so i get the concept about not carrying all of your old shit along with you, what i’m not so clear on is the method. part of my issue is that i denied things were happening to begin with. i would disassociate to a safe place outside of myself and hide. so, i’m trying not to remember something that was so awful i couldn’t even face it at the time. this is going to take some time.
i think actually, i deserve the chance to claim it before i try to get rid of it. name the shit that has been bogging me down. the murkiness of not really knowing, and doubting and second guessing myself has become itself a form of abuse.
perhaps by identifying the things i’ve hidden from, i can know what i no longer have to fear. i can stop myself from continuing to hide when it isn’t necessary. i can trust myself to make a choice. as it is, i can’t imagine trusting anyone. which means all of my interactions with people are fake. i am a psuedo person. i have a lovely facade. many people enjoy who they think i am. but no one really knows. i am so tired of putting on that facade. part of it really is me, im not an insincere fake. but i mostly don’t even know who the real me is, i have been faking it for so long.
much of the time i am the charming and silly 5 year old. i think that is the developmental point at which much of my emotional development halted. 5 year olds are mostly fun to be with, but, they are not equipped to be adults.
my natropath pointed out that when i get really stressed and anxious, i most likely revert back to the last time i felt safe. it wasn’t perfect before the accident. i was terrified of my dad, and my mom and i never bonded ( i was a honeymoon baby who interupted her career, and, my grandma accused her of stepping out on my dad who was supposedly sterile from rheumatic fever) ( seriously, i had no idea my mom actually cared about me, not just as an obligation of motherhood, until she sent me a care package my second semester of college. she had made a pillow that said caring and sharing go hand in hand. that was the first time i felt more than just tolerated.)
so i peaked at 5 as far as feeling” safe and secure” in my surroundings. really, i’m not doing too bad for a 5 year old, but it is time to grow up. i don’t know how to dump the suffering, because i guess i just realized i’ve been holding on to it with a super human grip. it has become the one constant in my life. other than the charming, but, tiring 5 year old persona, it probably is the me i’ve been looking for. no wonder i didn’t want to be found. will it be possible to grow up and keep most of the 5 year old? she’s the part i like best.
do i really need to remember more than the laundy list of known shit i already have?
verbally and physically abusive father
detached mother
broken femur age 5 – rowdy boys knocked over a bookcase in kindergarten. i was sitting on the floor playing tanagrams when it fell on me and broke my femur where it attaches to the hip – 4 weeks in hospital in bryants traction – both feet attached to the ceiling. tied to the bed. no- one did anything with my hair my entire hospital stay. it had to all be cut off when i got home. 6 months in a body cast.
no one “hearing” me when i was in so much pain as dr.s would rearrange my legs on rounds. i can still see those fucking assholes at the end of my bed.
1970 – visiting hours were visiting hours. period. no one was allowed to stay with me over night until something happened that made me throw such hissy fits that either my mom or dad or uncle had to stay with me. i have no distinct memories, but this is where i end up some times during dissasociative episodes during sex.
there are almost no photos or cards from this time. my mom has told me that i made her throw them out. that i would be unconsolable if the topic was brought up.
that was the beginning, but, wait, there’s more. more reasons to fear men, and mistrust my judgement.
* jk and jq everyday on the way home form school attacking me with snowballs.
* jq pushing me down the steps at church – i was unconscious for 20 minutes.
*bk who worked at my parents’ shoe store and woud follow me and buy me gifts and tell me stuff i did at events i never saw him at. he was so creepy and scary and they wouldn’t do anything. i was the bad person for being rude to him. every time i would throw out something he’d given me, she would dig it out of the trash, – he’d worked hard to earn $ to buy that for me. the thought of him makes me throw up just a little.
*the really inappropriate pastor. again, there was no telling her that he wasn’t safe. i had to work, and would therfore miss the bus for the ski trip i didn’t want to go on. never fear, she arranged for him to drive me up – just the two of us. i remember throwing up on the bunny hill. – i was doing something she essentially coerced me into doing at their new church recently. i walked out of the fellowship hall and straight into a photo of him. micro expressions of revulsion, disgust and shame. (yes, i’ve been watching “lie to me” on fox – but that honestly helped me identify something i had been wary to admit to myself.)
