Tiff
The first time someone imposed themselves physically on me I was 12. It was innocent, as far as he knew, but he’d raided his folks’ liquor cabinet on New Year’s Eve and was itching for a good time. Somehow, he’d found out where I was babysitting, and called me up. “Hey, can I come over?” No. “Aw, come on” No. “I’m coming over.” I won’t let you in. Knock knock. “It’s raining, at least let me in to dry off” No. “Please?” Oh OK. As soon as he was halfway through the door he grabbed me and kissed me, slobbery, on the mouth. I shoved him back out that door, into he cold rain, without his umbrella, and ran to the bathroom to scrub at my face until it was raw. I should have been happy a boy wanted to kiss me, but I was ashamed.
The nest time, I was 13. The Dad of the kids I was sitting for offered to drive me home. He’d had a few drinks while out which had aroused his inner Lolita complex. He locked the car doors and wouldn’t let me out, pawing at my breasts and grabbing at my head to kiss him. I clocked him in the jaw good one, spat at him, and when he sensed defeat, he let me out, hissing ‘that’s the last time you’ll sit for us, bitch.’ Good, I thought. I went upstairs and scrubbed at my face until it was raw. Maybe I should have felt grateful an older man was attracted to me, but I was ashamed.
I avoided dating in high school, though I was desperate to be loved. I didn’t know how to act around boys, and made myself so aloof and awkward that nobody asked me out. Except for one semi-disastrous date Freshman year, I didn’t go out with any boys. In college and grad school I had many adventures, some of which were with boyfriends who taught me many things, mostly fun and good and so I felt grand and forgot those early shameful experiences.
Later in life, when I was in a new place and lonely, I was asked out by a guy I met at a bar. He was going take me to dinner, I said yes. Then he offered to cook me dinner, and I said yes. Then, after dinner, he wanted to go up to his room to ‘play backgammon and talk” to get away from his roommates. I, stupidly, said yes. This was all he needed to assume I wanted to do far more than play backgammon, and once the door was shut and locked (I said no to that, but he didn’t listen), I was taken advantage of in the most awful way. Being physically overpowered while my accoster whispered “I bet you like this, huh?” as my clothes were torn away with his one hand (because his other was over my mouth) was horrifying, demeaning, and embarrassing. When he was done, I shoved him off me, spit in his face, grabbed my clothes and ran. Thank God I’d driven my own car there. I should have been thankful a big strong handsome man wanted to sleep with me, but I was ashamed, and a tankful of hot water couldn’t wash that off of me.
I avoided guys after that for a while. Then I met someone, again while I was in a new place and lonely, in a bar, and he offered to take me out to dinner. I said yes. At dinner he acted like a total tool, and I decided I hated him. He was driving though, so I had to live through the ride home. He locked the doors, leaned across the seat, and said ‘I’ll let you go if you kiss me.’ With gritted teeth I did so, and kissed him so angrily I hurt him. He did not like that, one bit, and twisted my right breast so hard I thought he’d torn it off. I punched him in the crotch. He unlocked the door, shoved me out, and cussed me a blue streak while tearing out of my yard. I never went back to that bar. I should have been thrilled someone wanted to date me, and wanted to kiss me, but I was ashamed.
I’ve been awakened with someone’s hands around my throat. I’ve had the shirt ripped off of me. I’ve had dishes broken because ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’ I’ve been cussed out, called names, threatened, and berated for hours on end for things real and imagined. I’ve had hate poured out on me in such heavy bucketloads I thought I would break. I’ve given up so many bits of my soul that I thought I’d lost myself forever. I should have been happy to have a home and job and health, but I was ashamed at how I let myself be treated. Ashamed, and angry.
Anger is key.
Anger helped me to, one day, stop being the victim. One day, when I was being told again how useless I was because of something utterly stupid, trivial, untrue, and spiteful, I got so furious that quit taking it. Funny how being attacked while you’re folding laundry puts a fresh new perspective on the abuse you’ve been willing to take. Funny how the coping you’ve done for years all of a sudden falls apart like a ragged old shirt that just yesterday you wore out in public but would never dare put on again. Funny how once the fog of shame lifts, there’s abundant harsh clarity to inform the next steps you have to take.
