Tenderness

I suppose you could say I'm kind of writing to write. Sort of stream-of-conscience. But not really.

Through most of my life, a tender touch always made me cry. Always, without question and often to the point of shoving the tenderness away, until my later years. I suppose I calloused myself to it, though I still hold a weakness for certain touches (the face, particularly).

I've always maintained my favorite English word is "whisper."

Today I sit and listen to Rain by Patti Griffith.

Rain is a silent, private tenderness. Delicate. I've never done "delicate" very well. A tough girl. A tomboy. Dresses make me feel like an alien (except during my promiscuous period, during which time the higher the heels and the tighter & shorter the dress/skirt, the better). Still even then I was seeking that tenderness that I almost always rejected. Strange oxymoron, I know.

Whisper....whisper is soft, like the breeze...I always envision it riding on the wind, sailing across the world, over oceans. Whispers of wishes and dreams and broken hearts.

Tears....tender.

So hard to cry...can't stand that tender part of me, that cries from some place of deep wounds and darkness. I can cry angry tears because anger is not tender, but tender tears are.

Tenderness is so hard to take...to accept. To be understood and validated hurts more than anything else because it's so foreign. To be accepted hurts because it's not believable.

To trust......all the years I've spent thinking I was trusting when, in truth, I've never trusted anyone completely. There are still secrets, dark ones where I can't let tenderness invade. Places of my own torment that - ironically, out of tenderness - I don't want others to see or experience.

Tears, rain, whispers, winds. Things that fade, but hurt so much because they touch something I avoid and always have.

That's why tenderness hurts.

Pushing Away (TRIGGER WARNING)

For three days, I have been really beating myself up. I feel bruised inside.

I've reached out to people...people I no longer speak to or otherwise communicate with. See, I have this obsession with not being liked. I can't stand to not be liked. There are two defenses to this: Either act however you have to act, to make them like you or treat them like shit so they have a good, solid reason not to like you.

Anyway, I've thought a lot about my past. It hurt that those I reached out to didn't reciprocate because I wanted to just...redeem myself, I guess. I wanted to apologize, make amends. It didn't happen.

Today, after I went on a three-day bashing splurge wherein I laid into those closest to me for absolutely no reason at all and said things I would never say, I find myself thinking back to my adolescence. Even before that, really.

See I never gave anyone a chance growing up. I never let anyone close to me. I did try, but she betrayed me. Lied to me and sent me back to hell. That was it.

I went to the police and the prosecutor in St. Louis when I was kidnapped and I was treated like the villain. That was it for my trust of authority and the police. No way, no how. Not ever.

I told Michelle during a recent session that the police found me walking down the street one day. It'd been a week or so since I'd been attacked and beaten. My lips were split wide open. It was really ghastly. I couldn't talk or eat for days. As they healed, I had two scabs on my lips from the wounds. The police stopped me and asked me where the drugs were. I had no idea what they were talking about. "We can tell you smoke. You have the burns on your lips."

I was speechless. I didn't tell them what happened. They didn't care.

Just took me in, another juvenile in the system. Another juvenile who wanted nothing to do with anyone. Didn't want to be touched or be near anyone. Didn't belong anywhere.

So I went off on everyone. I fought like a hood rat fights. I even kicked a pregnant girl once in the stomach. She cheated at cards and I called her out on it. Hey...she threw the first blow.

I've always felt bad about that.

One time, when I was on Vandeventer street, I was leaving a store and one of the regular guys who hung outside the door said to me, "Watch out for the Goodson brothers." I looked at him. "They're pimps. Their whole family is in it - mom, dad, sisters, brothers..."

I nodded. Never heard of 'em and didn't give them another thought. I was invincible. I'd been raped before and I'd escaped before.

Sure enough, two days later a man approached me. He was wearing a long beige winter coat and a nice hat. He was dressed nicely. He came up to me and handed me a card. I don't remember the first name but the last name stuck out: "Goodson."

I got away from him quickly.

But they found me.

The man at the store who had warned me was right: The whole Goodson clan was part of this huge prostitution ring.

But first you have to be initiated.

I couldn't tell you a thing about the house except there was a very narrow set of stairs and they were painted white. At the top of the stairs was a white door and it had three deadbolt locks on it. Beyond the door was an end table with drugs on it and a bed.

I was forced up those stairs and somehow it still didn't even occur to me that I might be in danger. Again, it wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before. So they'll take my body. So what? I'll get away.

