Inside Out

In the months before the last attack, I had accomplished a lot and I felt very strong. I had graduated at the top of my class a year early, gave the keynote speech at the ceremony, I had weaned myself off of the antidepressants I’d been taking for 2 years, and I was beginning to really gain some self confidence, some identity. I was working part time, and volunteering teaching others about the bible. When I wasn’t doing those things, I was out with friends dancing or seeing movies or hosting game nights at my house. I felt so good, so secure. I felt close with god and my family, and the friends I had.

I can not tell you how much it pains me to look at where I am emotionally now compared to then. I can not tell you how late I stay up trying to pinpoint exactly when I let it start slipping.

For the past 6 months I feel like I have been out of body. Like I am a shell of the young woman I was starting to become. I liked that young woman. She was strong, smart, secure. I want to get that back. I feel like she is wandering around somewhere, and I have to catch her. I do not feel like myself and it scares me.

There are days, no, moments where I see her. Peaking around a corner, watching me, ever so alluring. I see her when I make good decisions, when I put myself first, when I reach a small goal. There is a poem by Shel Silverstein called Light in the Attic. I feel like I am both characters in this poem.

The Burning

I said in a previous post that I had discarded every article of clothing I wore in each attack, but that the skirt and blouse I wore in the last one were in a plastic bag in my garage. I took them out today. And I put them in an empty flower pot in my backyard. I doused them with lighter fluid, and slipped on my earphones Struck the match, and watched the flames engulf the fabric. I had the music so loud I felt the bass in my lungs. I watched traces of Marty burn. And I felt strong. Then I cried really hard. I watched the cotton coil under the heat, and the edges turn black. I watched until it died out. And I felt small again. I felt heavy and I felt light headed. I did not feel a symolic weight lifted off my shoulders, I did not feel revenge, I did not feel God. I felt crazy, and I felt good.

The idea to do a burning ceremony came from my close friend Bethany K, many of you know her.

Enlightenment

I know some people of my religion have found my blog. I know a few read it. But some have begun bringing up my monster’s name to my mother as ammunition in irrelevant heated conversations. So to those of my religion reading this, I did not have a consensual relationship with Marty. That is his name. That is my monster.

Marty told me, told my mother, and told police, that he knew he wanted me since he first laid eyes on me. I was 14 then. He told me privately that he took pictures of me when I wasn’t looking and later used them to masturbate. He showed me what kinds of pictures he took, the one he showed me was recent. From church while I was half way facing him talking to another elder. I was smiling, wearing his favorite skirt. He told me he knew he loved me and had to have me. That he couldn’t control it anymore.

I was 14 when he sexualized my trust, my confidence, whatever was left of my innocence. Tell me, does this little girl look like she was on the prowl for a 40 year old married man? Do I look like I wanted to be violated without my knowledge? So tell me. Tell me this little girl got what she deserved, tell me she wanted to be raped in the back of a truck by someone she once looked to as a father. Tell me she’s a whore, tell me I’m a whore. Because saying that I had a consensual relationship with Marty is the same thing.

Curses; A Letter to the Last *explicit*

Fuck you. Fuck you for taking my insecurites and using them as tools in your sick game. Fuck you for using everyone’s trust as a cover for your sins. Fuck you for handing me trauma like a fucking gift. Fuck you for sucking me into your sick obsession.

What you did is unforgivable. What you did has made me something I’m not. You painted me as a whore. You turned me inside out so that everything hurts I feel like an exposed nerve. You have made me question everything I have ever believed, everyone I have ever trusted. You took everything from me. You cut me open and sewed your self into the stitches.

You are every shadow I see. Every noise that makes me flinch. Every memory that makes me cringe. You are every horrible thing that walks the earth and what’s worse is that you are in every good thing that I have left. You are in every laugh I let out. You are in every tear I choke on. You are every nightmare that leaves me screaming silently into a pillow at 4 a.m.

I have never known betrayal like this. I have never known suffering like this. I have never known the devil like this. But I know you. And somehow, that is worse.

Tainted; A Letter to the First

It has been nearly 4 years since your fingers have tainted my skin with traces of your invisible venom. 3 since my eyes were last cursed with the contact of your own golden irises. It has been months since my lips have trembled at the forming of your name.

Yet you are still inside me. Holding me prisoner from the inside out. The memory of you is a cancer. You are a parasite to my existence. You are the worst pain I have ever known, the one thing I wish to erase. You are a part of me I want to cut out.

Yet you are the one thing to never leave my side. You continually haunt me. It is your memory that corrupts my dreams, and it is your words that crawl into my ear at night to whisper into me all the horrifying things I run from. It is you that is here with me when all I want is to be alone.

You are still inside me, when I shut everyone else out.

