Kristina part two, a follow-up (the lasting effects)
“The Lasting Effects of Abuse”
I shared my story at Violence UnSilenced a couple of years ago [click here for original VU post]. My mother was unable to care for me so she left me in the care of my grandparents (her mother and step-father). Also in the home were my aunt and uncle. Abuse occurred on a daily basis at the hands of my Papa (grandpa). Sometimes it was mental abuse but usually it was both physical and verbal abuse. Everyone in the household was told that they were no good and would never amount to anything.
In my opinion, my uncle usually bore the brunt his abuse. The mental cruelty never stopped, even after we all escaped the home. Papa’s words echoed in our heads long after he passed away.
Some of us dealt with (or are dealing with) the shame. Some of us sought (or are seeking) counseling to understand that it was not us. It was his problem. Others passed from this life remaining in pain and full of shame.
Five days before Christmas 2011, my uncle hung himself to escape the years of torment and the echoes of his father’s voice in his head. With the dire economic conditions he had lost all of his money in the stock market. Because he was destitute my aunt offered to let him move back home and live with her. He told her that his father had been right about him all along. He was a loser and would never amount to anything. I am convinced that his father’s cruel words echoed in his head as he tied the rope around his neck and killed himself.
My sincere hope is that anyone suffering from continued shame seeks immediate counseling. Our family is devastated from such a senseless death. If you know anyone suffering please advise them to seek counseling before it is too late.
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If you or anyone you know is in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.
A
I wrote here once before. When I felt strong and free and whole.
Then the pain of my past took a new form.
I let it hurt me even when I recognized what it was.
It took years.
The tearing down inside me. The caving. The realization that there was no hiding from the shame if I continued to allow it to happen.
I owned it.
The lives I allowed to suffer while my pain built up in silence until it burst.
I don’t like to cause pain.
Not that belonging to another.
Not my own.
After the burst. The tears. The shame. The pain. I can only take responsibility for the healing of one.
MINE.
I own it. The healing. I deserve it.
My children deserve it.
They don’t know it yet but they deserve to have a mother that will hold herself valuable.
I can never truly value the gifts that I have been given until I learn to value myself. I am valuable. My gifts are innumerable.
I have felt strong, free and whole before.
I can do it again.
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A asks that if you recognize her identity, please keep comments here on VU rather than any other public space. Or contact her privately, not out of shame, but out of respect for her kids.
Stephanie
I’m going to call him M in this written down recap. I know this is always anonymous, but you never know.
We met 12 years ago. I was 19, he was 25. He was the sweetest, most caring guy I had ever met. He had a son. We will call him G. He was never violent in the first two years. We never fought. Until he cheated on me. With the mother of G. Hurt and broken emotionally, I left, moved far away to get away from the hurt.
I met other guys, got walked on, my heart broken, tried to forget about M and G. Three years went by….
I moved closer to back home. I got beat on by a guy pretty bad. M came to my rescue. My hero.
Things were different about M. They were subtle at first. He’d get angry and aggressive. Then he’d start hitting things. Walls, doors, pictures. He was drinking a lot, disappearing for hours, not answering his phone. When he did stay home, and G wasn’t there, drinking was always involved. One night after only a few drinks, I felt weird… I went to bed… I have no idea how long had passed, but I woke up to him raping me… in a place I never let him go… I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, couldn’t believe he was doing this. I passed out. I think my boyfriend drugged me because I wouldn’t give him what he wanted. He denied it. Made it into a joke. Told his friends.
I should have left him then…
I…. Stayed….
We had a baby named C. C keeps me alive. C keeps me from running off a cliff. C keeps me here, when all I want to do is run. Things are not better. He disappears a lot now. I work two jobs… I’m not home a lot. I know he’s having an affair. I’ve caught him a few times. He gets so angry when I do. It’s my fault if you didn’t know. I caught him drunk with my roommate after waking up hearing them downstairs.
He denies it. Like he always does. I’m in denial that I can’t leave. I don’t know how. I don’t know where to go. I feel like I deserve this for some reason. I feel like he’ll grow a conscious one day and admit to me everything. I’m in denial that I’ve been abused, and I’m in denial that I’m continually being emotionally abused. I can’t take it much more.
I feel like I had to write this. I wish it had taken some of the hurt away from me. Maybe it will help someone else. Maybe I’ll get the balls and leave him someday. Someday it will be enough. I have had enough.
UPDATE:
Its been many months since I originally wrote this. I have since been able to make him leave, though it hasn’t helped much. I can and will protect my kids… As far as I go, a restraining order will only protect me so much. At 2am when no one is around and my cell phone is slightly out of reach will not stop him.
Every day is a little different than the last. I know I am better off. My friends and most of my family are very supportive. Some people in my family refuse to believe that he is this monster. And that is ok with me, because it was hard for me to believe too. I am optimistic of my future. I am optimistic that I have broken this cycle of abuse so that my daughter does not carry it on. I can and will survive because it isn’t in me not to. I will make sure that I don’t allow myself to continue this pattern….
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Marta
Over half my life ago I was raped.
It’s surprisingly easy to write that sentence. I’ve been writing and rewriting that sentence for thirteen years.
Beneath every sarcastic comment I’ve ever made, the well timed laugh, the fallen tear, there lies that pain. That hurt. The burden of what I carry with me every day, everywhere. Wear on my heart, a scab that will never heal. Picking at the edges with my nails, reopening the wound, letting the blood slip out. I won’t let it heal. Every other emotion pales in comparison.