* always terrified of men. i would do anything to avoid having to help them at the shoe store. never dated. they were not safe. didn’t mean i didn’t like them though, so mostly i just lived in awe from afar. i am sure i was really awkward and unable to speak, and had the skills of a 5 year old, since that is who i turn to fo the heavy lifting.
*stalkers. yes plural.
*the guy at msu with the mud flap woman seed cap who would follow me around the library. if i moved to the union, he’d show up there. i started studying at concordia’s library.
*the mall guy – never spoke to me or we could have had him arrested for terroristic threats no matter what he’d said. it went on for years – he would hang out at the kitchen store i worked at, and follow me and stare at my boobs. it got to be that every one in the surrounding stores knew who he was and would give us heads up if they saw him. i would go hide in the back, and if he didn’t see me he would leave. but there were times when i’d stop for groceries on my way home, and he would turn up in every aisle of the grocery store or target. i would try to pretend that nothing was wrong and get behind the biggest guy i could find in a checkout line and tell the clerk that i was abandoning my groceries and ask the big guy to walk me to my car and for years i never drove straight home and i moved every three or four months. it was the 80’s – before anti stalking laws, and mall security. i’m the reason they first got mall security. because so many people knew about him, someone finally figured out where he worked. that’s how we knew he’d been fired for sexual harrassment and moved out of state.
* then there was the scary old guy who wandered into the quilt shop and grabbed my breast, and said yucky things and who we had to call the police on more than a couple times, and who showed up in the hallway of my secure apartment building. i practically pounded through the managers door and collapsed in fear as he called the police.
*the receiving guy at my last job, who couldn’t take his eyes off my breasts, and would stare at me as he would cart things around the building. i would act like i didn’t notice, because i had reported it to hr and they wouldn’t do anything. oh he doesn’t mean anything by it. it was so bad he was creeping out anyone who worked with me – especially the guys – who were really quite protective. things escalated when he brought the staring to the breakroom. i worked second shift and was usually the only person in the breakroom for my break. he started taking his break early. at first he sat on the other side of the room and I ignored him as best i could. then he whould move to the other end of my table and then right across from me, and i would just have to leave. a second complaint to hr. then one night i was running my machine, and he slammed a postal tote on the counter at the edge of my work area. again i ignored him, but he’d really frightened my coworker. when i was done and cleaning up i went to put away the tote and saw that there was a drawing on the bottom of it. a woman with spread legs and a penis coming at her. shaking and with teeth chattering i found the only supervisor left in the building and showed him, and made him lock it up for the night so i could take it to hr in the morning. i felt fairly ceratin that he didn’t know where i lived since he worked 3rd shift and wouldn’t have been able to follow me, so i barricaded myself in my apartment and spent the night on the phone with a sexual assault counselor, as this brought back too much of the date rape experince in college. i went into work the next morning and found the supervisor from last night, and he’d already turned in the tote as it skeeved him out to have it at his desk. hr said they’d “talk” to the guy and i said i would be contacting my lawyer if he wasn’t fired. i left town for a few days , and he was gone when i got back. we wore uniform shirts. there were a few varieties to choose from. he always wore the green henley. i burned all mine, but my mom who also worked there at the time refused to part with hers as “they’re just shirts.” my dad made her throw them out.
this list of highlights, is it enough to name these? do i have to go back and work through the rape, and whatever happened in the hospital and the pastor. are the nauseous feelings in my stomach proof enough?
i’ve been working hard to recognize that all men are not these kind of assholes. i actually find myself in a place i never thought possible, but i am not afraid of evry man i encounter anymore. some of them are really sweet and kind under their masculine bravado. i still don’t know if the grown up me will ever be able to have a relationship with one. she remembers all the shit. the 5 year old has had some casual relationships, but maybe that’s because her history only involves a scary dad, and not the assholes who followed him. the grown up me also recognizes how damaged she must appear. do i share this history? if i don’t share, how do i explain where i “go” during sex? how do i account for the brooding, as i attempt to remember that “this” one is not “that” one. can i really trust my judgement? i chose the date rape guy, and every one else who has abandonned me or treated me not much better than an unpaid prostitute.
