The only Rapes I remember and felt

The only rapes that I was there for and remember are the ones when I was in elementary school. I had no idea what was happening to me. I only understood later, maybe in third grade, what was happening to my little body. I am not even sure that I connected the pain to what was not supposed to be happening to me. By the time I hit fifth grade, I was well aware and knew what was happening: my father was having sex with me, and so was Albert. My parents would leave the door open and I knew that was what they were doing, and I would get so angry. I can remember the puberty talk and sitting there with my mother. All the other girls were thinking, How gross and giggling and laughing. I didn't have that response; I was terrified. I sat there motionless, hoping not to be noticed, wanting to crawl in a hole. I knew what they were talking about, and I knew what was happening to me. There was this massive sense of shame that I knew so much that I wished I didn't know. By that time, I was getting better at going away to protect myself. I remember parts and pieces; Sometimes the pain waited for the morning. Feeling it in the moment would have been too overwhelming; the moments when I felt it as it was happening were the most excruciating. 

When I hit 13, I already felt like a slut. I knew that if others knew the things I had to do, I would surely not be welcomed or included. By the time those rapes happened, there were pieces of me long gone. They happened, the rapes but before the pain and the anguish, I went far away, and Spunky took over. I remember some of the pain especially from the gang rape, when it got to that point of being overwhelmed everything went black. By the time Charles arrived, I knew what to do and had already gone away, so I couldn't feel a single thing. All of this at 50 years old, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it. How does a person know what is happening to them and be so removed they feel nothing.  I understand, and that is where so much feeling and pain lie.  

Sometimes I think it would have been easier for me to feel things; then I wouldn't have to come up with excuses, and well, it wasn't so bad, I mean I didn't even feel anything. Often, I didn't feel it in my body at all. But I feel like I do today. And it's more than confusing. It was all that bad, and my heart is broken.  Poor girl, and it makes me more than angry, that no one cared enough to love and keep her safe. What in the fuck was wrong with these people, to leave me alone!!! I was literally dying inside.  

The best depiction of what happens was in a movie that I recently saw. The crowded room, it was a lot to take in , very heavy and more than triggering. But there is one part where the little boy is going to be abused and his so called twin, who isn't really there steps in, and takes the abuse while the real little boy stays outside and catches a lightning bug . There are no words that can do that scene justice, but goodness for someone like me to understand that scene, is something crushing. Just to have a scene as a representation that when things were so unimaginable, another part of you says let me to save you, it's something heart breaking, yet amazing. 

It allowed me to see Spunky differently, there is a gratefulness for her, a different understanding; it's always been there, but this scene helped me see her different. I feel that is where that so sad soul of mine comes in, that feels so heavy and untouchable. Sometimes my life feels so crazymaking. When I feel that pain today, I want to scream, it makes me want to live anywhere but inside my own skin. Those moments are still alive in me, and I have to figure out how to let them go. If I can just get over this mountain, I feel like the road ahead will be so doable and then maybe finally I can lay down all of the gross and disgusting that I hold in every cell. I hate the things that have happened to me. I don't want to wear that tattoo anymore. I am not even sure that this makes sense. Somewhere in my heart, it gives me that piece of hope that soon Spunky will be in my heart, and out of that place that feels so far away. This is one of the hardest parts of my journey that brings my greatest sadness. 

I heart your heart. 

