April is child abuse awareness month and we at The Band intend to highlight the stories of those who’ve suffered from this form of abuse. There damage child abuse leaves in its wake can last a lifetime:
This is her story:
Her first memory became her second memory once they started coming back, a piece at a time.
The old first memory, in her words:
“My stepfather has brought me into the back part of the house that we used as a living room. I am maybe four years old, maybe younger. I am very happy, as the Monster is being nice to me. I have a dress on, black patent-leather shoes with buckles and white ankle socks with ruffles. The couch is plaid – brown, yellow, green. His hand is on my knee and he is rubbing my leg, smiling at me. I don’t remember him taking off my panties, but they are gone. I am not concerned, I am just happy he is not hitting me, he is not yelling at me, he is smiling at me and I feel safe for the first time in a long time. His hand is under my dress and he is rubbing me and I have this strange feeling in my belly.
Out of nowhere, the most tremendous blinding pain I have ever felt. I try to scream, I try to move. He has his hand over my mouth and is holding down. The pain is unbearable. He is smiling. I can’t breathe. The pain is excruciating. Am I dying? Is he finally killing me? What is he doing? Why is he hurting me like this? As suddenly as it started, it is over. He gets up and leaves the room and I curl up in a ball sobbing. He returns with a washrag and rolls me over on my back spreading my legs again. The rag is moist and cold, he wipes me. I lay there terrified the pain will start again. When I see the rag, it is covered in blood and still he is smiling.”
She ran away then, into the fields of purple flowers. She ran and ran, finally falling down into the tall grass. The sun went down, it got dark, and though she was afraid of the dark, she was more afraid of him. Later she hears voices calling her name. Her mother, her aunt, her brother. Her mother crying for her, she stands up and hollers “Mama!” Her mother runs to her, crying, saying “My baby is OK! My baby is OK!”
Back at the house, her mother asks her why she ran away. She tells her.
“She slapped me so hard across the face that I was knocked several feet backwards and fell to the floor. She screamed at me, that I was a liar and sent me to my room. I sobbed, hurting from the pain in my bottom and the pain in my heart, knowing that I was going to die. He was going to kill me. There was no one to stop him. So I did what all good Christian girls did: I prayed to God that I would die in my sleep before morning.
That was the longest night of my life. Somewhere in the night I fell asleep. When I woke up, the Monster was smiling down at me once more. My heart was racing and I knew I was about to die and he just kept smiling. He puts one hand on either side of my head holding me down by my long brown hair, and smiling the whole time, he said, ‘She didn’t believe you, she never will and if you ever try to tell again I will kill you.’ Then, like nothing ever happened, he walks to the door, opens it, and calmly says, ‘Breakfast is ready when you are.’”
She later remembered a time in the car, when she was much smaller. Three, maybe, almost four. Her mother was asleep in the back. She was on his lap, “driving”, a policeman is yelling at her Daddy. “Where are your shoes? Why are your pants unzipped? What is going on here?” She had a little dress on. He hadn’t hurt her yet.
How did her mother sleep through the policeman, through the yelling? Or was she asleep at all?
Her words:
“After the first night when I was raped by my stepfather and ran away, two things happened. Because I had run away, a lock was placed on the outside of my door. Every night when I went to bed I was locked into my room. From then on, when mother passed out at night from her ‘nerve pills’ and alcohol, Monster was guaranteed easy access to me.”
The abuse came from her mother as well. She wasn’t “Vicki” anymore, she was “bitch, slut, liar, whore.” Any infraction of any kind was met with blunt force, blows to the head, back, ribs, whatever was closest. Her fingers were held over an open flame until the skin bubbled and blistered.
In a few years, it was not just Vicki who was being sexually tortured, it was her two brothers. And then the brother and sister that her mother had with the Monster.
When did it end?
You want to know how long it went on?
Vicki was fourteen years old when her stepfather finally went to prison for his crimes. A caring neighbor finally heard her, believed her, and confronted her mother. Her mother had the option to help provide evidence against him or be charged as an accomplice.
Perhaps worst of all, her mother did not leave the Monster. When the Monster got out of prison? He left HER.
Vicki is my sister.
Vicki is my hero.
