I am so afraid… I am embarking on yet another chapter of my life and I don’t know if I can do this. I am finally coming to terms with how abusive my parents were. Even though they did not molest me, they didn’t protect me and not only did they not protect me they treated me like a freak when they found out. They blamed me, they buried the whole thing under the rug and went on pretending that everything in our family was perfect. I have been surrounded by this attitued of ‘everything is ok’ my whole life. No matter how twisted or painful things were in our home we all pretended to be a happy family. I don’t want to pretend anymore. My life was pain… intense, bitter pain… and I am not ok with that anymore. I will not bow down to this cult of secrets and lies anymore. I will approach my life with honesty, even if that means I cry every day until this mourning period has passed… at least I will be real.
Archive for February, 2011
Long ago, when I lay at your feet and whimpered beneath your touch I dared to dream of freedom. Never then did the thought of vengeance enter my mind. Your breath in my face tasted like death and the touch of your skin was beyond pain. The smell of you engulfed me, sickened, revolted me, and still I lived on. You are the disease that threatened to destroy me, but I am stronger than you … and wiser. I even smiled when you looked at me, showed you my best side. I knew it was pointless to dream, but dream I did. Daily I dreamed of freedom. Now I taste the clean air and feel the sun kiss my skin. The wind caresses my body and plays with my hair. I breathe in the scent of flowers and grass. I pity you now, in your dark cell. Now that I am free, freedom has become your dream. loneliness is your nightmare. The heavens no longer kiss you, the wind no longer loves you. You will never hear the trees whisper your name in adoration and flowers do not wear perfume for you. I am no longer the dog at your feet, but the woman who stands proud. Never again will I cow down beneath your filthy boot. You watch me walk in the sunshine now and remember me as you crouch in your shadowed pit.
There’s so much I don’t understand about the healing process. I feel so lost and confused sometimes. I just want to feel whole again… I just want to be me again, whoever that is… For the first time in a long time I long to be whole, I want it so bad I can taste it. I am tired of lingering in the shadows hoping that everything will be ok. I am tired of settling for being broken. I am tired of being resigned to living this half-life where I never expect my life to be any better than it is. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be free. I deserve to feel strong and beautiful. I am done apologizing my way through life. I am done keeping my head down and staying out of everyone’s way. I am done being beaten down and just accepting that that is my fate. I want to live. I want to thrive. I want to twirl in the sunshine with my arms flung out and my head tilted back with the wind in my hair and a laugh on my lips. I want to dance in my livingroom unashamed. I want to play and have fun. I want to revel in every day miracles. I want to blow the seeds off dandelions and make wishes. I want to spoil myself and not feel guilty. I want to pursue health and not fear. I want to be embraced and enjoyed. I want to be safe again. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I want to allow my husband to love me. I want to give myself permission to be vulnerable and let down my guard. I want to be vibrant and passionate and ALIVE. I want freedom from this pain, this fear that holds me back… I want to more than conquer it I want to stomp it into the ground and take away its power over me. I want to shake off this weight from my shoulders and sing to the sky. I will be happy one day. I will overcome this.
When I was a teenager I read somewhere that, according to an old Indian legend, butterflies could grant you your lost innocence. This thought obsessed me. I began to truly believe this. I longed for the return of what had been stolen from me so cruelly. I already loved butterflies. They are so beautiful and so fragile. Their lives, though short, seemed to have more meaning, more purpose, than mine. It may sound silly, but I began to pray for this encounter, for this miraculous return of my innocence. For years I longed to feel the butterfly’s kiss and have my healing at long last. One day, walking through the woods, I was admiring the filtered rays of sun touching the ground in a plethora of small pools on the ground before me… praying once again for my healing, for this blessed encounter when, in a flurry of wings, a butterfly smacked me right in the face! I felt my heart burst within me. I laughed, flung out my arms, and twirled in the dappling shadows. I cried with joy. No, I didn’t receive my miracle… at least not the one I was expecting. I’m not going to tell you that my innocence was restored or that the hurt in my heart just floated away to be filled with blessed light. I didn’t suddenly let go of all the pain and fear that haunted me… none of the things I wished for came true. So why did I laugh until I cried? Because in that moment I felt God’s promise come into my heart and fill the emptiness I had been trying to desperately to ignore. He told me then that I would be healed, that my heart would soar again and that the innocent joy I had been seeking would find me. In one moment, alone in the woods, faith filled me and my search was over. I am still healing, I am still journeying, and I am still full of hope. I have found my joy and my innocence waiting right where I left them. I still fall into despair, but at the sight of a beautiful butterfly, God reminds me all that He has promised me will come to pass and my faith is renewed.
