Nina
The biggest tragedy of my story is that it is not remarkable. That this, or some variant of this, happens to women every day and that most often the perpetrators claim ignorance of any wrong.
I was in my early twenties. At the crossroads of young and old enough to know better. It’s easy to blame my own part in this. To say: ‘Why didn’t you leave him the first time he spoke down to you or belittled you? The times he pushed you away so hard you hit the wall? The times when his grip on your arm left bruises?’ and most of all ‘Why did you mix up your medication that night?’
But those questions don’t reach the crux of the issue: ‘Why is there not responsibility for acts of care? Why should a man give himself rights to your body and consider himself invited unless he is explicitly fought off? How can someone leave you with a row of bruises and blame your sensitivity but not their grip?’ Those are the questions I’d most like answer to.
Here’s a cautionary note about mixing up medication – sometimes it can really knock you for a wallop and before you know it the room is spinning and you cannot stand and you crawl to bed and you try to sleep and then your poor-choice-for-a-boyfriend comes in drunk and in the mood for revelry and everything takes on the aspect of a nightmare because you can’t speak and you can’t move but you still remember. And the body remembers the feel of his hand in your hair yanking your head back and the weight of him like a mountain.
The next day I remember lying on the bathroom floor for a long time, my cheek against the tiles knowing that a line had been crossed somewhere which could never be uncrossed and deciding that the easiest thing to do would be to pretend this had never happened. So I did. Most of me forgot.
But the body remembered and felt jagged and dirty and sickened and raw. And the mind remembered and haunted me with dreams of dirty bathrooms for close to a year. It kept the memory for me and nudged me to a therapist who was both surrogate father and friend and then, then when I was safe and far from harm, then the memory came back along with a certainty that I would never disown my sense of self and sense of worth like that again.
I’ve learned that a lot of violence is like this. Toxic. Unprovable. Apparent only in the surge of anger, the apalling taste in your mouth, the cry under the skin.
I’ve learned there are many ways to silence violence. With disbelief, with inattention, with outright threat. And the more insidious things. The ones that say: ‘If you tell this to your family then you won’t be able to tolerate the outpouring of their pity and anxiety’ or the one that says: ‘Your lover won’t be able to tolerate his helplessness in the face of your pain and won’t be able to listen because the impulse to get up and do and fix something is just too strong’.
But still, I have to speak. Partially because speaking is my therapy. But mostly because it is the only measure of validation and restitution I will ever see.
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Nina blogs here. You may remember her from the community keynote readings at BlogHer in Chicago. She asks that you keep all comments here on Violence UnSilenced, rather than on her own blog.
20 Responses to “Nina”
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your strength is palpable. thank you for sharing and congratulations on speaking out.
I think that many stories may *seem* less than remarkable, but that doesn’t make the story less important. Thank you for speaking up. You never know who’s reading and who may be helped.
I can give you answers to two of your questions, but I suspect that you already know them. “Why should a man give himself rights to your body and consider himself invited unless he is explicitly fought off?” The simple answer is, “He shouldn’t.”
“ How can someone leave you with a row of bruises and blame your sensitivity but not their grip?’” He was a man-child, a little boy unwilling or unable to accept responsibility for his actions.
I’ve asked myself over and over again, how could a fifty-year-old man find guiltless pleasure in repeatedly molesting a nine-year-old boy? I’ve stopped asking that question. I stopped asking because in 35 years I haven’t found the answer. Either my abuser was born a sociopathic pedophile or something happened to him that damaged him enough to live out that lifestyle. It may be that he did feel guilt while never expressing it. I don’t know. I never will.
Speaking out is fantastic therapy. Removing the mask, coming out of hiding, and talking about these events is joyous freedom. Hiding is a slow, painful, lonely death.
Keep talking!
It is remarkable in that it happened to you and you’re talking about it. YOU are the remarkable part.
Thank you for speaking.
Thank you for speaking out. You’re the remarkable one.
What’s tragic about your story is that it’s not unusual, that it’s not rare. But as the rest above me have pointed out, it is remarkable. It is a story worth telling — and worth hearing — because it is yours. Because a real flesh and blood human being endured it and came through to the other side and survived it. Because it happened, and it matters that it happened. And because you’re willing to lay it on the Great Altar of Truth so that someone else who thinks her story is “unremarkable” can know that it matters.
All of this is remarkable. Tragically common, but remarkable.
Equally tragic, equally common is the second guessing. Did you do something to “bring it on yourself?” Could you have prevented it? Why oh why did you mix up your meds?
These are the wrong questions. There is only one question.
Why did he hurt you?
The answers to all those other questions you ask yourself should be immaterial. Because they should never have needed asking in the first place. You should not have to defend yourself in your own home. And you shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone. Not then, not now, not ever.
Not even yourself.
I understand why you might think ‘less’ of what happened to you because it’s happening to so many women right now, but I think that changes nothing.
No matter what, you are important. You, as a good, decent, wholesome human being deserve love, cherishment (is that a word?) and unconditional support.
You are stronger than you think.
The eloquence with which you convey your story is astounding. I’m proud of you.
Oh Nina, I love you so much. xx
Good for you for speaking out. You are a courageous woman. x
Thank you so much for sharing this.
This is incredibly eloquent, incredibly moving, and betrays a remarkable strength.
Speaking is the best way to silence violence. And your speaking is wonderful, even when your topics are hard. Keep speaking.
With love x
That second-to-last paragraph especially is so true that it makes me ache.
Peace to you.
You are an amazing person and an incredible writer. I’m crying for your past.
I’m glad you have spoken. There is so much here in so few words, there is power in that alone.
Thank you all, so much, for your responses and your kindness.
x
Just letting you know I’m here reading your story. You – and all of the survivors who share their stories here – you all do so much more of a service in preventing more abuse than you realize. We who are reading will talk to each other, to our friends, sisters, our children….thank you.
Thank you for having the courage to survive and to share your story.