~Abused By A Memory~

When he touches me its often very unnerving. Whether it's done lovingly or rough I become paralyzed by it and my insides begin to quake. I feel my body go rigid, my mouth dries and I see clean,black and white cartoon images turn dirty and messy in my mind.  Often I try to let him do it, whether its to grab my butt or breast or to run his fingers over my arm.  I know that if I pull away his innocent action will become something bigger and closer to what it really is to me. He will either be hurt and stop all together or feel like he's being joked with and come back with more poking and prodding. Eventually I am going to have to accept and get through his pinching and twisting so, I argue to myself, why not now? This is the man I love, that I want to be with forever so how can I feel anything but good when he touches me?

I was about 7 when I learned this trick.  I honestly didn't know anymore about my own body at that age than the fact that my body was just a vehicle.... I know that must sound so blatantly ignorant. If that's how it sounds than you understand my thinking then.  I hadn't come to a point yet where I learned about or was curious about my sexuality.  Somewhere deep inside I am realizing now that 7 years old was a bit old to not make acknowledgement of my body but I think that is because something happened to me at a much younger age, by someone much closer to me, and I blocked it out by ignoring my body.

Whatever the reason behind it as I sat there on this old man's lap 30 years ago, I knew somehow to be still and to let it happen so it would be over quicker. I write let as if I had a choice. I didn't. Yet in my mind I made myself imagine I did because if I realized how hard he was holding me down I might have began freaking out. I remember my mind having a dialogue with me but I tried to ignore it. I remember thinking that "it" seemed to go on forever but by the television playing in the background only one song had played through on Solid Gold.  The fact that my friend, my molester's granddaughter, was also on his lap made the whole experience harder to forget. To this day, 30 years later, I have still not spoken to my friend about that night. Actually, I haven't spoken to her since that night at all. I don't remember well but I think we never spoke again.  Still, even if we had I couldn't talk to her about that night.  I would be afraid that she would either remember it and feel maybe so awful she couldn't face me or that she wouldn't remember because her mind isn't ready to and my mentioning it could make her go through something she's not ready to.

That's why now when a man touches me in anyway, good or bad, I just let it be. I don't pull away if I can consciously help it because I don't want to invite the questions or have to feel the touch over again.  I think that fact makes me very weak and keeps me being a victim but at the same time ironically it gives me some control too.  Pulling away only makes it a bigger issue. What's the use in complaining? I may as well scream inside of a concert hall with thousands of other people screaming. By this time it seems that everyone I know has been molested or knows someone who has been so its difficult to have a separate voice or experience.  I know though that every single experience is unique and that the pain is still very real no matter how many people can or can't explain it.  The amount of time being molested, the person who did the act to us, the age one was when it happened---Its all different but even if its exactly the same,~ even if I was molested as many times as "her",  at the same age and by the same person, ~it doesn't make it the same or different, worse or better. It is what it is to each person. Who can judge such a crime against ones body?  Who would dare measure one persons suffering against another?

I still flinch. 30 years later and I can go "back" to that winter night and feel like that scared7 year old girl in a moments notice.  I suddenly flash back to that place hearing the cars going by down on the street and the sound their tires make on the wet pavement.  I can see the yellow light of the street lamp through the white cotton curtains and smell the mixture of burned coffee and pine tree in the air.  I still cannot drive by that building without flashing back to that cold and wet night.  I am a prisoner to that memory and that awful,disgusting and shameful feeling.

I remember the two of us going into the bathroom after "it" happened. We were giggling. To spite how awful I felt, how sick and nauseous, I let myself pretend I was okay.  I think that part of the memory haunts me  almost as much as him touching me because I felt like doing anything but laughing.  I wanted to rip my skin off. I hated that I could feel so dirty and ugly and know that in the morning I would have to wake up being that me....That I would never be able to wash or even hate away that feeling- I went onto feel like I deserved what happened that night.  Why? Ten years later I would be raped....Still a virgin and emotionally still stuck at 7 years old, I went onto hate myself even more. So, now when a man touches me, whether on the shoulder or the chest or wherever, I try so hard not to pull away because I know that every time I do I let that old man into my head to molest me all over again.