o.k. 27 years old now. it has been years that i have been telling myself to just keep breathing. sometimes that is all you can do...breath. at times despite your best efforts, you find you just keep breathing. a blessing and a curse. so basic, so simple, so torturous, and always so defiant. in the best of times breath is taken for granted, a miracle never acknowledged. inside that deep black nothing, breath is a reminder that time will not consider you, time is a neutral entity, and you just keep breathing. i know i know i sound nutty. here is the thing. i learned a long time ago, that no matter what occurred in my life, until i die, one thing i can be sure will be a constant is that i will keep breathing, and time will not wait for me.
i was broken as a little girl by an evil man who so twisted my brain that i still struggle to see the world as i was meant to, instead of how he trained me to. from the age of 8 until 13 or 14 this man took from me the girl i would be, and left me shattered. now every time i turn around, i am that other girl, fractured pieces of who i know i could be. i let him break me. i told myself to pretend it was not happening, i told myself to forget. i trained myself to break away from the girl he was hurting. i thought it would be best that way. part of me knew it was not right, the things that happened, but i was so young when it began, i was so innocent, and alone. he was an adult, and it was all just so very confusing. being told in school that certain things shouldn't happen, was not enough. they didn't teach you about brainwashing. they didn't teach you that another person could ever get so deep inside your brain and change the way you think. and nobody for sure, ever told me that all these years later, he would still be in my brain. i was a child 8 years old, i knew about bad touching, but i didn't know it was possible for someone to slowly gain my trust and abuse that to the point that i wasn't sure i knew if it was wrong after all. then, when i did begin to see, and i did begin to understand, how was i supposed to end it? he made sure to cover all his bases. over the years he had instilled a great fear in me...he made sure i knew he knew to kill. he made sure i knew he would be able to get away with it. i believed him. he created my truth in my reality.
in the end i did tell, not for my sake, but because through all the years i thought that be allowing him to have me, he wouldn't hurt others. when i couldn't take it anymore and avoided him at every opportunity, i feared for others, but that too i managed to tell myself wasn't real because as i had told myself all those years..'this isn't happening, this isn't real'
a simple question asked of me by a younger distant relative finally broke me.
"do you like bob?" that was it, the whole of the question, and i could have taken it a million ways, but i understood in an instant what was meant. tentatively, i responded
"i don't know, why?"
the answer was the most devastating blow my life had experienced till that moment.
"because i don't like him, he did things to my sisters, i saw him, and he hurt me too."
i told my little relative that i knew too that bob was a bad person, and that he had hurt me too. I said i was sorry because i didn't protect them, but i would make sure i did now.
the next day i went to school, and told the school psychiatrist. then everyone knew. Bob denied it of course, and Bob's girlfriend (the one he got after i refused to see him anymore) she called me a little slut. and said that if anything ever did happen it was because i was always putting my ass in his face, and how was he supposed to resist.
*(for the record i don't recall ever blatantly asking for any thing that happened between us to happen, but anytime that i did passively allow it, was long after he had trained me to do so. yes, i will admit though at first i was not aware of some of the more subtle things he would do, but as i got older i was aware and let it happen, but i knew no other way. this was just the life i knew. and added to that a reminder it wasn't just that he trained me to think it was ok, even if there were things i didn't question, or think were ok, i was scared of him.)*
the DA came to my house and interviewed me. he asked me in front of my mother if i wanted her to leave, i did, but was scared to say so. so she stayed. he asked me for details as it got more intimate for lack of a better word i became more uncomfortable, and began to play the whole thing down embarrassed to have to say these things in front of my mother. i felt like a whore. i was 15. the DA told me that I could press charges if i wanted to but when we went to court i would have to go into very descriptive detail about everything and that Bob's lawyer would make sure to make me look like a liar, or like it was all my fault. I asked if other people had to be there...jury? audience? did i have to say it in front of him? did my family have to be there? couldn't i just make the statements to the lawyers and judge, and at most bob too, but not a lot of people. the DA told me no, and that if i wasn't strong enough then he would rather not press charges because it would just be too hard for me in the trial. i declined to press charges. i was so ashamed of what i had allowed to happen in my life. i just wanted to make sure to keep him away from other kids. in one way that worked, he was kept away from my younger relatives. but he is still a free man. a predator. when i was 18 i walked by him in the mall, i saw him sitting at a table in the food court behind a young mother and her daughter who was maybe 7yrs. at first i walked away, again scared. but it just didn't feel right. i knew that was his thing. he looked for single women with young daughters. all the years he was using me, any girlfriends he had were single desperate poor mothers with young daughters...during those times i made hell for him to keep him away from the women, and the girls till they broke up(naively thinking i was saving the girls)
that day at the mall i turned around and began to yell at him. the mother turned around and yelled at me telling me not to use inappropriate language in front of her daughter...i shouldn't have, but i yelled back at her asking her which she preferred, a child molester staring at her daughters ass while touching himself under the table or me letting it be known what he was and why he was there. we were both taken away by security, and both officially thrown off the mall land for 1 year, although the security guards told me that was just on paper and i was welcome there anytime, and they now had him image on file and would keep eye's out for him.
now i am 27, my aunt called me the other day crying that she was so scared she couldn't protect her 11 year old son. she had taken him to the mall with his friend and monitored them as they watched their movie and as they ate. she waited outside while they used the bathroom, and before they came out...bob....
this man will not stop. he does not discriminate, boy/girl it doesn't matter. i wish that DA had told me that i might be the only chance they had to put him away. i wish that DA had understood that a young 15year old doesn't want to go into sexual details sitting beside their mother. I wish that the statue of limitations had not passed. I wish i had more than memories and diary entries to collaborate my story. I have nothing but the broken self he left me with, and the guilt that I could have stopped him 12 years ago. or that i could have stopped him when i was 8.
sometimes i want to find him, and talk to him, as if he still had some parts of me and maybe i could get them back. The scariest thing about that though is knowing that he is still in my brain, and part of me, that little girl he trained will always be vulnerable to his control and manipulation.
walking away from any great devastation in your life there is one constant, you will always find that you just keep breathing....
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