Just a Girl
“But moooom, why can’t I go?!”
“Because I said so. I have my reasons, and I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“Oh what, mom, were you molested or something?”
“No, I was raped.”
What started as a typical argument with my mother about not being allowed to go somewhere I thought I should be able to go (after all I was thirteen years old, and that’s practically grown-up), ended with a story she wasn’t planning to tell. I don’t remember where I wanted to go or why the conversation took that direction, but it did, and I learned exactly why my mom was so protective.
When she was sixteen, my mom went to an event at her high school. It doesn’t matter what, it only matters that she was walking home alone through a field near the school. That was normal for her. What wasn’t normal was the man in the field with a gun. I don’t know every detail, partly because she didn’t tell me and partly because I didn’t ask. He forced her to the ground and threatened to kill her if she screamed. When it was over, he got up and left like it was nothing, like he hadn’t just taken her virginity and something more.
She made it to a payphone and called some friends of her sister because they had their own apartment so she didn’t have to go home. The next day she went to the police, but they didn’t take her too seriously – she told me she couldn’t describe the man’s face but she could describe every single detail of that gun. They told her without a description there wasn’t much they could do, and she was dismissed. The local paper ran a small article that didn’t mention her name, only referred to her as the “alleged victim.” They probably had to but she said the day she read that “alleged” was one of the worst days of her life.
Hearing my mom’s story absolutely shut me up. Not just that night, but for almost a decade. I didn’t tell my sister, I didn’t tell my friends, I didn’t tell ANYONE. The only time I recall talking about it again was when she told my little sister several years later. It’s not that I forgot about it; on the contrary, I thought about it almost every day.
Almost.
One night, I guess I forgot those lessons. I was seventeen and believed I was safe among friends, with just a touch of that teenage invincibility we all thought we had, so I drank too much at a party. Way, way too much. I talked to a boy I didn’t know, and I let him convince me we should go into one of the bedrooms. I remember laying on the bed because sitting up was just too hard, and I remember him kissing me. I remember feeling vaguely afraid but the fear didn’t last long because blackness followed. Every time I regained consciousness, I wanted to move, I wanted to leave, and I knew that it wasn’t right and why was he looking at me and laughing, quietly, to himself? But I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t stay awake long enough to yell or tell him to stop.
I could have followed in my mother’s footsteps that night. Fortunately my guardian angel, also known as my little sister, was watching out for me. She realized she hadn’t seen me for awhile and went looking. As much as she drives me nuts sometimes, I was so grateful that night that she’s fearless and rude and didn’t see any problem opening bedroom doors to find me. When she saw me on the bed with my pants half off and that boy standing over me, she grabbed my shoe (also fortunate that those were the days of big chunky heels) and hit him in the head. Hard. And then again. Then she dragged me off the bed, fixed my clothes, and pulled me out into the hallway. She told him if he tried to touch me again, she would kill him and immediately found us a ride home.
Thank god for overprotective mothers and sisters. I never put myself in that situation again. It would be disrespectful to both of them if I did. And even though I know that I chose to drink too much, and I agreed to go in the bedroom, that what happened after is NOT my fault. And I will NOT stop telling people about it because if one girl reads that and avoids my mother’s fate, then that’s more than I could save if I kept my mouth shut.
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Just a Girl blogs at Dramatic Sigh.
Amy
She could hear him. She knew it was him. Who else would enter her home so late at night? Who else would disrupt her slumber in such rude ways?
As a little girl woken in the dark of a peaceful night she was frightened, afraid of what was to come. She knew the door between her room and the hallway gave her safety, but what was going to happen beyond it frightened her most.
She woke with the moonlight pouring through her window, curtains softening the glow. Perspiration on her neck created ringlets in her hair. Her nightgown hung to the floor and she was a picture of sweet, sweet innocence. Tiny painted fingernails and toes, stuffed animals sharing her bed, she was everyone and anyone’s little girl.
Before long she could hear the mumbling and the voices begin to escalate. “Oh come on, get off my back!” he would say to her mother as she questioned where he’d been. His voice carried, perhaps because he was so tall and his presence so ominous in their small home. Perhaps the drugs and alcohol had something to do with it, though? Perhaps it made him louder?