Just another Victim

 I don't want to be just another victim with a tragic story. I want to be the one who has found her voice, saying this is me, and we need to do things differently. I want to be the one who says these things happened, and I still feel them in my bones, but I am so much more than the things that have happened to me. That is what I want, but sometimes that is not what I feel at all. When I am working with Spunky, trying to heal her, I feel like a victim. I feel like I failed. I feel this tremendous sense of overwhelm at just how different she is. She experiences the world in a way that is vastly different from how anyone else perceives it. She is terrified most of the time. She wants to scream, but remains silent; she doesn't feel like she has a right to speak. Her words are too heavy, too full of truth. Sometimes she wants to communicate and tries, but her words come out either as silence or so loud that no one hears her. Other times, her words don't seem to make any sense at all. How does a person explain the fact that they have been to hell and back more than once? Somehow, the things that happened to her make her feel so incredibly worthless. I speak to give meaning to all the things that happened to me, and yet this part, Spunky's part, is more than complicated. I have worked so very hard and feel like I should know how to do this.  I feel helpless in these moments and feel like the word Victim should be placed on my forehead to warn everyone to stay away. I want to be in a place where I can throw my arms in the air, cry, and laugh, knowing just how far I have come and be ever so proud of myself. I long for that, I need that to mend this battered heart of mine. 

I heart your heart.

I heart your heart.

The sharp edges

 

The sharp edges are the things that scare me into silence. The sharp edges are the things that make me less than. Those sharp edges are what my nightmares and flashbacks are made of, and I am terrified that somehow those sharp edges will take all the progress I have made and smash it into millions of tiny pieces.  So many times, I can't even get the words out, but I can when they are far away and there is a purpose for someone else.  When I think of Spunky, all that little girl had to endure, it's on a level that is hard to comprehend. I know she is me, and I am her, but I don't feel like she is a part of me yet. She is something other than which lives outside of me.  Sometimes it feels incredibly strange, talking about her as if she were someone else.  In my brain, that is just what made sense. I know it was me, I know it happened to me. But my brain had to put it all on her for us to survive. The sharp edges are staring me down right now, as if to say, 'Here I am; what are you going to do?' I try so hard to move on, I have come so far, and this feels like a battle that I am not strong enough for sometimes. I say that, and I know I will be okay, but sometimes it just feels so much bigger than me. I often forget how far I have come, and that it's already happened and can't destroy me anymore. However, that fear is still present and very much alive. I don't fully understand it. On the one hand, I know it has already happened; I am still here, still breathing, and I can't be hurt by it anymore. The other part is still terrified by all those little sharp edges that make up that time; that feels crushing. I know it's over, but for that part of me, she is still trying to figure them out. Trying to make sense, wanting to understand.  She would do anything to make it go away. All the things that I know and how far I have come, this is something I just don't know how to do. This part of my story is screaming at me, wanting something, and I am not sure what to give. 

 I have been in this strange place, it's sad and angry, overwhelming, and I feel like it's time that I had an easy button.  Not for long, but just so that I can catch my breath, and then keep going. Maybe this is the time when all that I run from catches up with me and hits me for a few days. I have done nothing today, and it's 5 pm. No homework, no cleaning, nothing but trying not to think. I have cried, done puzzles on my phone, flipped through Facebook, and put things on Netflix that I don't have to think about. These are the days when I wonder if those sharp edges will win.

Just so much hurt, for a girl who just wanted to be 13. Still so much pain for a woman of 50 and all that she missed out on.  She didn't want to be mature; she didn't want to have all the answers. She just wanted to be a girl who was appreciated for being the sweet person she was. Nothing more, nothing less, just to be cared for and thought of. She wanted someone to look at her and think Wow, how lucky am I to know her. There is such a great loneliness right now that it is hard to find words for. I think I have been alone for most of my life, and it's come to a point where I no longer want to be. There are so many things about me to share: the things I am passionate about, the things that excite me, and the dorky side of me, which finds the strength in the smallest things that you would think are so insignificant.  Those are the big things to me. Searching for Amelia's first rainbow was so precious.

A text from Vincent saying he loves me and asks if I need anything. Mariska saying Hello on her break at work.  I worry all the time that the 13-year-old part of me makes me unlovable, and that she won't ever find peace. I am scared to death that those sharp edges will haunt her forever.   She will eventually be beside me; she has to, because I will never stop fighting. But I want her to truly live; I want her to let the things she sees fall away and know that she deserves the best. It was just that those around her couldn't care for and love her the way she needed. Someday, I want someone to love her so fiercely that she will never look back and will know just how truly lovable she is. Someday, Someday. 