Vicki has spent most of her life overcoming the most horrific kind of abuse imaginable and despite it, despite every bit of it – the foster care, the beatings, the years of alcohol and drug abuse to blur and erase the memories – she has not only survived, she has overcome. She has raised a son who is now in college. She was married to the love of her life until she lost him to a sudden heart attack. She is the strongest, most self sufficient woman I have ever had the privilege to meet in my life.
I thank God for many things, but most often I thank Him for two things:
That Vicki is my sister. And that I? Was relinquished by her mother at birth to adoption.
My sister thanks God that I was given up for adoption. Which makes me weep.
91% of victims of rape and sexual assault are female, and nine percent are male.
Sexual assault can utterly change everything about who you are.
This is her story:
I am completely broken.
Bold statement, I know, but hear my story and you will understand. (to be clear) I don’t need pity, nor do I want to be saved. Understanding, though, never hurts.
I’ve always taken a liking to academia; I was a natural scholar who skipped the first grade. I had art published in the local newspaper when I was, say, five years old. It was a serviceman in rainbow camo gear holding the American flag, if anyone was curious.
I’d say that was my peak.
I was in third grade when the bullying started – the other kids even dedicated a song to me on the playground! How lucky, right? I was pudgy, I suppose; the fattest kid in the class, fat enough to be the ‘chosen one.’ I cried every single time I went shopping with my mom and sister. I begged that I’d cease to exist, ‘so no one has to worry about me’ –direct quote. This continued for years – seven to be exact.
At least you’re noticed in elementary and middle school. Maybe I wasn’t noticed for a good reason, but I was noticed. I played sports throughout junior high, always had a perfect GPA, I had plenty of friends, and a decent social life. But I was The Friend, not The Girlfriend. I remember during a Halloween dance, I literally begged a boy to tell me why he didn’t like me. He simply walked away and asked my best friend to be his girlfriend. I wasn’t mad; I accepted it.
High school was when the shit hit the fan.
My first two years of high school, I was really involved in class office, never running for a position because I knew the prettier and thinner girls would win. It’s high school, ya know?
I accepted squeezing in wherever I was allowed to. I wasn’t bullied much, but I was ignored. Sometimes, I preferred it. Don’t get me wrong, I had great friends but I was always chasing the fun, chasing the social scene.
Sophomore year I had my first taste of alcohol and weed. I loved it. It felt great to have a secret, something behind the backs of my straight-laced, God-fearing friends. Soon, though, my friends didn’t like me. I remember sitting alone at a table in the library, my old friends at the table next to me, ignoring me. I begged them to tell me why they didn’t like me anymore; they shrugged and walked off.
I transferred schools to a dual enrollment program.
Oh, did I mention I had ballooned up to 250 pounds? Yep. My weight was largely ignored, not discussed, and accepted. But I got sick of it, so I lost the weight – worked out constantly and methodically, eating like a champion.
By the time I got to my new school, I was thirty pounds lighter and thought I was hot shit. I smoked a lot of weed, drove around in my new car with my hip friends, and smoked cigarettes. I even got my first kiss—so what if it was my best friend’s boyfriend? I got it, and I liked it.
I craved male attention and I entered into this ‘I deserve it’ mode. I thought I owed myself a treat, and boy did I get it.
December 8, 2007. Fall semester, senior year, I was golden. There was a new guy every day that wanted me; I dangled myself in front of them like a piece of meat, but I never gave an inch. Not because I didn’t want to, but I was too nervous. With about three kisses under my belt, I was CLUELESS.
But yes, back to that date. That’s when it all went to shit.
I went to the beach with a few people where we drank a lot of whiskey or rum. I remember the initial vomit hump—you know when you gotta puke once to get the ball rolling? I remember looking up to see his face, and I know, looking back, what he was doing. I hear the brain blocks on memories you can’t handle, and thank goodness for that.
I lost my cell phone and my virginity that night. I didn’t even realize it until I went back the next day, saw the condom wrapper, and pieced it together. I quickly covered it with sand so my mom wouldn’t be upset.
Oh, fun fact: in my attempt to go home, I went to a ‘friend’s’ house to ask for help—in the weeks following, I asked him about it, and he said I wanted it just as badly as he did – that I came on to him.
I figured it wasn’t worth it – that I, for some reason, didn’t deserve normalcy. So I went with it, like I went with everything. I made it out to be funny, I buried it deep and far away. I joked about myself – called myself every name in the book. I don’t even know how many people I’ve slept with since that time.
