FUCK SHAME
I have being seeing a new therapist lately, and as part of our-getting-to-know-you, she asked me to outline my childhood, with an emphasis on relationships and traumas and that sort of therapeutic stuff. Okay, full disclosure, I was there with a partner, and it was a couples-therapy sort of thing. More of a prophylactic move than anything else. As in, we wanted some professional help talking about some issues (rather than our relationship was imploding and we needed HELP). Anyhow, I start talking, and suddenly I get to the part about how I was sexually abused by my stepsister when I was 7 or 8. I sort of toss it in there, and keep going, or try to. But this, of course, is something that the therapist finds worth asking about.
See, this is where it gets hard - I’ve told quite a few people that I’ve been sexually assaulted, and that I was abused by someone when I was a kid, but - I’ve never really gone into detail. Not even with lovers or best friends or previous therapists.
But therapy is work, right? So I go ahead and give her the details - no, I never told anyone; yes, this happened repeatedly; yeah, I was scared of her, but more I just wanted to make her happy, she was my cool older stepsister.
Deep breath, and I go on. My partner (I think I’ll start referring to him as the Tall Drink from here on out) gives me his hand for squeezage, and I keep talking about my childhood.
When I get to my first year of high school, it comes up again. I feel more comfortable talking about this one, because this is a story I’ve told before. It was Halloween, I had just turned 14, and about twenty-five of us took mescaline in a park. I drank a pint of vodka. Hijinks ensued. A little before dawn, a friend of a friend suggested that we take a walk back to the aforementioned park. I remember lying on my back in the damp, cold grass, looking over his shoulder at the sunlight starting to bleed into the clouds. I remember going back to my friend’s house and excusing myself to the bathroom, which was all done in chinoiserie - red wallpaper, gold calligraphy, porcelain figurines - High JAP Tackiness. Seeing the red everywhere, including the crotch of my panties. Realizing I wasn’t tripping any more, smelling the dog shit on my combat boots. Going back into the kitchen and telling my friend what had happened. Her not believing that he would do such a thing. Me never mentioning it for the next 7 years of our friendship. (The boy who raped me ended up marrying a girl from my high school with whom I am friends on Facebook, actually. They have two adorable kids. I toy with the idea of outing him as a rapist, sometimes.) That story, I could tell. Except - for the first time in my life, I called it “rape”. Not assault. Rape. For some reason I had avoided that word.
A couple of minutes later in the session (and about four months later in my teenage timeline), I got to the second assault, and I said, “In February of that year I was raped again,” and at that point I started crying, because I had never said this before. I don’t remember who I went with to this Northwestern party, but I do remember drinking a lot, because I was at a college party. I was tarted up in a black slip-dress and fishnets and my de rigeur black steeltoes, with black eyeshadow raccoon-eyes, and I told the bastard I was 16, but seriously, y’all. Really?
I remember being in the basement. I remember saying “no,” this time. I remember saying it more that once. I remember him using a condom. I remember going up to the bathroom, and how sore my cunt was, and how I told the friend I had come with that I wanted to go home. That's about it.
I was sort of eager to move on after that, and fast-forwarded a little bit through the rest of high school, and talked about college, and then we made a date for the next session, and left.
I talked a bit more to the Tall Drink on the drive home. I let him know that I had never gone into detail about it because - well, frankly, I couldn't say. Looking back now, I tie it to shame and avoidance, mostly. He told me that he had never asked for more details because he didn't want to cause me pain. I talked some more about the second rape, and I got really angry. So angry I was choking on my words, until finally I spit out, "What a piece of human garbage," and sat with it for a while. When we got home, we sat in the car for a moment, and I asked him, "Am I totally lying to myself? I feel like I'm an emotionally competent, generally happy person. With a pretty great, healthy sex life. But talking to [the therapist], I felt like my childhood was a fucking horror story. Non-stop trauma." The answer he gave me was something I already knew, but it felt good to hear it from someone else: "No, you're not lying to yourself. You've done a lot of work over the past 9 years to get that way." And he was fucking right. So I'm doing a little more work tonight, writing it down and spilling my guts on the internet. So fuck you, Sean, and fuck you, shitbag who was going to NU in February of '98. And fuck shame.