I heart your heart. 

Sadness of the Soul

 

Sara McLachlan: Better Broken 

I am learning that there are different types of sadness. It's hard to explain, but what I'm feeling lately is more than different from anything I've ever felt. That moment when you realize there was never really anyone on your side, and that feeling of being alone was because you were always left to your own devices to get through whatever happened to you. If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have always held some kind of hope that my mother loved me and, in her own way, cared for and wanted the best for me. With the shattering of that little piece of hope I had held onto, things are very different; there is a sadness like nothing else I have ever experienced. It's a sad experience on a soul level, one that's so deep and heavy, I find myself clinging to every little moment around me. I find myself thinking about the girl that I was at 13, and just how terribly she was treated, and she just kept going.  I have blamed her for so long, and with that no longer an option, there is a profound sadness in the way she has had to live her life. That she never received any care, that no one ever understood her heart, is truly painful. I am doing things so differently from how things were done in my life growing up, and I am ever so grateful.  In living life so very differently, there is a sadness that I never got to experience the same care, concern, and unconditional love.  It's a different kind of sadness that I'm right in the middle of, and it's really hard. I am tired of being alone.  I am tired of constantly reaching out and still feeling alone. It's an emptiness, never being seen, never receiving that long hug that holds a person together. You don't have people, celebrations, or a place where you can just show up and have someone sit with you, make you a cup of tea, and put on your favorite music. I have never gotten that experience. Everyone has their own family, and all I have is me. I have my children, but they are growing, have their friends, and are creating their own families, and I feel out of place. I don't know how it's possible for a person to miss something so much that they have never had. I have never had people. I have never had forever, and at times like this, the weight of that is crushing. There is so much to share with someone, and no one to share it with. Even in the things that will happen in the next few weeks, even after I present, I wish there were warm arms to rush to, to hold me, let me share my experience, and just be with me.  I will present, come home, like any other night, fix pillows, probably clean the kitchen. But it's not like any other night, and I will still be alone. Someday, I hope it will be different for me. 

I heart your heart 

She was such a cool kid

 She was a cool kid who never had a chance, and it's time that she took a breath, spoke all that she holds in her heart, and felt the entire world that has been waiting for her. You know I always say that I wanted the world to stop until we felt better, and you know what. My world did stop, and I have been waiting for her my entire life. I have been keeping her safe, and I am here now to take care of her. It's time that she laughed, she cried, she gets so fucking angry that the walls shake. She deserves that, and I am the only one who can give it to her. She has suffered so much heartache and pain. She has lost so much of what should have been given to her. She lost her childhood. She lost herself. She lost her voice and her worth. She lost so much before she even knew that she was supposed to have it. Yet there were some things that were never taken and never touched by the hands that tried to break her. 

She always kept breathing and never stopped being brave. She wanted to give up so many times, but thought just one more day would be enough and things would be ok. And another day turned into a week, which turned into a month, which turned into years, which brought her to this place today. She always smiled, appreciating the little things in life. She marveled at the little bird that found a puddle. She always stopped to catch a rainbow. She took care of others because it was the right thing to do. She felt the sun on her face and the breeze in her hair, and took it all in. She had a way about her that was never nurtured or appreciated. She lived life in a place between hope and the hell she knew. She believed that someday, somehow, someway things would be different. She spent her time alone; it was safer that way. That is when the tears flowed, and she held on to her stuffed animals and spoke about the horrors of her life. 

She had a heart of gold that wanted more for those around her. Whales saved her; gave her hope, and a connection that she had never experienced. It was the animals that she called her friends. They never hurt her, and they listened to her every word, and licked her tears when there was no one to hold her heart. 

