(no subject)
Sometimes, I think I read triggering things just to try and prove to myself that something happened to me.
I've talked before, briefly, about the reasons why I think I was sexually abused when I was younger. The way I talk about it is very dry and clear-cut. I know that a is true, so I assume that b is a logical conclusion of that. I have been told c, and d follows naturally. I feel x, and I think the reason is y.
But that doesn't approach the heart of feeling that way. It's a complicated thing. I think of it like a big Gordian knot in between my lungs, cluttering up my chest, squeezing everything into my ribs, pushing against my spine. There's not enough room inside of me for it. The rope is old and has been pulled tight, soaked with water and frozen. It's frayed and stuck to itself and moldy and slimy and crusty and it might never come apart. Inside of it is this: I was sexually assaulted as a child.
That seems to simple to say, but it isn't. It's hard to say. It makes me uncomfortable to say. I don't think I've ever said it out loud. Part of the reason is that I feel the need to qualify it. I was sexually assaulted, I think. I have a lot of evidence, but I don't know for sure. It might be something else. I might just be crazy. These are all things I say to detract from that statement, to take the weight of truth from it. Why?
Here are the facts: When I was young, in first or second grade, both of my parents worked. Sometimes I needed to be looked after in the mornings. There was a babysitter who lived near my school, so I was taken there. I have vague memories of that babysitter, of watching some cartoon with a cowboy in the morning, of earth colors, of a trampoline and another kid teaching me how to do a backflip on it, of a pool. I remember that I had some sort of genital infection, something that itched constantly and burned when I peed. I remember, either that time or a different one, being taken to the doctor's because I couldn't sleep, it burned so much, and the doctor doing a swab. I remember being mortified by that because she kept the door cracked open and she was someone looking and touching.
And that's all I remember. Fast-forward to years later. I'm either a senior or a junior in high school, and I want to go to therapy. I've dipped my toe into an eating disorder. I've cut myself. I suffer from panic attacks, anxiety, and depression. The very first session, the therapist asks my mother if I've suffered sexual abuse that she knows of, and she says no. On the drive home, she mentions this babysitter, and how the school nurse discovered that I had some sort of infection all over my pelvic area, and that the woman--the babysitter, not the nurse--seemed very strange.
I don't think about it. Then, I start thinking about. I start to make connections. I hate being touched. I'm terrified at the thought of sex. I'm terrified at the thought of having a gynecological examination, because it will involve someone looking and touching. I'm uncomfortably aware of others' bodies, especially when they're too close to me. Being aware of or contemplating my own genitals makes me uncomfortable. I have a fascination with dealing with issues of rape and assault in writing, both perusing the act in detail and the results of it, over and over again. I'm especially drawn to rape inflicted on children, and the issues that arise from that. It's almost an obsession. I have no appreciation for it, I don't approve of the act, I think it's horrifying and awful, but I can't stop thinking and writing about it. Different characters, different situations, but the same trauma, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
These are the things I know. And some of these are unusual. I don't know anyone with the same terror of being touched. It's not just an OCD thing, although I have been diagnosed with that and I believe it has something to do with it. Not wanting people to look or touch is not about control, or overactive anxiety, or needing things to be a certain way. It's the most powerful fear in my life. I'd rather be alone outside in the dark than with my feet in stirrups, or naked in front of someone. I'd rather be violently assaulted, beaten and hurt, than have a stranger touch me. I can't think about talking about it without my throat closing up, and I can get out the required two or three sentences to communicate exactly how much it is not happening whenever the subject of a gynecologist comes up before I start to choke up.
I am ninety-nine percent sure, but I can't remember anything. I have no memory, not even a faint and vague one, of being abused. No matter how hard I've tried, there's nothing. I feel like it would be easier if I could say, "Yes, I was abused, and I remembered it. It was the xxxth of xxxx, and this woman did xxxx and yyyy and zzzz.", but I can't. I can't even say "I was abused" and leave it at that, because I'm not sure. And because I'm not completely sure, despite the impact this--probably, likely, almost definite--abuse has had on me, despite the fact that I'm terrified I'll never be able to have a real relationship with someone or go to a medical professional when I think something's wrong with me (which I do, by the way), despite the fact that I live with a daily fear of being touched or coming too close to someone, despite how difficult it makes my life and how sometimes I really just want to be normal and like everyone else, I can never have that closure. I feel like a pretender, like a poser, like everyone else who knows exactly what happened has more reason to be upset than I do. I feel like I wouldn't be accepted if I tried to claim myself as a survivor of abuse, because I can't say what happened to me.
