by Band Back Together | Sep 5, 2013 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Anger, Child Sexual Abuse, Fear, Marriage and Partnership, Marriage Problems, Mental Health, Self-Esteem, Stress |
The scars of childhood sexual abuse can last a lifetime.
This is his story:
With my wedding in few weeks time, I feel more vulnerable regarding my past.
I have been raped by three teachers, one neighbour’s servant for over three years. I have boyish looks which may have made me attractive to them.
My dad is an overpowering, angry man’s man and my mom is thick-headed with abusive tongue. None of my other siblings are anything attributed to normal.
Today, I keep a thick French-cut beard to hide my face. My body is shaped like a pear, which means my torso is fatty near my back and legs. This makes my confidence shatter while I’m walking.
However, I have a positive mind and never lost hope. Rather, I created a habit of forgetting everything bad, all behaviours and all piercing eyes.
Thanks to my habit of forgetting, I face many problems in this overly-competitive world. So often I feel if I’d have given a normal childhood, I’d have been much more of a achiever. I’ve finished university education and have a fantastic job. Unfortunately, the job is contractual which continues alarming and ruining the enjoyment of having a good paying job.
As anyone can understand, my threshold for patience is very low; therefore I have lowered my choices in the past. I feel angry, sad and pathetic for very small reasons; I’m known by my friends and family for having one black day in every other week.
All this explained, my wedding is up and I feel too stressed and feel like breaking down. I want to go forward but I feel this is going to be too much of a burden; like I should quit. Getting married and having children seems to be hell of a job – maybe I’m not ready.
I just wanted to share my story and could use some of your comments, The Band.
by Band Back Together | Sep 4, 2013 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Child Grooming, Child Sexual Abuse, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self Injury |
The scars of child sexual abuse last a lifetime.
This is her brave story:
Hi, The Band. I’m not too sure where to start, so I’ll start here.
My uncle’s friend was a police officer. He had a daughter and we played together often; we were like a family all hanging out together.
One night, when I was I was 9 years old, I slept over at his home…everything changed..
Suddenly, I was in his bedroom, the room was dark, and he was on top of me. I started to feel him going in and out of me (sorry I’m not yet able to be specific).
It hurt so much.
I couldn’t do anything.
I couldn’t scream.
Wasn’t I supposed to do what he told me to?
I did. I turned when he told me to, I did all he told me to, and I did nothing to stop it. I just squeezed the sheets tight and hoped for it to be over. But it kept happening, like there was no end.
Finally it was over, or so I thought. Because even now that I’m 22, I still relive it over and over again.
I have PTSD with severe anxiety, seems like there’s no end to this nightmare.
Last year made it worse – my friend sexually assaulted me, I choose not to call it “rape” as it makes it seem so much worse.
I don’t know what to do or think; sometimes I don’t know how to live – I cut my wrist sometimes. Each time I promise that I won’t do it again, but it’s almost addictive especially at my low points. I don’t trust men, especially police officers – it’s ironic how those who are supposed protect us are the ones who hurt us.
I just need someone who can understand what I’m going through, someone who’ve been there, someone I can talk to, and won’t think that I’m too messed up.
I need help.
by Band Back Together | Jul 30, 2013 | Abuse, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Coping With Depression, Depression, Emotional Abuse, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Guilt, Major Depressive Disorder, Psychological Manipulation, Self Injury, Suicide |
One of the hardest things a friend can do is to try and help a self-destructive friend.
This is her story:
I know that none of this is your fault.
I know that it wasn’t your fault for being depressed. I know that it wasn’t your fault that your parents emotionally and verbally abused you, or for having a severe anxiety disorder. I know that you were in blinding amounts of pain, and you were just trying to survive in any which way you could.
I know that you honestly never meant to hurt me.
And yet still, I still can’t help but be angry with you.
For a good seven months of my life, I was stricken with terror every single day. I spent countless hours talking you down from suicide; comforting you after you’d have a panic attack, and listening to you describe in detail how you’d hurt yourself that day.
I tried my best to be there for you, even as I was simultaneously dealing with my own self-harm, anxiety, and a crippling depressive episode – so crippling, in fact, that eventually, I had to be hospitalized.
I couldn’t walk away even if I’d wanted. Many times, you’d said I was the most important person in your life – if I left, you’d kill yourself. However, you also told me even if I stayed, you would eventually kill yourself.
I was trapped.
I pleaded with you to get help. Each time, you refused.