I quit being a victim just about 30 years after the first man pushed himself on me, making me his prize to be taken, his treasure to be tarnished. I quit believing so little of myself that I believed this is what life was about, that I had to take the abuse.
On that day, anger something cracked open inside me fierce and raw. On that same day, unfortunately, I quickly sealed up the crack, afraid of the knife-sharp edges of ferocious sadness, and pretended that what was bubbling up out of it was better sealed inside. On that day, I thought I could make a new me through grit and a knack for forgetting bad things, but I was wrong.
You see, denying those experiences does me a disservice. Who I was then is part of who I am now. Her actions then inform my actions now. That woman IS me. That life WAS mine. Those experiences, brewed together over 30 years of negative experiences, drugged my sensibilities to the point where forgetting, sweeping away, seemed the wisest course to take. It was, most certainly, NOT.
Forgetting, denying, belittling of those experiences takes some of the depth of my experiences away, fills in the crags of who I am with complicit agreement with how I was treated. I thought I could soften their impact with a thorough coating of “I choose to not think about this right now,’ but that’s like filling a boxing glove with broken glass and goose feathers – as much padding as you put in, those sharp parts are still there and will, eventually, hurt you, bad.
Acknowledgement of those dreadful experiences, and moving BEYOND them, is the key.
First though, you have to acknowledge.
If you are in this situation now, do not be like me. Do not let that second dish be broken because ‘you made me do it.’ Realize that you are worthy of real love, of nourishing and acceptance, that you are not the broken thing. You can be whole, can be beautiful for someone just as you are, for who you are and not who they think you should be or how they think you should act. Do NOT let 30 years, or 3 MONTHS, go by, thinking ‘this is how it is.’ It’s NOT how it is. Not at all, and even if you live alone for the rest of your life, there’s far more peace in that than in waiting for the next attack, the next bad thing to happen at the hands of someone else.
There’s never an acceptable amount of predation in a relationship. There’s never an acceptable amount of violence. If you’ve been attacked once, seek out what it is that allowed that to happen, and don’t do that again if it’s within your power. If you’re in a nasty relationship, walk away. You deserve far more than a life of dreading the sound of a car coming up the driveway or dating ‘that guy/girl’ because s(he)’s the only one who has shown interest.
Please, learn from my lessons. It took me long enough, and once I turned around and walked out my life changed for so much more good that I’m stunned, daily, how liberating it is to just BE. Not perfect, not even close, but by just being me it’s enough for some people.
Me included.
Whoever you are that made me write this – I love you, and hope you get the help you need to make a new life, for YOU. You deserve so much more than you have right now.
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Tiff blogs at No Accent Yet. This post originally appeared on Tiff’s blog in May 2011.
Trixie
I will use Trixie as my name because that is when my happiness started. I won’t say that I was ‘fixed’ once I was labeled as such. I continued to make bad choices. But it was a start.
I remember being 11.
I remember hanging out with her because my brother played with her brother and I wanted to be a part of the ‘big kids’.
I remember her name. And that he was 17.
I remember that it was a shotgun-type house with the bedrooms off to the side of the main living areas. An addition of sorts.
I remember going over to play with her, even though she was three years older than I.
I remember her not being home. But he was.
I remember him telling me that she was in her bedroom. I had to go through his to get to hers.
I remember him following me.
I remember him locking the door.
I remember him being very nice when he asked me to take my clothes off so they wouldn’t get torn or dirty.
I remember him being very nice when he asked me to get on the bed. And open my legs.
I don’t remember much else until much later that night.
I don’t remember walking home. I don’t remember cleaning myself. I don’t remember anything else until I was in my own bed.
I DO remember crying.
For years afterward, I cried. And made consistently bad choices.
I acted out. I ran away. I was moved to my father’s house in Florida. I continued to act out. I was kicked out. I fought to finish high school. I slept with people thinking I could make them love me. Hoping I was good enough.
One night, a friend of mine was shot while walking his girl home from work. He was defending her from a would-be mugger. His roommate in the hospital became my first husband.
I don’t remember why Rob was in the hospital. I just remember that he had no home and so he came to mine. My roommates didn’t approve. We were asked to leave. We had nothing. No furniture. No groceries. Just the clothes on our backs. But we rented an apartment. We stole from the power company. We stole from the water company. We fought. Constantly. About everything. We were mad at each other and fighting about a box fan. I wanted it in the bedroom. He wanted it in the living room. I remember taking a pair of metal scissors and telling him that if we couldn’t agree, neither of us would have the fan. Then I snipped the cord in half. While it was plugged in and running. With the metal scissors. I was lucky. Or maybe not.
