Its funny starting to see a new counselor someone who is kind and listens its amazing the things that come up in your mind, when you feel like you are free to talk about them. It's been a long time since some of those things have come up. And I started thinking about the moments that I started to feel certain things and whose voice that it is in my head. I am not sure that there is anything to get a person ready for this pain. I have been there and thought it was over. Not sure I am ready to go back there, but I know my heart hurts. My heart really hurts and these things aren't OK. I never should have had to do these things alone. Was I not worth more than how I was treated ? All these voices told me showed me that I was nothing ......I was not worth their time and care
There is the first time I ever remember anything actually happening. I don't think it was the first but I think it was the first I can put words to. Each and every night having to go to bed in his bed. My mom always stayed up. I don't understand why. I have so many questions. I can remember laying there always waiting for his body to jump then I knew that he was asleep and I could leave. Well, he reached his hand to my chest under his shirt and I Froze. I tried to make it make sense, I kept feeling the railing of the water bed trying to make sure this was real and happening wanting it to be a nightmare but it was happening. It was happening to me. I was only 5. All I kept thinking was well its OK he just thinks that I am my mom. Why was that even my first thought ? Why at 5 would I have any idea
The night that I fell asleep in his bed. Again I waited for that jump and would ever so quietly go to my own bed. This night for whatever reason, I fell asleep only to wake up to my own father straddling my neck. So many thoughts, floating away, the room going black I didn't want to be there. He was angry, I was crying, I couldn't breathe, his knees sinking in the waterbed. I was so afraid and he pushed me out of bed. I gathered myself and remember watching my mom from around the corner, wanting her to notice wanting her to ask, but he came up behind me spanked me and told me to get to bed. I remember standing there wanting help, wanting a hug, wanting to be safe and knowing none of those things were meant for me.
The moment I knew that I was on my own at 5. I could always stop crying, clean up the mess and keep myself together this night was different. He had come in my room hurt me and left. I couldn't stop crying and woke up the entire house. My mom came in my room trying to console me, but my little body hurt to much I was too far gone. I sobbed tearing my tissue into tinier and tinier pieces until there was almost nothing left and I ended up waking up my father. I can see him coming in my room yelling at my mom, He wanted her to go back to bed with him. I was floating somewhere in the room watching it all, wanting to be anywhere but there. He left my room storming to the living room, he was more than angry. Soon she followed. She was there but couldn't make me feel any better, She followed him to the living room. I was worried about her and I don't know how long it was but I went to the living room to check and his leg was over the side of that brown recliner, he had headphones on and she was kneeling in front of him. I struggled to understand. Why he was hurting her too. I knew there was nothing that I could do and at that moment peering around that wall I knew that there was no one to save me, I knew that I was on my own.
The moment I was told by one of the youth group leaders how different that things were going to be, and they didn't have a clue. Yea it was Tuesday night Youth group night and Calvin told me that I couldn't be hurt anymore and had to tell someone what had been happening to me. I decided that I wanted to tell Joan the youth group leader first thinking maybe I would be supported, maybe she would make me feel safe. So Calvin brought Joan in and told her I was raped. She gave me this cold half hug and asked if we should get a pregnancy test. I felt nothing, once again I wasn't even there. There was no what happened who were they are you OK ? Are you hurt ? Joan left the room and Calvin came back in and I held on to him and cried I was worried about all their questions all the everything. They took my father for a drive and told him, they said he was a mess and tried to get out of the car. I am sure he was afraid his secret was going to come out if he didn't set it all up to begin with, I will never know. They brought my mom in the room and told her. I felt nothing. I was watching, not really there I remember the sweater that I was wearing white with tiny dots of all different colors I was so very cold. I was more than alone. I wished that I never said a word to anyone. Joan's husband took me home and sat me on the couch and told me how different that things were going to be. There as all this talking around me; about me but no one was asking about me. I was more alone people knowing, than I was on my own before. There as no support no care . Just accusations, and unkind words, who would want to do that to her she was the chubby unpopular kid .....It spread around the church I was lying I just wanted attention. Once again so on my own. I was only 13. Rape was my life.
