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.
I heart your heart.
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