Since then, I’ve had someone attempt to rape me. Since then, I’ve been molested. Since then, I’ve done shameful things I don’t even want to type, but I will. I’ve done MDMA, cocaine, crack, heroin, acid, prescription drugs, and more cocaine. I’ve slept with people – multiple at one time. I’ve stolen money, stolen from stores, stolen from people I love. Since then, I have hated myself and everything, masking it with humor and cool clothes.
Then I met Zach.
Junior year of college, my first year in the dorms, I was nineteen years old. I always had a blast in college – my philosophy was “why think about bad stuff when you can think about the good?”
Zach was special – still is in my book. He had a long-term girlfriend and he hooked up with my roommate, while seeing me in between. I felt special for no reason. Through “healing” from my rape, I learned that I could have anyone I wanted. I knew how to talk and look and walk to get what I wanted. All I needed was a kiss: one kiss in the elevator of my dormitory sealed the deal. I was in love. He made me feel pure and real; like I deserved more.
This was the first time I realized how important and delicate sex was. I learned what making love was. I no longer made fun of romantic movies or songs; I felt the scenes and I listened to the lyrics and understood. We made love and cried, and it wasn’t corny or cheesy, it was real. And it was amazing. It was the first time I ever said ‘I love you’ to someone. When you experience that for the first time, it’s amazing. You feel important, you know someone is important to you.
I didn’t care about anything but playing “house” with him in my dorm. His dad hated me, my mom hated him, but it didn’t matter; we were in love and it was amazing. I’ll always miss that blissful month. I felt real for the first time in my life.
We moved in together when school let out in the spring. It got bad – screaming, crying, and covering it up with sex. I’ll leave out these details, but it was a textbook abusive relationship, on both our ends. We broke up the day before my fourth year of university started.
I’ve been numb since.
I’ve fucked many, kissed more, and drank a lot of alcohol. I feel empty. I quit going to class, and sat in my apartment for days in the dark, just smoking pot and sitting there. Sometimes, I’d sit for a few hours in complete silence, staring at nothing. I had no motivation – I couldn’t get up out of bed, I didn’t want to shower or brush my teeth or hair. I didn’t want anything in life. I didn’t want life. Every time I drove over a bridge, I struggled not to jerk my wheel just so I could breathe again.
Like I said, I am completely broken. I’m a cliché. Fat kid in desperate need of love and acceptance. Rape victim throwing caution to the wind and delving into a world of drugs and promiscuity. ‘That girl’ who can’t get over her ex. The typical depressed person who lives through every symptom you read on the internet. Smart kid desiring acceptance ends up failing classes due to active social life.
Take the time to inhale your grandfather’s scent – he’s the last grandparent you have and you won’t have him much longer.
Embrace the Puppy Love at age eleven with that boy who you will still think you love.
Try to remember every second of dying Easter eggs with your Mum – when you dye them with your own kids, every year, you will question how she made them so beautiful.
Don’t take your big brothers for granted – they have taken care of you since you were born, and not all teenagers would’ve been so willing to let their baby sister tag along as much as you did.
Embrace your whole childhood – when you get older and watch your nieces suffer, you will realize how very lucky you were.
———-
Dear Pre-Teen Me,
Don’t “dump” your boyfriend five-hundred times. At twenty-eight, you will still regret being such a jerk. Also don’t take him for granted – he was a decent, patient, kind boyfriend for an eleven-year old kid. Take the time to look at each of your boyfriends in a different light; one day you will learn they could’ve been more, but you were too blind to realize it.
Realize that just saying you think you will have big boobs doesn’t mean it will happen.
At least not naturally :-).
————
Dear Teenager Me,
Don’t be such a bitch.
As you get older, you realize that having bitchiness ingrained in you makes it difficult to have friends. People aren’t as accommodating as your teenage friends were.
Don’t let that one man pressure you into something you’re not ready for – sixteen really is too young to make the commitment you made. You will always question that decision.
When you are nineteen and fully disgruntled with life, you will meet a man who will make you realize that life outside of this still exists. He will be there for you, no matter what, for the next ten years (and counting). You did good not pushing him away.
Also, physical abuse is never okay. It gets better – it stops, but you should’ve spoken up when it happened.
Life could’ve been so different for you.
———-
Dear Twenty-Something Me,
DON’T sleep with that man.