They took me in the room and they locked the door. They took turns raping me every way they could. They made me perform oral sex. They performed it on me as well. They raped me vaginally and anally and if I cried they hit me. I cried most when they performed oral sex on me because I was terrified of orgasm...plus it hurt. It was very uncomfortable. I was 13 years old. They were training me to be put on the stroll and they were trying to indoctrinate me so that I would accept them as my bosses. Letting me know there was no escape.

They took my clothes so there was only a sheet to cover up with. They made me smoke "whack" (PCP) and marijuana - both of which I abhorred. I never was into drugs much.

Again, I felt nothing. Not emotionally anyway. I was busy plotting an escape. Any escape. When they would leave me alone in the room, I would check the  deadbolts - locked by keys - and I knew I couldn't escape. The room was in the attic so there was no way to get out the window.

Finally - I don't know how much time passed - I begged to go to the bathroom. They would not give me my clothes but, instead, allowed me to wrap up in the dingy, nasty sheet that I had just been violated on repeatedly. I didn't care. Didn't think about it.

I went to the bathroom. I was alarmed at first because I didn't think I could fit out of it. Plus it was on the second floor. It was one hell of a jump.

They were outside the door, waiting for me so I had to open the window quietly.

I made the jump. Barefoot. The pain was excruciating but nothing compared to what I was escaping from. I wonder how long it took for them to realize I was gone.

This is why you don't let people close to you....because you see what people are capable of. Thirteen years old. How could they? Not that it matters - it doesn't matter why they did it. What matters is they did and it hurt me - not just physically but in deeper ways, too.

So the police, whenever they'd pick me up yet again, were the enemy. The psychiatrists were enemies. The therapists, doctors and guards were all enemies. None of them cared and I didn't want them near me. They only hurt me more and God I couldn't wait to get away. I just wanted to have my life - my own life - with nobody in it. If there was anyone I could trust, it was myself. That was it.

What a lonely existence, I am realizing now.

People who are close to me now, I push away and sometimes hurt. There's no excuse and there are no words to describe how it feels inside to be that way.

Right now I am just afraid to say anything. I am afraid to decide anything. I'm afraid to do anything. I'm afraid that 13-year-old girl is going to kick whoever comes close and I don't want to be that. Not anymore.

Pink Dresses, Baby Dolls and Christmas

Tough session today - tough in the sense that I had to open up a little...more. It hurt.

Last night, I cut again, though not as bad as last time. I was just so angry.

I went to my session with a sense of trepidation. I had emailed her last night. It was sent at 12:45 a.m. and it said:

Hate sending this to you.
So angry.
Want to cut.
Lost most of Christmas Eve.
Melt down Christmas Eve night - remember only part.
Want to cut so bad. Punching myself, furniture, so I don't cut or destroy things.
Heavy night.

Sent from my iPhone

And at 10:52 this morning:

I'm sorry. I was really upset last night. Stupid to email you. I don't know why I did.

-C

Sent from my iPhone

Not sure when it started. Christmas was on a Tuesday - this I know. That's the "anchor" day. I can count forward from then, but not backward - at least not without help and prompting.

Christmas Eve is a blur; as I explained it to my adoptive father, it's kind of like my memory is a set of piano keys. There are white keys and black keys and the black keys are the parts that are missing. I awoke Christmas morning feeling as if I'd just returned from someplace I didn't know I'd gone. Everything was off.

Talking with Michelle tonight, I was half in, half out the door. Part of me felt like the teenager who was so long ago abandoned and who abandoned. The young girl who ran away.... and kept running.

Hasn't really stopped running.

So many questions. So many uncertainties. So much confusion and anger. I look at a pair of pants (or even just envision them) and I think, "I can't wear those. They're stained with this night or that night," or "I can't wear that shirt ever again because it is saturated with the day this-or-that happened. Need to throw it away."

Running. Even from my own clothes.

Running from my thoughts and beliefs. Running from people. Running from myself.

Running, running, running. Always... and I'm so tired.

My shoulders ache.

The session was all over the place, really.

"Christmas is hard for me," I told her.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I think maybe because it was the first time I ever met Daddy. And I was god-awful sick that year," I recalled. It was a hard Christmas and it was a door that was opened that I was shoved through, into a world of terror, unpredictability, insanity, violence.

And then.....it bubbled up like lava, searing my throat.

"And...and..."

She sat in her chair and just waited while I tried talking through unfallen tears that were choking me.

Finally, the familiar sting of warmth down my cheek. I saw the drop form on my eyelash, felt it drip, and then they came.

I didn't use the tissue I'd grabbed from the box she gave me. I only grab the tissues out of etiquette anyway. I prefer my sleeve.