For remembering this, for recalling the bottom, I rally to continue in the present. Because reliving this horror reminds me of how much worse it can be, how much I’ve overcome and reviving this pain tells me that I’m still alive.
I am desperate for people, sacrificing myself in order to be the best friend I can be. All in this immense fear of abandonment. I fear being alone because of the thoughts that I know are simmering there. Bubbling. Waiting for me to pay attention to them so they can all consume me. I have survived too much, so much, much more than I should. No. I will not address this. I will not. No.
Breathe.
I can do this. I will write this.
I make jokes. At your expense. At mine.
I let you in to push you out. I hurt those who get too close.
I want desperately to be saved. But I won’t ever let you.
I have come so far in my life. Sometimes I look back and am amazed at what I have been able to become. Amazed at what I have buried so deep and yet I can still see the dirt on my hands.
In every situation I imagine the worst. Every day as I drive, I think of what would happen if I had a car accident and died. I envision the hospital, the phone calls, my children’s crying faces. I plan for my death every day. I feel I need to always be prepared. Because when I wasn’t, when I least expected it, it happened. So now I will always expect it. I will always assume the worst is still coming.
I hate being alone for that reason. I’m increasing the chances. Another reason I am desperate for others because if I’m alone, it will happen again. It can always happen again.
I will tell you the story. I will float above myself as I write it because that’s how I deal with things. I separate. I disassociate. I don’t accept responsibility, accountability. I won’t feel.
I went to Ixtapa, Mexico in 1998 with my parents. We stayed at the Dorado Pacifico. One day we went to an exercise class in the pool. I wore a rainbow striped bikini. I held hands with my mother and a young man as we swam in a circle. I smiled at him. I wonder often, if perhaps I hadn’t… If somehow smiling was wrong. If wearing that swimsuit was wrong. But when you’re 13, when you’ve never kissed a boy, you don’t think of those things.
The way he looked at me made me uncomfortable. Something inside of me sensed something was wrong. The way he held my hand in the pool, his gaze and upturned lips. I left my mother and him talking and went to the slide, watched them from the top. They seemed to be talking too long, looking around as if for me. After they separated I questioned my mother on what they talked about. She mentioned that he was 24 and that when she told him my age, how surprised he was at how young I was. How mature I looked for my age. (Does that mean sexy?) She told me that he knew that we were going to be at Senor Frogs that night for dinner. (Why? Why would she tell him?) I spent the rest of that afternoon in anticipation. What would it be like when we saw each other? What would I wear? There was slight excitement. I didn’t know what to expect. Here this older man was interested in me in a way that excited me as well as made me uncomfortable. I pushed the latter thought aside as nerves. I was just nervous. My friends had kissed boys. I was the only one boyfriend-less still at thirteen. Then, it had seemed like such a lifetime.
I was reading my book. What book? I don’t remember. I took the room key from my parents and wanted to go to the bathroom.
I saw him at the pool on my way up to the elevators. I smiled at him. Perhaps I even blushed. Maybe there was lushness to my face, a youthful encouragement I portrayed. I sensed that he was following me, though he was further away. There were people around. I didn’t want to look back, but I felt his presence looming.
At least in my memory I did. So many times I wonder, did this happen that way? Do I remember it correctly? It’s all so fuzzy. So far away in my memories. I have to work hard to remember and when I do I tend to shut it down as soon as it surfaces.
How did we get there? To that room? Was it an alcove? A hallway? Where were we? How it could be so dark if it was daytime? There was a smell, but was it the room? Was it the smell of his sweat and chlorine? The salty ocean?
The acidity and saltiness mixed on my face, blurring in with my tears.
The silence was deafening.
I wish I had screamed. All I could hear was his heavy breaths amongst the ringing in my ears. I shut down my mind as much as I could. Did I make this happen? Did I somehow unknowingly will this occurrence? Did I deserve this? What would happen if I were to scream? Did he mistake my tears for joy or did he not notice the silent wetness that fell?
My head hurt smashed against the wall, he was so heavy against me. He didn’t seem so large, but against my lithe figure it felt like overwhelming heaviness against me. My lungs contracted unable to breathe. He pinned me up as he pushed his face further down my body. His slick thumbs pushing deep inside my palms. I kept thinking this wasn’t what I wanted. This was nothing that I wanted.
Then my face was pushed up against his chest and pushed down. The weight on my shoulders, the sweat, the tears, the chlorine, his body hair all mangled up in my eyelashes, my lips. How could I have even screamed? The noise would have been stifled by his body. He groaned. I gagged.
He kissed my neck. His tongue licking me. Tasting my sunscreen and sweat. His hands grabbed at my chest, pulling me up, gasping for air. With his sudden excitement and impatience, he scratched me. Unknowingly. I sensed his fumbling, his slight trepidation. He was pulling down my swim suit bottom and his thumb nail scratched a layer of skin of my stomach. The scar is still there. It’s always there. It will always be there. I bled so much, the drips falling down my stomach onto his hands, the floor. It frightened him. He mumbled words in Spanish I didn’t understand and I thanked God for that blood.
He apologized and left me.
I picked my towel up, the fragments of my psyche, and wrapped myself in it. Rearranged my swimsuit, pushed the tears and hair off my face and walked to my hotel room. I tended to the wound that would not stop. I scrubbed the hotel bathroom as best as I could so my parents would never know what happened, then I hid the bloody towel in a maid cart in the hallway.
I went back to the beach with his saliva and sweat still stuck to my body and pretended as though nothing ever happened.
I’ve been pretending ever since.
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