Yesterday
Sometimes the obsessive-compulsive thoughts are unbearable.
It always starts with a negative image. My feelings of dislike for that particular picture in my mind start to build more and more until holy shit, it’s twenty times worse than I originally envisioned, except now it’s sprouting tentacles and puss is oozing from its orifices too fast for me to escape and gahhhhh! I’m drowning in its gooey disgustingness and being caressed by its cold and slimy spider web fingertips while it whispers in my ear and fondles my private parts. I fight, gasping in horror, unable to push it away.
It’s like the utter helplessness I felt the time my neighbor made me take off my clothes for him when I was a little girl.
For years and years on end I couldn’t get the sickening smile on his wretched face out of my head. Every time I saw him thereafter, he’d grin at me, knowing what was hiding under my Catholic school dress code clothing. It made me feel polluted, dirty. The stain from under my fingernails that I could never never reach at to clean without ripping my nails out first. I cried every time I’d wake up from a nightmare involving him, and I could never escape the knowledge that something unfair and horrible had happened to me. I was too young to understand the fact that it wasn’t my fault, and I thought that I somehow deserved it.
And I never told my parents because I was so ashamed. As if I had been the one to do wrong.
To this day I have the fear that I am somehow dirty, tainted. My body has always been a source of embarrassment.
It wasn’t my fault, but deep down inside of me, I feel like it somehow was.
Current Mood:
Sad
October 29th, 2009 at 11:16 am
My heart is ripping for you sweetie! It’s so NOT your fault the evil bastard that was your neighbor took advantage of you as a young girl. If was very unfair and it changed who you were from the second he did anything!
Tamra, you are a beautiful woman inside and out and you deserve the absolute best! You are so strong to even open up about this and let people know that, yes it can happen to anyone as it happened to you. And if there could ever be a positive (not the word I want for this situation) spin is that you are extra diligent with your daughters to make sure this never happens to them and they never will have to feel this way!
((HUGS)) You’re in my thoughts daily! Keep strong girl!
October 29th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I’m so sorry that happened to you Tamra. My biological dad molested his second wife’s daughter. I didn’t know it was going until about a year ago, years after they had divorced and the abuse had stopped. I feel horrbile for not picking up on it and doing something to protect her. It’s not your fault and like Tracy said, the ‘positive’ part is that it makes you be extra diligent with your own kids to try to prevent them from going through the same thing.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:48 am
People who do that are diseased. They somehow are born without the part of the brain that registers their actions as wrong. I had to work with several of them at the prison, and the way that their minds work is downright scary. I’m sorry you had to grow up near one of them. It’s a good thing that the system now forces them to register as sex offenders, but truthfully there is only so much protection we can offer our kids. We can teach them everything we know about “stranger danger,” and all of the other stuff our parents taught us, hope that it never happens to them, and pray that they are never faced with the situation
October 29th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Oh Tamra I am so sorry you had to experience that! That is the worst thing I could ever imagine happening to someone. It was not your fault at all, you were a innocent child and was a sick evil bastard. You did NOTHING to deserve that, NOTHING.
October 29th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Wow.
How brave of you to write about this and post it for the world to read.
October 29th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
It’s probably more about stupidity than bravery
. Today’s just one of those tough days.
October 29th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Nah, it’s not stupid to have to get that stuff out. I remember the first time you told me about it, hell, a long ass time ago. It was hard for you to talk about it back then, but being able to get it out, and discuss it is all part of the healing process. Hopefully that asshole is rotting in jail somewhere. Meanwhile you’re happily married with two daughters, and have a wonderful life. These days will come and go, just remember you are beautiful, talented, and loved, and no one can take that away from you.
October 29th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Definitely brave! Its really hard to face what happened to us in the past. Putting it out there and being able to talk about it is a victory! Who knows – your bravery may help someone else speak up too.
Hugs!