Even though neither of you wanted to regret the act, you both will. An affair is never okay – regardless of how “in love” you are, regardless of your reasoning.
It will ruin your friendship for awhile, it will ruin your marriage for awhile (although, not enough to make you strong enough to leave), and it will ruin your soul forever. Even when everyone else has forgiven you, you will not have forgiven yourself.
IT IS NOT WORTH IT.
Please realize that your husband will never change. He will change long enough to keep you around whenever he senses you may be gearing up to leave, but he will not change.
He can’t be someone he’s not, and you can’t either.
Stop trying – just being you is enough for someone, even if it’s not for him.
Your twenties aren’t all bad.
Your two children will be worth it – you will see so much of yourself in your daughter. Know that entire first year of constant crying, up five+ times a night, constant demands to be held does get better. She will not be the angelic infant your son was, but you will see her fighting spirit every second of the way.
Embrace their differences – this will be difficult sometimes, but overall, you are doing a decent job.
————
Dear Current Me,
GROW SOME BALLS AND LEAVE ALREADY.
That man you met at nineteen still feels like he’s The One.
He’s still your support, your encouragement, your confidante, everything that your husband isn’t – and never will be.
Every ounce of your being (his too) screams that you belong together.
Act on it – make it happen.
Don’t keep letting fear hold you back. Don’t waste another ten years without that love. Your excuses aren’t particularly valid, no matter how you package them.
And quite frankly, an innate desire or moral conviction to only get married one time isn’t worth the unhappiness you’re causing yourself.
My ex-husband’s wife had a stroke yesterday. She’s a year younger than I am. Mid-thirties is too young for a stroke.
I’m angry for her. I know what is happening to her right now. She’s in the hospital, she’s scared. Scared isn’t the word – she’s terrified.
I know what he’s doing. He’s sauntering around acting like things aren’t a big deal. He’s showing up and being caustic and sarcastic. He’s making comments about how much it’s going to cost him and how much of a fuss she’s causing. He’s acting like he doesn’t mean it, but she’s hurting because she’s JUST HAD A STROKE AND HE’S MAKING JOKES ABOUT IT!
He took a stranger up to her room today. She was crying because she didn’t know him and it scared her. He didn’t ask the guy to leave, he just let him hang around. Then he went to smoke with the guy for forty-five minutes.
Then while I’m having a nice rant about this, my mother told me that I shouldn’t tell my boyfriend things that would cause him to dislike my ex-husband.
She turned around and said, “I remember that time you cried all weekend because he took off and left you to go visit his old friends in his hometown right after y’all got married and wouldn’t wait for you to get off work.”
I really wanted to say, “Right, and then there was the time I was in the hospital because an ovarian cyst had ruptured, and he wouldn’t come see me because he said I WAS FAKING MY OVARY EXPLODING!
Then there were the times he forced me to have sex with him because I lived in ‘his house.’ Oh, and the time I said I was depressed and felt like dying, and he said I should go ahead and get that over with because he had things to do.”
All I really said was, “You know, he has to know what happened to me or he’s never going to understand why I’m COMPLETELY PSYCHO sometimes.”
Now I’m hanging out, not telling my boyfriend any of these things because, apparently, I can’t use my mouth to tell him things – I get a mental block with words because I’ll cry.
I’m so ashamed of myself for putting up with it, too. Plus, how do you tell the person you love that the person they accidentally introduced you to nearly fifteen years ago did all these things to you? Yep, my boyfriend introduced me to my ex-husband.
And there’s the part where someone I know just had a stroke, and I’m feeling sorry for myself. Oh, I’m feeling bad for her too; I have enough guilt and pity for the both of us!
I’m just going to lay here for a while and determine what feeling to feel next.
Recently someone came back into my life. This person was my whole entire world for about three years. They loved me. Completely. All my flaws.
This person made me feel whole. This person calmed every single negativity I had going in my life.
This person held me when I needed to cry. They listened when I needed to yell.
This person sat behind me and picked head lice out of my hair for eight hours when I cried because no one else in my life would help me.