This time, I let them roll down my face, beneath my chin, and drop on my breasts. I didn't care. I was speaking to darkness. Even though Michelle was there listening, I was seeing a different time. Darkness.

"I was so cold," I said bitterly. "I would be huddled outside, alone and...and..."

It seemed she wasn't even there, and I was back in time.

"...I would look in the windows and I didn't see Christmas trees or lights or anything. I just saw warmth. I wanted to be warm."

Instead I would find a big box that I am sure a large gift was delivered in and I would use it for shelter against the harsh St. Louis winters.

I couldn't call home.

I couldn't call the police.

I couldn't be seen.

I simply hid.

Sometimes urinating on myself, making me even more freezing because of the biting cold.

There was nowhere to go.

As I emerged from my reverie, she sat watching me, listening intently... my tears still falling like angry little pebbles of fire.

"And I fucking hate Easter," I said through clenched teeth.

"Why do you hate Easter?" she asked simply.

I gathered myself. I said, "Well, some of it, now, has to do with my spiritual beliefs..." but then I trailed off.

"Daddy used to trick us into thinking he could see the Easter bunny," I told her, not with anger but with nostalgia.

"What is your memory of that like?" she asked, probably trying to gauge if it was an abusive time or not.

"It was exciting," I told her matter-of-factly. "He would take us to the sliding glass doors where--" and I paused, shrugged, my voice lifted slightly, "where the 'family meetings' took place, and he would say, 'There he is! Did you see him?!'" and my brother and I would bounce up and down and crane our necks to see where Daddy was looking. We were excited.

Then, I was at Grandma's house and things were different.

"I had to wear a stupid dress," I told her. "A stupid fucking dress. Pink."

I told her how Grandma would give me dolls or - one year a little stuffed lamb came in my Easter basket and I only know this because I have seen a picture of it.

"We would sit at the kiddie table," I told her. "But I didn't fit in, so I just tried to."

"What do you mean you didn't fit in?"

"Because of what Daddy did to me," I told her.

She nodded her understanding. I continued.

"One Easter, my wrist was broken and the kids were all playing and I went inside and I said something like, 'I can't play because of my cast,' and all the grown-ups went 'Awww' and it was the worst sound in the world to me."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want their fucking pity."

"What did you want?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly, giving it no more thought.

There was a silence.

"I would play with the baby dolls because Grandma got them for me. I thought that was what I was supposed to do, but I hated them. I hated the tea sets. I hated all of it. Mostly, I hated the dresses. I didn't belong in a dress."

Silence.

"Grandma's house was like two worlds - inside and outside."

"Yes, you've mentioned that," she said, and I remembered telling about it. "Were you safe there?"

"Inside, yes. Outside, no. Well, they weren't nurturing, but they made sure we had all we needed. They did the best they could, I guess."

I told her of the two times Pop hurt me (or almost hurt me) "but that was it," I told her.

But when I went outside, it was different.

"It never occurred to me that I would have gotten the attacks and cat calls whether Daddy had molested me or not," I told her, speaking strictly from my intellect. "I guess I just thought I had this scarlet letter and all of them could see it."

"What was the scarlet letter?"

"I was dirty. I was soiled."

Then came the incident of last night, the reasoning behind which I hadn't known, until this session.

Bill and I sat together on the couch. We were discussing superficial things because I was still weighted down by the shame I felt over Christmas Eve. It was the elephant in the room and Bill wasn't saying anything about it.

"Were you angry that he knew and remembered and wasn't telling you," Michelle asked.

"No. No, I wasn't mad about that. I remembered enough."

I finally brought it up - at least, as good as I could. I said something like, "I know something happened the other night. I don't remember all of it, but I remember some."

It was my lame attempt to get him to talk.... to open it up, pop this blister that was suffocating me.

But he said little, just nodded.

I don't remember the order of events last night. But I do remember that we talked about business and, having been with Gary for five years, I learned a lot about business and how to start one and tips and tricks to making it successful.

I offered these up to Bill.

"I will never be Gary," he said.

As I retold this to Michelle it occurred to me why I became so painfully, bitterly angry last night.

I was angry at myself - and I knew it at the time, just as I knew it today.

"I was stupid," I told Michelle, half shocked by my own realization. "I shouldn't have said anything...."

I paused and I thought a moment.

"...I should have just kept my mouth shut. How stupid of me."

I was flooded, then, with the same feeling from last night. This rage within me, anger at myself for saying or doing something stupid.

