An Uncomfortable Existence: One Woman's Journey Through Childhood Sexual Trauma. (CHAPTER 4)

Our memories are incredibly emotive, even if we lose chunks of time due to emotional and/or physical trauma. Self-preservation means that our brains -the incredible machines that they are- will pick and choose what to store, what to hide, and what to keep accessible. As I wrote in the last chapter, I do not have many memories of the year following the night of my molestation. I don't know where I went to school, who my friends were, birthdays, holidays, nothing. In spite of that fact, there are a few things that I did/do retain. The first time I saw him after he violated me, for example. I believe the only reason I remember this is because, well, he became my monster and we tend not to forget those regardless of everything else that fades to black in our memories. I don't remember his face to be honest. He became nothing more to me than a monolith of fear. Towering. Faceless. Dark. Evil. And he was sitting in a recliner next to the large bay window when my mom and I went to her friend's house sometime after that night. I dared not look directly at him, but there was an incredible a sense of panic that no 6-year-should know. I felt extreme need to flee the room as quickly as possible. As Jenny said in Forrest Gump, "Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly far. Far far away from here." I was born long before that movie came out, but looking back, I can absolutely feel those words in that moment.

I started have panic attacks at night very soon after the abuse. I had no idea, obviously, that that's what these were. In fact, for my entire life I didn't know. It wasn't until I delve into research about childhood abuse that I had that HOLY SHIT awareness moment and realized that my poor little self was suffering incredible PTSD. Several times a week, the same events would occur. The room would start to spin very fast (ever had 5 too many tequila shots and get the spins, as if you could float off into space if you didn't grab onto the earth? It was like that). I'd feel dizzy and pukey. Then suddenly, it was like I was above myself watching all this happen. I only had six years of life experience by this point, so I had no understanding of what was happening to me. In sheer panic, I'd call out to my mom, who slept in the room next door. Most of the time, she would answer me. Upon hearing her voice I'd feel more at ease and go back to sleep. One night, however, she didn't answer. I called again. No answer. To this day I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "I'm going to call her one more time and if she doesn't answer, I'm running away!" She didn't answer. So, I got up, stood on my bed, opened the window, and crawled out into the dark of night. AT 6-FUCKING-YEARS-OLD. Looking back, despite how fearful I always felt, I was also incredibly brave. Go little me! Anyway, I went to a neighbors and knocked on the door. It was the dead of night, maybe early am hours, so she was obviously alarmed at seeing this tiny child at her door. I told her that I thought my mom was dead. Another tremendous alarm for her, I'm sure. She called the police, who called the apartment manager. Together they unlocked the apartment and found my mom in bed with a man (the same man I'd found her sleeping with when she was still married to my dad years prior). Apparently they'd gotten high or drunk and had sex all night, ignoring my cries for help. Once again, no one could be bothered with me.

Me, 2nd grade. I know this because it's conveniently pictured on the board; however, I don't remember any of these children or that teacher. Also, I find it sort of symbolic how I'm sort of a little more off to side than anyone else. Dressed by my mother in that ugly collared shirt. Also, I think sadness resides in my eyes.

What I can tell you of my childhood thereafter, as memories begin to materialize, is that I had a definitive relationship with sexuality. The boys making me play pretend sex years before followed by the molestation had taught me my value: I was nothing more than a sexual trinket. If you know anything of the psychology of childhood sexual abuse, you know this is, sadly, par the course in our development. Most victims, males and females, develop strong affinities for anything that makes us feel valued and loved. In the case of sexual abuse victims, sex becomes an imposter to love and worth. It is very important to note, however, that it's not that victims understand sexuality or arousal necessarily, especially those of us that were incredibly young when our assaults occurred. Rather, we want to feel valued and loved and sex becomes a false association. Certainly for some victims sex does become a source of deep yearning. Power even. I don't know that I felt powerful or assertive, but I knew that I had something boys wanted and, in a way, that did give me a sense of power. This would play out in textbook form throughout my teens, as I will write about later.

The next encounter I'd have with sexual misconduct would occur when I was around 8 or 9-years old. I'd been visiting my grandparents every summer since the age of five. During this particular visit, my (step)grandfather and I were watching television in their bedroom. This is actually more innocent than it sounds. It was the only room in the house with a t.v. and that's where everyone who visited hung out to watch. On this occasion, as I was flipping through channels trying to find cartoons, one of the stations was playing a very raunchy sex scene. A woman was having vigorous sex with a man while yelling, "rape me, rape me" over and over. Deeply embarrassed, I quickly changed the channel. My grandfather, however, told me to turn it back and then forced me to sit there and watch this porn scene with him. I write "forced" because as soon as he told me to change the channel back to the porn, and I did so, I got up to leave. He told me to sit down. Naturally, I did. Again, I always did as I was told for fear of physical retaliation -a lesson long ago instilled by my mother. Although this was the first time he would put me in an inappropriate situation, it would not be the last.

