#YesAllWomen

September 18, 2015

There is something universal about women who are assaulted at any age. They seek to protect themselves the best way they know how. Some are brave enough to speak out about their experiences early one. And for I hold greatest admiration and thanks. Without you speaking out I would have never had the courage to say anything about the nightmare I went through as a child and pre-teen.

There are those who seek protection in the kinds of relationships that they have. Some must be the dominate personality while others want the protective wings of someone else to wrap around them at keep the world at bay. Some use the knowledge of their emotional baggage to hold the opposite sex at bay (guilty as charged) though many of these examples they don’t do it on any conscious level. It’s just their defense mechanism.

I eat. I create a literal barrier between me and the opposite sex so that I won’t be wounded anymore. I’ve bought into the belief that men only like stick figure women (though size has absolutely nothing to do with a rapist’s choice to attack someone) and if I’m fat enough I won’t be asked to be in touch with my sexuality.

Which is just a crock of shit.

I’ve been in therapy for this off and on since I was nineteen years old. And every time I get on the weight loss merry-go-round and my life is in a good place the dreams will start again.

Recently it’s been the physical sensation of a man lying on top of me. I literally have to force myself away to realize I’m safe and alone in my bedroom and that my parents are just down the hallway in their room. It’s at times such as these that I couldn’t be happier to have other people that I know in the house with me.

My therapist said when my brain and body feel safe they want to open the door to memories that perhaps I haven’t faced.

Can I be perfectly honest here?

I’ve had enough with the memories. The work I’ve done on the ones I do have been excruciatingly difficult. The men in those memories don’t deserve a free pass. And the fantastic thing about Kentucky is, there are no statute of limitations on felonies. And child molestation and rape is felony in this state.

Knowing that there is that recourse in my hometown is enough for me. Do I forgive these men for their heinous acts against me when I was as young as four years old?

My therapist calls forgiveness a process not an act. And that it’s for giver not the receiver. So for today yes, I forgive these men. None of them are in my life. Some of them have passed on. There will be days when I don’t forgive. Such as the nights their crimes haunt my sleep and terrify my parents with a waking from a dead sleep scream.

Let me make one thing clear. This does not mean these men get a pass for what they did. If any of them darken my doorstep ever again I am not afraid to seek legal recourse. And just because I don’t now, it doesn’t make me a liar. And just because I might seek criminal charges later doesn’t make me an opportunist. It just means that’s how I’m processing my brand of justice.

Until later,

Amy

#YesAllWomen

September 17, 2015

Things kind of push my buttons. Especially when it comes to this.

I heard this phrase. Forcibly raped.

Or how about this one, unrapeable?

As for the first phrase. It’s all forcible. To say otherwise it to somehow blame the victim or say the victim somehow ‘wanted it’. And that belief is wrong. It is complete and utter bullshit. To say otherwise would be to perpetuate something that is inherently wrong with our society.

It is what those of us who have been molested, assaulted or violated sexually (boys and girls, men and women) refer to as the rape culture of our country.

What do I mean by that?

People think it’s funny to joke about being raped. Comedians will complain that the PC police is out to get them.

Let me take a second to say this now, I don’t believe rape culture is a political issue, I think it’s one of basic humanity and Human Rights. It reflects how we treat one another and see each other through the prism of one another’s life experiences.

Terms such as unrapeable imply there are people who are. It implies sex has anything to do with an act of sexual violence. Rape is about power and the men who feel like it’s alright to take it from women who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

There seems to be a culture of ‘she asked for it’ or ‘she made me do it’. Or it’s only true if the rapist admits to it.

That, my friend is rape culture.

I’m not saying men and boys are victimized as well. I can only speak to my experiences. Because I know they are. They experience these things to I’m sure. Please, don’t be afraid to reach out for help, man or woman, boy or girl.

Rape culture infinitely complicates things.

There are people who are supposed to be paragons of truth and justice. Cops. Marines. Parents. 

Extended family members. We see now even celebrities can hide their true selves behind a façade of all that is good in this world.

Making it difficult to admit to anyone, even your closest friends, what you have gone through.

Rape culture is only believing the victim after their rapist admits his guilt.

That in and of itself is damaging to the survivor who may have worked years with a therapist to get past what they have gone through.

Two of my rapists have since passed on. I have managed to forgive one of them. He wore the face of a family member and mentor as an artist. Does that mean I would want to break bread with him if he were still alive?

I struggle with that. I mean, as a writer and his discipline he influenced me a great deal. But in the end I was terrified of him. So as a rule I see him as a night time uncle and a day time uncle. I won’t reveal his name mostly because it would do nothing now other than harm my recovery. I know others were harmed by him but show no anger or remorse at his actions.

It troubles me that they do so, but often those most harmed by their rapist are their greatest protectors. 

This is part of rape culture.

