The Battle: Why I Write At All

Snapshot

I don’t know the best, most productive way to start. Except with a snapshot of right where I am now. And where I am is on the spectrum of surviving sexual abuse, and living everyday life through that lens as a result of abuse. This lens has stayed with me every day of my life since I was, oh, somewhere between seven and eight years old.

Why don’t I have the date stamped in my head? Because I was a kid, that’s why. 

But also because I was sick at the time, it was nighttime, I was sound asleep, and the day of the week or the time of year didn’t become important right then. I mean, compared to what was unfolding in the first in a series of incidents. I was too busy focusing on ‘Is this really happening?’ and other survival tactic questions.

Sometimes every hour of my day is about dealing with the consequences of that trauma. I’ve spent countless hours trying to make simple sense of the series of events that made up that first night, and I simply cannot. I can’t make sense of any of the incidents. Not as a kid, or a teen, or as an adult.

I don’t doubt that they happened because I was there. But I’ve spent countless moments wondering why I space out, or clench up, or climb inside myself to catch a breath. I’m hyper-aware, and afraid to sleep deeply, and second-guess most of my gut feelings. I’m incredibly sociable and yet feel alone in a room full of people. I stand apart because I don’t know when to let my guard down enough to fit in.

The luxury of assimilating socially is foreign. Vulnerable. And no matter the desire to be vulnerable, because it has been used as my weak spot, used even by my loved ones, I see it as a tool of my enemy. So I must stay vigilant.

Battling the Rug

It would be so convenient if I could just sum up being molested that first time. Or any time afterward. It would be much simpler for those who I told. For family, or friends, or strangers, alike. If I could sum up the Victim/Abuser Battle in a tidy little sentence or two. But the truth is that it’s complicated. Trauma is complicated and broad while the details and feelings and healing and outrage are incredibly specific to me. And so I battle it, and the desire for a tidy overview, knowing that I cannot simplify in order to corral and rein in and conquer my pain.

It’s my enemy, and I cannot reason with the trauma in order to diminish it. Nor is it my only enemy. I battle and battle and battle with the pros and cons of telling. Of explaining, and reasoning, and ignoring, and trying to put it down and take a break, like some people wish I’d do.

As if it were a nine-to-five job.

And in writing, I unconsciously battle with how to tell about the incidents. By topic of fucked-up-ed-ness, or through a specific timeline? Through logic or emotion? Should I tell at all? Should I share this burden? Should I spew my point of view? Should I accuse and justify? Should I swallow it down some more? Will this make other people uncomfortable? Will my words make other people listen? Stop their day? Question their beliefs? Their comfort zone?  

I’ve decided that because I’m not in charge of “people” anyway, that yes, I’ll write about my battle, and what you feel or do with my words are up to you. I’m trusting that there are enough of “You People” who get my battle that you will find value in my point of view. And maybe my words will help you find what counts in your life and through your lens. That may be how we switch over to “We, the People”, after all.

Because I count, too.

This is me reclaiming my worth.

In order to write authentically, I also acknowledge the harder part. I write because those who assaulted, molested, raped, and harassed me haven’t come forward. They won’t come forward. Not to me. Not on their own. Accountability was never part of their deal. They were always more comfortable to play the odds. That freedom to tell was also part of their power.

Let things play out.

The burden of proving guilt is with the one being harmed.

Brush those actions under the rug.

Her rug; Her life. Out of sight, out of mind.

My rug and my life just happened to be their convenient sweeping place. The “He Said/She Said” argument is a powerful tactic, after all. So I write to balance that power. I took this altered reality on when I was little, and it backfired because I didn’t know the names of my body parts. I didn’t have the right words to convey the incidents, the horror, or my shame. And their odds paid off. For many reasons, I became a lightning rod that seemed to attract this type of hit-and-walk-away strategy. I lived in an out-of-sight, out-of-mind world because of it.

I survived my past but I’m putting down that lightning rod now.