"I have a meditating frog," I told Michelle. "My coffee table candle burned up so I had to put something in it's place so I put the frog there and I remember just staring at it and wanting to grab it and throw it. I wanted to take all my stupid books and just throw them all, break things, hit things..."

I was crying now. "I should have never said anything."

My voice...

My voice is stupid. My thoughts are stupid. I am stupid. I can't do this. I can't say anything. I shouldn't say anything. Who am I to say anything? You can't say anything! You don't know if it's the right thing to say! YOU'RE STUPID!

And I was angry at Bill for thinking I was saying something I wasn't intending to say, yet I couldn't find the words and, instead, just turned everything inward...burning.

Angry because I had one side of my brain needing to be comforted, while the other side was chastising me, telling me KEEP THEM AWAY! KEEP THEM AWAY! ALL OF THEM!

Spare him. Don't let him see this. Don't let anyone see this.

Don't let anyone near.

"When," I sobbed, "will this be over? When does PTSD go away? When will I stop having these goddamn dreams of Gary every....single...night. Every single fucking night?" I was aching and I could tell Michelle saw my agony.

She was honest. She told me she has no answer to any of those questions.

There was much more said in this session. I felt more in this session than any past.

Why did I cut last night?

So I wouldn't hurl the frog at the nativity set or the curio, for the satisfaction of hearing glass shatter, as I was inside. So I wouldn't rip apart every book I could see - books that I cherish - but which, at that moment, felt fake and fraudulent. So I wouldn't hurt anything else. I would never hut anyone else, but I wanted to break something - anything.

Instead, I was broken.

I feel hollow now.

I am afraid to speak. I am afraid to move. I am afraid to believe anything.

The floor could crumble any time.

I know  this.

I know this.

Sexual Dysfunction (Warning: Raw, graphic)

Today was a very hard session, and I can't even identify the hardest part(s).

One thing I know is this is one of those times when I want to push away the very people I need - particularly Bill. I want to push him away so hard....no, no, no....no you can't come in, no you can't see this...Oh dear God if you knew....you can't come in.

And Cindy, I am content just letting her be there, just kinda hang out.

I don't want this. I hate this. I hate me. I hate my body. I hate what and who I am.

I will try to explain..... but it's rather um...personal and graphic and I apologize in advance for humiliating my friends and family. As far as me, well, I presently feel I have no dignity left. I am a shadow, with no substance. I feel vulgar, damaged.

I hurt myself the other night - intimately. Nothing serious, but painfully punishing.

I spent most of the day hitting myself (mostly punching my thigh or slapping myself in the head or face) as memories of my self-abuse flashed in my mind. This occurred even as I was in session today...hitting myself...it's like my arm takes on a life of it's own and I can't keep it from hitting me.

First let me clarify one thing: I do not and never have enjoyed masturbation. I've done it to satisfy my partners (mostly Gary). I don't like touching myself (barely can stand taking a shower) and I certainly don't like looking at myself. My ex-husband used to make a comment about my um...vagina that was, I suppose, intended to be a compliment but all it really did was imply that proper maintenance was required. That was back in the day when I felt it necessary to douche four times a week, or any time after sex. So, see, my body's always been ugly to me. Like it's not even mine.

I want to also point out that I have had a total of four serious relationships - two of them marriages. Yet, somehow, I am a "whore".....My father, brother, ex-husbands, and other key men in my life have said this to me and if they didn't say it, they treated me like one (like my most recent ex).

And, naturally, when you're standing on the cold tile bathroom floor with your father's penis in your hand and being told what a good little girl you are to do this for Daddy, that ugly, dirty feeling sets in, even if you're too young to understand what it means or where it comes from. Such conflicting emotions.

My family/friends yesterday encouraged me to tell Michelle (my therapist) about my most recent issue.... I wasn't going to do it. I started her an email, wrote two sentences, and then clicked "cancel"....too humiliating.

But then I thought about it....... a lot.

And today I told her. It was excruciatingly painful and humiliating but she was very kind and understanding. She asked me a lot of questions (first, obviously, if I was hurt).

So we talked about being a whore; talked about masturbation; talked about the reasoning behind my rationale.

At times I couldn't talk. At times I folded myself up into my own lap, pulled my sleeves over my hands, hiding every bit of my skin I could hide.

She kept assuring me..."It's okay, Cristina. You're okay. It's okay."

So I tried explaining to her, my rationale, stuttering breathlessly through the whole thing. It's the first time I ever told anyone that I'd done this before....sexually punished myself.