Once, I had to call the police to keep you from swallowing your prescription medications. Fortunately, they got there in time; unfortunately, it did nothing to deter you from attempting again. Over the course of six months, you went on to attempt suicide nearly two dozen times.
I was there for it all.
I can still remember the day my younger sister broke up with you. Like me, she’d been backed into a corner and didn’t know what to do. You called her names, accused her of lying to you, and threatened suicide. I spent two hours behind a computer screen trying to talk you down while my sister sobbed helplessly in the background. My mom called your parents. They did nothing to help the situation.
All in all, it was useless.
Later that week, I broke down. I climbed into the shower, bit down on a washcloth, and screamed at the top of my lungs. I screamed until my throat was hoarse and cried harder than I’ve ever cried.
Finally, months later, I attempted to walk away. You responded with aggression and hatred, and later made it known to me in a very marked way that you’d tried to kill yourself that day.
Even then, I recognized this obvious act of emotional manipulation, but that still didn’t change that you’d attempted to end your life… because of me.
When I did eventually manage to extract myself from your grasp, it wasn’t pretty. All my anger and hurt poured out all at once. I said things I shouldn’t have, no matter how sincere; I hurt you needlessly.
The guilt will never fade.
It’s been over two months since that day, and I’m still struggling with this insurmountable level of anger, hurt, and guilt I feel.
I remember the day you told me, to paraphrase, I was the worst thing that had ever happened to you. Ever since, I’ve questioned everything about myself. I’ve never believed I was a good person, but I’ve tried my hardest to do the right thing. It makes me wonder if all my efforts have been in vain, because when it came to you, I tipped the scales.
I blame myself for a lot of things: your descent into self-harm, several of your suicide attempts, and various slights I made along the way.
As I’ve been almost completely socially-isolated for the past five months as part of the aftermath my hospitalization, there isn’t much I can think about besides self-hatred. The same chorus of thoughts play throughout my head: an endless loop of guilt and self-loathing.
I keep trying to remind myself that you were just a sixteen-year-old boy in pain. You felt alone. To some degree, you weren’t entirely responsible for your actions. That does little to quell my anger. I’m not even certain that I have a right to be angry at you. After all, weren’t you the true victim here?
I guess I’m just not sure who I hate more these days: You, or myself.
I’m trying to forgive you for it all.
I’m desperately trying to forgive myself.
I just don’t know if I can.
by Band Back Together | Jul 27, 2013 | Child Abuse, Child Grooming, Child Sexual Abuse, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Loneliness, Self Injury, Statutory Rape, Teen Bullying, Teen Rape, Teen Self Injury |
The scars from childhood sexual abuse have far-reaching consequences.
This is her brave, brave story:
I’m a senior in high school – you’d think I’d be able to control my thoughts and emotions by now.
Nope. Totally incorrect.
I hate people, well, most of them anyway. For being judgmental. For being jerks and assholes when they have no idea what I’ve gone through. No idea what I’m going through.
I feel so alone because there’s no one to help me cope with my fucked-up brain. Now don’t get me wrong: on the outside I appear to be a normal, suburban, teenaged girl. On the inside…on the inside I’m dying; just waiting for death to overtake me.
This is my story.
I have two brothers who live with me at my Mom’s house. My brothers shared a room with bunk-beds until I was twelve. When I was six, we had a babysitter named Bradley, who happened to be some sort of cousin. When he’d come to babysit, we’d all hang out on the bunk beds – my older and younger brother on the bottom bunk while Bradley and I were on the top bunk.
One time, I was laying on top of him and he reached his hands into my pants asking me “can you feel that?” over and over. He’d do this again and again to me, only stopping when it was his turn on the video game my brothers were playing. Naturally he wouldn’t have a free hand to stick down my pants.
I thought what he was doing was sex, so I for one, wasn’t going to tell anyone – I was afraid I’d get in trouble. I’ve not seen him since. I kept this secret until seventh grade, when I told my best friend and cousin, Catherine, as well as my best friend at school, Kameron.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
We saw the counselor who called my mother. My mother initially thought I was lying, but finally believe me. She took me to my Dad’s, insisting that I tell him about the sexual abuse. I called Catherine over for support.
I’d already sobbed to the counselor and my mom, so by that point I was numb. My dad continued to question me; scrutinizing every detail. At one point he asked:
“Why aren’t you crying? If this actually happened to you why aren’t you crying? Why is your cousin the only one crying?”
That ended that.
Three years later was my sophomore year in high school, and everything was going really well. I had my first actual boyfriend, an amazing guy Daniel who he was all for God. On the outside, I looked like I was okay.
