This is a triggerfest. Strap on your protective gear and your full-face helmet.
I have figured out that being in a close, committed relationship...is triggering me.
Not all the time, but it's a pretty significant trigger. Why? alright...I'm going to lay out the full story here, sports fans...
My child sexual abuse started at four. I remember that the upstairs neighbor invited me into his apartment to see his rats and spiders. I've definitely never acted like a girl-I adore rats and spiders... and had already been in to see them with other kids.
What I remember is him turning the old radio on country music...and somehow his dick was down my throat. I can't even picture the position. Then he's throwing me out of his apartment and I'm running down the orange carpet the projects had.
This I did not recall until I was 19. I blamed myself. Why? I had been told by my mother (in her angry voice) that I must never go in someone's apartment. So what happened was my fault. That's what happened to bad little girls, bad things.
This same year...and in what order the two occurred is a very, very good question...a different neighbor tried to force me into his ground-floor apartment window at gunpoint.
I was terrified to go outside for about a month after that, until I told my Mom "He had a gun," at which point she said: "Well, maybe he was cleaning it."
Being four, I was just too flabbergasted to argue with her.
So...I kind of stopped being the outgoing ham of a child that I was and...became shy. fearful, especially of men. I didn't talk about things.
Skip forward to when I was six. We had just moved into a new house! It was so nice! Well, I think what had happened is my Mom and Dad went somewhere and needed my Grandma to watch me...only Grandma didn't drive.
So my Grandma needed my uncle to drive her, he was 17 at the time.
Grandma liked to watch tv, pretty loud...so I guess she didn't hear what happened.
I went up to pee, and my uncle followed me up. As far as I can remember he threw me down, pulled down my pants and raped me.
It was something he did fast.He told me to shush, but he he had to hold me by the throat to keep me from making any noise.
I kind of remember him wiping the the blood off with a white washrag,because it burned. I remember him walking out of the bathroom.
Fragments. The fragmentary nature of the memories... so frustrating.
I went and laid down in my bed, so the blankets and stillness would keep my body from flying to pieces. Eventually I fell asleep. I remember my mom coming in and laying her hand on my forehead, saying "She doesn't have a fever."
So even though I dissociated this all, I was already having nightmares. They got worse.
And my Mom fond a job. She was an RN, so she went to work at the hospital on the night shift.
My memory is shattered into pieces at this point, but what I never forgot is this: screaming in terror to be left with my Dad.
What I've recalled...and what's really messing me up at the moment is this:
I went in there to sleep with my Dad because I was afraid to sleep alone...because of the nightmares. He had sex with me...in return.
I now recall standing outside his door crying silently, stuck between two terrors: sleep with the company of the nightmares, or sleep with him.
The thing is, I went from hating it, to accepting it, to liking and wanting what he did.
It's horrible, yeah, but the feelings in my body,and the glimpses in my mind are telling me I enjoyed what he did after a while, wanted it, became sexually aroused with him even though it never stopped hurting.
The thing is...is that I have started hating myself again for the past few years.
I think it's because I am in a really deep, committed relationship with my wife.
I love my wife dearly, and trust her quite a lot. That means I fear her terribly.
When I was left alone with my Dad, I needed him to comfort me, you see...I fought going in to sleep with him, I remember that. I remember the shame of not stopping myself
Because I needed him, he required a price of me. I paid.
Eventually I liked and wanted what he did.
That fact still fills me with shame, revulsion...and sexual arousal.
Uck. Uck. Uck.
Now I loathe myself for depending on anybody...and when people are emotionally close to me, my love for them is in constant warfare with my desire to get as far away from them as possible.
All the people in my life.
I wish I could just do without human connections.
I wish I didn't have any emotions. I don't want them.
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