Make that Line a Circle

Trigger Warning: rape, sexual assault, molestation.

Being a victim and survivor of any range of sexual assault is a life-changing thing, for the obvious reasons; but beyond that it is a unique situation in that there is such a long line of obstacles for the victims after it happens. I can’t say much about those who report their assaults because I have never reported any of mine, but I do know the lifelong obstacles that I have faced and I imagine there are many similarities between those who do and don’t report. One of the major obstacles I come across is feeling very bitter…like Bitter Betty to the extreme. I see myself and where I am in my life and then I look and see where my attackers are in life. My cousin has enjoyed a blame-free life, has a girlfriend, a job, friends and practically two sets of parents (my aunt and uncle and my grandparents). My ex boyfriend is now on his second degree in college, has a job, has extra cash to throw at whatever he wants, and his own place with a roommate that he gets along well with. And who the hell knows where my two ex boyfriends from high school are. My life, for the most part, has been a series of treks both to and from “hell”. This isn’t to say that I don’t have my blessings because I do have a few now that include a supportive immediate family, financial stability (because of said immediate family), a precious dog and two adorable cats and a few very close friends. My point is more that my values, like independence, academic achievement and peace, are things that my attackers have achieved and been able to attain while not having to be responsible for their crimes. I am bitter that they get to enjoy these values and gifts while I am left struggling to get by day to day.

I’m not mentally stable enough to hold a job or go to school right now even though I want nothing more than to be out and a part of those spheres. I start to question if I even have a purpose or if things will ever really get better to the point where I can care for myself. But let’s get to the more uplifting part of this post, yeah? I’ve come to a realization. And this realization is to the tune of David Attenborough’s prompt and silky voice, baby. While watching nature documentaries (aka a typical day in my life) I have been able to slowly try to piece my meaning together. There is something very therapeutic about watching a good nature documentary and I think it’s that they display and explain a very complex world very well and in a way where you are forced to think about things from multiple angles. Being a borderline ass bitch this is usually a way of thinking that never happens in my brain. Black and white thinking is a classic BPD trait so it’s not like this is a surprise or anything, but what if I think of myself as part of this nature scene? What if I can think of myself as a complex ecosystem that goes through drought, growth, desecration, and regrowth? I can be the Atlantic salmon that lives its life for one purpose and then dies once the task is done, but I can also be the same dead salmon that creates the lush and full forests surrounding the rivers. Life is not fair. The sick lions get left behind and starve. Mothers are forced away from their babies by natural environmental occurrences. But these situations also help other species survive.

Bad things can happen and lead to good things just as bad things can happen that end up leading to worse things. I’ve never really felt that it is appropriate for other people to tell victims of sexual assault that something good will come of it someday if you have the right perspective, and I still firmly believe that. Thoughts and opinions like those are there for the victims to come to or push away from as they see fit. For me, I need to look at it like an ecosystem that can be habitation for both good and bad, fair and unfair, acceptance and rejection. I’m sure many have already come to a simple conclusion like this or may see it as a very pointless and dull revelation, and that’s okay. I will say though that this is a very novel idea for me and it goes against almost every instinctual grain in my being so I’m giving myself a high five and a slap on the booty for it.

-M

 

In the beginning…

My last memories of me exhibiting my natural personality take place in elementary school- possibly 2nd or 3rd grade. I was very active, extroverted and a bit of an unnecessary spitfire at times. I was always a generally self conscious child, and as a girl that’s no surprise. Being tall and having a little extra weight put my self esteem at an abysmal level, but looking back at pictures of myself when I was in elementary school I can see that my weight was perfectly fine…because any weight is perfectly fine! Social anxiety is the only thing I can remember dealing with before I was 7 years old and that was mostly fueled by my thoughts that I was standing out and the jabs I would get from other kids about my extra pounds. Now before I get into the harder parts of my childhood I do want to give a trigger warning; sexual violence and parental negligence are present in the rest of this post. Buuuuut before we get into that, let me explain a little about what my family’s dynamic was like when I was younger.

