The other day I decided to join Facebook. I realized that I was not using it because of some people on there. People I used to have relationships with whom I no longer do. And I tried to imagine what it would be like to tell people I went to high school with that all through that time I was being raped by my father.
I think it is most painful because it keeps making the reality more clear to me. And that is what I need to do- keep being more honest and clear- in order to continue healing. I have been writing on here a lot recently about the denial and needing to let it go. The denial of the rape really has been like an addiction that has been hurting me and my life and I have been working to stop denying reality and the truth about my past.
Recently though... it is like I have to RUN towards the truth. In the past I stayed a lot in the denial and now it has to be the opposite. The denial is too painful. Saying and knowing the truth and the freedom it gives me is too good. After a life of never feeling real or whole; saying the truth is allowing me both. Trying to deny the reality of the abuse prevents me from really being able to be fully in the present. It is difficult though. It is painful and scary because I "lived" for so long in the denial.
Today at art therapy I was talking about my struggle with always feeling like the rape was my fault. I never wondered about this or questioned it. I have always remembered and heard in my head the voice of my father and him saying to me, "Why are you making me do this to you?" It makes me sick. I am tolerating the awfulness of it by not being silent about all of this. Anyway- I always felt like the rape was somehow my fault- he told me it was and he said it often. I had to believe him to survive. I had to believe that somehow it was my fault. And I did. I believed it.
The other day someone left an anonymous comment here on my blog saying that I was "dragging the family name through the mud". No, actually I am not. I am telling the truth. My abusers were the ones who took the family name through the mud.
I have to live with what they did to me but I do not have to live with it in silence. I guess they will have to live with me telling the world about it.
And that is exactly what I am going to do. I am going to keep telling the story. It is a painful one- but as I tell it- it does free me and allow me to live fully in the present and to imagine a future. I will start graduate school in just three months. I am so excited about it; I think about it each day. An MFA in Studio Art!! Brilliant!!!!!!! Yes.
In two weeks Christopher and I are going on a vacation to be with EVE and her husband and also JESSIEH!!! So I am completely excited about those things. Christopher and I are probably going to get an apartment together before September and that makes me really happy too. Actually... I am really thrilled about the idea of an apartment with him. Him and our three (!) cats. I am three months away from being in an MFA program and coming HOME to him. I am in this place now because I am being totally honest.
And with tears in my eyes I type the following: I am going to keep saying the horrible truth about having been raped until I was 25. I still struggle everyday with wishing it had never happened; but there is nothing I can do to change the past. I can think of one thing I have in common with the two people who abused me: They made choices. Now I will make mine.
5 comments:
an excellent post. especially the last part about choices.
xxx
It's so hard to come out of the silence and the secrets. When I was growing up, there were things you JUST DID NOT TALK ABOUT... so it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I began saying out loud that my mother was an alcoholic. In the present, so many people don't want to talk about the children who die before, during or shortly after birth... but I will not remain silent about my daughter who died at 4 days of age.
The silence must be broken, and the truth must be told. That's how people heal, and that's how the world knows there are terrible things that need to stop happening. You have come so far in the time I've been reading your blog. At least once a week, you bring tears to my eyes. Your bravery, your beauty, your healing, your growth and discovery of your SELF... these are some of the things that have made your journey so inspirational. I lurk a lot, but know that you have had a profound affect on me.
I will continue to be here in the background, watching you get healthier and stronger, and seeing your dreams come true.
Wow! Kudos Jen! Kudos! And I am not talking about the very tasty granola bars that we ate in college:) Bravo!
keep going!
Hi Jenny,
An anonymous poster, what a coward, to say that to you. I agree with you, it is important to differientiate who dragged the name through the mud. Sex offenders are the criminals, not us. We don't owe them anything, certainly not our silence.
Good and healing thoughts to you.
Kate
The below-mentioned statement is the epitome of my past-misery as a child-sex-abuse-survivor/warrior. I am an islander and in (my) island culture, we invest ourselves in our "family/blood" but that was not the case for me, or my cousins, etc.
Grant it, not all of us islanders were sexually/physically/emotionally abused but it still gives them no right to "turn the other cheek" and tell us to stay silent because it would 'shame our family name.'
This is what my parents did to me as their "Cathoholic" way of forgiving the sinner but not the sin. Keep it quiet. Keep us children away from my many uncles and grandfather who they said was too old to go to jail.
And this was the hardest part of my healing, of which I still struggle with at present, especially, because none of my abuser-blood-related-islander-familia was never convicted or put in jail! But, I am blessed to know through all the rage and hell and bull-shit I went through--LOVE can still exist and can heal and strengthen and inspire and thrive!
And that is what I tell myself whenever I am 'triggered' from remembering my past trauma. That and the belief in "karma."
"The other day someone left an anonymous comment here on my blog saying that I was "dragging the family name through the mud". No, actually I am not. I am telling the truth. My abusers were the ones who took the family name through the mud.
I have to live with what they did to me but I do not have to live with it in silence. I guess they will have to live with me telling the world about it."
Post a Comment