My own best friend has dismissed it. I don't think she meant to, but I don't talk about it around her anymore. She is skeptical, because I don't have proof. She is skeptical because I haven't impressed on her exactly how violating the thought of being touched sexually or even looked at is, and how much that feels like trauma. Because of the way I talk about it, because I feel like I won't be taken seriously, I'm not. And then it hurts, because I don't understand why I feel this way or why being touched should be so frightening or why I can't just deal with my own and other people's sexualities like a normal human being. I don't understand why, if nothing happened to me, I'm not normal. And if something did, why can't I remember? And if I can't remember, does that mean it didn't happen, or that my experience is somehow less than that of someone who knows exactly how they were assaulted? Does that mean I am less deserving of support? Does that mean my trauma is any less, or that I should just shut up and deal with it?
It's terrifying to not know. I feel uncertain and afraid and insignificant. I feel like a bad person. I feel like I'm intruding on people who know what happened, who were really assaulted. I feel like claiming that I was without qualifying it to death is morally wrong and offensive. I feel angry, because I should be able to. I wonder how many other people stay silent and act like nothing is wrong even though it is, because they can't explicitly explain how it is. I wonder why it took me so long to be able to articulate this, and if I've even gotten it down right, and if I ever will be able to. I wonder if I deserve to be taken seriously. I wonder if this will just piss people who know they've been assaulted off. I wonder if my claims take the edge of off rape, make it somehow less. I wonder if people will say that they do. I wonder if I really even have anything to worry about, anything to feel sad and upset and frightened about, or if it really is just all in my head. I wonder how I can tell the difference.
I have no proof, but I have a lot of coincidence. I have these fears that seem so familiar when I read about survivors of assault, but I also have an anxiety disorder. In the end, though, despite all of the doubt, I feel certain that something did happen, for no other reason than I feel like I was abused. It feels like a truth. But it also feels like a theory, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to settle on a belief.
I've talked before, briefly, about the reasons why I think I was sexually abused when I was younger. The way I talk about it is very dry and clear-cut. I know that a is true, so I assume that b is a logical conclusion of that. I have been told c, and d follows naturally. I feel x, and I think the reason is y.
But that doesn't approach the heart of feeling that way. It's a complicated thing. I think of it like a big Gordian knot in between my lungs, cluttering up my chest, squeezing everything into my ribs, pushing against my spine. There's not enough room inside of me for it. The rope is old and has been pulled tight, soaked with water and frozen. It's frayed and stuck to itself and moldy and slimy and crusty and it might never come apart. Inside of it is this: I was sexually assaulted as a child.
That seems to simple to say, but it isn't. It's hard to say. It makes me uncomfortable to say. I don't think I've ever said it out loud. Part of the reason is that I feel the need to qualify it. I was sexually assaulted, I think. I have a lot of evidence, but I don't know for sure. It might be something else. I might just be crazy. These are all things I say to detract from that statement, to take the weight of truth from it. Why?
Here are the facts: When I was young, in first or second grade, both of my parents worked. Sometimes I needed to be looked after in the mornings. There was a babysitter who lived near my school, so I was taken there. I have vague memories of that babysitter, of watching some cartoon with a cowboy in the morning, of earth colors, of a trampoline and another kid teaching me how to do a backflip on it, of a pool. I remember that I had some sort of genital infection, something that itched constantly and burned when I peed. I remember, either that time or a different one, being taken to the doctor's because I couldn't sleep, it burned so much, and the doctor doing a swab. I remember being mortified by that because she kept the door cracked open and she was someone looking and touching.
And that's all I remember. Fast-forward to years later. I'm either a senior or a junior in high school, and I want to go to therapy. I've dipped my toe into an eating disorder. I've cut myself. I suffer from panic attacks, anxiety, and depression. The very first session, the therapist asks my mother if I've suffered sexual abuse that she knows of, and she says no. On the drive home, she mentions this babysitter, and how the school nurse discovered that I had some sort of infection all over my pelvic area, and that the woman--the babysitter, not the nurse--seemed very strange.
