Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Damaged Goods.

Sigh.

So other than screaming while drunk and high on coke in college about this, I haven't spoken or written or thought much about the sexual abuse. Childhood. I don't like to write the three words in their proper order, not if I'm going to refer to it properly. I can lay it out there, dangle it like bait, but I always throw the fish back.

I think I'm going to take advantage of the locked blog to try to write about it. It's the only thing in my life I've ever struggled to make words for. In ways, I think my inability to make words for it accounts for my need to make words upon words for everything else.

I didn't really remember it properly until I was older. I don't know how to explain what I mean by that. I don't know if I remember it properly now. I don't know if it ever happened. I don't know how it couldn't have happened. I don't know how else I'd have these images and feelings and associations, like ghosts. Like less than ghosts. I don't have to see them.

I don't have to write about this.

OK. Looks like I'm not ready.

I don't know if I'll ever be ready.

Funny, I started this post like a bull...charging headlong. It was just a few minutes ago. I was ready then...but now, there just aren't words.

And then again, I don't know if I ever have to be. I'm doing well, now. I don't have to conquer every demon. I'm not doing drugs or cutting myself or fucking everyone. I'm not interested in dying anymore. I'm, strangely, happier than I've ever been.

So maybe I don't have to deal with it. I've lied to every therapist I've ever had, except for the first one, and told them that I've already therapied the sexual abuse. Childhood. out of my system. I have never done therapy about it. I don't want to. I never mentioned it to the first therapist, and I've told all subsequent therapists that I was done.

But lately, I've been so interested in being the boss of my own narrative...I like editing my life story to make it the best story that it can be, and I've found this new power in embracing the positive things in my life. There are so many positive things. I don't want to be damaged goods. I want to edit that phrase, a phrase that has haunted me for years, to "vintage item" or "has character." I've thought for years that I am a very pretty woman who can be purchased by a very fucked up man at a discount rate. Take away the abuse. Sexual. Childhood. and all my husbands wouldn't be able to afford me.

But I don't want to think that anymore. I want to think that I am a vintage item. I'm a Vargas pin-up in a 1964 Playboy. Beautiful, ephemeral, and perhaps a little cum-stained.

There is that movie about cavemen. I always liked the rape scene in that movie. The cave woman is gathering water. She's being watched by a cave man. He sneaks up behind her and fucks her. She struggles, but finally lets him do his business. He leaves her, and she goes back to gathering water.

I can't remember what movie that is, but I know I watched it in high school. I'm not even sure if I'm remembering the scene right...but that's how I like to think of it. I just want to go on, gathering water.

11 comments:

longvowels said...

I remember that movie but I can't remember the name of it either.
I don't know if you have to do it. People always say you do, you have to talk but sometimes I think our society talks too much, analyzes too much. Maybe it's because I'm not ready to talk about my own shit. Sigh.

Recovery Discovery (R) said...

{{{{{{{{JW}}}}}}}}}}}},

Today, you get to choose. Share or don't share. Either way, this network of support you've built, both real and virtual, will be here for you. Either way, I'm here for you!!

Wayward Son said...

It was Clan Of The Cave Bear I think. I just read the book but didn't see the movie--Daryl Hannah, I think. Not to make light of where your head's at in this post but isn't this an odd moment for me to be offerring up my hidden knowledge of trivia. I feel like Cliff Claven.

More to your point, you'll come to that aspect of your life(or not) when your ready. In the fifty million groups I do each week I have made friends with people who have survived all kinds of childhood sexual trauma.(And they are all men.) Just when I think I have heard the worst I meet someone who has an even more horrible story. But they have ALL become fabulously happy people. I have no idea if that is in spite of it or because of it. But they are happy either way.

Anonymous said...

I'm not even sure what you look like, but somehow I picture you as a 50's or 60's pin up girl, beautiful, radiating beauty, or perhaps a Suicide Girl, perfect, no chips, no stains.

I think this because that is what you project, beauty, and warmth. It's the woman you are, with all you're imperfections that make you divinely perfect.

msb said...

