****TRIGGER WARNING****
This is part three of a three part blog that discusses rape, child abuse and includes my personal experiences in some graphic detail. Please don’t read these blogs if it will put your mental health at risk. There are resources listed at the bottom of this blog if you or someone you know is/becomes a victim of any sexual crime, please reach out to get help.
Blog one included the following topics; what victim blaming/shaming is, what secondary victimization is, I will provide examples of statements victims hear and why they are either inaccurate or harmful and stats on sex crimes. For part 3 of this series I wanted to take each category addressed in the previous 2 blogs and put a face to these topics. I’m going to do something I haven’t done before and that is talk in depth about my experiences, though I’m only comfortable touching briefly on the childhood abuse.
Links to the series;
Before I start my story I think it’s important for people to know we aren’t “playing the victim” or using the “victim card” as some people like to say. I touched on that in blog 2, those are examples of shaming/blaming and rape culture. It’s also important to know that as victims we have the right to call ourselves victims or survivors or both. They are pretty much interchangeable in terms of surviving abuse, so when someone says they are a victim they aren’t trying to get sympathy, they are saying they survived something horrific and during the event they were victimized. Just an important note for those who don’t understand why people like me who have survived abuse use the word victim in our stories. We are victims, we are survivors and we are also brave as hell, we possess a strength unlike any other and we are courageous warriors! In terms of myself, I don't mind if you call me a victim or a survivor, as I said both are true.
MY STORY
I briefly touched on my abuse in my first blog “Why I Share My Experiences,” read it at the link below.
I’ll give a quick recap of my history for those who haven’t read the blog linked above. From the ages of 3-ish to 9 years old I was abused physically, mentally, emotionally and verbally by a step-parent. For a 2 week period the summer I was 9 years old, I was visiting a relative who raped me every night. In my early 30s, I was raped twice, once by someone I had just started dating and once by someone I had been dating for awhile. I think it’s probably best to take each of these one by one, give some further details and then touch on how in each of these experiences I faced victim shaming/blaming and/or secondary victimization.
CHILDHOOD
As I said above, I’m not fully comfortable talking about my childhood abuse in complete detail yet, honestly I may never be and that’s okay. Here’s what I can tell you. The ages of 3 to 9 in childhood are the most important years in terms of forming self-esteem, self-worth and our personalities, there’s a lot of scientific research on that. So during those extremely important years I was being told the following things;
I was “unlovable,”
“no man would ever love me or want me,”
“my own dad didn’t love or want me, so why would anyone else,” (my step parent told me that, my dad did of course love and want me just to clarify)
I was told I was, “ugly,” “stupid,” “useless,” “evil,” “fat” and those are just some of the things that stick out most in my memories and that became my internal dialogue.
Those are just some examples of the verbal, mental, emotional & psychological abuse I suffered. I was convinced by this person that these things were true, he even convinced me my own parents didn’t want or love me. Add in the physical abuse and I learned to be small, invisible and silent. I spent as much time as possible at friend's houses, outside or in my room. When I was at school, I felt safe, but that bus ride home every day was torture, my anxiety would start as soon as the bell rung signaling school was over and it would just increase every mile we got closer to my bus stop. By the time I got off the bus, my knees would be knocking, my heart racing and I would be close to tears as I reached my front door. I got really good at hiding these things in front of my friends though, because as bad as the abuse was, my terror at any of my friends finding out was far worse, I was so certain they would agree with my step parent’s words. The verbal, mental and emotional abuse was a daily constant, the physical abuse was less often, only when my mother wasn’t around to hear or witness it. When you are abused as a child, your brain learns really quickly how to keep you alive, how to make sure you survive, it goes into survival mode. This is both good and bad, good that your brain is so amazing it automatically does that, bad because it becomes the thing your brain focuses on the most, so for your whole life, your body is in constant fear and anxiety, waiting for the next trauma to trigger it into survival mode. It’s very similar to a veteran who suffers from PTSD, and PTSD never goes away, hopefully you just learn to cope with it.
