Hell Hole

Well…

Not that I’m on the outside or anything, but I’ve at least crawled high enough up the side of my hole to have some perspective on its depth…

That’s a fucking deep hole!

This summer has been… probably the worst of my life since I was a kid.  And, in some ways, it triggered a grief for the child I was, because, I realized that this summer was actually ostensibly less awful than what I was going through as a child… alone…

I went through medical hell that triggered a lot of PTSD.  But I had people to tell about it.  I didn’t have to keep it secret.  I had medical treatment (even if it was horrible and traumatizing).  I had drugs.  SO many drugs.

When I was a kid… for two years… I was being molested and raped by a man at my daycare.  I kept it secret.  I worried about germs so I tried to scrub my tongue and hands and other parts of me eventually with dirt and sand and thistles before rinsing in the creek.  I tried washing with soap at home, but people started to notice… and… I knew… above all other things… I just knew… I couldn’t let anyone find out.

They’d make me see a doctor.

Somehow that was even worse than what was happening to me.

To have to go through basically the exact same thing that was happening to me every day, but with a stranger, under bright lights, with everyone’s approval that it was perfectly fine for this strange man to touch me.

At least at daycare it was in the dark, and nobody was telling me to cooperate with the nice doctor…

So I lived for two years with that secret (and the rest of my life).  I remembered vaguely before, but it all came back with clarity this summer….

…the feeling of dread every morning waking up.  The feeling of wishing I just wouldn’t wake up, so I wouldn’t have to face another day of it.  The sick heaviness of… living… hiding… knowing he was coming every afternoon to pick me up at school.  Knowing he would approach me to “play” in the back room.  Knowing that I’d probably not even try to avoid him because he’d always win anyway.  I remembered the defeat.  The surrender.  The isolation. The ill feeling in the pit of my stomach that just never went away.

I remembered the summer when I was fifteen and gang raped.  Sodomized.  I remembered the detachment afterwards.  The emptiness as hunger became numbness that spread through my body… eventually even blurring the pain itself.  I probably should have had stitches.  I should probably see a doctor now to address some of the damage that I still have.  But I never did.  I don’t know if I ever will.  It was easier to stop eating and hope I’d either heal on my own or starve to death… I was leaning towards hoping for the latter, though I had no faith that the universe was so kind as to end my suffering.

I was fifteen.

I lived on gummy bears, Jello, and Gatorade for six weeks.

I lost too much weight and I was terrified they’d take me to a doctor and find out what was happening, but my parents were getting divorced (I didn’t know), my father had already found an apartment and was packing to move out (I didn’t know), when my mother got a cancer diagnosis (stage 3), and suddenly I was in charge of the family and no one noticed how much weight I had lost or how tentatively I began trying solid food again.

I remembered being 21 and living in my first apartment on my own.  Going to a party.  Getting raped while people walked past the open door and did nothing to stop it.  I remember his hands… huge… rough… covering my mouth and nose, grinding so hard into my face that my lips tore against my teeth…  wrenching my breasts so violently my skin tore, my upper arms, too, where he held me down, twisted my flesh, told me to shut the fuck up… stupid bitch… stupid, worthless, cunt.

I told someone about that one.  They told other people.  Everyone told me to keep my mouth shut.  Told me I should have expected it.  Told me that’s just how guys are.  Told me I dare not bring the police in because it was a BDSM party and that’s illegal here.

So I went home to my apartment.

Alone.

And thought about taking pills.

Thought about cutting my wrists.

Bought lidocaine spray and cried at the sting and laid in bed until I could walk again.

Alone.

A few years later a boyfriend complained that I had “stretch marks” on my breasts and upper arms.

I just said, “Yeah… sorry…”

Because it was my fault for being torn.

And then… for a while… I wasn’t assaulted.  Except for guys who grabbed or slapped my ass when I was a waitress…  Or guys who wouldn’t take no for an answer and forced their slobbering, drunk kisses against my lips and their seeking fingers under my bra, trapping me against a wall, or the door of my car while I tried to escape without antagonizing them and getting myself further torn.

I thought that was just dating.

Then, somehow, life went on, and memories that never fade, were at least somewhat obscured by dust and time.

Until this summer…

…When I wasn’t raped.  I was medically treated.

It felt the same, but I’m told it’s an important distinction… for other people.

I gritted my teeth and cooperated with the nice doctors.

I came home and thought about taking pills, or cutting my wrists.  I applied the lidocaine (gel this time, and with a prescription), and cried at the sting.

I told people and they sympathized.  Though they couldn’t truly understand.

I told people and they listened.  And I still felt alone.

I told people and they couldn’t stop it.  They couldn’t save me.  Even though they knew it was happening.

I told people, and I was still alone.

I’m not a child anymore.  I have adult resources.  I have adult reserves.  I have healthy friendships and partners to lean on.  I have a therapist, a psychiatrist and a good doctor.

I don’t know how that child I was survived.

I am so sorry, child I was…

I’m so sorry.

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