This sweet girl was something so amazing, and no one saw that. She was everything Spunky, and wanted nothing more than to share her heart, be loved, and be seen as the amazing little spark that she was. 

She never knew any of that and is struggling to believe she is worth anyone's time and effort. She feels like a bother; she needs more than you can imagine.  It's hard to give a 50-year-old woman all that a 13-year-old never got.  She still tries to understand all the things for which there are no answers. She carries so much blame that was never hers to carry, and she can't figure out how to let it go. But it's not even that she needs to let it go.  It's intertwined and attached to every fiber of her being.  Some parts are just as attached to her as she is to them. She wants to reach out, to belong, but she is terrified; there is a belief that her fragile heart wouldn't make it through anymore hurt. I believe her. Her heart is so tender, and oh so delicate, even the little things are swords to her soul, and that is how she lives. 

Yes, I am still here waiting for her, preparing my heart for that part of myself that is so overwhelmed by life. As I move forward into following my dreams, I need her with me. She is a part of me that helped me survive, that kept breathing when we wanted to die. She forever saw the light in the darkest of the dark.  I owe it to her to keep going, keep fighting. Someday, I just know she will be beside me, and I can give her heart the kindness it longs for and that safe place she has never known.

I heart your heart. 

All the turtles are gone

 

So many thoughts, feelings and emotions. She was my mom and things should have been different. In the last week I have cleared my house of every turle. I have posted each and every thing, and each time that another one of her things has left the house, there is a lightness that fills the air. Finding her letter that she wrote as a goodbye to me has affected me more than i would like, and at the same time just gave me a great deal of information.  There was a part of me that felt more than guilty that I didn't miss her, that I didn't wish she wasn't dead. I was glad she wasn't here and relieved that I felt like i could finally breathe free. I had feelings about her passing, the sadness that I felt was for my son and my brother. There was not a single single piece of sadness for myself. My tears for myself were of relief and a sense of freedon. My tears were all the tears that I could never cry with her. My tears came from a relief that I never knew I so desperatly needed. I think that the letter she wrote left me with some questions, that I will never have the ansers for. I wish I knew why she hated me so, the things that were said in that letter were so very hurtful. For her to still have them, that tells me that she meant them, with all of the passion and hate that she wrote them with. Reading her words are heartbreaking, all I ever wanted was a mom who loved me no matter what. I just wanted to be loved for the child, girl and woman that I was. I think the letter that she wrote, toke what little hope tha I had, that maybe I meant something to her. I think that the sadness comes from never having that unconditional love and support. I guess maybe there is some work to do, I don't understand why she hated me so. Even though I was not sad, her words still more than hurt. 

That letter was closure to a chapter that I didn't even realize that I needed.

I heart your heart. 

When there were 5

 

I am sure this is one of those things that will forever and always be the most unimaginable, most evil experience in my entire life. I thought I was going to die that day, and there were moments that I thought I did. There were times that I heard them and was very far away, somewhere safe, somewhere anywhere but in my own body.  There were still other moments when I wanted to die; I just wanted the turns to stop and for one of them to end my life, finish me off because I could not survive anymore. There are times when I sit, and that day plays over and over in my mind, thinking about what I could have done differently. Fought harder, screamed louder, ran faster, and all the questions didn't change the outcome at all. Memory is such a strange thing; there are things that I remember so very clearly.  Yet, other things just go black, and there is nothing, no memory, no feelings, just nothing. 

I have spent so much of my life running from those things because there are still times when they are terrifying. I have already survived them, and yet sometimes it feels like I won't. I know that I have said all the words I told them as if it had happened to someone else, not as if it had happened to me. As if they all happened in some kind of global sphere, one that I have some insight into but am not a member of. It's in my heart and mind that I experience them as if I am trapped in that globe, and there's nothing I can do to get out.  I experience brief moments where I realize it's me from the outside, but I don't linger there. That is where that 13-year-old part of me is. She is there in the globe, trying to gain some sense of herself back.

