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.

Relationships and Reenactment: I Married My Father

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

For decades, I've wanted to write a book. This is not some fantasy. This is a lifelong dream of mine. Having a 7th grade education makes that a bit difficult, though. Still, I worked my way up and landed a job as a journalist. I faked my way through it. I watched like a hawk. I could always write well - intuitively - as a child (I don't say this to boast. Just to merely point out that even as a child, words and sentences; grammar and punctuation; the way these strange characters on a page came together to create something new and remarkable that made sense, was fascinating to me).

At least, it started off as wanting to write "a" book. It's morphed into wanting to write articles, papers and several books. But for now - as I go through this process I never saw myself having to experience; this process of "healing" - I kind of "wish-write."

That is, I write in my head. Often I even say to Bill, "I'm writing in my head."

I've started "a" book, many times - always for a different reason but never with a different foundation: child abuse. I suppose at first it started off as a way to 'get even' or vent, then it gradually began to mature into something healthier going from that angry, bitter young woman who was pissed that Oprah wouldn't listen to her story, to where it is now.

Which leads to the "wish-writing" I've been doing lately. The mind-writing. It goes like this:

"Where does my story start?"

"Where does it end?"

And this is repeated in my mind, but not without silent, cognitive (and even sometimes emotional) responses.

I once told Michelle (my therapist) that I've had two lives. She did a double-take.

"What do you mean, 'two lives'?"

"Daddy, and then the rapes."

"Oh," she nods...I know she doesn't quite get what I mean but I do. I understand it.

Problem is splitting everything up since then: my two marriages; my children; my work; my relationships; my family; my many lives.

So here I am now, it seems, standing on a wire. It could go both ways.

Where does this story - this moment - end and the next story begin?

Was Gary the end of the last story? Is Bill the beginning of the next story?

Some would wisely say, "No, they're all chapters in the same story" but that's not how I view it.

It's segmented. Fractured.

First I must talk a little about reenactment.

When I was 16 and married, my drunk husband of 22 almost killed me by shoving me out of the second-story window. That was when I left him. If his mother had not come up, screaming in her native Puerto Rican language, "Siéntate! Siéntate!" at me, I would not be here today. It wasn't the first time he'd beaten me, but it was the first time he nearly killed me. There were times, as well, when I was terrified he would kill our child. For the first time, I defied my mother-in-law (of whom I was deathly afraid) and said, "No. No mas. No mas." and I cried as I walked out the door. No more.

A child, with a child and that story took a long time to end. That life was several lifetimes ago.

When I was 17, I met my (then married) future-husband. Of course, I did not know he was married. He was strong, cocky, arrogant and sexual. Very sexual. At 17, though, you don't really know (at least, I didn't, because of my past lifetimes), that if they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you. So he, too, became an emotionally and mentally abusive partner, controlling, dominant and I feared him. I also feared losing him. For 15 years (and with two of our own kids), I endured the pain of constant belittling, arrogance and infidelity. I felt I deserved it. I felt it was the best I could ever get. I should be grateful.

He, like my first husband, was very much - in many, many ways - like my father but it was so cleverly veiled, so ingeniously disguised, that I never saw it. I wouldn't have seen it if it were a flashing neon sign. I would have kicked the sign out a bitter, angry roundhouse and swore at it, "But he loves me!"

But after 15 years, that lifetime ended. Pretty much.

Then began a different lifetime - one with Bill. That was in 2002. This lifetime was frightening. He was nice to me. He made love with me, instead of acting as if he was doing me a favor by allowing me to do/say/be things I never wanted to do/say/be anyway. In fact, he wouldn't even accept them and even made me uncomfortable doing what I'd always done: Being promiscuous. He didn't take me for granted. He listened to me. He didn't just listen to me but he heard me. At times, back then, sometimes I'd be on the verge of tears and he would hold me and he would say, "It's okay. Let it out," and as soon as he spoke the words, my insides froze and the tears went away. I couldn't possibly cry. I couldn't let him see me unless it was the way I wanted him to see me. I needed control. That way if he changed (and surely he would; certainly he'd at least yell at me, if not hit me, rape me, or cheat on me or something. Anything), at least I had some semblance of control over it. At least I could say I asked for it. I deserved it. I have always deserved it because that's the way all men are.

