Listen To Me

I keep reading the stories of survivors. It distresses me to see just how many there are on the internet alone. Both male and female survivors of all ages and nationalities.

I have searched for someone whose story was similar to mine. I need so badly to speak to someone who will understand what I go through on a daily basis. I know I will find it! I will be brave and I will make it through.

I can't remember it all. I block it out, but I see the parts that really hurt though. I feel
the pain, I feel the shame and the guilt. Why do I keep feeling like it's my fault that this happened to me? Why do I keep destroying my chances at happiness. I look to be unhappy as if I deserve no better than I've gotten in life thus far.

One minute I'm on top of the world and the next I am on the edge of suicide. During the whole time my abusers sit on their pedestal. Nothing can touch them. Nothing ever has. No one really knows or can believe what these sickos are capable of.

God they hurt me. They took away what belonged to me. What I should have had the right to give when I wanted to. Not have it taken away in the manner that it was. I hate them so much and nothing will ever repair the damage that they inflicted upon me. Nothing!!

Will they ever pay for what they did? For what they took from me? It wasn't just the sexual abuse. It's my spirit, my dignity......things I will never truly have because they stole them from me time and time again. They ruined me for my lifetime.

So many years of going to bed with my knees in the air and my feet firmly on the bed to protect myself. It took me a long time to get rid of that habit and now what? I lay in the fetal position all alone hoping that no shadows come to hurt me in the night.

Some times I still feel them entering my room. Pretending that they come to watch my T.V. -- a T.V. I wasn't allowed to watch but was still in my room to suit there purposes. Or they'd pretend they were going to play cards with me. Once the house was dark and everyone was asleep, the T.V. programs were only a diversion and so were the card games. Everything would go quiet and I'd be ripped to shreds all over again.

Why did this start? What made them turn to me? A child. I was nothing but a child. I didn't even have my period yet. Why did they choose to hurt me? I was a good little girl. I did what I was told. I did very well in school and went even when I was sick. All my teachers loved me. This isn't funny. It kind of makes me want to scream.

A few of my teachers were very good to me as a child in elementary school. They'd take me bowling or to lunch with other students. They took the time to get to know me better because I was always trying so hard and I did better than most of the other kids. I was in a "smart kids" program and all of my teachers, with the exception of my sixth grade teacher, were kind.

There were days when I came to school in a distant mood. I was there in body but the rest of me was far away. Wondering what I was going to do to make it end. How could I make it stop? They were very good teachers. They just didn't know.

Who would they discuss my moods with? With my parents? They'd always come to open school night. They'd always come to award ceremonies. They were always the ones to come. So I'd have to go with them and I'd be silent. I wouldn't answer. I just shrugged my shoulders and said I didn't know what they were talking about.

The rides home are blocked from my memory banks. I know what happened though. I'd get yelled at. Abusive language. Called stupid and ignorant. Ungrateful to them after all the things they were doing for me and how I didn't appreciate anything. They were right. I didn't know there was anything to appreciate.

I'd get hit in the car. I'd get hit when I got home. They enjoyed all types of abuse when it came to me. I hate them. I wish they were dead! I'd like what was done to me to be done to them.

My parents once sat down when I was an adult and told me that they had been abused too. I just sat there wondering why they were talking to me. Did they think I cared? Did they think I had forgotten what they did to me over a long period of time, over and over again?

I heard the words my parents said and the only thing I could feel was anger. So my reply was, "So this is your excuse? This excuses you? This is your reason for what you did?" Bad reply. My parents answer, "What are you talking about? What did we do to you?" then my parents walked away knowing they accomplished nothing. Not with me anyway. Maybe somebody else believed them. Even if I did believe them. I didn't care. I don't care.

Whatever may or not have been done to them didn't excuse what they did to me. I have never ever thought of doing the vile things that they did. I could never do to anyone what has been done to me. I look to protect others. Sometimes I overprotect and I over defend. No one should have to go through what I did. No one!!

My heart is broken. My spirit is broken. The thought of a man touching me terrifies me. It takes me a long time to get over the terror and to let myself be me. I don't even know who "me" is. I doubt I will ever know. And why? Because of what they stole from me. Yeah, I'm angry. Shouldn't I be?

After all these years the anger still dwells inside of me. It's reached every corner of my being and is rotting in my body and in my soul. When is it going to go away?

I live on for the children that I have brought into this world. For no other reason did I live on. Before they were born I thought about slashing my wrists. I thought about overdosing on pills. I thought about jumping in front of a car. I thought about jumping off a roof. God would forgive me. He knew what I had been through .....but He wouldn't forgive me now.

I brought these children into this world and I have to make their world better than what mine was. And for that I live on. For that reason and that reason alone. For this reason, I'm trying to pick up the pieces of my life again and start anew.

Forget the past girl. Give the love that's come into your life and yourself the chance you both deserve. You don't have to tell everything. You tell what you can. The ice will always be frozen in you. The inner child lives on in you. You can help her to mature. You can free her from her cocoon. Just take it one day at a time and everything will work out fine. You just have to believe in God and in what He has planned for you from this point on.

Listen to me little girl. The past is the past. You were not to blame and you have to start believing that. What others believe doesn't matter anymore. It's what you know
that matters. You are worth loving. You know how to love back. That's something a lot of people never learned. But with all your pain and memories you can still love. You are still a very loving and caring individual. Don't waste that because of your past. Don't let the men that appeared afterwards and hurt you too, ruin your chance at happiness.