The moment that I really felt listened to. It was the first time in my life that I truly felt heard not the best moment and a time when as a doctor he should have done things different but as a person, he did the right thing. I felt heard and felt that someone cared enough to listen. It was the day after my parents were told about the gang rape. It was terrible awful and I wish they never knew . I was blamed treated terribly and not one person did anything that they were supposed to. No one asked about me and I was dying inside. I woke up that next morning and both my parents were standing beside my bed. I think I was a bit confused this was my life, this was just what happened to me. I heard the phone calls asking for rape crisis centers and talking to the police. I was numb in a body of black bruises. And the appointment with Dr.Culpepper was made. I was more than terrified. I sat silent in the car. The world that was my normal, rape after rape had been turned upside down. My mom went back and talked to him first. Then I was called back. I always loved him he always took great care of me. He was always kind always gentle. He came in and sat down. He asked how I was, of coarse I was fine. He talked to me and not at me. He said what happened was terrible what happened wasn't OK and wasn't my fault. He told me that I couldn't keep everything all bottled up. I was in and out of floating, wanting to be somewhere else. He asked if he could do an exam. I started crying and said no, I just can't have anyone else touch me. Every cell in my body still hurt it was only Wednesday and it had happened that Saturday. I am not sure what I was expecting. He put his hand on me and told me that he understood. He told me that it was OK, he understood and he didn't do an exam. I was terrified, relived and at the same time it would have changed so many things for him to see what had been done. What I looked liked. I was grateful. He listened to me and heard me.
The moment I couldn't save my tadpoles. I think this is one that hurts the most, it always has. The tears come harder and faster. I couldn't save them. Albert had raped me in the back of the van. He was done and walked away, My little wobbly legs were left to get dressed. I was so hurt but I just wanted to get back to my bucket of little tadpoles. I was almost to the picnic table he knocked the bucket over and started stepping on them with his big black boots. I tried so hard to pick them up but My little fingers couldn't pick them up fast enough. He leaned over as he stepped on them and told me that next time I wouldn't fight. And all I could think was how sorry I was that I couldn't save those little tadpoles.
The moment I believed it was OK , he just thought it was my mom. It was after I had pressed charges and Det. Plemmons had called me in to the station to speak with me and go over my statement. There were so many questions asked. I was talking and talking and his words, don't you think he knew the difference between the body or a woman and the body of a five year old ? I was in shock, no that thought had never crossed my mind. Somehow it was OK because he just thought that I was my mom. I was in my twenties and that is what I truly believed until he said that.
The moment that I saw Ron walking by the window . I once again have no idea how or why I was there with Albert. He was in his early 20's my mom used to watch his brothers. The first time he ever did anything was at my own front door, I ran inside crying and there was not one reaction and things got worse from there. We were sitting on bean bags in the living room playing PAC man on the TV. His mom walked in looking for something she said oh hi Sherri and left, like everything was so normal. I had to have known what was going to happen, maybe I was already gone. As usual he hurt me, I shut off this is just what happens. but my friend Ron lived next door and as I watched out the window I saw Ron walking by. There were so many screams inside my head, and not one word came out of my mouth. I wanted him to see me to make him stop to run and tell someone . I do not know if he saw what was happening but I know that I saw him. I wanted him to save me. We were just kids maybe 6 or 7 what was he going to do .......
SAVE ME.........
So many moments, so much hurt and so much on my own. My heart literally is achy. I feel it in my bones. my body feels heavy and I want to curl in a ball. I want to float above it all pretend it never happened. Pretend I was that carefree girl dancing being little with out a care in the world. How do you survive this ? Was it as bad as I remember ? The things no one noticed. As I get older , I see things so clear. I don't know how I have gotten where I am. Mark said that there must have been a few significant people that I just can't see them yet. I liked that, it wasn't that there weren't any its just that I can't see them yet That was more than a nice thought. I look forward to the day when I can see them. I want to know who helped me get here after all this hell. My heart is more than heavy and oh so tired. I have other hearts to care for and my own weighs a ton.
I heart your heart.
This afternoon I watched The Accussed, I watched it and I felt it in my bones. I have been there the terror and my heart feels heavy. I don't want my heart to know the hurt that it knows. And in the end there was meaning she fought, with all that she had and she won. She won; that look at the end of the trial it was for something , there was not I did this for nothing, There was I did this and can sleep, I did this and I made it. I am OK I am still alive and there are great things for me to accomplish. I have had small moments like that, but I want the peaceful kind, the kind that is a weight lifted, the kind that I don't feel like I am carrying it all on my own. I want to know that someone gets it and are ok when I am not OK. That those times I am not good at all, they just hug a little tighter say hello a few more times and just let me know that they care.
