Sexual Assault, Rape Survivor Stories 10

I will try to tell my story, the best I can. Much of it I know, and maybe will be too difficult to tell. Then, I believe there is still much of it that I do not yet know. So there will be some blank areas in this story. I wish it were not true, but it is. I also want to remind you and myself, as I begin to tell it, that I and YOU survived, and we CAN and WILL, together. Also, I reassure YOU and ME that we are not alone.

I suspect that my abuse began when I was about 6 or 7 months old. It was just me and my mother at that point. Then we were united with my dad. (We had been separated because of his work.) I suspect that he was jealous of the attention I got. It had been just my mother and I since I was born...and I wasn't 'in the way'...which was the case all of my growing up years, and even maybe until my dad's death a couple years ago.

My gut feeling, too, is that I was sexually abused at this age. I clearly remember being left alone, abandoned, when not quite 3 years old. I remember my terror, and whatever else a little one feels at that age. I was definitely confused. It was a punishment because I was not eating my dinner fast enough to suit them. Strange enough, I did not eat well. My mother even took me to the Dr. to see if something was wrong with my throat. I wonder why? I still have problems eating and swallowing, and even do some vomiting, when I remember what all was shoved into my mouth, that had no business being put there!

When I was left alone that night, I remember wondering 'didn't they love me?' I have had flashbacks of an time when my mother was sexually abusing me, looking at my dad, and laughing I was looking down on the bed, at ME, this little confused, hurt little girl. 'What were they doing to me?'

When I was about 4 or 5 years old, my dad disciplined me by taking me out into the dark night, holding my left hand in the front door, reaching in and locking the door, and slamming it shut on my hand. He ran, while I stood there and screamed. It only caught the tips of my fingers. But it did something far deeper to the heart of me. Eventually, my mother came to the door and let me in, never commenting on what had happened.

I also have many...TOO MANY to count...memories of beatings with the wire side of a wire hair brush, belts, branches off trees in our yard...that I had to go get myself. If the branches were not heavy enough, then I had to go out and get another one, or HE would go out and get one. So I would get the biggest one that I could find and get off the tree. Then I had to wait, and wait, until he decided to come out and use it on my bare skin.

I also remember the metal end of the razor strap...and the sound of it. I remember his left hand holding my left hand, to keep me from falling, when he was using it on me. I also maybe a 1 or 2 week wait, knowing he planned to use this on me. (This all is VERY hard to write). The beatings went on until I was 11 or 12 years old, when he started kissing me on the mouth. It was a yucky kiss that I hated and a display of affection that, way down deep in my little girl heart, I craved but did not like, because I knew it was fake. Finally I stopped that.

Since my youngest memories, I was told that I was not important, was ugly, fat, stupid, in every way that those things could be said. I was taught that what I thought and felt did not matter. I was taught that I had NO needs and NO feelings worth listening to. I was told that I was selfish, "stubborn and mad since the minute I was born." When I was hurt, I had to hide it. When I was sick, I had to stay in the back bedroom and could not come out. At mealtime, my mother would stick her head in the door and hand me a plate of food. She would not come near me. No comfort, no love. I was ...yuck...sick!
Then there were the times I was hit across the face and head, picked up and shaken, bouncing my head off the wall, as my dad shook me. Another favorite of his, was to slam my brother's head and my head together. I would see stars! Then there were the socks filled with marbles, saved for trips in the car. The sock would come swinging back for my head. All of this discipline was "because I love you." "It hurts me worse than it does you." The ONLY time I was EVER held on my parent's lap was when my dad would hold me after just beating the hell out of me. He'd try to tell me that he did it because he loved me and because I was so bad. (My mother never held me on her lap.) Somehow I never could quite believe it. But I DID believe that I was VERY impossibly bad.

My first clear memory of sexual abuse, that I have never forgotten, was when I was around 4 or 5 years old. I feel it started long before this. But, THIS, I have never forgotten. It went on for some time, several years. I was being raped by a female, 8 years older than me. It was gruesome and ongoing. I remember spending a night with her and sleeping in her bed, trapped between her and the wall, while she raped me. I felt so confused and trapped, and DIRTY....and powerless. I was molested by 2 others when I was about 5-6 years old.