Because of the emotional, physical, and sexual abuses I'd endured at such a young age, I was an incredibly shy and lonely child. I was absolutely desperate for someone to see ME. Most didn't. I was easily disregarded. It didn't help that I moved to a new school every year until 5th grade. To this day, I have no idea why I went to so many schools, but it meant that I never developed long lasting friendships, never had female connections, no sleepovers, no big birthday parties. I was the kid everyone forgot because I was only ever a temporary fixture.

During 6th grade, I finally I started getting attention. Although short, and only 12-years-old, I developed quickly and had the body of a female a bit more mature than me. Therefore, the attention I was getting was all the wrong kind. But it was attention, that thing I coveted so very much. Naturally, the boys noticed. So did that disgusting grandfather. During what would be one of my last summer visits with them, my grandfather tried to touch my breast while we were sitting in the car. I slapped his hand and looked him dead in the eyes and yelled,"DON'T!" Naturally, he fumbled over his words saying he wasn't trying to do anything; that he was simply trying to pull a piece of hair off my shirt. Yah. Absolute bullshit is right. Unfortunately, I never told anyone in my family about that or about the porn a few years prior until recently.

Here's the thing about victim silence. The words are fucking hard to get out. It's not like we'd feel comfortable enough during family dinner to say, "Oh, hey. I forgot to tell you that a man had oral sex with me when I was 6 and grandpa Bill touched my boob and made me watch porn." It doesn't work like that. There's also tremendous shame and embarrassment tethered to sexual abuse victims. On top of all that, there's the added turmoil of knowing that you might be disregarded or not believed. It's your word, a mere child, against that of an adult. Back then (the 80's) it was a different atmosphere and adults didn't seem to put much stock in anything children said. So we kept uncomfortable secrets and exceptional pain locked deep within. In doing so, we didn't realize that the trauma was being fed over and over again by repeat abuses and silence. Like an out-of-control vine taking over a dilapidated home, these pains would take over and suffocate us completely. Only, it was from the inside out.

I was 14 the first time I had sex. It was with one of the boys from my childhood. Oddly, not the one who used to make me pretend to have sex with him at 5 and 6-years old, but the older brother. My mom and I were visiting them as we did every 6 months or so (they'd moved to a different town by this point). I didn't want to have sex with him. It was not planned. In fact, I was sleeping on the floor in a bedroom with my mom when he quietly crawled in and tapped my foot to wake up. He kept whispering for me to get up and come with him. I repeatedly said no. He was relentless and refused to leave until I came out with him. Out of fear of my mom waking up and yelling at us, I went with him. Once we were in his room, he grabbed and started kissing me. I wasn't sure how I was feeling about this. He wasn't someone I was interested in, but I felt ill-equipped to handle the situation. Perhaps, too, there's shred of honesty in the fact that I was 14, he was 17, and he actually wanted me! Again, my desperation to feel valued and loved was sending off alarms to my emotional self. Eventually, he led me outside to the garage where he told me or at least strongly implied that we were going to have sex. I said no, that I didn't want to and that I was scared. I asked if we could just kiss. He said no and persisted that we have sex. Reluctantly, I gave in. I don't know if I feared him hurting me or raping me anyway if I continued to say no, so I figured giving in was my best option. He bent me over on my knees, on a dirty garage floor, and we had terrible sex. I distinctly remember saying, over and over, "please don't get me pregnant, please!" I was so relieved when he was done. As I put my clothes back on, numbness took over. Next to the oil stains on the concrete, my virginity was left there in a puddle of shame. Instantaneously, I was thrust right back to sexual trinket mode, feeling as if that was my only value in this life and so I accepted what had been done to me. I now look back in sadness and anger at the entire situation and the fact that I didn't refuse, or wake up my mom, or do anything more effective to prevent it from happening. But I also have understanding of my mindset at the time. The fear of boys and men. My "value" long established. The low self-esteem. It was the perfect storm to create the situation.

Obviously, I'm skipping over many parts of my story that were playing the background. Being accused of things by mother, being beaten. One night, during 8th grade, I was huddled on the floor of my bedroom while she hurled kicks at me because she thought I was lying about not having sex. I wasn't. At this point, the above situation had not yet happened. I had a lot of different boyfriends, yes, but it was nothing more than kissing in the hallways and sappy love notes being sent back and forth. You know, those two-week infatuations that snuff out as soon as someone else shows interest. But, my mom didn't believe me. She assumed I was having sex and drug me out of bed one morning to make me pee in a cup. I assume to check for pregnancy? When that came back negative, she took me to a doctor to be drug and pregnancy tested again. Again, I was still a virgin, never drank or smoked a damn thing, and by all accounts, was a good kid despite the abuses, the neglect, the beatings, the loneliness. Somehow, I was hanging by a thread of miraculous virtue. So why all the attacking from my mom? I had my first broken heart and was crying a lot and not really giving two shits about making effort to look good. Not looking good was a SIN in my mother's eyes because appearances were everything. I'd been dating my boyfriend for about a year (7th to 8th grade) when he dumped me for someone else. I was a devastated teen girl with my first taste of puppy love heartache. To my mom, though, this was clearly a sign that I was either a slut or a druggie or both. Being judged and treated as promiscuous, combined with all that internal sexual trauma meant one thing: promiscuity was inevitable and just around the corner.

More to come.