See, this is where it gets hard - I’ve told quite a few people that I’ve been sexually assaulted, and that I was abused by someone when I was a kid, but - I’ve never really gone into detail. Not even with lovers or best friends or previous therapists.
But therapy is work, right? So I go ahead and give her the details - no, I never told anyone; yes, this happened repeatedly; yeah, I was scared of her, but more I just wanted to make her happy, she was my cool older stepsister.
Deep breath, and I go on. My partner (I think I’ll start referring to him as the Tall Drink from here on out) gives me his hand for squeezage, and I keep talking about my childhood.
When I get to my first year of high school, it comes up again. I feel more comfortable talking about this one, because this is a story I’ve told before. It was Halloween, I had just turned 14, and about twenty-five of us took mescaline in a park. I drank a pint of vodka. Hijinks ensued. A little before dawn, a friend of a friend suggested that we take a walk back to the aforementioned park. I remember lying on my back in the damp, cold grass, looking over his shoulder at the sunlight starting to bleed into the clouds. I remember going back to my friend’s house and excusing myself to the bathroom, which was all done in chinoiserie - red wallpaper, gold calligraphy, porcelain figurines - High JAP Tackiness. Seeing the red everywhere, including the crotch of my panties. Realizing I wasn’t tripping any more, smelling the dog shit on my combat boots. Going back into the kitchen and telling my friend what had happened. Her not believing that he would do such a thing. Me never mentioning it for the next 7 years of our friendship. (The boy who raped me ended up marrying a girl from my high school with whom I am friends on Facebook, actually. They have two adorable kids. I toy with the idea of outing him as a rapist, sometimes.) That story, I could tell. Except - for the first time in my life, I called it “rape”. Not assault. Rape. For some reason I had avoided that word.
A couple of minutes later in the session (and about four months later in my teenage timeline), I got to the second assault, and I said, “In February of that year I was raped again,” and at that point I started crying, because I had never said this before. I don’t remember who I went with to this Northwestern party, but I do remember drinking a lot, because I was at a college party. I was tarted up in a black slip-dress and fishnets and my de rigeur black steeltoes, with black eyeshadow raccoon-eyes, and I told the bastard I was 16, but seriously, y’all. Really?
I remember being in the basement. I remember saying “no,” this time. I remember saying it more that once. I remember him using a condom. I remember going up to the bathroom, and how sore my cunt was, and how I told the friend I had come with that I wanted to go home. That's about it.
I was sort of eager to move on after that, and fast-forwarded a little bit through the rest of high school, and talked about college, and then we made a date for the next session, and left.
I talked a bit more to the Tall Drink on the drive home. I let him know that I had never gone into detail about it because - well, frankly, I couldn't say. Looking back now, I tie it to shame and avoidance, mostly. He told me that he had never asked for more details because he didn't want to cause me pain. I talked some more about the second rape, and I got really angry. So angry I was choking on my words, until finally I spit out, "What a piece of human garbage," and sat with it for a while. When we got home, we sat in the car for a moment, and I asked him, "Am I totally lying to myself? I feel like I'm an emotionally competent, generally happy person. With a pretty great, healthy sex life. But talking to [the therapist], I felt like my childhood was a fucking horror story. Non-stop trauma." The answer he gave me was something I already knew, but it felt good to hear it from someone else: "No, you're not lying to yourself. You've done a lot of work over the past 9 years to get that way." And he was fucking right. So I'm doing a little more work tonight, writing it down and spilling my guts on the internet. So fuck you, Sean, and fuck you, shitbag who was going to NU in February of '98. And fuck shame.