These last two weeks have been tough. I can't pinpoint why these issues have been rearing their ugly heads lately, but I think maybe if I am open about this part of my life somehow this kind of burden can be lifted some. This isn't a happy subject. I will warn who ever is reading this now that this is a personal reflection on abuse I suffered as a child. This may trigger something in those who have been abused.
I didn't remember that I had been sexually abused until I was a teenager. I still find it so difficult to believe that I had somehow forgotten that this happened to me. I am 31 years old now, and I can still remember the moment when all these dots began to connect in my mind, nothings ever been the same. I remember feeling like the walls were moving closer and closer together around me. I remember the feeling of panic and shame that came over me, the feeling of suffocation. That memory still causes my stomach to knot up and nausea overcomes me. As a teenager I felt like I needed to hide. I felt transparent, if people saw me and knew these things about me they would be disgusted, so I hid. I hid behind anything I was comfortable hiding behind. I never felt good enough, I never felt beautiful, I never felt worthy. I felt hopeless and useless. I felt used and filthy and that no one would ever want me. I constantly lived in fear.
Why has it been so long since then, and I seem to not ever really get past this trauma in my life? Why does it still cause me to cry and fear? I have two daughters now, and I know that these events in my life affects my relationship with them in a way they can't see or understand. I use to believe that I could overcome this, that if I prayed enough or believed hard enough I could make my life and my heart and my mind forget about this and I could one day live free of this. But that isn't true. The abuse I endured at the hands of someone who I trusted as a child is a vile disgusting part of who I am. It is the dark part of me. It makes me sick and tormented and it exhausts my subconscious. There is always a battle against these memories. Sometimes they come so quickly to the front of my thoughts and all of a sudden my hearing is gone, all I can feel is the beating of my own heart, and panic and anxiety and fear.
I never wanted to be a survivor. I never wanted to tell the story of being abused. I wanted a good healthy start in life. I never wanted anyone to touch me in a way that violated me as a person. I never wanted to do things that no child should be forced to do. I never wanted to be afraid. I never wanted to feel so angry and so ashamed. I never wanted to end up as one of those broken people. I never wanted to feel as if no one would love or want me unless I gave them a piece of me. I never wanted to be compulsive. I never wanted to be a person that couldn't function the way I should be able to in relationships. I never wanted to have to escape by smoking or drinking. I never wanted to be abused, broken, wasted....But I was.
Everyday is a fight. Sometimes a long while passes before these memories come flooding back. I am grateful for those times. I am grateful that I have overcome so much since I was a teen, but I don't think that any amount of time that passes will truly heal these deep wounds. I think that I will just have to learn to live with this part of my life. I would really like to find a way to put this part of me to death finally. Hope. Hope is what I hold onto. One day I will look around and see no evidence of this in my life and in the lives of others I love who have also been abused.