However, I’d begun cutting; self-injuring – constantly slicing my wrist open for relief of external pain. I was repulsed by anyone touching me – I couldn’t handle it. Not even my brothers. I even asked Daniel if we could stop kissing and he was okay with it; figuring we’d been moving too fast. Eventually, asked me if anything ever had happened to me.
I told him no.
I told my mom that I couldn’t kiss Daniel, and she knew that I needed to talk to someone. My Aunt Nina, Catherine’s mom, died the beginning of my sophomore year and I felt too guilty to bring my problems on her.
Three months into therapy, I finally understood that there was no possible way that I could’ve wanted what happened to me as a child. Despite the cliche from Good Will Hunting: “it’s not your fault,” but those words bring closure.
We were having a big family sleepover at my house with all the teenage cousins piled together on the couch. After I fell asleep that night, I felt something on my leg. I was so confused. I realized, it was my cousin Cole’s hand trying to pry open my legs. Baffled, I tried to close them; turned over and pretended I was asleep. That didn’t happen so I gave up.
My therapist asked me why I didn’t “wake up” and confront him. I was frozen, I explained, I was fifteen and my worst nightmare was reoccurring. He did finger me and when I “woke up,” he pretended he hadn’t done a thing. In the shower, I bawled my eyes out. When people say they never feel clean after rape or sexual assault, it’s true.
My therapist encouraged me to tell my mom, however, I knew our family would never be the same again – it would be my fault. Again.
For some reason or another I stopped going to therapy. I spent my junior year empty on the inside. Daniel and I had broken up before the Cole incident so I had no one but my friend Chance to talk to. The bullying began my junior year.
First and foremost, I’m not fat. I am five foot eight and 150 pounds, give or take a pound. I do have an unusual bra size, 32 FF. I’m “mooed” at for having “utters.” Eventually, jokes went around that I was on the cover page of a porn site. I’d never willingly done anything more than kiss my boyfriend on the lips and now people were making sex jokes about me for my fucking bra size? Absurd.
Then I met Chase. Weird dude, but mysterious. On our first date he forcefully unbuttoned my jeans and stuck his hands in my pants without my permission. I got up out of the movie theater, caused a scene, then left. Haven’t talked to that fuckface since.
I feel like I’m losing my mind.
I’ve become an insomniac, I’m always crying. I’ve prayed constantly, not receiving any answers. How can I be sure of myself? How can I be confident enough to trust not just others but myself? How can I tell myself over and over that I won’t let something like that happen to me again when it’s happened over and over?
I don’t know what to do.
He took my innocence. I dreamed that God would be kind. I dreamed my life would be so very different from this hell I’m living. Life has killed the dream I dreamed.
—————–
How have those of you who’ve been through childhood sexual abuse come to terms with the abuse? Can you give this brave girl some advice?
by Band Back Together | Jul 22, 2013 | Abandonment, Abuse, Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Fear, Incest, Parentification, Poverty, Economic Struggles and Hardship, Violence |
A childhood steeped in hatred and abuse can threaten to break us.
And yet, we go on:
I was six months old when I was beaten the first time.
This beating required an Emergency Room visit. When you are beaten from such a young age, you learn that your body has no boundaries, you are not entitled to safety.
I was molested before six years old, my mother witnessed this at bath times…and did nothing. I was raped from six to eight years of age. Mom reminds me, regularly, that she was a victim, too. Therefore, I do not have permission to blame her for these things.
Back then, violence was a multiple days a week occurrence. Dad was quiet most of the time. And then, without rhyme or reason that I could detect (and I tried to identify the cause, to stop it), BLAM! Heaven forbid we did a normal kid thing that was bad.
Nighttime was parent fighting time. From my bed, I could hear the screaming, Mom crying. I could hear bodies tumbling and grunting, from him reaching for her and hitting her. He would rape her. He would break furniture on her.
By the time I was six until I was eight, he stayed in the guest room on a frequent basis. EVERY night he was in that room, I was too. I got to hear graphic details of Vietnam, before the touching and raping.
When Dad moved into his own home, this decreased to weekends.
But then Mom started. She was depressed and suicidal. She couldn’t handle our noise, our needs, or even us asking for permission to do things. She would strike out, smack us with books, knock our knees with her foot, pushing us away in frustration.
When our bodies were dirty, she would bathe us. She washed my vagina so hard, her nails or the edge of the washcloth would leave slices in my labia. She would pinch between my toes, hard enough to hurt. We had to “get the dirt out.”
Dad ran off when I was eight. Counselors had identified that I was suicidal; what he had done to me. He was confronted and fled to avoid prosecution.