This person was so beyond good for me. Then I started letting the negative creep back in, I let the people who were supposed to care talk me into believing them instead of this amazing person I had in my life. You see, I always knew I was a failure. I always knew I would never amount to anything. This person believed in me and my worth and well… I really don’t know. I have no excuses except I was young and dumb, and influenced easily by people who should have been supporting me, but weren’t. I longed for THEIR approval and love, and if I didn’t have that, why should I deserve anything else? I left this amazing person with a heavy heart but headed in a direction I was being basically shoved into for many years.
I married, had kids, was verbally and emotionally abused before I finally left. Even after I left I tried to make it work. After all, no one else would want me. During this time I searched out my person from before. They were far away in another land. They seemed happy and from what I could see across a computer screen, didn’t want me anymore. I did reach out, I called, I emailed, I basically stalked this person. But they had moved on. I was just a memory to them. And that was okay. After all, I didn’t deserve them.
Fast forward a few more years. I still watched my person from afar. I was friends with their family but still had not contact with my person. That was okay. I was happy knowing they were happy. I met someone, dated for a few years, got married again. And I am finally HAPPY! At least most of the time. My old thoughts are all still there but I try and push them away, and am mildly successful.
A couple weeks ago, my person showed up in my life again. Like a whirlwind. They have never been far from my thoughts. I still watched. But here they were in my inbox! We have been talking and it’s like the last 20 years disappeared. And I am right back where I was, where we were. My person and I. And I am so much in love. I always was.
And I am torn. How can I love two people this much? What do I do? I need this person in my life, it’s like a part of me has been missing for so long. Literally, it feels like I got my right hand back. I need them to know I love them. Because I do. But we can’t be together. I love where I am in my life. I love the person I have chosen to share my life with. I love my home and my job. There is a half a country between us, and 20 years and a life.
But I still need them in my life.
I find my mind wandering a lot lately. The what ifs. I find myself wanting to wake up in one of those stupid romcoms where everything is different, but it just seems right. I want to find a damn Delorean. I want to go back and not be a stupid kid.
I wish I could write like our Aunt Becky, but I can’t. My words will be misspelled, my commas will be out of place, and there will definitely be run on sentences, but I swear like a trucker, so somehow I think I will fit right in.
So the back story is this: BAD shit happened to me when I was a kid. You know, the dad was an alcoholic, “show me on the doll where the bad man touched you” (I never told my parents, by the way), sister got preggo at 14, and eventually my Mom could no longer deal with it all, so I had to take the bulk of the bad shit. There were days I didn’t know if I would make it. Some days I wasn’t able to deal. I would burn myself or punch a wall just to feel…something. Still, it’s not as bad as some have dealt with and not the purpose of this post. I made it through, bruised but not broken. I just wish I could tell the young girl who dealt with all of that what I know now.
I have been talking to a friend who is quite a bit younger and going through so much in her life right now. She (like me) puts up a strong front, but if you dig just beneath the surface, you can see the hurt and self doubt. She sometimes reminds me so much of my self that it’s scary. When asked, we will both say we are “fine.” Every time she says it to me, my heart cracks just a little. You see, I know when she says “I’m fine,” what she really means is ”This hurts like hell!! My heart is breaking. Somebody please just take away the pain.” But no, it’s always “I’m fine.” I just want to give her a hug and tell her it will all be OK. I won’t, mind you, because that would make me seem weak or soft, or whatever my fucked up mind thinks.
Still, talking to her I got to thinking what would I tell my younger self? So I wrote myself a letter today. Maybe it will help her or some other young girl who needs to know it WILL BE OK.
So, here it is.
Dear Tonya,
I know it’s hard right now, but experience brings knowledge, adversity brings strength.
None of that makes a damn bit of difference when you’re hurting, but faith gives you hope. The hope that there is something greater brings a small amount of peace, even in the darkest times.
When you find love, it calms. Love doesn’t hurt, it heals, it comforts, it expands. Love gives, it should not take away.
If life seems to be spiraling out of control, find solace in the small things. Family, friends, music, words. These are your armor against all that will stand against you.
Remember that the lessons learned from the mistakes we make, and the paths we choose, make us who we are. Never regret them. To do so would mean you doubt yourself. Nothing or no one should make you doubt your worth.
Though it’s sometimes easier to forgive others than yourself, YOU ARE ONLY HUMAN.
Be as kind to yourself as you are to others, and love yourself as much as you do others.
Stand tall without being cocky and be proud of who you will become.
I know I am.
Tonya
P.S. If none of that shit works, there is always vodka.
