Blog I forgot to post in September 2016
So, this month month has been hell on earth for me. It's been mad crazy insane and so many other adjectives that if I wrote them here...it would just be the entire blog...nothing but adjectives. Which isn't what this blog is about. This is a place for me to say what I need to say. They even wrote a song about it hahahahaha But this is about the TRUTH of what happened to me when I was a child. If you can handle it, read on, if you can't...well...click on another blog because this isn't for everyone. Sometimes, the truth is ugly, scary and smells like brimstone because of what happened to you...or what you witnessed.
This past month I've been asked to tell my story to a group of a young girls and boys. I did. It wasn't an easy decision to make and I kept that decision solely to myself. While that decision ate at me, it also made me realize that by hiding what happened, I was just making it okay for the pedophile that sexually abused me and assaulted me to go about living their life. In reality, it's not okay. It will never be okay. My life right now is hard earned. I worked my ass off to move past those feelings and to see such young, beautiful but tormented individuals relate to the darkness and despair I felt...it hurt my soul and made my spirit weep. I told them straight up, because that's just how I am, that no matter how far you run, or how much you hide, you can't run from yourself or your mind. The truth will find you whether you like it or not. It really is up to you to decide whether or not you can face it and deal with the consequences. I always tell my friends this one thing...do you really want to know? I ask that question because you have to be willing to accept the consequences of what you are asking. Are you ready to know? Are you ready to take whatever action feels right? Are you ready to deal with the burden that kind of knowledge will bring into your life? Hmmm...it's a life altering decision to face off with a past you buried.
For years, I buried the truth.I repressed my memories for years. For years I repressed the memories of a basement where my friend and I were burned with cigarettes. For years, I repressed the memory of being in a dark hole in the ground with a car on top of me and my friend. For years I repressed the memory of where I was fondled. For years, I repressed the memory of what an erection felt like. For years, I repressed the memories of sex....till one day I started to remember. The psychiatrist called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with an adjustment disorder as well. I called it living in hell. I talked about it with the people who went through it with me. I talked them down from committing suicide. Pulled them off the highway by their jeans. Wrestled them to the floor for pill bottles and razors. Fought for their very lives and no one knew but us. Just us. Then one night...I couldn't take it anymore. Nobody was there to witness me take my own life. Nobody was there when I took 120 pills mixed with vodka. Nobody was there to wrestle me to the ground...because nobody knew. I was good at keeping secrets. So very good at pretending everything was okay...till someone told...and I was asked and I realized the jig was up. The truth found me...whether I liked it or not.
The most life altering question I have ever been asked is "do you give this statement freely?" No one has any idea how hard it is to sit there and relive your shame. To bring a secret you have been hiding since you were 4 years old into the light. To bring the very thing that you have tried to repress from the very depths of your memory...and to bleed that poison from your soul. To let your spirit weep...and to forgive the child inside of you that doesn't need forgiveness...but they think they do. What the cops, the police, the attorneys never tell you...is that the wheels of justice they grind. They grind so very slowly that you feel like you are not believed. That you feel helpless and hopeless. That you feel like it doesn't even matter because the person who violated you was right - no one cares about you at all. You don't matter except for one thing and one thing only. The justice system makes you feel guilty till you prove you aren't the one that did anything wrong. Still, the truth needed to be told and I did what I had to do. I was prepared to do it...even if it costs me my life.
The
Past
I try to breathe and I find myself here again,
surround
by days long past.
Am I to forever remain a prisoner of my
past?
Just the thought of it makes me want to runaway very
fast.
Days I thought were long buried,
find a way to haunt me
in my sleep.
Days that were filled with torture and pain,
times
were I was stripped of my innocence.
Now I am left tainted and
shattered,
broken into pieces scattered to the ends of the
earth.
My body and soul were left tattered,
I am beyond
recognition.
I wear a facade to hide my pain,
a smile to mask
my fears.
I walk with my head down,
only to hide my eyes filled
with tears.
I have spent all my life in dark imprisonment,
my
only companions are hopelessness and despair.
Still, I survive
because it is all I know how to do,
even with all my pain and
years of sorrow..
-
Julia Polson - August 26, 1999
And that's how I celebrated my birthday that year. Remembering the things that every woman fears more than death. Remembering the powerlessness, being stripped of my sense of security, being torn apart inside, and drowning in soo much despair...but I had a goal. I was going to make him accountable for what he did to me in order to protect every other little girl and boy out there. I didn't want them to go through everything I was going through. I didn't want there life to be shades of grey like mine was.
So, he plead not guilty. All that medical evidence against him, all the reports and he still said he was innocent. Well, he learned the hard way that denying the truth doesn't change the facts. He sexually assaulted and abused me. From when I was 4 years old till I was 5 1/2 years old. My saving grace was when he no longer had access to me. It took me years to forgive people I love for not protecting me. It took me years to move past all that pain...and then years later...I had to deal with my fear. While I was waiting for my case to go to trail, I ran into him at a store when I had my young little cousin with me and I saw him look at her...and I felt fear. Fear like I never even knew existed. I ordered her back to my house right away. I watched him and confronted him and told him "I'm not a child anymore and I will rip you apart with my bare hands if you even so much as think of my bebe." I meant it. I was scared but I lived my entire life with fear. Fear that he would kill me like he said. Fear that no one would believe me. Fear that someone would find out. Fear that I wouldn't be able to keep me and my friends secret. So much of my early life...till I was 15 years old was drenched in terror and fear. Well, not anymore. That moment sparked every protective instinct I had in my body and I no longer felt like giving up. No matter how long it took...he was going to pay for what he did. The word would be out and the people would know the kind of soulless monster living in their midst.
It took a long time for justice to come calling. During that time I had to move away from my family though. It was for my own safety. I was being threatened. By his family, by his friends and being judged and intimidated by his grandchildren...I wasn't safe anymore. Home - it wasn't safe for me anymore. I accepted this as a part of the sacrifice I needed to make in order to make sure I did what I had to do. I was in College by the time my case went to trial. It was the most painful, excruciating, soul wrenching experience I had experienced at that time. I had to relieve, in vivid detail, every time he sought pleasure in my 4 year old body. I had to relieve the memories of cream coloured dusty curtains, smoky basements and recliners...and stale beer breath. I had to relieve puking my guts out in a bathroom while he gave me money to keep my mouth shut. I had to relieve the horror of what he did, what he stole, what he tarnished and what he took from me...and then it got worse. I got angry. I got so mad. What no one tells you is that the defence will ask you the most disgusting questions possible. I was asked "what were you wearing" and "did I ask for it". I was crying, and full of rage when I said "Would your 4 year old daughter ask to be sexually assaulted and abused?! Would she?! Would you?! What 4 year old asks that?!" and the Judge made him withdraw that question...but still...I want to puke yet remembering him even asking that question. But I told my truth and he...all he got was one year in jail in protected custody. He never got to feel what I felt. He never got to know an ounce of what his actions did to me and my friends. He never experienced any of that. His sister told me he was a victim. It was the booze.
That sister that told me that...she asked for my forgiveness years later. She knew it was wrong. It was evil what he did. I told those young people that they did nothing wrong. That I believe them. No one asks for that kind of violence.
Courage..it is harder to have when you feel you have nothing. Hope...hope is almost impossible at times but somehow you live. Somehow life goes on whether you are ready or not.
So, there it is. There is my dark truth. The part of me that is not so pretty but that part of me that birthed my resilience. That gave rise to the woman I am today.
Till next time,
xoxo 1/2