Life’s Lens of Perception

The last, and biggest reason, I speak out is this: After decades of therapy, gobs of trauma groups, a shit-ton of support centers that provided the time to ponder, working through shit, and process…I still have body memories and flashbacks. I have this lens of life that includes pain and trust issues and fucked up fear and fantasies and little coping mechanisms. Maybe they’ll always be there, to one degree or another. They are life’s “lens of perception” for me.

And what’s important to deal with isn’t trying to erase the memories and mechanisms completely, or ignore that they happen, or to what degree that they occur. What’s important is to continue to develop tools and support systems that work for me in moving through the persistent cycle that comes from surviving flashbacks and body memories. I’m becoming realistic about those painful consequences, and managing the pain, with help. There are practical tools and funny, weird, and honest tools in my toolbox that I use to cope. I write to acknowledge those, as well.

My lens of life tends to twist everyday areas. Maybe yours does too. Life areas such as:

• • Promiscuity, Labeling, and Qualifying My Slut or Prude-ness in Society

• • Married Life and Motherhood

• • Sibling Relationships

• • Parent Relationships

• • Community Obligations

• • Escapism and laying down the load

• • Self-Worth

• • Anger

• • Reclaiming Myself, My Space, and My Boundaries

• • The Pain/Pleasure Spectrum

• • Self-Love

• Consequences I Didn’t Choose

These are just a few ways I feel the tainted scope of sexual abuse, but there are oh so-many-other areas. It makes me want to shower off, but I can’t shower this part off, so I write about it, too.

In managing the consequences, I’ve had time to process something else. A realization that, in some aspects, my perpetrators may also struggle. They are human, after all. So in that, both sides seem to be the same side. Meaning, we are all trying to survive some shit. I’ve heard many a time that life is a series of choices and consequences. That’s what rules are based on. But there is also survival. So what did my abusers survive that got them to the point in life where they chose THIS particular survival mechanism, in this instance? Was it a survival mechanism at all? Or was it all insidious choice and no consequence? What did they really get away with?

My knee-jerk reaction to this realization was: Who cares about that? They fucked me over, big time, and they didn’t even care. So why should I? Fuck them right back. They can burn in hell. That was a simple answer, and a pretty general consensus, I found. Lots of people used that reasoning. It absolved any responsibility I had to care about their life. Bam! Easy Peasy, and move on. That shortcut any of the messy reality that still stuck out about the fact that I may or may not see them ever again. Out of sight, Out of mind. If I knew they were already condemned, I could stop thinking about them. Except that didn’t happen. Easy Peasy did not happen, dammit. It just became another way to brush it under the rug.

Easy doesn’t mean Simple

My topics are not simple. Hell, my life isn’t simple. Probably, neither is yours. And I provide no definitive answers. Only questions and a different perspective. But I have to say it out loud: What is the entire truth? I have to ask out loud the reality that I’ve already lived, right alongside the truth. It comes, unwanted, right alongside my scrapes and rips and tears. Right alongside the shame and police reports and denials and shushing and brushing under the rug. This truth is complicated because it isn’t just about me -the victim- and they -the abusers- in each case. Those roles are just the main players. Or maybe just the most immediate players.

There are many other roles that play into an event.

• • The Victim.

• • The Abuser.

• • The Oblivious.

• • The Ones-That-Knew-And-Said-Nothing.

• • The Medical/Mental/Emotional Support Group-group.

• • The curious Entertainment/Gossip-Value Observer.

• • The pious Know-It-All.

• • The Past.

• • The Truth.

• • The What-Now dilemma.

• • The Avoidance mechanisms.

• • The Empowerment and Freedom.

• • The Consequences.

• The Lens of my Life.

I will never excuse the bullying, abusive behavior that started when I was 7 and ended 2 years ago. Very few of them knew each other. Family members. Strangers. Church members. Community members. Schoolmates. I’m pissed, hurt, and done with letting that run my life. All of them hurt me and humiliated me and fucked me over in the respect, accountability, and acknowledgment departments.

