by Band Back Together | Oct 29, 2010 | Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self Injury, Statutory Rape |
signed up with a fake name, but I am Stephanie.
In 1995, when I was 15, there was an attempted sexual assault on me by some 20-something-ish guy who was a bouncer at a local bar. At the time, my best friend was having sex and knew lots of her older brother’s friends. She was able to get us into the bar. It felt so cool to be doing that at 15.
We were going to hang out with the same bouncer guy, who was friends with her current “boyfriend” the next weekend. I thought it was so neat that a decent looking older guy thought I was pretty and attractive enough to buy drinks for. I was so bloody naive.
It was fall. I remember them picking us up at her house, then driving around to random places (a trailer park somewhere looking for liquor, then someone’s house). We ended up at the local park. It was dark by then. While my friend went off into the dark park to have sex with her boyfriend (just after having an abortion), I was left with this guy who had bought me drinks at the bar the weekend before, who gave me a kiss on the lips, who I thought was cool.
He tried forcefully yanking up my shirt, trying to get my bra off. Kissing me hard. He was scaring the shit out of me and I didn’t know what to do. I think he tried undoing my pants. He kept telling me that I owed it to him. That I was a tease. I remember eventually running a short distance away from the playground equipment to a picnic table, where I told him, terrified, that I was on my period. He was angry and called me a liar. I took an unopened tampon from my pocket and threw it in his direction.
He proceeded to tell me he would hurt my family if I said anything. I had to tell him everyone’s names and where I lived and my phone number. I sat in terror, unsure if he was going to rape me, until I finally heard my friend coming back to where we were. He told me to “walk like you’ve just been fucked.”
I’ll never forget those words. I wish I had stood up to him and told him off. But I was afraid. And had no phone. Wasn’t within walking distance even to a pay phone. I had no ride home. I had no idea what I would say to my parents.
I was a virgin and didn’t even know what that was, so I tried to walk slowly and limp a little while he and his friend snickered on the way back to the truck. I felt humiliated, stupid, foolish, scared. My father was a cop. Why the fuck did I allow myself to be left alone in a dark park at night with a guy I had met once before? I was so stupid. And I felt so exposed, having told him all kinds of details about my family when we were sitting in the park.
I didn’t tell anyone until I told my mother, many months later. I made her promise not to tell my father. I was put on anti-depressants that summer.
On the anniversary of the day, I honestly cut myself to shreds with a razor blade in the shower. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember my father being on duty and having to take me to the emergency room at the hospital in the back of his squad car. I was destroyed. I was a mess. And I managed to humiliate my poor father (and mother) by being taken to the small town hospital like that.
I ended up being admitted and evaluated in the psych. ward for 2 weeks. My first true love, my first real boyfriend, came to visit me. We got caught fooling around in the hospital by my mom. Yet another reason to feel humiliated, dirty and wrong. I was 16.
My boyfriend’s parents were upstanding PTA-type parents who were very cognizant of appearances and perceptions and wanted him to have nothing to do with me. I remember a counselor at the hospital telling me I should break up with him (but I have no idea why… if anything, I was the bad influence). But being in the mental hospital doesn’t make you look that great at 16. I lost the first love of my life because some asshole tried to steal something from me. He didn’t get my virginity, but he took my pride and the majority of my self-worth. I lost my first love, my sense of security, my sense of self-worth, and I humiliated my parents.
Every time I hear “Glycerine”, by the band Bush, I think of my first love, and how I lost him despite pleading on the phone. His parents wouldn’t let me talk to him after that. And “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt. It still makes me tear up now.
While in the hospital, the counselors strongly urged me to press charges. It had been a year since the incident had occurred. My own father was a cop on the force. How ridiculously stupid would I look if I admitted to being in a bar underage the weekend before, then intentionally walking into a dark park with someone who was essentially a stranger? I wasn’t even sure of his last name.
Most of the process was blocked out in my mind, but I will never forget sitting on the witness stand, in front of a room full of people. In front of my mom. And my dad, who looked at the ground the entire time, while the lawyers, officers, and judge all sat there listening to the stupid choices his daughter made, trying to not be a wuss. I remember the female officer who interviewed me was sisters with my co-worker at the mall. I was so afraid people would find out and just assume I was a lying little slut.
When my friend took the stand, she was about 7 months pregnant. When his friend took the stand, he swore under oath and confirmed his birth date (that was incorrect). The asshole never took the stand. But he sat there, and I was scared, while his girlfriend and child sat behind him to support him. In the few instances I met her eyes, she gave me hateful glances and made nasty comments. I felt ill.
Despite the lawyers having their jobs to do, the judge personally grilled me with many many more questions as to how I could be so foolish to do what I did. I wanted to curl up and hide. He kept telling me to raise my voice. He threatened me with something that I don’t remember, if I didn’t keep my voice at a reasonable level. The humiliation never stopped.
From the moment the asshole ripped up my shirt, it felt like the intelligent, wise 15 year old started to die inside. I certainly know things could have ended much much worse. And, in fact, as I type this I am thinking that probably a lot of readers will wonder what the big deal was.