I don't think about it. Then, I start thinking about. I start to make connections. I hate being touched. I'm terrified at the thought of sex. I'm terrified at the thought of having a gynecological examination, because it will involve someone looking and touching. I'm uncomfortably aware of others' bodies, especially when they're too close to me. Being aware of or contemplating my own genitals makes me uncomfortable. I have a fascination with dealing with issues of rape and assault in writing, both perusing the act in detail and the results of it, over and over again. I'm especially drawn to rape inflicted on children, and the issues that arise from that. It's almost an obsession. I have no appreciation for it, I don't approve of the act, I think it's horrifying and awful, but I can't stop thinking and writing about it. Different characters, different situations, but the same trauma, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
These are the things I know. And some of these are unusual. I don't know anyone with the same terror of being touched. It's not just an OCD thing, although I have been diagnosed with that and I believe it has something to do with it. Not wanting people to look or touch is not about control, or overactive anxiety, or needing things to be a certain way. It's the most powerful fear in my life. I'd rather be alone outside in the dark than with my feet in stirrups, or naked in front of someone. I'd rather be violently assaulted, beaten and hurt, than have a stranger touch me. I can't think about talking about it without my throat closing up, and I can get out the required two or three sentences to communicate exactly how much it is not happening whenever the subject of a gynecologist comes up before I start to choke up.
I am ninety-nine percent sure, but I can't remember anything. I have no memory, not even a faint and vague one, of being abused. No matter how hard I've tried, there's nothing. I feel like it would be easier if I could say, "Yes, I was abused, and I remembered it. It was the xxxth of xxxx, and this woman did xxxx and yyyy and zzzz.", but I can't. I can't even say "I was abused" and leave it at that, because I'm not sure. And because I'm not completely sure, despite the impact this--probably, likely, almost definite--abuse has had on me, despite the fact that I'm terrified I'll never be able to have a real relationship with someone or go to a medical professional when I think something's wrong with me (which I do, by the way), despite the fact that I live with a daily fear of being touched or coming too close to someone, despite how difficult it makes my life and how sometimes I really just want to be normal and like everyone else, I can never have that closure. I feel like a pretender, like a poser, like everyone else who knows exactly what happened has more reason to be upset than I do. I feel like I wouldn't be accepted if I tried to claim myself as a survivor of abuse, because I can't say what happened to me.
My own best friend has dismissed it. I don't think she meant to, but I don't talk about it around her anymore. She is skeptical, because I don't have proof. She is skeptical because I haven't impressed on her exactly how violating the thought of being touched sexually or even looked at is, and how much that feels like trauma. Because of the way I talk about it, because I feel like I won't be taken seriously, I'm not. And then it hurts, because I don't understand why I feel this way or why being touched should be so frightening or why I can't just deal with my own and other people's sexualities like a normal human being. I don't understand why, if nothing happened to me, I'm not normal. And if something did, why can't I remember? And if I can't remember, does that mean it didn't happen, or that my experience is somehow less than that of someone who knows exactly how they were assaulted? Does that mean I am less deserving of support? Does that mean my trauma is any less, or that I should just shut up and deal with it?
It's terrifying to not know. I feel uncertain and afraid and insignificant. I feel like a bad person. I feel like I'm intruding on people who know what happened, who were really assaulted. I feel like claiming that I was without qualifying it to death is morally wrong and offensive. I feel angry, because I should be able to. I wonder how many other people stay silent and act like nothing is wrong even though it is, because they can't explicitly explain how it is. I wonder why it took me so long to be able to articulate this, and if I've even gotten it down right, and if I ever will be able to. I wonder if I deserve to be taken seriously. I wonder if this will just piss people who know they've been assaulted off. I wonder if my claims take the edge of off rape, make it somehow less. I wonder if people will say that they do. I wonder if I really even have anything to worry about, anything to feel sad and upset and frightened about, or if it really is just all in my head. I wonder how I can tell the difference.
I have no proof, but I have a lot of coincidence. I have these fears that seem so familiar when I read about survivors of assault, but I also have an anxiety disorder. In the end, though, despite all of the doubt, I feel certain that something did happen, for no other reason than I feel like I was abused. It feels like a truth. But it also feels like a theory, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to settle on a belief.