My mother said that she would pay for us to come back home. To the state and the person I swore I would never go to again. We went. Life was not any better.
My mother helped us to the best of her ability. She paid for me to go to the local college. She helped Rob get benefits from the government for a military accident that I am still not sure happened. She bought me a car. I loved that car. She housed us, fed us, clothed us, and loved me through it all.
I wanted a baby. I got one. But I had started to realize that he was bad. Stealing from any job he had till he got caught and fired. Several times. Controlling me without my knowledge. Friends ask to this day how I let myself be like that. I never starts like it ends. In December we were still living in my mother’s house. I told him I wanted him to leave. I felt safe in her house. He was not happy but would not show his true self with my mother around. He went to bed with his pills. Two hours later, when I went to bed, I realized what he had done. My mother and I carried him to the car and had him admitted to the VA hospital into the Psych ward.
My story should have ended there.
I took him back. Isn’t it love when someone can’t live without you? Isn’t it love that they would rather die than be without you?
We married on March 31st so that my baby wouldn’t be a bastard. We moved into our own trailer just around the block from my mother. He had several jobs. All lost under questionable conditions. We/he had friends. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without him. I wasn’t allowed to have friends he didn’t approve of. I met P and C. We were friends. I fell in love with P. He named me several things, including Trixie. All of these names have the power to make me smile to this day. I kept my friends hidden as much as possible. They eventually left me. More proof that I wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t allowed to answer the phone without him home. My car was disabled and left in the yard for two years. He had friends. He brought them over. He had fun. He didn’t hurt me then. Just controlled me. In every way. But it wasn’t rape because we were married, right?
One friend he made and brought home was not what he thought. Michael was someone who already knew me. Someone from high school. Someone that said he was in love with me from back then. Someone who gave me the strength to leave. Even though I used him to do so.
The night I left, I was told I would be back, I was ridiculed, I was hit, I was chased across the yard to the neighbor’s with a sledgehammer. The police were called. He told his story, I told mine. The police believed whatever he told them. I was in the wrong.
I was also in the wrong when I called them 23 times over the next two months. Months when he locked our daughter in the house and wouldn’t let her come back to me. She was there for court ordered visitation. It took two hours, a police stand-off, and a broken window to get her away from him. Thank you Miss Prissy for guarding my baby even when the police threatened to shoot you.
And still, I was the one in the wrong. Still the police wouldn’t take him in.
Until December 23rd, when they took me in. Because he was dead. Shot by himself in our house.
I was so tired/relieved/believing that it was all over. Until I got a phone call from his mother. The same mother who was supposed to be dead.
I made more bad choices. I slept around. But I held a job and took care of my child. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t drink. I tried to put our lives back together.
I met and married a wonderful man, even though I wasn’t in love with him. I just wanted normal. Safe. I wanted to have another child. I made contact with P, the person who said me loved me, also the one who left me because of my first (and second) husband. I wanted HIS child. A part of him to hold forever. Our timing was such that I had lost him so many times. He refused to give me his child. Not good enough again.
I had an affair with Michael. Just long enough to get pregnant. Then I left him again.
My life with my husband has not been all roses. Loving someone and being in love are so totally different. We fought. We went to counselling. We worked through some things. I still cheated on him. With Michael. Just to feel loved. To feel that I was ALL to someone, anyone. And with P. He was, and still is. the only one that knows most of me and says he loves me in spite of who I am.
I have a child and a grandchild to raise. One is 15 and one is 3.
I am still broken. I have made so many choices that led me here. Choices that cannot be reversed. I love my husband. But I am in love with P. My husband loves me and accepts me as is. At least what he really knows of me. I am afraid to go to the one I love for fear that I will lose my grandchild and/or damage my child. I am afraid to go to the one I love because I have become accustomed to the life I lead. I am afraid to go to the one I love because it is selfish. I am afraid to go to the one I love because he might not be able to really love me.
All my choices have been made out of fear.
I am still broken. I am still afraid. And I am still alone.
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