I didn’t go to the sentencing, because I knew my legs would give out and I would give up then and there if he got off free and no one believed me. My parents went and said that the judge praised me for my testimony, being articulate and explaining why an otherwise bright girl would make such poor choices. The asshole got 3 months house arrest. The whole thing was written up in the paper and I was made to look a complete fool.
I remember my father being displeased that the asshole’s lawyer even took the case, since my dad knew the lawyer well. I actually remember my sister being very angry at the way the newspaper portrayed me. That was the last time I remember her caring about that kind of thing.
It was a big deal to me. I lost my first love over the trauma. I was broken at 15, humiliated, embarrassed for my parents, deeply anorexic, depressed and a shadow of the girl I once was. I lost her that day. I wonder who she would be now if that night didn’t happen. Instead, I have me.
I longed for my first love for the rest of my high school days. As we got older, if we ever had a chance to spend time, hang out or be near each other, I always went. My best friend dated him our last year of high school. It crushed me.
Once we went on to college, I had no self-esteem and would actually cave to any booty call from my first boyfriend. I needed his “love” and acceptance so badly, I allowed myself to be treated like dirt. And the worst part? I still feel like I am somehow sub-par without his acceptance. That I was never good enough and will never be, 14 years later. Even though I know that is messed up and I am in a wonderful, healthy long-term relationship with a great guy now.
I remember snippets of all these things, images in my mind and sentences here and there, but the emotion and the fear is still so fresh. The stamp of failure feels firmly affixed to my forehead.
This experience changed me for the worse, and left me feeling helpless, stupid and useless. Then, 6 years later, I was raped. It destroyed the little part of me that I had left.
I am working on that post now.
by Band Back Together | Sep 18, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Adult Children of Addicts, Blended Families, Bone Cancer, Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Homelessness, Hospice, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychological Manipulation, Self Injury, Self-Destructive Behavior, Suicide |
every time i try to start a post for this new community, i erase it and start over. i literally do not know where to begin.
i am an addict. i am a cutter. i am clinically depressed. i have ptsd. i have anxiety disorders. i am the child of an alcoholic. i was physically and emotionally abused. i couldn’t stop my friend from being raped. i went to my first funeral at the age of 5. my parents are divorced. i have had 16 suicide attempts. i have a younger brother and he is my best friend. i have an awesome husband, and he is my other best friend. i have sold drugs. i have had sex for payment. i was on welfare. i have had sex in a church parking lot. i have done cocaine off the back of a public toilet. i have cheated, lied, stolen, broken, taken, left a path of destruction around me.
but i am here. i don’t know what to make of that most days. am i a survivor? a survivor of what? of life?
life should be lived, not survived. you survive a disease. you survive in battle. you survive an accident. you don’t ‘survive’ life.
i guess this is as good of a place as any to start: i’m fucking crazy. batshit crazy. yes, you read that right. i own my craziness. but i don’t know what to do about it. i take my pills, i blog (which is my new free therapy), i exercise, i try to be a productive adult. and i fool most people. the pills help, they do. but it’s like lying under the surface, there’s always this blackness waiting to grab me and pull me under again.
i’m always treading water: surviving.
i don’t know why i’m crazy. i know that outside factors have not always helped. my dad was a highly functioning, non-abusive alcoholic. we left when i was 6. i got a new step mom when i was 7. and my mom found a new boyfriend when i was 9. we moved in with him when i was 10.
that first summer, he was home sometimes during the day. mom was at work, brother was at daycamp or some shit. i don’t remember why it happened, but i do remember the first time he hit me. it was kind of like a spanking. i was a bit old for that at ten, and had something to say about it. he told me that my mother had said he could discipline us, and she knew that he was hitting me.
so i didn’t say anything.
when i was 11, he flung a heavy piece of thick plexiglass at me while i was sitting on the stairs. i jumped down, and the plexiglass broke the banister. he would call me names – tell me i was fat, i was a whore, i was stupid, i was ugly. he would hit me. my mother finally noticed something was wrong, that i was acting out. she did the right thing and called a child psychologist.
i went to the psychologist three times. back then, i didn’t know what she told my mom or why i stopped going. now i know: she told my mom that i was a pathological liar. i was not being hit or abused by my stepfather – i was making it all up for attention. my mother was told to continue disciplining me, but not to give me that attention that i supposed was acting out for. i had no idea.
then he started getting me high. he first offered me pot when i was 12. he supplied me until i was 18. i was high for six years. and it didn’t help.
he was a functioning alcoholic. he almost never seemed drunk, and i didn’t even always register it. we’d smoke a joint in the basement, then each grab a beer while he cooked dinner. we’d be friends for that time. but it never lasted. i stopped respecting him because of the way he treated me. so i started mouthing off to him. he threw a pot of cooked rice at me at the dinner table one night. my mom saw it, but what she saw was me goading him into doing it. in reality, i just didn’t care anymore. i ran away about once a week. he would follow me outside to the gate, tell me he loved me like i was his own daughter, please come back inside.
i would.