I often wish these people wouldn’t do so, as it hurts me to hear them side with someone who was greatly troubled and monstrous at times. But until we learn the victims who struggle so valiantly to survive are truly heroic and need to be treated with TLC then perhaps we are doomed to be stuck with a society who blame the victim in these situations.

Until Next Time,

Amy

#YesAllWomen

September 16, 2015

 

I think what really pisses me off and quite frankly, terrifies me, are the sheer numbers of the girls and women out there who share my experiences. They say officially it’s 1 in 3, but that the fear and shame we feel in coming forward makes the real number more like 1 in 2. (I know boys are targeted too, and they are, but for focus in this situation I want to talk about women).

That’s 50%. Half the women in this country have faced some kind of sexual assault. People who are scarred by men who feel they have a right to give in to some broken and disgusting need instead of seeking help for their own problems.

I’m one of the 50%.

I am a survivor.

Life is good now.

But it hasn’t always been this way. Not by inches and not by a mile.

When I was young I walked around a perpetual target.

I don’t think of all men and cops as the monsters that made me a damaged little girl. But the ones who terrified me as a child I remember as men who had no morals. Men who were faceless creatures who preyed upon me when I was at my most vulnerable.

At another time I might have said weakest. But the truth is any child who lives through a sexual assault of any kind is a hero. Is there damage to the psyche, to the body, and to the spirit? Well duh. But anyone who finds a way to their truth afterwards is a hero.

Often it takes a team to find your way to that truth. As part of that 50% I find hiding, as another author put it, about abuse is no real way to live your life. It rots your soul. It breaks you down. It lets your attacker know he won. And I be damned if I let those attackers believe they won.

No, my transgressors need to be held accountable for their actions.

In some cases their faces have indeed blurred together. The truth is two of my rapists have passed on to the hereafter. There is irony that I don’t believe in Hell as a destination but more as a state of mind.

I don’t know what they thought of their actions. If there was any guilt or remorse. If they wanted absolution. Because the truth is none of my attackers will ever get that from me. But what all of my attackers have is forgiveness.

But let’s get something straight. The forgiveness I’m talking about isn’t a let’s break bread together kind of thing.

The forgiveness I’m talking about is a process. And it takes years to get there. There are days when you feel it and days when you don’t. Until finally you are there more than you’re not.

I am one of the 50%.

I survived in spite of the odds.

I thrive because I fought to be here.

I am not the only one.

I am not the only one because unfortunately #yesallwomen is a reality we have to face if it is ever to get better.

 

Until next time—

 

Amy

#YesAllWomen

September 15, 2015

 

My professional life is taking me places I never dreamed possible. My Letters to Daniel blog has spawned a multi-project brand about coping with bipolar disorder that for me has become more about helping others like me confront that stigmatizing disease to get help. This blog is about something just as important to me. Surviving sexual abuse. Surviving rape. And the way surviving that impacts how we women see ourselves afterwards. Or if we were children how we see our bodies as we grow into womanhood.

Now I know men and boys are affected too. But this blog is about these things through the prism of my experiences. If you guys can relate please do not hesitate to comment and share your stories as the rape culture in this country hurts and harms everyone it touches.

My story unfortunately starts at four years of age. Where an uncle, brother on my father’s side raped and molested me while my father was getting a divorce from his second wife. Who by the way, was always very good to me and my younger sister.

No one realizes just how damaged I was at that age. The only way I was able to survive it was to convince myself I was protecting my sister from the monster who had made me into what would be a perpetual victim until I sought out therapy many years later.

What happened to me in my childhood should have shattered me, ruined me, broke me. And for it time it left me broken. My response to it though at that age was to eat to it.

Doris would fix these massive meals and I would eat five chicken legs. Mashed potatoes. Green beans. Rolls. Creamed corn. Tons of food. By the age of eight I believed I was fat. I had that reinforced by a sister and a step-cousin who sang fat ditties at that age.

I then became an overachiever. I had to be the best at everything. That if I were just good enough I could become the good little girl I had been before my uncle had done what he had.

The worst part about it was? I felt so alone. Like I had done something wrong. Like if I told someone I would be the one to be in trouble.

My uncle, though, was only the tip of the iceberg. He threatened to kill me if I told anyone. He gloated that if I did no one would ever believe me over him.

For that short time I visited my biological father while he staying with his brother was a special kind of nightmare. The worst part? I have missing time.

Where I go to bed Thursday and I wake up Sunday morning on the floor in the bedroom with my panties down by my ankles at my biological father’s brother’s house. If the stuff I remember is that horrific then I don’t want to remember what the hell is in that black hole of a memory loss.

Does anyone else feel that way?

I know I want my truth to be heard. But I also know I’m not sure if I’m ready for the Spanish Inquisition on this issue.

I suppose writing this blog is going to open me up to this types of questions.

What I do want everyone out there to know who has ever been raped, sexually assaulted or violated in anyway this blog is as much for me as it is for you.

 

Signing off for now,

Amy