I left him. He never changed, hit, screamed, yelled, cheated - hell, he never stopped opening my car door for me. Not one single time. He never denied me, always listened to my songs, always read me like a book.

I left him. I didn't believe him. I didn't deserve him and I didn't know how to be with someone like that.

Please get mad at me. Please stop being so open and honest. Please stop being so goddamn perfect for me.

I left him because I couldn't handle being loved. Not truly, authentically loved, despite the many, many tests I applied to the relationship - like all relationships I've ever had. Every one. He passed every test. How? He was consistent. He was always, always consistent. And me, well, I have an Eagle's eye for inconsistencies.

Which leads to the next lifetime.

Gary.

Like my father; my first husband; my second husband (and that one boyfriend I had between my second husband and Bill, Mike): He was emotionally unavailable. Perfect.

Me too.

By now I was in my 30's and I had developed my intellect enough that I knew I could survive on it alone, which was important in this relationship because - like my exes - Gary had a constant tendency to put me down and attempt to make me look stupid. He was constantly condescending and I fought back - hard. Never again would I depend on a man. Ever. Never again, would I open up emotionally. Ever.

What I would do, though (because I know so well how child abuse works), is I would nurture and be a motherly figure for him because of the emotional suffocation he suffered as a child. This, too, worked to my favor. I could keep my emotions in check. I had to because, truly, I did love him, despite our many differences and despite how little attention he paid to me. Really paid. He couldn't tell you my favorite color, gemstone, song(s), movie(s) and the only reason he knew the name of my childhood cat was because it was the answer to one of my banking security questions. He didn't know much about me at all. He was also - like my father and the men before me (Bill excluded) - sexually perverse. He'd been much more so in his past, but there still lingered with every touch, an absenteeism; no warmth, no love, no affection. Just this purpose that needed to be served and I was to serve it.

I was, after all, the woman (and Gary has zero respect for women).

So I played the role. Four years. Played the role - lived Gary's life. Got sucked into his way of living. Friends? Nope. All his. Places? Nope. All his. Whatever we did, whoever we did it with and wherever we went, it centered around Gary and his image, what he wanted, what he needed and what image he wanted to project. Which meant I had to be something I was not.

Which was okay, since my emotions were bundled up tightly inside.

Until that fifth year....When we talked and when I began to grow (going through Life Coach Training which Gary was adamantly opposed to but for which Bill enthusiastically footed the bill) and I realized how unemotional our relationship was - how unemotional I was.

I was encouraged by Gary to pursue therapy and I did, in earnest.

He promised to be there; promised to support me; repeatedly swore that he wasn't going anywhere - even on public forums. Reassured me frequently, even as I began to become more and more immersed in this unfathomable pain and darkness.

Despite his words, I felt alone. I know, now, that this is because he - like always - was incapable of emotional attachment (although I do believe that some part of him did love me).

However, the profundity of what I was experiencing was too much for this man who "loved" me and he, in turn, began abusing me in exactly the same way my father had.

I'm not going to rehash it, except to say that day by day, I got worse. Things got worse. I was inconsolable. I was out of control. I was drained, exhausted, terrified. I was having flashbacks and I was drinking to numb the pain I was going through. I was losing people I loved (my son, specifically, and my granddaughter) on top of the EMDR treatment I was going through in an effort to "heal" with essentially no help.

I had Gary and I had "Dee" (who has asked that I not use her real name): Both of whom did not and probably never will have the fortitude to endure the process I have to experience. This lifetime.

After two suicide attempts, a new lifetime began...

Or, re-began.

Bill came.

He came to see me. He saw me. And in his own words, "had never seen me that bad."

It sickens me now, to think about it. It hurts. It twists my insides. It sets me on fire - my skin literally feels alight.

Rage, anger, pain, torment, torture, uncertainty, fear....fear....fear... oh my God fear.

All of these things that I've never felt towards my father, step-father, brother, uncle, kidnappers, rapists, pimps, gangsters and thugs - all of these things that I have never, ever felt - I feel now, because of Gary. And because of "Dee."

Gary: the father, rapist, womanizer, woman-beater, pimp, wife-beating, abandoning, drug-dealing, ex-convict child molester.

"Dee": The mother, "poor-me" victim, I-don't-care-about-your-story, talk-behind-your-back, drink-myself-stupid (always with a great excuse), poor, live-vicariously-through-some-other-means, nobody loves me, I have no friends or money...

