My own attempt, written years ago, at relating my
experience can be found tucked away on my
"Thoughts" page. It was the response I got to this one small piece that decided me to create
SURVIVORS.
In my piece, I tried to capture the way I felt when it was happening. It does not go very deeply into the actual molestation -- only my fear and confusion -- and it deals with one of the least abusive situations I was in as a child. I was a baby when it started, merely four or five years old, and it continued until I was around 11. (These ages are guesstimates on my part, based on other memories of the same time period -- I'm really not sure exactly what age I was when it started and stopped -- all memories of my childhood are vague, and I believe it was this trauma that killed both my childhood and my childhood memories. However, I never forgot what was done to me -- that memory, sadly, is all too clear.)
My memories haunted me for years, and I HATED the man who did this to me. But, I have since learned the power of forgiveness -- it does NOT mean you condone or, especially, forGET what has been done. It does NOT mean that the person who did this to you is not to be punished for his crime. It DOES mean that you can finally LET IT GO, and when you do, that monster no longer HAS control of your life. He HAS no more power.
Hatred hurts only the one who feels it -- it does nothing whatsoever to hurt the one hated. But it can poison your insides until your body finally gets truly, physically ill. And then, he has raped you TWICE.
At first you NEED that anger and hatred to give you the strength to make it through, but it will poison you if you hold onto it
forever.
I have received several responses stating that they could NEVER
forgive the perpetrator of their own private hell -- and that they first had to learn to forgive themSELVES. Sadly, that is all too true -- we are not only stripped of our Selves, our security, and our sense of being, but we are burdened with a lifetime of guilt for something we could NOT have prevented.
I believe that the first step towards healing is being able to
forgive your SELF. The last step is letting the hatred and anger GO. If you don't, he will haunt you the rest of your life. No, you will never be totally free of the experience, but the wound will eventually scab over and be covered by a scar which only hurts when examined. And you can live a normal life with that.
The other half of my story is that I am the victim of multiple molestations by different people. I was also molested around the age of seven by a neighborhood teenage girl, my uncle attempted to molest me at the age of 16, my senior prom date tried to rape me at the age of 17, my first husband did rape me at the age of 18 before we were married and, afterwards, beat me and demoralized me until the marriage ended when I was 19. And would you believe it? HE left ME, and I was devastated.... I've come "a long way baby" since then.
Finally, at the age of 38, I was sexually assaulted by a 17 year-old boy. He lived to rue the attempt though -- I fought him off and neighbors who heard the commotion chased him down -- before that, I had gotten into my car and very nearly run him down -- it took everything in me not to -- it was as if he represented every demon I had encountered in my life before and I truly wanted to kill him! He ran like the devil himself was after him, and -- in a way -- it was.... He ended up in juvenile hall and the police held him for trial until after his 18th birthday so he would go to jail -- it was his third sexual assault.
I used to think I must be doing SOMEthing wrong to bring this kind of unwanted attention! I have since learned that Survivors are often victimized by more than one predator -- they seem to have a second sense for finding us -- people who have had our souls ripped from us, our innocence stolen, and all the fight in us stifled long ago by someone much bigger and stronger than we were. Like Buttercup says in her story, you just want to curl up in a ball and die.
It's when you realize that you were incredibly strong to survive the experience at ALL in the first place, and that you can USE that strength to fight back and regain your life and your soul and your happiness, that healing starts to take place.