This post has a TRIGGER warning and as a courtesy to my friends still (silently) dealing with their hell; read carefully.
As a note to this week’s blog – I will not speak about the significant depression, hurt, and hatred that I felt in the first year of my understanding. I plan to write about this in the following weeks.
Awakening.
Two years ago, while standing in our master bedroom, I had a rush of memories that swirled through my mind like a tsunami. The memories were vivid and dramatic as they all circled me as a child and a kid that lived down the street from us.
Now for a little additional background on the events that I believe led to the opening of the flood gates for these memories. We have twin 8-year-old boys that LOVE Legos. Let’s be honest – who doesn’t love Legos? The boys enjoyed going into the Lego store, but I had a level of trepidation every time we would go. I could not understand why I felt so uncomfortable with going to look at Legos little less why I didn’t want to build with the boys.
Fast-forward to that cold night in February when I had my rush of memories about my nearly 30-years of repressed memories. This kid that lived down the street from us had the most amazing Legos ships. The ships were almost hardly played with, but there were good reasons why. Playing with these prestigious ships came with a high price – sexual behavior.
“You can play with the ships, but this is what you have to do to have to play with them.” “This is a secret between us; you can’t tell anyone that we are playing this game.” “How much do you REALLY want to play with these ships?”
Earlier in the day, we as a family went to the Lego store where I have no doubt that my memory had finally been triggered by the onslaught of pre-built ships that were out of this world, cool. Up to this point, I had been suffering from crippling cluster-migraine headaches. While I am no Doctor, I can’t help but believe that this was my body telling me that I was about to have a breakthrough with these memories and their eagerness to come back to life.
While I have spoken about the kid that lived down the street, this was only the starting point for me and my exploitation. I was all of 9 or 10 when the abuse started. The kid showed me that for me to be friends with someone that it required an additional “special touch.” Sexually, kids are not mature enough to have any sexual activity and when you add the pressure of if you want this then you must do this (tit-for-tat); kids don’t have the resources, understanding, nor the ability to say no.
Many experiences happened between 10 and 18. There was an older neighbor that created a pervasive environment where the trust took an exceptionally long amount of time, but he had the same end desires. Experiences with people that I trusted during my junior high and high school years where now, I look back at these experiences as abuse as I was still underage. I connected with older people because of my early experiences and the requirement to grow up early. Since I started writing these thoughts, many of the experiences that happened between the elderly neighbor and the kid down the street have come to light. I have no intention of going into detail about the events that happened during each of these encounters as they have no place for public viewing.
Most of you don’t know me, nor do you know the journey that I’ve had over the past thirty years, so it should be of no surprise that childhood sexual abuse robs the child of being a child. I was extremely mature, straight-laced, rule follower (minus third grade). I rarely got into trouble nor did I do anything that challenged authority. I tended to be more thoughtful and mindful of others especially when it was of a determent to myself. I always gravitated to avoiding my feelings and thoughts as this helped develop into a very unhealthy tendency to self-harm. For years (and even into my 30’s) I would self-harm by hitting myself and talk down to myself. I never cut myself, but I toyed with committing suicide more than once.
Until the abuse came to the forefront of my life; I had accepted my life as a black and white universe. The world was binary. Then, two years into this journey, I now see that life is indeed technicolor and full of beautiful tranquility. I am certainly not battle-tested, but I have accepted that I must pick this subject up as my call to arms and fight for those that haven’t found their voice, yet. My purpose in exposing myself to the world is to give other people (parents, friends, colleagues, and my family) a peek into the hidden world that most don’t know.
It is important to be said that I have no desire to see the abusers nor do I have a want to say anything to them. Some of them may have been brought into this dark world because of events that happened to them as children; others might have been sick. While I say that people might be sick, it doesn’t make it okay to break the law nor does it excuse their behavior that helped rob me of the childhood and subsequent life that I will never have.
Let the light guide the way.