The little girl knew that something louder might be coming and she wished with all of her might that her mommy would not say anything more to the man. She hoped that if they didn’t speak…if he didn’t get mad… maybe the house would be quiet and cozy once again. But his callousness cut this mommy too deep and she would wince, showing just enough pain to fuel him and the exchange would continue. It was if they were tied by a rope to the back of a truck…once the truck started, they were all going along for the ride, to be dragged, pulled along, no matter the cost.
Another question from the mommy and the responses grew louder, the obscenities and vulgarities thrown at the woman hurt this little girl almost as much, as the words bounced off the walls and embedded in the her memory. Yelling turned to screaming … and it seemed odd to this child that no one else could hear. She wondered why no one stopped him. She wondered why no one came. And later, she would wonder why no one protected her or or her brother.
In her small room it would take a seemingly long time to get from the bed to the door. She didn’t dare open it, but if she sat down by it, she could hear better, and understand a little more clearly what was taking place. A plate or glass had been thrown and it was easier to identify through the small crack where the light from the hallway sneaked in. She placed her hand on the doorknob and wait for some courage, but it never seemed to come.
She imagined the man’s icy eyes and knew how his size towered over her mother’s. The beginning of a struggle was heard and the little girl held her breath hoping that it would end quickly. A gasp from her mommy and she wanted to run to her, but what would she do? What could she do when she got there? Her mommy would sob and as the man squeezed life out of her mommy he also squeezed some out of the little girl. He would eventually succumb to fatigue and end the bout with more profanities directed at the mommy. Each word cut into the ribbon of innocence tied sweetly around the little girl, eventually shredding it and fraying the edges of her heart as well. Each blow that landed robbed her of the serenity of a child because there was no safety. Each helpless moment chipped away at the block of courage that she had to stand on and eventually she felt none, but was left instead with stepping stones to shame.
For so many long nights, though, that little girl could only hang on to her bedroom doorknob, and wait for the noise to stop.
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Amy tweets as @abeeliever , and blogs at Una Vita Bella.
Andrea
Moderator’s note: A young family member of mine went through something very similar to this. Experts tell me the Internet, cell phones, and smart devices have ratcheted up dating violence, abuse, and bullying among middle and high school kids to a whole new, unimaginable level. — Maggie
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“Unmasked”
Yes, I came from a broken home. My mother realized it and fought to mend it for her three children–and she succeeded. Yes, I experienced domestic violence throughout my childhood; sometimes brutal attacks, sometimes no more than a smack here or there. Does that mean I asked for the emotional and physical abuse I’d experience later on?
When I was 14 I met a girl who told me about a boy she knew. The boy and I talked online through messengers, email, and other means. I was insecure and desperate for love I didn’t experience at home, so we developed a long distance relationship.
After a year I knew that this boy was not a boy–his pictures were different every time, his voice on the phone was not male, I called my friend’s number which was “routed” to get to him (to avoid long distance, obviously) –I didn’t care. I knew it was that girl who initially introduced me to “him.”
Then I entered high school and it got worse. I “broke up” with the boy to date the girl. She did to others what she did to me (while we were dating), made it a point to leave little clues around so I’d know. She took sex on her terms when she wanted it, which I gave her because I so badly wanted to have a relationship. She withheld all affection when she didn’t care enough to make an effort. It lasted almost two years.
Finally I brought it up. She would follow me around school, doing things just to hurt me, make me angry and sad. When I went to school officials (the security lady, my choir teacher, my counselor) they listened, understood. Then she went to them claiming I was the one doing the harassing. Even her friends didn’t take her side after that.
I almost dropped out of high school.
Eventually she left. I took my last year of school to fix myself, to understand it, to put it behind me.
She’s still doing this, using up wounded, fragile people because it fulfills something lost inside herself. She did it to one of my best friends (who is a gay male) and one of my friends who knew her then.
She kept trying to continue the cycle–creating false identities and trying to contact me, calling me to deliver verbal and emotional abuse–until my good friend (who is also one of her victims) told her that we had all of the fake IDs she’d created and all of the abuse she’d dealt out saved and would sue her for everything we could. I haven’t heard from her since that.
I grew up being hit and thrown and bruised. I entered my teenage years being bruised emotionally and sexually because I thought it was the only kind of love I could ever experience.
Now I am about to move in with the man I will marry–a man who is kind, patient, loyal and generous, who loves me for exactly what I am–and I am not a victim. I will never be a victim of anyone ever again. I broke the cycle of my father and my father’s father and my mother. It ends with me.
And I am stronger for it.
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Andrea blogs at The Revenant Cupcake.