Yep, Clan of the Cave Bear. I really think your on to something here and thats true anonymity. At some point in my recovery I given up every dirty little thing I've done to someone for reexamination. but I never thought about giving up the shame of being alive, the shame for all the things I didn't do, the victimization from childhood. And my stuff isn't even serious; small potatoes. but it keeps me shackled to a pain that runs my life. And I'm running out of methods for acting out to bring relief.

Stepbackjack said...

There are many of us like this, to ashamed to talk about it but still able to mostly deal with life allright. Why don't I confront it? Because there aren't any words yet. I am waiting on them to come and I imagine they will come out screaming, like a volcano. I think yours will too. Then we can be dormant again.

Married to my Ex

Mary P Jones (MPJ) said...

It's huge to realize when you're not ready to deal with something. I went away for a little solo retreat about a month after I had an abortion. And I spent the weekend writing about everything but -- and I was angry with myself for not writing about it, not dealing with it. Until I realized that I couldn't -- it was just too huge and too new and too raw. So, I gave myself permission to put it away and deal with it later, and you're doing that too. Good for you.

clyde said...

i finally started to deal with it about 5 years ago. the reality was way worse than i ever imagined. for 2 years i stumbled, got nowhere. was even laughed at by someone who used to be my sister. fucking remarkable. then i met her. similarly damaged, devastatingly so. we talked around the edges, but she knew. she saw it in me like a scarlet letter on my chest. then the ice-cold potato vodka came out. two glasses into it, she said to me - how bad you got it? i said, everyday. writing that still brings tears. been a nasty 3 years. but i can at least now see in the distance the place beyond anger and feeling like a piece of meat. i hate this topic with a passion.

Gila said...

I know what you mean about not remembering properly... There are whole months of my life that are gone, mere glimpses, things that I am not sure if I even remember them properly.

Not abuse, but my father's mental illness - the time when he launched into full-blown madness and was locked up for months. Memories come back from time to time... and they still hurt.

You don't have to face everything at once. Some things, you never have to face. Your body and mind are locking up for a reason, to protect you - and they will open up when you are ready.

Don't worry about it... You cannot change the past, and the place where you are right now is beautiful - that's all that counts.

Mantramine said...

QUEST FOR (FUCKING) FIRE!

How did I not see this blog? Quest for Fire is the movie you saw that in. I am sure of it. I was with my parents at the theatre for that one, the image has never left me. As soon as you described that scene I knew. Fortunatle/unfortunately, I remember the highlights of my abuse like a scene from a movie that I watched yesterday. It plays everytime I hear of child pornography, or another child abused, or another man caught. Or, everytime I see a man look at my daughter... (God forbid I watch an Oprah show on it!)it's endless. I don't know how I deal with it, but somehow, somewhere, it became old hat. The mind has an amazing way of dealing with the shit, does it not?

It hurts like a nail in the heart, a pain that you can't see, therefore, can't fix- hence cutters. I felt that once, saw the blood and knew why people do that. It felt good to see something I could fix.

My sister..., my cum stained sister, your perfect. Stay golden Pony Boy!

KathrynK said...

Oh my dear sweet friend, I would call you on the phone and tell you this (because I have never felt comfortable posting on blogs) but I'm having a strong reaction to your blog and I wanted to write right away. I have known you now for the past 12 years and I know that you are strong, so strong, and that your capacity to love is one of your most wonderful qualities. I want you to love yourself like we all love you. You are good, through and through. I remember the day that you told me, after the Aileen movie, and I was shaken to my core. You had seen me go crazy with my own abuse in high school, and you sustained me through all of it. After you told me about your past, almost 7 years later, I felt like something had fallen into place regarding our friendship, but I also felt like I had been so blind that I never guessed that it happened to you. I always remember something you said to me in your living room back around 1996, "if you think it happened to you, even if the memory doesn't make sense and it seems impossible, if you remember it than it is real and I absolutely 100% believe that it did happen and that there is no way that you would have just made up these associations and feelings." I firmly believe that, my dear strong Athena friend. Trust yourself that you mind and your memory and your heart is telling you the truth.
I love you so much; I'm here, and I hear you.