Tired

Shame, shame, shame.

It permeates me. The past few days have been those kinds of days where I just wished I didn't exist.

I'm tired.

I'm lost.

I am ashamed.

It's very difficult to accept "I love you" from anyone, when there's not one single redeeming quality you can see about yourself.

My last session was beyond humiliating. So much so, that I almost didn't go today, which Michelle noticed.

"I'm glad you came today," she said, knowing a million parts of me were pulling me away, telling me to run.

Sue William Silverman wrote a number of books and is also a friend of mine on facebook. She's a very brave woman - she put things in her memoir about being molested and abused by her affluent father, and followed it with a sequel about sexual addiction and finally "Fearless Confessions" - a book about how to write about these things. Quite the appropriate title, I think.

How horrible it is, to tell. How frightening. Not just the details and grit, but what's going on inside you. The reality of your every-day breaths. Every thought that stabs you with how indecent you are, unworthy you are, useless you are. It's all this fucking game you play, to make everyone happy...to make everyone love you...even if you don't believe they do, you can at least see what it's like.

I believe Bill... but that's a double-edged sword.

I believe that he loves me, but I don't feel I deserve it. That hurts. I want it, but I am so afraid of it.

Life just sucks these past few days.

I am tired.

Intensity in Love

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

My session, today, was heavy. I was already shook up when I got there. I got some news and instantly started shaking, crying and got a headache, simultaneously. Funny thing is, it was good news, but it was so damn overwhelming. So I showed up to see Michelle very shaky an disoriented.

"Let's take a minute," she said, "Take a couple deep breaths."

I tried...felt silly. I always feel silly when someone says, "Breathe....take a deep breath..." (I even feel awkward doing it for the doctor, now that I think about it. Weird).

Anyway, as I predicted, she asked what my take was, on the dream I had about my father. I told her I was completely, absolutely lost. I had no idea. This surprised her.

The session kind of went all over the place - she triggered me once....one of those snapshots, like a lightning-fast emotional response to something she said, and then poof it was gone.

"What did you say?" I asked her.

She looked at me confused. I was confused. I started crying. I was reminded of something, but couldn't remember what I had been reminded of. It's so strange how those flashbacks work.

"What did it bring up for you?" she asked.

"I don't remember. What was it you said?"

She said she was talking about making mistakes ....

And I snatched a kleenex from the box on the table, where she'd set it for me. "He was so cruel," I whimpered. "So cruel." I started shaking.

"Punishment...that's what it brought up. There were no mistakes. You couldn't make mistakes," I told her, but without the emotional connection. I shed a few tears and it was gone. All that was left was the memory, devoid of any attachment. "He once punished me for holding the cat wrong."

Then we talked about re-parenting.....Cindy is doing a marvelous job at this. "Ron won't be able to re-parent you," she said. I suspect this is because of the extent of the abuse I went through with my father. Plus Ron also, unfortunately, has some of the same traits as my father....tall, powerful, and he has a way about him that's very much like my birth father. I am trying to work past that....as is Ron, to his credit.

And then...the most painful of all: the dream.

First she said she was very surprised that no therapist had ever spoken to me about sexual dreams about fathers who molest their daughters. "It's very common," she explained.

She also told me it's not uncommon to experience arousal when being molested. It's a physiological experience that the body cannot control. It's clearly more obvious for boys/men because, well, you know...it's obvious if they're aroused. But not so much for girls.

"I don't remember ever feeling aroused," I told her. "The only good feelings I recall are those of knowing that I was doing something right...doing something to make Daddy happy....Never do I recall being aroused."

She said we (women) often pile junk on top of it: how gross and disgusting and despicable it is, how wrong and dirty and we have so much piled up on top of it, that even if we were aroused, we wouldn't know it.

Which brought us to the dream. She said the dream was symbolic and - in her opinion, based on what I told her - had nothing to do with my father, and everything to do with Bill.

For me, the most difficult aspect of that dream, was the strong emotional attachment I was feeling towards my father as I initiated sex. The feeling of this very powerful love, was identical to that which I feel for Bill.

We talked a lot about this, about my authentic fear of this love for Bill.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I don't know. Doing something wrong? Saying something wrong? Being hurt. Being abandoned."

But there's more to it than that, even. Kind of like Cindy is "re-parenting" me, Bill is giving me this love that I've never had before and I am terrified of it...not used to it...

"You know," she said, "It takes a huge amount of courage for you to love him....to let him love you that way."

I cried...this heart-wrenching, desperate cry. Aching inside. So confused. So afraid. Hopeful but terrified.

The only other time I ever felt such intense love, was when I loved my father. Feeling that intensity is blindingly terrifying.

Yet....if I let it happen...if I just let it run it's course, I will (or should) re-learn love. Healthy love, instead of the toxic, abusive, painful love that I hold inside as a norm. This fearful, punishing love that sticks to me like velcro.

I wonder....