Trying to gather herself, her thoughts, her heart.  She knows it's over, but some moments feel like it is still more than real. There are still moments when she sees things that happened to her and feels them in her bones. There are moments when the memories are so real that she freezes and has to remind herself to breathe. There have been numerous times in the last few weeks that I have literally been thrown back into certain moments, and all I want to do is crawl into a hole. Sometimes, I get lost in the fact that I did survive.  Somewhere in my brain, there is this thought: if it was really that bad, you wouldn't have made it out. I know in my heart that I made it, and I know in my heart that it was that bad.  My brain sees all the pictures, wants all the pieces, and wants to connect all the dots, and somehow, it won't be this huge, terrifying thing that could swallow me alive anymore. If I could figure out a few pieces, then I could move on.  Even if I could have all the pieces I do have in one place, then I would be ok. I know I have talked about it, and I don't understand why there is this fear that if I talk about it, feel it, and let it out, it will absolutely consume me. 

In my head I still repeat their names, don, chris, steve , mike and andy. don, chris, steve ,mike and andy. Over and over. So many times, I repeated that in my head, anything to focus on something other than what they were doing to me. Don was the most evil; he would try to make me cry, absolute evil, wanting them to do worse and worse things. If any of them had taken my life, it would have been him. I believe he tried, a few times, when it was a few of them at a time, hurting me.

I will never understand why he didn't just use the gun if he hated me so much.  He only used it to rape me; I wanted him to shoot and kill me, then I would never have to speak about what they had done, and I wouldn't have to remember.  Andy was different; he would tell them to stop. I felt that when I saw him, he was a person, not a monster. The other three all run into each other; I'm not sure I could even point them out if I saw them.   Andy was always last; he wasn't like the others and often didn't take his turn. In that hell, I have to believe that his kindness saved me. He didn't hurt me when I had been moved into the bedroom, he helped me, he cleaned me up, wiped my face. He was present. 

    There is so much unknown about my Bella. I remember so little, yet what I do remember is so very clear. I think that is a piece that will always hurt, a forever kind of ache that I am not sure there will ever be words for. Maybe years and years down the road, but now it is entirely too painful, and I can not add anything else to my plate. Then I become more than angry at myself that, all this time later, it is still that painful. She would be 37 37 years old, and I still remember those same pieces, but others are gone like a black hole. What happened to her? Why didn't anyone talk to me about it? There is no reason to go digging trying to find some information that is long gone. The people who did know are no longer alive, or I am not willing to speak to them.  I will always wonder who knew what happened to her, and why I was not given any care. To have that tremendous loss at 13, on top of the gang rapes and the other times that Don came to my home. It's no wonder I was quiet, withdrawn, and scared of everything. I had been taught my entire life that I was going to get hurt, and no one was going to do a damn thing about it. 

There is this pain and dread, that the feelings that I have about the gang rape will always be.  I think that the little 13-year-old girl inside of me will find her place in the world fighting for others, but there is a huge pause after that. She will always know the danger and violence that happened to her.   She will come closer to me, she will learn to breathe, but there is something lost that can never be found. Her peace will come when others are helped, and don't have to suffer like she did. Each time I speak, it is a moment when her voice is heard, and others realize they need to do things differently for survivors.  Even as a 50-year-old woman, that day takes my breath away. That day still holds power, it still evokes terror, and it still has the capacity to stop me in my tracks. I will always fight for the pieces of me that were taken, but I am also very aware that this day is different. This day is something I don't have words for, and I am unable to articulate all the feelings.  It would be more of an agonizing moan, constant while simultaneously the scariest silence a person could ever experience. I feel like the outside world was so loud and brutal, so inside I went away, making everything silent, because even when I thought I was screaming, no noise came out. Those screams were lost, and maybe when I can find those, then that spunky little girl can be free. Free to live, free to laugh, free to be safe in her own body. 

I heart your heart