October 29th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I am so sorry that you had a pig for a neighbor. I had one, too. Amazing isn’t it, how some A-HOLE can take advantage of a child?? A child!! I look back at my experience and think, crap I could have been a statistic. He lured me in his garage to “play a game” then shut the garage door. There were other sick manipulative things he did, as well. Naturally, many of these things take place over time, because these types of sick SOB’s groom children. They try to get the child to think they are her friend. They are sick excuses for human beings. I wish so much I knew then, what I know now. I wish I could go back. Because I would truly handle things so differently. (I would very well grab some sort of tool from his garage, and just hack his pecker off!) But as children, we do not know. We trust. We think to ourselves, “I must be imagining this.” We do not understand what is going on. Then, we later feel the guilt of somehow (incorrectly) thinking we were responsible for it. Now that is really messed up thinking. We feel ashamed to tell anyone. And if we do tell someone and they do nothing — that really sucks. Big time.
I believe in Karma. Holy, liberating Karma. I believe that someday, all of the bad, ugly, sick, nasty, hateful, disgusting, angry, empty thoughts and hurtful actions of this person will go back to him. I believe one day, in his “life review” when he croaks, he will have to answer to a Higher Power. All of his maggoty emotional make-up will then be forced to ingest his own heart and soul.
When a person takes advantage of someone (especially a child) in such a way, emotional damage can be very deep. This is something that most people cannot understand. Unless they’ve had the unfortunate situation of being in a similar circumstance.
I am sending you thoughts of peace tonight across the cybernet. Stay well, friend.
October 29th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I am in awe of your courage. That is such a pivotal and transformational experience to go through and to share. Good for you for looking it in the eye. It’s facing things like this that help you to move forward on your path. It’s a hard step and it’s an essential one. You are such a special woman and I am so proud to be your friend. I love you.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:04 am
I think you are so amazingly strong for not only sharing it here but getting it out period. It took me two years to tell people what happened to me. Two years of holding it inside and letting it eat at me. Only a handfull of people knew what happened to me, and that’s only because in the first few days after it happened it was so obvious to the people who cared that something had happened. My parents still to this day call me a liar, despite a doctor telling them otherwise. If you want I could tell you the long story, but I don’t want to in anyway make you feel like I am trying to take away from you by talking about me. I was raped shortly after I turned 17 by a guy 2 years younger then me. I was so ashamed that a 15 year old could have raped me that I never told anyone. I found out a few months later I was girl #4 that he had raped since moving to our town, and that as a child his step father had raped him and his sister. I still feel nauseous when I think about it, even though it will have been 3 years next month. It was very brutal, and while he didn’t hurt me beyond choking me, the actual act itself tore me inside so bad I bled for 3 days and walked with a limp for a few days because it hurt so bad. But I told myself I had no reason to complain, that I deserved it for letting him into my house, and he hadn’t killed me or beaten me, that so much worse happened to other people. While I could never understand exactly how you feel, I can relate to those days where you hate everything about yourself and you feel so ruined because of what happened. It was not, and is not your fault. It will never be in any shape or form your fault. And I hope that monster truly suffers for what he has done, preferrably before death. Sometimes I wish there was a way to make them feel exactly what you felt and feel, but in my case even with him knowing how devastating it was, he still did it to me and several other girls. It makes me wonder how there could possibly be people like that out there.
November 1st, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Thank you, and I am so sorry that many of you have shared a traumatizing sexual experience. It’s nice to know I am not alone, even though I wish it hadn’t happened to you.
Those men are pigs.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:05 am
You haven’t blogged in a while.. you doing ok?
November 7th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Hey hun, obviously I haven’t been checking up on blogs in awhile. I am so sorry that you had to go through such a horrible thing. People like that man are sick twisted individuals who need locked up and removed from society. I was raped twice when I was 16 once on a blind date, on Valentines day and then a second time at a conference in AZ by a group of guys. I love ya girl, you are so incredibly strong and I truly admire you.