I wonder if I left Bill years ago, because of this intensity, in favor of a more superficial relationship, that would spare me from loving so deeply.

Thank you Cindy....Ron...Bill......

Bill.....thank you.

The "First Time" (sexual content)

My name is Cristina Johnson

It's been a tough week. I went through my phone and deleted all but one photo:

I was mesmerized by this picture. I cried as I deleted photos ...oh did I cry... but this one...this one I couldn't delete. It seemed to epitomize so much of our relationship. How much we looked like the "perfect couple" which - I'm sure - Gary always looks like with any woman. The "perfect couple." People never imagined we would split. This photo for some reason, had me bawling all day, all evening.

I cried. I called him. I left a sobbing voice mail. I was torn apart. So many memories...gone with a tap on the trash can icon.

My supporters have encouraged me to delete the photos from facebook as well. "Time to let go," they say kindly, supportively.

Then, today, I braved the hundreds of photos I have on my facebook, in an attempt to delete some, but not before offering (over voice mail) to let Gary have whichever ones he wanted. He never responded, so I will try to pick and choose the ones he'd like and try to get them to him.

But as I was going through them, deleting those of me and "Dee" and some of him and I (interestingly almost ALL at the bar or on the boat), I came across this one:

=

and I couldn't stop crying.

I sat in the living room, in the dark, except for two candles burning. I kept looking at this picture, which I couldn't bear. Across from me, on the coffee table is a beer bottle, cigarettes and a green lighter, the two candles going and a plate - given by "Dee" which I deliberately use as an ashtray because of the negative energy tied to it...I've already thrown away most of the junk she gave me). There's a small remote that goes to the shelf stereo where I sometimes listen to David Lanz, Leonardo Ludovico and George Winston (I prefer the sounds of piano, cello and piano in harmony)....

And a razor blade. It sits on the table, occasionally reflecting the flames on the candles. I hold my head and cry.

I used the blade last night, ran it along my thigh. Nothing major.

But I was in so much pain....

One thing taken  from an incest/rape victim at the age that I was, is the first time.

At the risk of embarrassing my daughter (which probably won't happen - she doesn't read my blogs), she texted me when she was 16. Told me she'd "gone all the way" with her boyfriend of a little over a year.

My feelings were mixed. I called her immediately.

My first question was obviously, "Did you use a condom?"

"Duh, yes."

My second question, spoken rather awkwardly, "Well...how was it?"

"It hurt like hell!" she said. She gave me further details - I suppose that's one of the good aspects of having her live so far away. She talks to me about everything. I listened intently. I was secretly so elated that her first experience was with someone she 'loved' (at the time)...that it wasn't traumatic.

I once told Gary that I was "still waiting for the first time," and he got angry, stormed off.

A couple years later, it came up again. This year - 2010 - we went to Selden's Creek. It was always awkward for Gary and I to be alone together. We never really knew how to "be" with each other. But this night, I drank a couple beers as we sat tied to a huge tree and a limb that was tangled in the marshy grass near the boat.

I started talking with him about sex. About that "first time" thing ....I explained it to him.

"I want to know what it was supposed to be like," I told him, afraid, ashamed.....not really knowing what his reaction would be.

We were surrounded by nature, not a soul in sight. We watched beavers and otters swim by, took the dinghy out and saw a whole flock of beautiful white swans. Trees like you've never seen. It was truly beautiful.

And by sunset, we were alone on the boat again. I made dinner. We continued talking, although I can't remember about what.

And then he attempted to give me my "first time"

He was attentive, gentle, kind....much different than usual. He spoke to me, kind words. He went slow, calmly, rather than treating me like a conquest, the way it typically felt.

I opened up that night, more than ever before. Tried - tried so hard - to stay present and be there with him, throughout the experience. Mostly accomplished, but still struggled. (I dissociate during sex).

It was a truly beautiful experience....

...I thought.


After that, we took a trip to Shelter Island. We anchored out at Sag Harbor. Oh the wind was horrendous. The boat wagged in the water like an excited dog's tail and neither of us could sleep. We anchored there about two or three nights.

We hadn't made love since Selden's Creek, so I was still lost in that emotional experience, as far as intimacy and I kind of believe that he, too, was somehow touched....although that belief was short-lived.

Anchored out about two hundred yards away from another boat, he decided he wanted to have sex in the cockpit, out in the open, in view of the other boat.

I completely shut down and every thought that he might have "gotten it" (as far as my need for tenderness, gentleness, slowness, calmness), disappeared in the wind. I did whatever he wanted....as usual. The "first time" was instantly deleted from my brain. I thought he cared....I thought he got it...Oh....I was so wrong.

That was in 2010....when he carved our initials in the picnic table at the beach at Coecles Harbor.

The First Time, I realize now, will never come. The reason is because for me to experience the "first time," I'd have to experience it hundreds of times, to replace the hundreds of times I was molested or raped. He thought, by giving me one "first time," I would suddenly be "fixed" and we could just go back to being an emotionally devoid, sexually perverse couple.