Fear

Fear, I have learned is a far more effective paralytic than any horse tranquilizer or medical concoction. Fear, like alcohol is good in moderation, but too much will inevitably knock you on your ass. Fear is a lot of things, and I have a lot of it. So in my new endeavor to write with out function, filter or a single f*** to give, I write with the sole purpose of cleansing my brain of what keeps it awake at ungodly hours of the night. Here is what I fear. Not in order but at random what comes to mind at 1 a.m

I fear going out in public, because what if I see him? Them? Adin Isaac or Sir? What would I do?

I fear intimacy because what if it triggers memories? What if I cry when in the middle of “something”? What if I traumatize that person with my PTSD?

I fear being so angry I can’t love anyone. I fear that anger is all I’ll ever feel.

I fear people, the worst kind of monsters I’ve known.

I fear that leaving my mom will break her. I fear growing up will leave her with nothing even though she has 2 more children and a husband.

I fear making bad choices, I fear creating regrets.

I fear trust. Giving it to the wrong people.

I fear roaches. They can swim and fly?! Pick a super power stupid bugs.

I think that’s enough for tonight.

A Mile In My Shoes, a freeverse

If you had been a decent human being and asked for my consent

I wouldn’t feel the need to cry myself to sleep or look for ways to vent

Had you been a decent human being you wouldn’t have hurt me like you did

But monsters have no heart no soul or conscience, God forbid

That someone like me, experience peace of mind or spirit

No I’m so far from healed I can’t be seen near it.

I see no light from where standing,

Is my naivety or blindness to blame?

No it’s all you, here you carry this shame.

Glass half full mentality left me exhausted

As sinful as they paint me to be I’m so close to finding a pill bottle to get lost in.

Don’t tell me not to be angry at something I didn’t choose

Not Unless of course, you’re prepared to walk a mile in my shoes.

Bear with Me

I have been writing constantly but not posting anything because I feel that lately everything I have to say is full of hate, of rage, of shame. And I feel that I have nothing useful or practical to add to that so that someone out there can benefit from what I write. I’ve been told it’s not my job to write to be encouraging. And in a way that’s a relief because I have nothing positive to say in all my present anguish, but personally, to me, it makes me feel like my suffering is kind of worth it if at least one person can benefit, can learn from it. I can’t be encouraging right now because I just don’t have it in me. Bear with me because I don’t want to get over my depression, I want to get through it.

Rage *explicit*

I am full of rage. I feel it in every nerve in my body, every cell, strand of hair, limb, etc. It is all I feel. It is so intense it scares me and my biggest fear that comes with it is that I’ll snap at someone and hurt their feelings.

I am angry at everyone and everything. I am angry with the people of my religion and I shouldn’t be but I am. Every time I go to church I feel their thoughts, and I feel like screaming “If you knew something was wrong why the fuck didn’t you speak up?!?” I want to scream at all of them because they just don’t know what he did to me, they don’t know how bad it’s fucked me up. I feel like because I’m so close to being 18 they think I made a decision to be sexually involved with an older married man. But I didn’t want to be, and they don’t get it. Nobody fucking understands how fucked up this has me. I’m fucked up beyond comprehension. Lately just being in church makes me wanna cry and scream at the top of my lungs. Being alive makes me feel like this.

I stay in bed as much as possible. I only come out to bathe, get food, and do chores then it’s right back to my cave. I have headphones on constantly, I’m never not listening to music because as long as I’ve got something going into my brain, keeping it occupied, the monster is at bay. So I listen to music when I wake up, in the shower, when I eat, when I do chores, when I sleep.

I hate being touched, I hate being spoken to. I hate people right now. I hate myself right now. That’s a lot of fucking rage for one person. And it’s fucking exhausting.

Counting

“Count your blessings”

“Glass half full”

“Be grateful”

“There are people who support and love you”

Today my brother was at school and my rapist walked into his science class. And Noah did what I did 3 years ago, he walked away and called my mom. And she drove to the school and talked to the counselor, who decided to move Adin out of my brothers class.

I’m in bed right now, laying down because the mere mention of any of my rapists names send my nerves into a frenzy and I go numb, my brain wipes clean and all I can do is sit there and watch the horror movie playing behind my eyelids. Reliving each rape as if it’s for the first time. My mom just came in, reminding me for the third time in an hour that my brother handled it maturely and that I should think of it as a positive thing because it means my brother loves me and believes me and supports me. She said that it’s reassuring that the counselor was so sensitive to the situation.

Guess what? I don’t feel reassured. I don’t feel any sense of justice out of Adin’s class getting switched instead of my brother. I was raped. And my rapists inconvenienced class schedule is supposed to make me feel secure? Reassured? Avenged? No. Leave me alone.

I hate being told to be grateful or comforted by something so trivial. Jail time wouldn’t make me feel any sort of justice either. No one gets it, there is no restoring my peace of mind. There is NO rest for me, nothing could make me feel protected, avenged, no justice. An inconvenience to Adin won’t win me back my virginity, my sleep at night, my self confidence, peace of mind. So please don’t tell me to be reassured by my brothers actions, by a strangers actions.

Counting blessings is hard when you suck at math. Forgive me.