I’m not, and will NEVER, excuse the behavior and consequences that came from the sexual abuse different males chose to bring into my life. They forced or manipulated or loomed into a primary role in my history. I’ll never excuse the secondary abuse, humiliation, and neglect that came from both male and females, either. These secondary roles choked my life with the “prove it” and “I don’t believe you” attitude when I opened up to them in faith, trust, or out of spiritual obligation. In some ways, the secondary roles were even more damaging to me.

So why do I care about the story behind EVERY role that happened in each event? After all, it’s my life, my skin, my experiences, my pain, my healing, and reclaiming my life.  It’s just that all of those things really do go for the other people who filled all of the roles in the events that shaped my life.

So I acknowledge it and ask the hard stuff out loud.

It’s fucking hard to acknowledge, by the way. That someone who humiliated and violated me and then denied, bullied, taunted, dismissed, gossipped, loomed, manipulated, and/or physically assaulted me still has a story and a past and possibly even a survival story. And maybe it’s every bit as complicated as mine is. That would threaten to upstage my righteous indignation if I have any left. And aren’t I entitled to it?

Toxic Entitlement

My answer, finally, is no. My righteous indignation is just as toxic an entitlement as a perpetrator’s entitlement to violate my space. That’s a hard truth, but it’s there, nonetheless. And acknowledging the entitlement on all sides is the first step, I feel, to let it go. It is that part that I’m ready to talk about. In my imperfect, hard and complicated way, I want to know the answer to “What Gave Them The Right?” Maybe my curiosity is part of my healing. Maybe because I hate loose ends. But I would like to know what got them to choose violence and intimidation and hurting when they DID. NOT. HAVE TO.

What was their story? Were they abused? Neglected? Hurt? Dismissed? Defensive? Surviving? How far along their own healing journey were they? Because with what I survived, I didn’t keep that pattern going. I didn’t corner a kid, or a teen, or an adult and impose my fingers and words and tools to sexually overpower another person. Just sayin.

God, I hate that I need to know these answers. But I do. I need to validate, if anything, that they are human, just like me. They are not ASSHOLES, any more than I am an asshole. I am a human who is strong, and weak and unsure and called a black sheep (mostly by me) and has been called a bitch or a loving, caring person and I am a giver and a taker. I am human. In that, we are all the same.

If we are all human, then there is room for growth. For learning from our actions. There could possibly be room to learn enough to stop patterns and shine a light in the dark, taboo areas brushed under the rug. I may or may not be able to forgive, and I know for damn sure I won’t forget, but I’m sick of their shit being brushed under the rug of my life. It’s time to clean out the dirt, however that looks.

Reshaping the Space under the Rug

Acknowledging that an abuser is also human DOESN’T absolve any of them from the actions chosen. Hell No! There are still choices and consequences that come into play. It just means I’m open that there is an option to balance the power play that happened in the past, in a productive way. This hard truth, once acknowledged (in the right time and in the right setting), means there is room to move on. For all sides and roles in the series of events to learn and keep it from happening again.

I talk about this possibility to find the blind spots, on my side and theirs, where there is room for communication, education, and healing. Then there is space to do things differently. There is room to stop using blame and accusation and diminishing tactics as the most powerful form of being heard. I write this to stop “just complaining” and deal with the fact that I need and want to trust strong, powerful, kind men and women in my life. I write this so I can readjust my thinking that men are/should be used only as a tool or whipping post because that’s how they have treated me. And to acknowledge the truth that women can be as vicious and dismissive and callus as men can be.

Me included.

But there is room to change.

It’s time for me to see past the anger and fear and labels. Men are not targets. Neither are women. We are the same in that we are human. We are not labeled, other than by ourselves or others, as a master or slave. An asshole or martyr. A victim or abuser. We are not the sum of our fearful stereotypes. So I ask hard questions.

• • If I stop looking to use myself or others out of fear or retaliation, what’s on the other side?

• Can there be another side?

If I am to use anything, or anyone, or be used by others, then I choose to use or be used in this way.

There is room for another, more useful option. And that is to learn from all sides. Lift up the rug, acknowledge what’s there, and then get to work clearing it away, asking for help as needed.

This is why I write.