I struggled with dissociation (dissociation is not the same thing as the mental illness DID, I don't have DID) a lot during my childhood, a subject I want to devote an entire blog of it’s own to, because it’s so important and often very misunderstood, but the things I do remember are very vivid. My first memory as a child is an abuse memory. I was 3 ½ or 4 years old at the time and had just been prescribed medication in pill form, probably for my rheumatoid arthritis, but I can’t honestly remember. I had only ever had liquid meds up until this point, these pills were not small by any means. I tried swallowing them and found I couldn’t do it. I remember my step parent pushing me down to the kitchen floor, pinning my body by sitting on my chest, mind you I was a very small child, maybe 20 to 25 pounds at best and this was a full grown man, 5’9-ish 160-170 pounds or more, sitting on top of me. I couldn’t breathe, I was crying. He forced my mouth open, shoved the pills in and then covered my mouth and nose with his hand, demanding I swallow the pills. I remember getting dizzy, light-headed and of course I was terrified. The only other incident that I’m comfortable sharing is one of the last times he abused me. It was the fall of 3rd grade and I was walking home from the bus stop. I didn’t notice a large rock in my path and I tripped over it, fell down and hit my head, splitting open some skin in my eyebrow. I was crying, bleeding from the head when I walked in our back door. I don’t honestly know why my step dad was home that day and not at work, but he was lying on the couch watching tv. He took one look at me and began screaming about how clumsy I was and that I was an “idiot, a dumb, stupid bitch.” He grabbed me, threw me over his knee and beat my butt. My step-brother must have heard me crying because he came running in, saw what was happening and told his dad to stop, something that got him backhanded across the face after my step parent threw me to the floor, then he stalked out of the room. My step brother took me into the bathroom, washed the blood from my forehead and eyes. I remember begging him not to tell my mom, he reassured me he wouldn’t. I ,of course, did have to tell her I fell and that my step-brother helped me take care of it.
Every time my step parent abused me, no matter what the type of abuse, he always made sure I knew it was my fault, it was never his fault, he victim blamed me every time. I grew up believing every single word he ever said to me, it played in my head like a song on repeat until my mid 30’s. Now I know how to stop that song and change it to something better, now I repeat some version of this, “You are lovable, you deserve to be loved, you are wanted, you matter to people, you are a good person with a good heart, you are beautiful from the inside out, you are not fat or ugly, you are so smart, you are funny, God loves you, you love you, you are an amazing mother, daughter, friend and person, you are a survivor, a warrior who survived the impossible.” This is my mantra every time I think one of those negative words/phrases my step dad said to me. One of the things, besides therapy, that helped me change my mindset was something my son said to me. He told my mom and I both, that we were always saying negative things about ourselves and that he was going to make us say 3 things we liked about ourselves any time we said something negative. After awhile, instead of him telling me to do it, I started doing it on my own, it became a habit, one I am so grateful he helped me start.
There are very few things I am comfortable sharing publicly about the sexual abuse. It was the summer before 4th grade. I was 9 years old and visiting a relative for 2 weeks. Every night he would come in the room I was sleeping in and sexually assault me, each night got more and more horrific and degrading. My brain, in order to help me survive the magnitude of horror, dissociated a lot so there are some details I remember and many I do not, thank goodness, because what I do remember is bad enough. As I said, I'm not comfortable talking about the details of this abuse but because I think this is an important subject I will tell you that I have both internal vaginal and anal scarring. I have another medical issue that was caused by the abuse, something I have to deal with daily but one I’m not comfortable telling most people, in fact I never talk about it to anyone unless I am dating them (no, it isn’t an STD or anything contagious.) This man victim blamed me too. Not to get too graphic, he basically said it was my fault, my body’s fault to be more specific, my 9 year old body. Not only did he blame me but he threatened me too, he said if I told my parents or anyone else he would kill them and me. I was terrified and believed him so I didn’t say a word. I did however, tell my mom when I returned home to her that I never wanted to go back there again, she asked why but I wouldn’t tell her the full truth, instead I told her that they told me they hated me, something that actually did happen while I was there. Luckily, she said I never had to go back there if I didn’t want to. I’m so extremely grateful to her for allowing me to make that choice and for backing me up. In hindsight I wish I had told her the truth, but again, I was an abused child who learned to be small and invisible and who believed my parents didn’t love me. I was condition to believe my parents wouldn't believe me and that no one would care because I deserved this abuse.
As I am sure you can imagine, these abuses made for a very anxious, depressed teenager who hated herself. I pretended I was fine of course, because I didn’t want to be the freak everyone gossiped about, though I was in fact gossiped about a lot, most of those things said were untrue but I think it would have been terrible for me if my peers had found out I was abused. Junior high and high school kids aren’t the nicest people and the few kids I knew had been abused were treated pretty badly by a lot of kids. It didn’t help that the first time I told someone about the abuse (it was also the first time I tried to have sex) became a traumatic incident of it’s very own. I was 16 years old and as we attempted to have sex I had a horrific flashback to the sexual abuse, it was very traumatizing. I told my boyfriend what was happening to me and he made things so much worse because he was not supportive and he actually dumped me because I couldn’t have sex with him. By him doing that, it reinforced the idea that the abuse was my fault, I was a damaged freak, that there was something wrong with me and no man would want me if I didn’t have sex with them. It seriously messed me up mentally in a way I am still trying to forgive myself for. Both the predator blaming me and the boyfriend dumping me are instances of victim blaming, holding me accountable for something beyond my control. People think victim blaming/shaming only happens to adults of sex crimes, but it also often happens to children too.