You start off as a whore, something happens and you want it, so since you want it, you're even more of a whore and since you're a whore and you want it, you must be bad, and if you're bad, you must be punished, and if you're bad enough to punish yourself, then you need to punish yourself for that, too. This is also the case when you do things for men, that you don't want to do (such as was the case with my ex) just to please them. Yep. You're a whore. The process repeats.

"Even now, sitting here, I can hear it in my head, over and over and over again. 'You're a whore! You're a whore!" (I also had flashes of an online conversation I had one, where he was drunk and put in giant bold letters, "WHORE!") - that, too, kept flashing in my mind and it was actually that image that had me crying on the way home.

That was my explanation. She sat across from me (I didn't look at her most of the time but I could feel her posture).

She sat quietly for a moment and then she asked me what I meant.

"I'm just trying to connect the dots for you so you understand what I mean."

She paused and then she said, "Cristina, I am never going to lie to you, and I am going to tell you when you're wrong. I am your barometer," she said, and I looked up briefly as she turned away to illustrate. She held her hands up to simulate a dial with a needle. She held her right hand in a circle, used her left pointer finger as the needle.

"This," she said, with the 'needle' all the way to the left, "Is okay."

She moved the "needle" all the way to the right, and said: "This is bullshit."

She didn't say it meanly, but she turned and looked at me and said, "Those dots don't line up. They don't match."

I was surprised by this. "Well, then I need new dots because these are the only dots I know."

She explained that women often try to take blame for their rape/incest, in an effort to have some control. This made me cry because it made so much sense....I had never thought of it before. I always blamed myself, "I shouldn't have been there," or "I should have said no" or "I asked for it."

Yeah....that's the mantra of many women, I suppose.

Then she made a comment that startled me: "...when you were assaulted."

Daddy never assaulted me.... well, only twice. But that was because I said "no" so it was MY FAULT. Other than that, he was always kind and benevolent.

I told her I had two lives. She asked why two lives.

"Daddy, and then the rapes."

Oh

"They were very different."

"I see," she says.

Either way, I have always been a whore.

Things got still for a moment, and I quietly cried into my kleenex, whispering to the wadded up tissue: "You know what I want?"

"What?" she asked.

And I cried harder, and I admitted, "Bill. He's never said or done one single unkind thing to me. Ever."

"That's what you deserve," she said. "I'm glad you have him."

And here I am....sitting in my office....

Wanting desperately to push him away.

Why Do Trauma Survivors Push People Away?

There's more than one answer to this question.

Sometimes it's self-protection...keeping people from seeing the "real you" - the "you" that you see yourself to be, which (particularly for incest and rape victims) is usually something bad, dirty and unworthy. They keep you at arm's length, to prevent you from leaving them. The more superficial and "chummy" they can keep it, the safer they are that you won't leave them. Often they'll do things for you, too, without expecting anything in return, to help fortify that you won't leave them.

Sometimes it's not pushing you away, but testing you. I test a lot. I test everyone, always. My friend recently pointed this out to me. I guess sometimes I push people away but usually those are the ones who fail my "tests" which can be very simple - tests of integrity and trustworthiness. And not just one test, but many, before I open the door a crack.

And sometimes it's to protect you - the friend, family member, partner or supporter - from seeing their reality. The reality of complex trauma is an ugly thing - very ugly. And once you (a trauma survivor) reach a point of vulnerability in a relationship, the concept of that person seeing the "real you" is terrifying and opens up all kinds of windows and doors - many that have been shut for their whole lifetime. This is an absolutely horrifying experience because you (the survivor) don't know if the supporter will (a) be able to handle it or (b) walk away and say they can't handle it so the best option is to just protect you from seeing it at all. Rejection after revealing such painful things, would be painful beyond words.

Pushing people away is almost a way of life for me, although most of the time I push those away that I am closest to, ironically. Everyone else I just keep on a superficial level. I don't do chit-chat which means my social life is pretty dull and solitary. I don't mind....but yet I do.

I envy those who can just go out and ...I don't know, fake it? I used to be able to do that. Put on a happy face, pretend my trauma never happened. But because of the nature of my five-year relationship, some doors were opened that I cannot close. It's like opening a closet door that's crammed full of stuff and once you crack it open, you can't push it back shut, and stuff just keeps coming out. Horrible, embarrassing, mortifying, terrifying stuff. Monsters. Memories. Rage. Pain.

Nothing within that closet I want to see, never mind wanting anyone else to see it.

So for me - in my opinion - these are some of the reasons trauma survivors push people away. I bet there's more, but in my experience, this has been it.