By the time I was nine, Mom had started studying the Holocaust. We were made to watch documentaries with gruesome footage of violence. We had to see pictures of the piles of dead bodies.
We went to museums to meet Holocaust survivors, to hear their stories. The same graphic documentary pictures were always hanging on of the walls.
There were never other children to find, to play. We had to stay by Mom’s side, to witness these things.
We were not permitted anger, or to be sad. No tears, no screaming. We could smile. Or, we could be quiet.
When encouraged, we could explore mud puddles or play on the beach and laugh and giggle with Mom. There were the good times.
We’d always been very poor – with Dad around we were poor, but always had food. After he left, we’d have times of hunger. No food, or too little. I would dish out more to my sister first. Then Mom. Sometimes, I would sacrifice my food so that they could get more. I had become the family cook by the time I was nine. I cleaned. I helped with my sister’s homework. I helped with Mom’s college homework. I was an A-student on my own studies.
Mom used a wooden spoon to spank us. She hit so hard, she would crack handles. We had bruises and welts in the perfect shape of a spoon head on our bottoms and thighs. Sitting in a wooden chair at school was uncomfortable.
When she smacked our heads with her open hand, she would hit our ears. The ringing would startle me.
Her verbal abuse was astounding, sharp and biting. She told me that I was so annoying that it drove her to drink. (Subtext: Daddy was an alcoholic because of you, and I drink because of you too.)
All of these things struggled to silence me, shame me, and remove my human dignity. All of these things demonstrated that I had no rights.
And yet, I persist.
by Band Back Together | Dec 3, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Major Depressive Disorder |
wall. hit it. check that off my list for today.
trying to get them to school on time–wrong
trying to get them to eat–wrong
trying to get them dressed–wrong
trying to get them clean–wrong
zipping the jacket–wrong
having them not show up to school late–wrong
waking them up–wrong
waking up–wrong
words–wrong
My silence in my home is the only acceptable form of me to the three who need me.
The hardest thing about being a depressed mother? The odor. No matter how much relentless, caffeine-induced energy, forced enthusiasm, skilled application to educational crafts, or books read on development. No matter what care taken with my fragile mental health…taking my pills like a good girl every night so I wake up in the morning to do it all again. No matter how clean the kitchen sink, how nutritious the meal, customized the birthday presents, thoughtful the note in the lunch box. No matter how carefully I avoid repeating patterns of abuse and violence –no matter. I stink. It is as if my depression leaves a permanent, distasteful and toxic odor coming from my very being. No matter how much I dress it up, clean it off, put make-up on it, expose it to fresh air and aromatic therapies. I toss chemicals into it, paint it pretty colors, or force it into room-mommy scenarios.
It still stinks.
The fumes of depression seep out of every pore with the stench of decaying life and flammable, noxious fluids that lead to forensic evidence in my face–that my own mother chose my father over me and my father chose me over my mother. My children–they are bomb-sniffing dogs.They smell the little girl I was–discarded and thrown into the trash with the giant Gallo wine jugs. They smell the lack of basic import I have ever had on the mother, father, brother, and sister family of origin I fell into. They smell the dangerous mix of rage and intelligence that may combust at any moment. They smell despair and destruction. My kids smell my depression.
I stay vertical as to not hurt them more than I already have by exposing them to a life long…long life…with a chronically depressed mother. It goes like that…it is like that. New strategies on disinfectant, deodorant, dialogues on anti-depressants. Days like this are the scratch and sniff of it. These days scrape hard on my soul. And I reek of it.
They are out there…my kids are out there right now waiting for me to pick them up after school, as I do every afternoon in a dutiful attempt to assure them that my love is greater than the force of gravity on my heart. I am already dreading the predictable, palpable disappointment they will have when they get in the minivan and the smell of my mood reminds them I am not EVER going to be the bounce-house of distraction-filled fun that is their father.
They will never know he broke me too. Asshole. And I stayed for them, sleeping with one eye open and one foot out the door ever since. Seven years of a thirteen year marriage straddling suspicion and motherhood.
Against every fiber of my being to drive it off a cliff and enjoy the fall–I am getting in the fucking minivan, I drive on the right side…stop at all the red lights, avoid oncoming traffic whenever I can.
Joy gone. Independence gone. Creativity gone. Respect gone. The possibility of being touched by a man and feeling safe–he and my dad put the nails in that coffin, too. Yuck.
it is this always
i am barely, rarely, fairly ”good enough,” silent, and vertical.
and i smell like a martyr.