ADULTHOOD
There is this site online that shares pictures of envelopes with a short statement written on them by a sexual assault victim. If I made one it would say, “he was the boy I sat next to during senior year of high school in English class. He was a very popular boy, an athlete who played on several sports teams.” Something I find curious about this boy is none of our classmates (except my closest friend) have ever asked me who he was. I often wonder if it’s because they don’t want to believe someone we went to school with could do this or if it’s because they just don’t want to know or if they are just trying to be respectful since I have never said his name. This rape occurred in my early 30’s after he messaged me via one of those chat apps, I think it was the Hotmail one. We spent several weeks talking, catching up, flirting and finally he asked me if we could hang out. I said yes and invited him to my house for lunch. I thought it was safe to invite him to my home since I had known him back in high school, though certainly we weren’t friends back then. We had discussed sex actually and he knew I wasn’t interested in having sex with anyone I wasn’t seriously dating. At least, I thought he knew because I told him that and he said he understood and was willing to wait. He was such a damn liar. He arrived at my door, I let him inside and for the next 30 minutes or so things were fine. We talked about high school, he asked if he had signed my yearbook and if I still had it. I got it out and he looked at what he wrote (he had written in part “maybe we will be married someday,”). It was shortly after reading what he wrote that he pinned me down on my couch and proceeded to rape me. For context, at that time I was 5’4 and 125 pounds, he was taller than 6 feet and over 200 pounds. I tried to fight, I said no, he didn’t listen, he just pinned my arms above my head with one hand and raped me. The graphic details aren’t necessary to share, but afterward he got dressed, thanked me and left. He actually thanked me, no joke, he even said he hoped we could do it again sometime, maybe after we were married. I remember feeling so dirty, I just wanted to take a shower. I had to make a quick decision on what to do because my kids were going to be home within 30 minutes so I chose to take a shower and not let them know anything was wrong. I cried myself to sleep that night and every night for several weeks. The following day I blocked him on the chat and I didn’t hear from him again for quite awhile, but eventually he began stalking me, in fact he stalked me for 2 full years, something I’m also not comfortable talking about. Luckily, I haven't seen or heard from him in 9 years or so.
Several months later a friend introduced me to a guy and we began dating. As I had done with all the men I was in a serious relationship with, I disclosed the child sexual abuse so he knew that there were certain things off limits in terms of sexual acts and so he would know what I needed from him if I experienced a flashback during sex. He was very supportive and I felt very safe with him, boy was I wrong. About four and a half months into our relationship he violently raped me. What started out as consensual sex quickly turned non-consensual when he turned me over and proceeded to quite forcefully, painfully and violently rape me anally. I cried, begged him to stop and tried to fight him off even though I was on my stomach and he had pinned me down with his body covering my back. I didn’t scream because my children were home, asleep in their beds and I didn’t want them to witness what was happening. Afterward he rolled over and went to sleep, I ran into the bathroom, locked myself in there and laid on the tiled floor sobbing all night, throwing up in the toilet on occasion because I was so upset. Shortly before it was time to get my kids up to school, I took a shower, washed my face and composed myself so they wouldn’t know. I got them off to school and as they were leaving, he left as well. After he left I messaged him online and told him to not ever come back. I was worried he would show back up, but he didn’t, he simply responded saying, “sure no problem, I don’t really like you anyway.” Once again, I had decided not to do anything, other than pretend it didn’t happen just like the first time with my classmate. It was easier to live in denial than it was to face it. I think I would make a different choice today but back then I was still that damaged child inside, the one that had learned to just live with the trauma and not talk about it, the one who believed I deserved to be abused, she didn't know it was okay to stand up for herself, she didn't even know how.
Eventually in my mid-30’s I decided to face these trauma’s and try to heal. I found a therapist and began making progress, unfortunately my insurance decided to cut off my mental health care coverage so I had to stop seeing my therapist, in fact my Medicare still won't cover any mental health care. It was at that point that I had to start working on healing by myself. I found people online who had been through the same thing and through meeting them, I began talking about my story. It was a lot of 2 steps forward, 2 steps back kind of thing. I’d find the courage to talk about what happened to me and then someone would victim shame or blame me, which made me want to stop talking about it, so I’d stop until I found courage to try again, then came another incident of blaming/shaming and it was a vicious circle. The first time victim shaming happened to me (online) a classmate called me a liar and said she didn’t believe a damn word I said, she got several other classmates to send me harassing messages on Facebook after I blocked her. The second time I was asked why I let these guys into my home. After that I can’t tell you what order I heard these things in but I remember being told that I was “asking for it,” and I was asked if I had been drinking or if he had been drinking. I was also called a slut more times than I can count and told I must have provoked these attacks or that I deserved them. I was asked what I was wearing, I was told I was blowing things out of proportion. I’ve also been judged so many times for choosing not to report any of these assaults (see part 2 of this blog for more information on why victims don’t report). These things were all so difficult to hear and they almost stopped me from continuing to try to heal. See the thing is, I was also blaming myself for these things, even the childhood abuse. As I said in part 1 of this series, victims frequently blame themselves. Being abused at a young age just conditioned me to believe abuse in any form was all my fault, not only was it my fault, I was taught to believe I deserved to be abused. The thing I realized early on is that when I would share my story, I would feel better, right up until someone said something that blamed or shamed me, then I would lose that feeling. I really had to work hard to stop blaming myself before I could finally share my story without worrying or caring what people thought or what they said. It took a really long time, but eventually I got there. That's not to say there aren't times when comments of blaming get to me, they still do on occasion, that's when I practice my coping mechanism's or I reach out to someone to talk about how I feel.