one time, i walked out to clear my head after a confrontation. i must have been 14 or 15. when i came back in, he said, ‘i thought you were running away’. i told him i just went for a walk, but i’d leave if he wanted me to. he got mouthy with me, i got mouthy with him, and he threw a butcher knife at me. in front of my mother. i left then, and stayed at a friend’s that night. i called home five times, hanging up every time he answered. finally, my mom picked up and i told her where i was.
his defense to my mom was that if he wanted to hit me with the knife, he wouldn’t have missed.
one time, i told him i’d call the cops on him. he got in my face, and told me he’d already been in jail, it didn’t scare him. they’d never believe me anyway – i was crazy. i told him if he ever touched my mother or my brother, i would kill him or die trying.
he never did lay a hand on them. only me.
one night at dinner, he shoved our wrought iron table into my ribs multiple times, bruising two of them. we just kept eating. he told me he wanted to get some mushrooms (not the cooking kind). i could get them, but my source wanted my stepdad to roll blunts for him. he agreed, and my source gave me cigars to be rolled. my step dad showed them to my mom, said he’d found them in my room (he had – in my underwear drawer. he routinely went through my things) and that i needed to be punished. he made me eat the cigar. and when i wasn’t eating it fast enough, he lit it and exhaled the smoke into a plastic bag. he then made me hold the bag over my nose and mouth for what seemed like three or four minutes.
i spent the night vomiting in my room. i never got him the ‘shrooms.
i tried to put the iced tea back in the fridge one night. he got within arms length of me. by this time, i was 16 and had a panic attack when he got that close to me. i started yelling at him to get away from me. he trapped me behind the fridge door and shouted at me. i started screaming obscenities at him. he hocked a loogie in my eye. when i ran screaming to the bathroom to take out my contacts, he followed me and threw me across the bathroom. i bruised my lower and mid back on the side of the tub when i fell in.
he threw me out when i stole $1000 from him. i thought it was his, but it was actually the rent money for our house. he took everything i owned – all my artwork, paintings, sculptures, and threw them out. he got rid of my bed. he dumped all my clothes into plastic garbage bags, and emptied an ash tray into each bag. i ended up with two laundry baskets full of clothing, my senior year english notebook, two sketchbooks, and some cd’s. i lived in my car for a few weeks, sleeping over friend’s houses when i could – but most were away at college. my boyfriend’s mom took pity on me, and let me move in. until his grandma found out a few weeks later why i was thrown out of my home – then she threw me out too.
i was 17 and going to be put in a girl’s home. when they called my mom to tell her, HE insisted that i could not go to a place like that and let me come home. my room had my old dresser and desk, a lamp, and my bookcase in it. my boyfriend took a mattress off a cot his family had so i didn’t have to sleep on the hard floor in my own home. i lived like this from october 1997 until august 1998.
i’m focusing on my step dad here, so there are lots of things missing – me doing drugs, me stealing, me raising a bit of hell. but i’ve never laid this all out before. i’ve never actually gone through it all like this.
i was kicked out again in 1998. i lived out of my car for weeks this time. i slept on the road near my boyfriend’s house. i’d call friends to sleep over and shower at their house. i wasn’t allowed in his home at all – not even to pee. his grandmother wouldn’t allow it. we’d drive to a local taco bell so i could use the bathroom. every night, his mom would send him out with two dinner plates, and we’d eat dinner in my car. i finally went on welfare for housing in september 1998 and was in the system until june 1999. i was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. the only person who came to visit me in the hospital was my boyfriend. i didn’t see my stepdad much during this time.
in 1999, i moved within a few miles of my mom’s new home. i was invited over occasionally for dinner or something like that. i’d pick up my brother to hang out with me and my boyfriend. little by little, i was allowed in the house more. i would come over to do laundry. my step father would make passes at me, comments about us being alone together. i made sure that wouldn’t happen.
i was telling my mom one day that it had been so long since i cut, i was feeling better. we were having a dialogue, and that hadn’t happened in so long. my step dad put a knife on the table in front of me, and walked away. he’d come up behind me when i was in the family room alone, using the computer, and put his hands on my shoulders and whisper nasty things in my ear. we’d go to a family dinner for thanksgiving at my aunt’s house, and he’d hand me $100. it was a confusing relationship.
after the last time i was kicked out of my house, he never struck me again. but he was as emotionally and verbally abusive as he could be. my mother never really saw it again when i was an adult, but he was inappropriate with me up until he was diagnosed with bone cancer in june of 2003. he died december 28, 2003. i was at the house helping my mom that day. things did not look good, our hospice nurse was concerned. i usually did not go into their bedroom, ever. i hadn’t since i was 10. i went up to say good bye to him before i left. when i poked my head in the door, he waved me to the bed. i walked in, and he reached his hand out to me. i held it for a moment, and he said, ‘good bye’.
i said ‘good bye’. i drove home. he died about five hours later. my boyfriend – the same one all this time – drove me over there at 2am. (i ended up marrying him.) for my mom and my brother, it was a release – he’d been so sick. it was sad, but it was good. it was over.
i was the one who broke down.
i will never know why he chose me.