I do not say these things to imply that Gary and "Dee" are these things. I say these things because finally, finally I understand these intense emotional reactions I have to them. I drive by "Dee's" house every day. It's taken me months to not sneer down her driveway and wish harm to her. Wish her to feel the pain she caused me. The truth is, she's a fun person. Intelligent. Witty. Actually, very intelligent. But she, like me for years, has not yet found herself, so she lives whatever she supposes she's supposed to.

And Gary is, I suppose, a good man - though his flaws are many. I still loved him. He's not a child molester or woman-beater (although he did abandon me and he was horribly mentally abusive).

So that lifetime is ...ending?

And now Bill is here - consistent as usual. Same Bill, only this time I'm a different Cristina and I don't know what to do or how to be or how to act because I have my experiences with Gary and "Dee" to look back on and know - without a doubt - that I do not want to be that "fake" person I was required to be. Problem is, what am I now, in this lifetime?

And even though Bill has never been in any way, shape or form, anything like any of my former abusers, what if he does? What if I'm reenacting again, and I don't know it, and it doesn't happen until I get further into this crazy ass psyche of mine? What if ...what if.... What if I let go of control?

Will he let me run into a tree? Fall of a bridge?

I know, somewhere inside, that he won't but he treats me too good and he treats me too right and he's too nice to me and he pays attention to me and he reads me like a book. He shares all my interests and he makes me laugh he's good to my children and he is everything a woman could possibly want. Why would he want me?

And Cindy - my adoptive mother - how do I know she won't hate me? Hurt me? Betray me? Abandon me?

Making new friends. I don't understand. It's like talking Chinese. I don't understand this language or this foreign place, where I am supposed to just be myself (whoever that is), and be accepted and loved for who I am. I don't understand.

Shouldn't I be being abused right now?

One thing I should thank Gary and Dee for is this: making me feel these intense, painful, agonizing emotions that have kept me captive my entire life. It's just the tip of the iceberg, according to Michelle, but it's an important one. So though I hold such deep humiliation, anger, hurt and feelings of betrayal for the wrongs, I suppose being hurt, betrayed and abused (particularly by Gary), was a necessary evil.

It brought me to a new lifetime.

My Fault; I didn't realize you were going to take advantage of me.

My name is Cristina Johnson.

I won't even go into the drama of this past week, although it brought me to my knees one night (Saw the ex's father...and a bunch of other stuff happened within two days...just brought me down).

But I am going to talk about the fucked up notion that women put themselves in the position to be raped/beaten/taken advantage of/etc.

******Trigger Warning******

When I was 12, I had a night of hell. I'd just hitchiked from Florida to North St. Louis - the only home I had ever known - on the streets.

First I was robbed and beaten by a group of guys who were clearly on (what was then called "whack" and is more commonly known as PCP). Fortunately, though they knocked me around in the slushy snow, took my coat, and my bags, they didn't rape me.

I was freezing. Winters in St. Louis can be brutal. And in the ghetto, they're dirty, too. Everything is grey, instead of white, like in the post cards. The dirty doesn't go away; it settles in the gutters like dirty crushed ice.

A small white car pulled up. He rolled down his window. I was wet and freezing. He asked, "Did they just rob you?"

I didn't know what to say so I stood there for a moment and he asked again, "Did they just rob you?"

When I didn't answer, he held up a gun and a police radio (or so I thought) and told me he was a police officer and to get in the car and he would help me find my things.

I got in the car.

He took me to a motel...attempted to rape me. Couldn't. He was too large for my little body, but that didn't stop him from repeatedly attempting until finally he put me back in the car. I don't know where he was taking me or what his plans were. Just knew he had a gun.

At one point, we turned down a dead-end road and were surrounded by a group of guys. I know some of their names to this day: Charlie, Mistreatie, Black, Anthony...there were others.

The "cop" stopped the car, realizing he was surrounded. He pulled out his gun. One of the guys was approaching my window, asking me to roll it down.

"It's okay. I ain't gon' hurt you," he said. "My name is Charlie. I know where yo stuff is."

I was scared and confused. I was in a dangerous situation. It was about 2 a.m. and I was exhausted, freezing and just plain confused.

