*** Childhood Sexual Abuse (so trigger warning. Seriously. Huge trigger warning). Mental Health. Mental Healing ***
I don’t know why I still feel nervous about using your name when I talk about this. I can’t even remember if I told my mom who you were. Why am I still protecting you? You never protected me. You took me to houses with strange boys so you could hook-up with your boyfriend. I was alone with those people, those teenagers who were okay with you – a twelve year old – being (word erased for class because it’s explicit). I was ten. They didn’t see me any different from you and my saying no was just a suggestion. The times I ran away from the houses and crawled through windows to escape because they were blocking the door… Did you ever care that I was shaking? Did you even care that I was crying?
Part of me hopes you did. Part of me knows you didn’t. I had loved you so much. You were my favorite person despite putting me again and again in situations where I was unsafe. I told you how uncomfortable I was but you left me alone like an offering to the monsters you saw as gods. I knew they were monsters. I just didn’t know until much later that you were a monster too.
Growing up turned out to be a sad experience. When I was younger, I didn’t understand. You were always in my life. My very existence started with you there, and from then on our ‘games’ were played. You had consumed my every thought. I’d go to sleep thinking of you and dream of us together. I’d stay up late thinking the most despicable thoughts of myself. You made me believe I was only worth what I was willing to give. Sadly, for the longest time I thought of myself that way too.
When did it start? How did it start? As far as I know, it always happened but it must’ve started at some point. How old was I when you first touched me? How old were you? I know things happened between you and your step-dad. Were there others who hurt you? And why me? I loved you. I *expletive* loved you so much. Did you think that your actions were as normal as I did?
Then again, I must’ve known it was wrong. When my younger neighbor came over and you wanted to play the same games with her, I kept her from you. You could have me, you already did, but she was pure and innocent, and I hated her for that as much as I loved her for it. I think I was jealous because of how miserable I was despite being willing. I didn’t want it. I didn’t understand what I didn’t want because it was so normal to me. I just knew I was angry all the time. Angry at everyone but especially angry with adults. I didn’t know why I was so aggressive towards adults at the time, I just didn’t want them to help me with anything. I didn’t like them telling me what to do. Looking back, I think it’s because they never noticed what I thought was beyond obvious. They didn’t save me when I was desperate for rescue. I was so angry. I was hostile towards adults, awkward with kids my age, and I went to school every single day praying that a teacher would finally see me. I wasn’t sleeping at night. I looked a mess, I acted a mess… But until I was eleven, there was always you.
You were always there when no one else was. Was that on purpose? I struggle to believe it was because you were barely older than me. You couldn’t have known to groom me away from trusting adults. But did you? You told me that it was our special game and that we had to keep it a secret. How did you know to say that? Your step-dad probably told you the same things you mirrored to me.
I preferred when you let me be the ‘guy’ in our games. When I played the ‘woman’, you were touching me. Calling me slurs. Saying words I hated but grew to associate with sex because you trained me to accept that. When I was the woman, you’d have me dance and strip for you. You’d touch me and slap me and have me tell you how good it felt and how much I wanted it. It didn’t. I didn’t. But our game was for your pleasure and I had to want it in our games.
Except, of course, during the games of force and brutality that I still feel sick trying to remember. The ones where whoever was the ‘guy’ would break into an imaginary house and hold the other down while taking whatever they wanted. Those details are the foggiest but it did teach me to fight back. I was always supposed to give in to you, but at those places you took me? I never did. I fought and then ran. Thank God I was so fast. Thank God I was friends with Patrick who let me go in and out his windows just because. Thank God I had friends who weren’t you so I knew what it was to be normal. And thank God I actually wasn’t normal and knew how to get out of locked rooms and hide appropriately. You put me in situations where I was in legitimate danger. Do you know how many times I could’ve been raped? How many times I could’ve been killed?
You left me vulnerable and thinking I was only worth what a man wanted from me. Whatever he wanted from me. Even still, I never let it go on too long before running. I knew when I was in danger and I must’ve known that what we were doing was sick because, despite thinking that being used by a man at nine was normal, from twelve to nineteen, I was able to live like the virgin you never let me be. I barely kissed anyone after you. I was aware of too much but unwilling to participate in it. The first guy I kissed after you tried to hold me down to continue further. He was a mistake and taught me that people were as dangerous as I always believed them to be. The second guy was nice. He had a crush on me for years before he had to move away. He gave me hope with his relentless and forgiving love. It was sweet and harmless. He chose to give it to me. In that instance, he made me feel less ruined, less used, and that I deserved good. I don’t think he’ll ever know that he made such an impact in my life, and perhaps his not meaning to affect me so much has caused me to romanticize the situation in my head, but I remember him as the remedy to the poison you had left within me.
I think the worst part of you is what happened when you finally vacated my life. I was aware of the things other people my age had no clue about or were just starting to learn about. I was awkward with knowledge I never asked for. I buried it deep and never mentioned it. I told people there was one secret I would die with, and that secret was you. And I hated myself when you left because, despite keeping you my dirty little secret, I missed you. For years after you left me, I missed you. And even when I started hating you I still missed you with desperation. I hated you for making me miss you. I hated you for never explaining why you did what you did to me or any of the other why’s you made me have. I hated you for ruining me and making me feel like used goods or that my value only existed in the sex I didn’t want to give. I hated you for so many reasons and with so much of my heart. But I still missed you and that made me hate you most.
I hope your life turned out fine. I hope with my whole being that you never touched anyone other than me because I never told anyone about you. I hope you grew out of the monster you were to me. I hope so much for you. But mostly, I hope you never take up space in my heart again. I’m trying to move past you. I was always bigger than you. Maybe that’s why you tried to make me small.
~ Jessa ~
A Girl With A Story 