed when I say it was the only thing in my life at the time that actually did not cause me immediate physical pain.... mostly.
The thing I feel bothers me the most about this, is that my mother was told about this when I turned 19./ I had a breakdown lost my shit and did everything I could do to try and understand why it mattered now, why it suddenly was something I could not stop crying about. It changed everything. I think it must be similar to telling your friends that you are into the same gender. All that time you hide it, try and pretend to not have any insight during conversations. I still have a hard time listening to women discuss the savagery and inhumanity of rape, the violation, the pain. I have not once in my life, EVER heard a woman say, "ya know, if it is this bad for us, imagine the social implications of a man admitting that he had been raped." or even anything close to that. I do not blame genders, I blame perspective and our willingness to assume that ours is the only one that can validate on-goings of the world.
Paradigms.... That is the world of this lifetime. We all suffer because we are like fish. We swim about, school to school, reef to reef. We wander and are mostly lost, aside from that sparse few that are gifted. I am sorry, for you, the reader. I am working on my education. I am definitely trying to improve myself. Believe me, I have long since learned that not matter how sad your plight. No one will help you if you do not show that you are tough, and will do whatever you have to. So, I make sure to remind everyone that I am sharing stories of my life, not whining. Although ya know... after going through and reading these. I think I deserve a whine or two. and if you don't? Tough titmouse.
So, all that background was given for the preface of a simple, and horrible experience my step father created for me.
So ya remember back in the start of this story where I said I would get ambushed? Well, when I came back to the apartment complex, I found that my step-dad had taken a pair of my underwear that were, less than clean. (I remind you... serious levels of abuse for several years do some strange things to an 11 year old.) Basically, I hid my underwear because I was terrified that if I told my parents I had an accident, that I would get beaten, or embarrassed or some other unpleasant thing done to me. He took a pair of my underwear, stabbed a broom upright into the ground, and placed my underwear upon the bloom bristles, so they hung, fully extended... gross...embarrassing. humiliation. underneath the underwear was a sign that said "Property of PIG". Not only did six of my only friends come around the corner to see it, but I was beaten half stupid that day... spent the rest of my week in bed, before and after school. And only ate the food given to me at school. I was a child. No one helped me. No one believed that what I told them could really be happening to me. Not with the burn marks on my hands, not with the many times I had been sent to school with makeup on to cover belt lash marks on my face, neck and arms. No one helped me. No one saved me. No one has yet come and made it all better. I had to do this on my own. I had to survive, and learn to love myself. To take the place of all the love I never got at home. To forgive myself for allowing so much blame to fall upon my shoulders. I was a child. I had no idea how to protect myself, how to get help.
So, if at times I seem a bit off, or maybe just don't make sense... Forgive me, and I promise the same. I am learning this being a good person thing by my self. I am doing my best. Thank you. I am done writing for today.
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