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.

Latex Gloves

My name is Cristina Johnson.

Had a doctor's appointment today that I'd forgotten about. Thankfully I put it on my phone in my calendar. I'd be lost without my phone.

I'm always nervous when I go to see a doctor. Gary used to say I shrank down as if I were a child - especially when going to see a counselor and especially going to see a pdoc (mental health lingo for psychiatrist). Oh I always feel out of control. Probably because I'm completely at their mercy.

I had a bad night last night...really bad. I had an enormous and painful "fight" with my son, Tony, over texts. He was drunk and saying horrible things about me and about Bill and just being generally nasty and disrespectful. This, after he came to my house, spent the night up in my office, left it in a disgusting state and drank every beer in the fridge.

I woke up this morning hoping he made it to court okay. I was supposed to give him a ride, but I told him to find someone else and not to message me again until he got his facts straight. I'm sure he heard a bunch of bullshit from Leah when he went to get his hair cut by her (yeah, I gave him a ride there, too, despite the fact that I want nothing to do with her).

Anyway, so I get to the doctor's office today just on time (as usual - I'm rather picky about being on time). I sat in the waiting room, my purse bouncing on my lap because my legs were bouncing uncontrollably. Nervous.

When the nurse called me back, we went into a different room than usual which was fine.....

It was small and I started to feel that feeling - the nervous feeling you get just before a panic attack. You know it's coming and you don't know why but all the sudden I was trembling and crying and stuttering. I kept looking around...trying to find what triggered it.

I kept looking at the ugliest 3-D art I've ever seen. "Life is a bowl of cherries" it said, with a hideous rendition of fake cherries in a bowl, protruding from a hot pink frame, dotted with spots of orange. It was distracting me, but not in a good way.

The nurse went about her business, checking my vitals, my weight (lost 20 lbs, btw) and then handed me a tissue.

"The doctor wanted to do a [breathing test] on you, but we're going to wait okay?" she said gently.

I nodded. Wiped my eyes with a trembling hand and a wet, wadded up kleenex.

For a moment I was left alone, waiting for the doctor to come and that's when I realized what the trigger was:

On the wall there was a rack and in the rack, three boxes of gloves. Latex gloves.

The middle box had the blue gloves. The kind that police use and airport security uses and other unpleasant memories.

The two on the side held the white latex gloves.

I was immediately aware that was the trigger because when I looked at them again, I flashed back to being put in juvenile detention and the horrid things they do to you when you're sent there.

There's a required pap smear done, as well as anal and they spray you down with some kind of chemical to make sure to kill anything that might be on you. They make you bend over and order you to pull your buttocks apart....

Never realizing that you're crying inside - sure as hell can't cry outwardly - that you feel so violated, so horrified, so ...like your body is not your body.

My body has never been my body. That was taken long ago. I have trouble even to this day, showering or taking a bath.

This is part of my journey.....reclaiming my body, learning about it, despite my contempt for it as of now. Contempt because if I didn't have this body, maybe I would never have been molested or raped. It's illogical, I know, but it's beyond my mental control.

On another note, talked to Bill last night. He finished reading The Sum of My Parts by Olga Trujillo. It is by far the best book I've read as far as what I've gone through and what I'm experiencing. He asked me some questions about it and he got a much better understanding of what I am going through. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's been diagnosed DID, plus their partners.

It touched me that he read it. I asked Gary to, but he never did. Bill says Gary never wanted to understand PTSD or DID. I cried because he's right. Gary has no comprehension of how far back he set me on this healing journey. No concept, no clue. He would have, if he'd just wanted to know. Instead, he listened to everyone except me and now I'm still having nightmares about him and I can't see a truck or van like his without jolting inside as if firecrackers are going off in my blood cells. God...the powerful trigger he became is mind-blowing.

So good stuff going on, and bad stuff too. No therapy for two weeks is gonna kill me. The doctor didn't want me to leave the office without talking to Michelle (my therapist) but I told him she is not available. Once I figured out what the trigger was, I just let it run its course...let the memories flow...put myself back in the room with the gruesome bowl of cherries and breathed.

Good news is, I suppose, I'm no less healthy physically than last time. :)