Finding my voice, learning to love myself, finding self worth these things took a lot of hard work, and I recognize that this is a lifelong journey because trauma doesn’t ever go away. It is definitely manageable, but it leaves PTSD behind which can be triggered (knowingly or unknowingly) by people, by events, by movies, tv shows, music, news articles, etc. I used to not know how to cope with triggers and I even used to cope by making really bad choices, choices I am not proud of. Again, it took me a while to figure out how to find mentally healthy ways to cope, though I will say the coping mechanisms that work for me won’t work for every victim, we are all different, we have unique traumas, so we must find what works uniquely for ourselves. What works for me is self care, positive thoughts, reaching out to someone I trust, talking about it, writing about it, raising awareness and while distraction can be harmful in terms of coping, I have found a few healthy distractions like painting. Distractions are healthy only if after you use them to calm down you are then able to deal with whatever trigger you experienced, it’s not healthy to use distractions to ignore those things.
Recently a friend pointed out to me that if they didn’t know my story, they would never be able to tell I have anxiety or PTSD. I think that’s both good and bad. It’s good because maybe it means I have healed enough that triggers are easily dealt with. However, I also know I’m still a work in progress because I recognize I am great at hiding my feelings, after all I had to do that as a child. I was forced to hide so much and sometimes I find myself hiding what’s happening to me around people because I don’t want to upset them or have them worry about me or even worse make them uncomfortable. I often feel like I'm bothering people or being a burden when I reach out. I definitely recognize I need to work on that and I know I’m blessed to have understanding people in my life who will let me come to them on my own terms when I am ready, who don’t judge me when I keep my feelings to myself and who encourage me to be honest and open with them.
I hope this gives a face to victim shaming/blaming and secondary victimization, as well as why victims don't come forward. I hope it makes you think about how you talk to or see victims of sexual crimes. I hope next time someone tries to tell you their story, or you read about someone’s story you will remember to lay the blame squarely on the abuser/predator/rapist and not the victim.
My dad has passed away but a few years before he passed I had the courage to tell him all these terrible trauma’s I endured. I vividly remember the conversation with my dad. I remember him saying that if he had known what was happening to me as a child he would have done whatever it took to save me. The support he gave me was so beautiful, it was a moment in which we both recognized in each other a survivor, two people who had both survived trauma and it deepened our bond. It’s also the moment I finally decided to fully face what happened and to do whatever it took to heal it. I know my dad, who passed away in 2016, would be very proud of me for how hard I have worked to heal and to face these things, that thought keeps me going when I have a difficult day.
I still have things I need to work on. There are times I still feel shame, times fear just hits me like a ton of bricks, times I still feel unclean or dirty, times I still feel broken. I’ve experienced men seeing me as damaged goods and there have been times when a man I like won’t give me a chance because they see me as damaged goods or someone with “too much baggage.” I know that someday I will meet the right man, one who will see me as strong, courageous and beautiful for the things I have survived and he won’t see me as damaged goods, honestly, I don’t feel like I am damaged goods. I have to give myself credit on how far I have come, how much I have healed already and I know it’s only a matter of time before I can conquer these last few things I still struggle with. There is a line in a song that I often think of when I am struggling, “There’s a beauty in being broken, I’ve been seeing it.” It’s a song by Dermot Kennedy called ‘Without Fear’ and it really helped me to see that there is nothing wrong with being broken. All of these terrible moments in my life have led me to who I am right now, today and that woman is someone I am proud to be so if I am “broken” that’s okay because there is beauty in my strength and my courage, I’ve been seeing it and I know others are seeing it in me too.
If you or someone you know is a victim please see the resources below for help. I’m here to listen if you want to tell me your story, I promise to keep whatever you tell me confidential unless I have your written permission to do otherwise. To my fellow survivors I see you, I hear you, I care about you, I love you and I stand with you, together we can make a difference!
RESOURCES
National Sexual Assault Hotline 1-800-656-4673 Available 24 hours
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