So when you’re young you celebrate all of your holidays with the family you’re born into, and sometimes that tradition carries into your adult-hood. In my case, I find my self celebrating my holidays more and more with my chosen family. I wasn’t given a choice about who I was born to, how I was raised or how I was treated by my extended blood family. Now, as an adult, I make the choices about being with people who genuinely enjoy me, who love me and who care about my well-being – even if that means they hold me when I cry. I belive my parents love me very much, but negative emotion wasn’t welcome at my child-hood home, so I learned early to just choke back and suppress any unwanted emotion and only display what is positive even if it was a total lie. I don’t live that way any-more. I have the right to feel how I feel with no apologies and no guilt. I embrace all of my emotions and don’t worry about what’s politically correct or socially acceptable. I embrace the truth of the moment and I don’t continually censor myself any-more. Now I approach the holidays with the thought of… “What’s healthy for me?” not “What will make everyone around me like me or approve of me?”
This year I have spent Christmas day with my best friend and my husband, two of the only people who truly feel like family to me, two people who really know me and love all of me, not just the acceptable opinions and attitudes… I will also be ringing in the New Year with them and I can’t think of a more peaceful way to begin my year than to be surrounded by love and acceptance. I am truly grateful to have been given a new definition of love and of family this year.
The mist curls softly,
caresses me lovingly,
a cool kiss of death.
I seek the embrace
of skeletal Thanatos
with his grinning skull
and eyeless sockets.
He carefully gathers me
doll-like in his arms,
singing lullabies
to the dying child within.
I cry in the end,
With horror – with pain.
One tear for my funeral.
One tear for my death.
You know, I never would have thought of myself as bad, damaged, or to blame if it had not been implied by my father. After my family found out about that I was molseted by my uncle they treated me like a freak, like a stranger. I don’t think they knew what to say to me or how to act around me. It’s like we were all lost. I will never forget what my father said, though… He had 3 things to say.
1. Are you sure you’re not making this up. Did you just want to fit in with the other girls, is that why you said this?
2. Why didn’t you tell us? Did you like it so much you just didn’t want it to stop, is that why you never said anything?
3. You are no better than a child molester your-self. If you would have said something when it happened you could have saved your cousins.
I will carry these scars the rest of my life. Before this conversation it never crossed my mind that I was to blame for any of this. Before this conversation being molested was just a bad thing that happened to me. Before this I had the illusion that my family would be there for me and support me if the worst happened. This conversation changed my entire life.
With growing interest I watch his hands
gesturing emphatically as he preaches
to the congregation about God and man.
He preaches against the sins of greed and wine;
he tells us how we are to come as a child
unto the Lord for His blessed forgiveness.
With trembling lips I beg for forgiveness.
I take the punishment from hard, cruel hands.
Inwardly, I curse the loss of my child-
hood while I listen to the message my uncle preaches.
Later, in my room, I stifle a whine
while fighting back tears of pain from the man
I have lovingly called uncle. This cheerful man
Hides secrets which are hard to forgive.
He gets high off touches, drinks them like wine
while inflicting embarrassing pain with his hand
up my thigh. Still touching me he preaches
and I can only sit stiff, a scared little child.
He talks about Jesus, who was Mary’s child
and I feel disgusted, afraid of this man.
His message seems the same as the one Jesus preaches,
but his actions are different. Does he ask forgiveness
for the crimes he committed with his holy hands?
Will there ever be a day for him to whine?
It looks thick, red like blood, his wine
of communion. I do not take any, I am a child.
With utmost kindness, he hands
me a towel to cleanse myself of he touch of this man.
I’m so scared of my uncle, who tells of forgiveness
while hurting the child who hears what he preaches
and who loves the Lord, loves the message he preaches,
Who takes what she can, who does not whine,
who longs for comfort, who begs for forgiveness,
who wants to know “Why Her?” His brother’s child.
Why must she suffer the lust of this man?
Why must she endure the touch of his hands?
It is a cool evening. There is a nice breeze billowing the curtains in through the sliding glass door. I am sitting on my uncle’s lap. My cousins are getting their baths and getting ready for bed. My aunt is in the kitchen washing dishes, I can hear the clink of plates and glasses against the metal sink through the doorway behind me. The armchair we are in is near a fireplace and there is a flickering light… like a lantern… somewhere close by. My uncle’s hands are rough and callused and his face needs a shave. He gestures constantly when he talks, like a magician distracting you at the crucial moment of his act. He is talking about God… preaching more than talking, really. There is gospel music playing on an old-fashioned looking radio near by. With one hand he is gesturing while with the other he molests me. I feel his rough hands on my soft thighs and I feel the pain of his penetration while I disappear into the light of the flickering lantern. I stay there until it is all over. I have no words for this… only pain and despair and embarassment. I feel dirty and wrong and confused. I forget it as soon as it happens and for years to come will remember only the light and a feeling of disgust.
captivatingbitter 