There was me (let’s call me Molly), my parents (now referred to as Mom and Dad), and my brother (let’s call him Daniel). We have a fair bit of extended family, but it was more common for us to be with my Mom’s family- which consisted of my grandparents (Grandmother and Grandfather), an aunt (we’ll call her Mary), a uncle (he’ll be Carl) and two cousins. The younger cousin (he’s now Trey) is 4 years older than me and my older cousin (she will be referred to as Annie) is 6 years older than me. It was very common for all of us on my Mom’s side to have big gatherings and we’d usually spend 4 or 5 days together at a time. In the summer we would all pool money together, get a house near our favorite beach and spend the week together. We’d always spend either Christmas or Thanksgiving together every year. To cut to the chase, we would see them pretty often throughout the year and this ended up being a very unfortunate circumstance for me. I cannot remember how old I was when these events began, but somewhere around the time I was 7 Trey began to molest me. All the common circumstances were present; I was much younger, physically weaker and being threatened by him to keep quiet. My brother and Trey were pretty close and bonded quite easily, but I was in limbo with the kids group. I was too young for Annie to really want to be around me or show interest in me and I was a girl so I had an extremely limited membership to the boy’s club. Eventually the requirement for me to be included was for me to just put up with Trey’s advances. I had the option to either always be by myself or try to be with my brother (which meant being with Trey too). My brother and I were and still are extremely close so my choice was always to be close to him because being around him did at least offer some comfort. Daniel, unfortunately, did witness a few instances of my molestation but was only two years older than me and not really in a position where he knew what to do. In a way, we were both victims of Trey.

This continued until I was 13. Eventually my parents found out…and nothing was done. We would still visit them and I would see Trey and dissociate enough to just get by. It wasn’t until a year later that the situation was put to an end. My body and mind began to deteriorate. I wasn’t sleeping due to debilitating night anxiety and night terrors, I couldn’t eat and had extreme stomach pains day in and day out and I was losing touch with my family and my sanity. One night, after waking up from a very vivid dream about a memory, I walked into my parents room and sobbed while begging them to help me. Next thing I knew I was in therapy- though the “home rule” was that I didn’t talk about anything that happened. No one in the family discussed the situation and it is still pretty hush hush, which left me to fend for myself until this past year. Being put in such an unhealthy sexual relationship at a very young and developmental stage meant I never learned about boundaries or consent and I ended up being in a slew of awful relationships in high school. Though I was raped a few times by boyfriends in high school, I didn’t know at the time that it was possible to be raped by a significant other so it never left much of an imprint on me.

I won’t go into the rest of my trauma history in this post, but I will still be talking about it throughout my time on this blog. The point of all this, I guess, is for me to finally lay out the vague facts of my childhood sexual abuse to the public, which is something I’ve never done before. And what better way to do this than on a blog that will take years to possibly gain traction! This point in my life was also important because between the events themselves and how my family (extended and immediate) handled it, I was able to develop all of these different mental illnesses. This is the starting point, so to speak. I was blamed by some, ignored by all and forced into a position where I had to lie to people I loved dearly. Ho hum, ho hum. So to give you all and idea of what I am dealing with I will list out all my current diagnoses. Obviously mental illness is not a competition and my reasoning for listing all of this out is to give some credibility to what I write on this blog in the future. I plan on looking closely at my issues and I hope in doing that I help those who suffer similarly or maybe educate neurotypical people who want insight. So here we go

My current list of mental illnesses:

• Anxiety (displaying symptoms of generalized, panic, and social daily)
• Psychotic depression
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• OCD (with a focus more on obsessive thoughts than compulsive actions)
• Complex PTSD
• Depersonalization Disorder

It’s very easy to see why the list would be long, as many of these illnesses commonly intersect with one another, especially with people who went through prolonged childhood trauma.

-M