Charlie looked comparatively harmless, considering what the "cop" had done (in hindsight, by the way, I now know it was a police scanner that he'd shown me and not a police radio).

Charlie was a light-skinned guy with a gentle demeanor. "I will take you to yo stuff," he promised.

So after a short stand-off, I got out of the car and Charlie immediately gave me his coat. I was almost instantly disarmed, although I was walking down the streets of the ghetto with six grown men at 2 a.m.

True to his word, Charlie took me to where one of my bags had been thrown in the gutter. Most of it salvageable and thankfully still had my makeup in it.

Charlie told me that I could sleep in his basement, if I needed to rest.

Up to this point, I'd been given no reason not to trust him so I let him lead me to his house. In the basement, it was cold but there was a back room and all the windows were boarded up. In the back room, there was a chair and a bed - that's all I remember - and he welcomed me to sit down in the chair, as he walked out of the room and closed the door.

I heard them whispering... I heard it. I knew it was coming...I could hear them outside the door and the only sensation I can recall is my arms resting on the arms of the chair, as if immobilized, utterly exhausted. I couldn't move my arms.

Charlie came in first. Threw me on the bed. Ripped off my clothes and hit me if I cried.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch!" he would snarl, if I whimpered.

He proceeded to rape me.

Although I'd been molested most of my childhood, I had not (to my knowledge) ever been penetrated.

This was my first experience.

He, like "the cop," was too big but it didn't matter...he forced it to happen and it hurt worse than anything I'd ever known. I lay there, praying to a God I didn't believe in, that he would stop moving. Just stop moving...please stop moving, it hurts so bad.

As he "finished" he called in the next guy but I clamped my arms around his neck, begging him not to get up. "Please no no no!!"

And he shoved my arms away and the next guy came and repeated Charlie's actions.

Each time, I clung to their necks, begging them not to get up. Begging.

As if I was asking for it, right? Laying in this dark, dingy basement, unable to fight off six attackers who did everything they physically could to my body as I cried and begged.

When they were done, they locked me in the basement and they did the same thing the next night....and the next night...and the next night...

Finally, one day, a little boy appeared in the basement. He was about five or six years old. He opened the door and came in and I felt such fear for him. Ironically, his nickname was "Daddy" I found out quite soon.

When I met "Daddy" I was afraid to leave the basement because I felt protective of him. I knew he was being abused and neglected and I knew his daily visits down to see me were a refuge for him.

The guilt I have carried over this ever since then, is tremendous. I, like most people, wonder, "why didn't you leave then, when you had the chance?"

I've hated myself for not leaving when I could.

But then something happened that changed everything....

After another round of rapes (they often brought more guys in), they brought Daddy in as I lay helpless on the bed. Helpless to do anything. They held my arms and legs and they lay Daddy on top of me, nude.

They pushed his buttocks to simulate sex and hooped and hollered and laughed as if it was the greatest thing they'd ever seen. No sex happened, obviously, but when Daddy looked up and saw me crying, while also hearing his big brother and his friends urging him on and telling him how good he was doing, the child was completely confused.

It was after this, that I was "sold" by Charlie to a pimp and endured another week of gang-rapes and beatings. Being primed to "go on the stroll." But that's another story.

*****End Trigger****

So I put myself in that position, didn't I? My fault, right?

Just like this weekend when a male friend came over and crossed a couple of lines. I was here listening to him tell me that he loved me, all the while putting Bill down (who I quickly and unequivocally defended). I told him repeatedly not to say those things to me but he continued.

He never touched me - just verbally was out of line.

Last night I was accused of putting myself in that position.

To me, this cut down to that 12-year-old. That guilt that sits there like a ball of  tar in your gut. The incessant chanting in your brain about how bad you are, how wrong you are, how you fucked up, how it's all your fault because if you'd done or if you'd done that or if you hadn't done this or hadn't done that, then this shit wouldn't have happened.

Right?

So it IS my fault??

Don't get me wrong. Cognitively, to a large extent, I understand no woman (or child or girl) deserves or asks to be beaten and raped. But cognition is far different than the emotional baggage of such a trauma. And when the same trauma happens repeatedly, you start to believe, yes...yes it must be my fault...

And then someone comes along and unknowingly or not, blames you for being taken advantage of.

There are absolutely no words for how lost I feel right now.