4/07/2008

A Bit Of History

This post may disturb some people, so please, read with caution.

When I was 7 years old, my father raped me on Father's Day night. We had spent the day with him at my Mami and Grampa's house (his mother and father). He left us with them while he went to a party in the evening. When he came home, drunk and all fucked up on cocaine, he did shit to me that no father should ever do to their daughter. The next night, after being safely returned home to my mother, I told her what happened. After contacting all the right authorities, I spent a good long time talking to the DA, testifying before a Grand Jury and then eventually being prepped to testify against my father in court. The night before the trial, he plead guilty and was given a year of prison time and was told that he could have no contact with any children (including us) for three years. He served 4 months and was let out. I never heard from him again, although I have seen him a couple of times since then. I was seven years old.

My mom got me in very good therapy, and through the years, I've been back a number of times. I can't remember if it was one of those therapists or if it was my mother...but someone told me once that I would deal with the sexual assult over and over again...because each new phase of my life would bring it back in a different way.

I am fat because of what happened to me when I was kid. While my father was fucking me, he was calling me his sweet "little" girl. To this day, when I lose weight, I feel powerless and weak. I have tried and tried and tried - and will continue to try - to work through this and find the key that will empower me to overcome this.

Through my teenage years, I had sex with everyone who would have sex with me. I couldn't seperate true affection from sexual gratification. I never really even knew what sexual gratification was. I thought that sex was supposed to feel bad. I thought crying after sex was just what people did. Worse, I had no understanding of what my body was worth or why it shouldn't just be somebody else's fuck toy.

It wasn't until I met Kelly that I learned what it feels like to be touched by someone who loves me. And being loved by this incredible woman, both physically and emotionally, has healed many scars. Kelly is at the root of much of what has healed since that time.

But now I have a child. More to the point, I have a daughter. And for the first time I am experiencing the one emotion that has alluded me until now.

Anger.

And not just any anger. But ferocious, burning hot fury that bubbles up from inside of me and makes me want to kill the man that is half of my DNA.

If I could be detached and clinical I would. I am grateful now that I will never see him, because I am not sure that I could contain this anger.

I look at my daughter - at her beautiful body and her innocence. I watch her at night as I bath her, as I put lotion on her. I touch her skin and I smell her hair and I am as intimate with her as I have ever been with another human being.

I think about the blind faith that she has in me and in Kelly. The complete trust that goes beyond the word.

And then I remember that when I was begging to be the one that got to share Daddy's bed, that is the kind of trust that I had. When he first wanted to "snuggle" I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. When he suggested that I was hot and that I should take off my clothes, I never once thought that I should be afraid. And in the few minutes that it took for him to commit the most violent act you can commit against a child, my whole fucking world was shattered.

I grew up in a second. I lost what innocence I had left. I learned many, many lessons that night - and I will spend the rest of my life combatting the effects of what my father did to me.

I spent years worried about having a child. I would tell my therapists that I was afraid that I would be a perpatrator. What if I did what my father did to me? I carried that fear about with me until the day that my daughter was born from my body. Holding her, in that crazy, drugged-out state that I was in, my first thought was "I could never hurt you." In a second, years of worry were erased and I knew that I would fucking kill anyone that ever did what was done to me.

I wonder how long this will last. Will it fade? I used to think that I had forgiven my father. That the miserable, drug-eroded life that he lives was punishment enough for what he did to me. And then, I look at my daughter and I see myself. And I fucking hate him. I hate him more than I have ever hated another human being.

2 comments:

treewater said...

Wow, dude - well said. I (as you know) work with people who have suffered horrible trauma including physical, psychological & sexual abuse and I can say that it is true that your reaction to the experience will forever be unfolding as you move through life and you will learn to adapt as it changes. I'd love to have this conversation with you in person (if you want) rather than via blogger, but I just wanted to say, thank you for sharing. I can honestly say I completely get where you're coming from.

Anonymous said...

No matter how awful your fathers life is, it will NEVER be enough punishment for what he did to you. I was molested by my grandfather from around 3 years old to 12 years old. I get it, it never goes away. I don't think it ever will (for me), I was changed a long time ago and I'll never be what I could have/would have been other wise.

I'm sorry. For you, for me, for everyone who is abused or raped. It makes me furious.