Coming Out

Someone once asked me how come I never used my real name when blogging or writing about my past and my experiences. I really thought a lot about this.

I realized it had a lot to do with that dreaded word: Shame.

Especially in this area - not that it's not taboo all over the country. People just don't want to hear about incest and rape. They turn a blind eye to it, which makes the shame of the survivor even bigger.

Anyway, today I'm here to tell you: My name is Cristina Johnson.

I'm tired of hiding, pretending, being the silent victim. I'm tired of playing the roles I'm supposed to play - so tired. It's been like that my whole entire life...all the way from toddler-hood. I've always tried so hard to be and do and say all the "right" things, so I could be loved and accepted.

It's hard when there never was a "before" to your abuse (for me, it began before I remember), so there's no "me" to speak of. So I just watched and listened, observed like an eagle, what everyone else was saying and doing, and tried to find some way to do and say the same things, with my own twist on it.

No more.

For five years, I've listened to people sit around their boats or in their fancy houses and talk trash about people who are just like me - people who are suffering horribly inside. I've listened to them badmouth gay people - which blew me away - and trash-talk others only to turn around and shake their hands.

I witnessed this, and I knew - because of it - there was no way I could be myself. No way I could show who I really was, no way I could tell anyone my story because they would do the same thing to me: Talk trash about me.

"They're compassionate people," he said to me, as he spread so many lies and exaggerations around these towns about me. But I can count on less than one hand who of those "compassionate" people dropped me a message or phone call to ask if I was okay, or how I was doing, and honestly, those who did, I was surprised. The ones who didn't; I was equally surprised.

Not anymore, though.

People in this area - like most places - live in their little fancy lives, seeing only what they want to see, hearing and believing only what they want to believe. They'll sit around their scotch and Merlot and tsk and say "poor dear" and never do a thing to help.

I'm not hiding anymore and I'm not being "nice" anymore. I'm pissed. I was done wrong in so many ways and I've always been honest, even if I didn't disclose my personal information (although that, now, doesn't matter since he took it upon himself to spread it on his own, telling me it was none of my "goddamn business.")

I should've known - the night that he called me a "classless cunt" that he was not the man for me. The countless times I saw him fighting with my son. I should have known. But I was quiet, silent and scared....scared to be myself.

Not anymore, though.

Now, I'm here to tell you my name is Cristina Johnson and I am an incest survivor, kidnapping survivor, multiple gang-rape survivor, as well as individual rapes. I was molested by my father, my brother, my uncle and my step-father. I was abandoned repeatedly as a child and I know how a gun feels to your head and in your mouth. I also know what it feels like to be stabbed and strangled to the point where you almost die.

And as I was going through this healing process - which began with the "classless cunt" comment - it became debilitating and I became terrified.

And I was, once again, abandoned by someone I loved who couldn't accept or handle the pain I was going through and even continued to hurt me more and more and more every day, never considering the effects of PTSD and DID.

He hurt me over and over again, put me down,  mocked my disorders and deliberately lied and betrayed me. Of course, also, making sure I knew not only that he was "seeing someone else" but that he had been since before we ever split up. To someone with PTSD and with a history like mine, this was absolutely crushing.

That's not love. That's cowardice.

My name is Cristina Johnson and I will heal from this. I will come through it.

But I will never forget what he did to me, as he went out acting as if he was a savior and victim. I hope he never knows the horror of what he put me through....then again, maybe it'd do him some good. Just like a lot of people who don't know the true definition of compassion. Look it up.