...and I am beginning to work through it so that I can more easily form healthy, trusting relationships. Your thoughts, ideas, and own stories are so very welcome.
Sexual abuse has marked me for most of my life, and until recently I had no idea how deeply.
One day, when I was less than five, I was playing with my next door neighbor in his backyard. To this day I can't remember his name, what he looked like, except that he was blond and tan and usually wore a ninja turtles t-shirt, or how much older than me he was - my best guess would be that he was seven or eight at most - but I digress. We played together often, usually with some other girls on the same street, but on this particular day it was him and me and his male friend. When I tried to leave to go home, the two of them blocked the gate and wouldn't let me leave, taunting me when I started to cry and yell for my mom. Then I ended up pushed up against the gate with the two of them leaning over me, tugging at my shorts, telling me to show them what was under there, telling me that they wouldn't let me leave until I did.
And then - and then my memory is faulty, because I'm not sure what happened. I seem to recall that they got my shorts at least partway down, even though I was fighting and crying and covering myself. I can't state with certainty that they touched me in a sexual way because I just don't ****ing remember. My mind says "oh, just give them they benefit of the doubt, they didn't touch you there", as if being victimized in that way wasn't enough. It doesn't mean they did. It doesn't mean they didn't. I was five. No-one should have been trying to touch me, to see me in that way.
I think eventually they got bored (or perhaps realised that they had done something wrong) and let me go, at which point I ran to my mom, who later went next door and tore a strip off of his mom.
I have friends who were abused by siblings and others over an extended period of time, who can be certain that sexual acts actually took place, who had parents who witnessed and then denied the abuse - I'm afraid to call myself a survivor of sexual abuse because my story can't even begin to compare. But what does it say that I totally repressed that memory until the age of thirteen, which, interestingly, is when I first really noticed the emergence of mental health disturbances such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts? Now that I think on it, there were signs even before the recollection of that occurence that indicated I was a troubled child: sleep disturbances (staying up very late, getting up very early, sleepwalking, nightmares), telling teachers I didn't feel well to get out of class (to the point of my mom actually taking me to the doctor to ascertain whether there was something wrong with me) although I really didn't feel well at times, hoarding and stealing (mostly things from within my home - food, books, whatever - you name it, I kept it in my room. My parents eventually found out and punished me. And took me to a counsellor.), an intensive and early interest in sex and sexuality (though to this day I have never had a boyfriend and am, indeed, a virgin at 21!), change in school performance, a few attempts to run away, and being rather withdrawn and daydreamy.
I am also concerned that I may have sexually abused my brother when he was young, perhaps two. I remember being intruiged by his penis, and a few times after he had had a bath (we shared a room) I touched it while I was helping him get dressed, mostly just marvelling at the softness of that skin. Part of me will feel endlessly guilty over this the rest of my life, while the other part wants me to forgive myself because that's part of what kids do, and more than likely I was just interested in what he had that I didn't. I couldn't have been more than 6 at the time.
There are other incidences that are suspect, such as various sleepovers with two different female cousins about the same age as me where sexual behaviours occured (some I initiated, some I didn't - on one occasion one of the cousins wanted us both to take our pyjamas off so we would both be naked, and tried to tickle-wrestle me into submission).
I don't want to be an alarmist; I don't want to sift through my past looking for indicators of other sexual abuse, although, especially in the case of my next door neighbor, I can't help but wonder if it happened once, maybe it happened other times, too. And no, I don't want to go through the rest of my life wearing a "victim" badge. I have done myself proud, and moved so far beyond being that scared, powerless five year old sobbing helplessly behind a garden gate - I am a preschool teacher who loves her job and finds nothing more empowering that empowering the kids she works with because she knows how profoundly what happens when you are small can shape the way you live the rest of your life. I am a good friend, a good writer, a good sister and daughter. I have many ambitious plans and dreams, and I'm going for them. I try hard to believe that one day I will fall as completely in love as some of my friends have.
Yet...I think I am beginning to understand that there's a reason I'm not a very huggy or touchy person even though I didn't lack for physical contact from my family. I think there's a reason I largely avoid involving myself in personal relationships even though I am reasonably attractive, smart, loving, and fun. A reason such debilitating self-esteem issues hang around despite all evidence to the contrary. A reason it takes me so damn long to build real trust of anyone. A reason I mistrust the happiness of others in relationships almost to the point of wanting to sabotage them. A reason I think, almost daily, "there is something wrong with me."
I think that the reason is neither clear, single, nor easily defined, but this is the basic gist: I don't let people in because I don't trust their motives; I don't trust them not to hurt me or people I love. I don't trust happiness for its own sake because I know how fleeting it is, how easily it is broken. I don't trust innocence, maybe because I lost my own a long time ago. The whole concept is alien to me, and it's really affecting my ability to be happy for some friends of mine who may actually have found their soulmates, people who are genuinely kind, giving, and considerate, people who want me in their lives because they know how much I mean to their significant others. I fear that I am hurting them all by holding back so much, by being afraid to even be around such real, pure joy. It's hard, really ****ing hard, nay, impossible, to delve back into my history and say to anyone, even those I trust most, "I was sexually abused when I was five, and that's why I'm acting like such a crazy person right now." How implausible and cheap does that sound? I feel crazy and wrong for feeling this way in the first place, for being able to pinpoint that as the fault line shaking out all these worries and difficulties. But it's very true, and I'm worried about how I must appear to the people who are seeking my approval while I can barely figure out my behaviour from one moment to the next.
My hope is that acknowledging this and dealing with it head-on, no matter the rush of vulnerabilities, insecurities, and fears, will help me find my own joy in the future and be a better friend. I hope. I hope. I hope.
'Cause I'm sure going to try.
Note: adapted from a personal journal entry