He was wrong, and so is anyone else who thinks they can give us back our first time. Our first time was taken. Taken. Oh my God how that hurts.

I'll never have that "first time" like my beautiful daughter did.....I envied her, I admit it, shamelessly but with utter love.

What's the first time supposed to be like?

Good feelings that hurt

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

I have so much to say tonight. I hope I don't ramble. I had a very exciting session today.

Something really huge happened Monday, but I didn't realize it at the time. In my blog, "To Show or Not to Show," I wrote:

"She brought her other hand up to gently squeeze my shoulder. This made a part of me scream inside, "DON'T BE KIND TO ME!!!! STOP IT!!"

It hurt more to have her be that kind - to touch me despite my wound - and say those words, than anything else."

This session brought up something very deep, that I wasn't expecting, but being willing to explore it, I looked within myself and started questioning why I felt that way. Why I reacted like that internally, though I didn't say a word. That session affected me so deeply, in fact, that as soon as I got home, I vomited. It was that powerful.

I talked with Cindy at length about it and then later, talked with Bill but it was right before dinnertime, just after he'd gotten off work. I said to him in a text, that I loved him - I truly love him - in a place that hurts. He couldn't have known this, but I was speaking from that wounded place - that place that feels this intense feeling. But since he didn't know, his response frightened me and shut me down. I almost went to bed but instead, this time, decided I would tell him.

And we talked about it at length....I told him I have this huge, huge wall but there are pinholes in it and every once in awhile, he or Cindy will reach through it and touch that part of me. It's very childlike and afraid.

It's also very frightening to feel so I am always on guard - always have been - and I'm only now realizing this.

The next day, I wrote "Tenderness Kills," and I wasn't going to post it on my facebook page like usual, but I did send it to my therapist. It's always been easier for me to write than speak. I never heard back from her so I was very nervous to go see her today.

"So, tell me about your email," she said after our opening pleasantries.

I told her, as I was writing it, that I envisioned a child, cowering, always afraid...always waiting for the next foot to fall.

So she asked me about that...and I explained.

Family meetings.

These were meetings held every day where Daddy and his wife and her two kids (ages 13 and 16) would meet in the family room with my brother and I. We were five and six years old. Each time, Daddy would have us stand in front of him and he would  tell us all the things we'd done wrong that day. He would then make us take off our clothes as the rest of them looked on, and he would put us over his knees and beat us with a wooden spoon. He would then tell us to get our clothes and go to our rooms. We could hear the others snickering behind our backs. Perhaps the worst parts of these meetings was when Daddy would cry, making me feel as if I were the lowest life form on earth (he also did this when he molested me, and I would do whatever he wanted, hoping to stop him from crying).

I told her about my mother's lying - so many lies - and how, when I tried to tell her about my abuse, she said to me, "Oh that's nothing. You should try...." and then she went on to tell me some story of her childhood, completely invalidating me. That was when I was 12 and I never talked with her about it again.

I lived on the streets and in the system from age 12 until I ran away and got pregnant at 15. I was kidnapped, first though, at age 11. When we lived in North Carolina with my father, he strangled me and smothered me as he molested me. He beat us and constantly stormed around, punching holes in the walls or breaking furniture. He was unpredictable and frightening (except for most of the times he molested us when we were younger).

"So no wonder you envisioned a child cowering," Michelle said. "It seems that's all you've ever done."

"Yes, it is," I agreed.

As we began to talk more about this "part," I became increasingly excited to have an explanation for what had happened the night of our previous session so now, hopefully I won't confuse the reader by going back to Monday night, when I'd told Bill what I had.

Part of me shut down with Bill's response to my profession of love for him.

But I emailed him - it was too much to say in texts - trying to explain it. All cerebral, but with this new awareness of this FEELING that I didn't realize I had.

The rest of the night, we texted back and forth but I remembered very little of it the next day. I discovered the next day I'd emailed and called my attorney, I'd opened a window and I'd gotten coffee ready to be brewed. I did not remember any of this. This is where  DID comes in. If you understand the Internal Family System's Model, there are three "types" of parts: Managers, Firefighters and Exiles.

Managers (to cope) are the "parts" that handle day-to-day stuff, keep things in order, get groceries, pay bills, etc. They manage.

Exiles (hurt)are the "parts" that hold very powerful, intense emotions - pain, rage, fear, shame, among others - and are usually young parts, stuck in a place in time where they are still being abused.

And the Firefighters (compulsive) are the ones who come in when the exiles are starting to emerge and the managers can't handle it.  The Firefighters either watch over and soothe the Exiles or they hush them by any number of means, including binging, cutting, distracting, drugs/alcohol, shopping, etc. There's a whole list but when the "system" (the term used to describe the multiple parts of someone with DID) becomes disrupted, the Firefighters step in and take over.

This is what happened Monday night: First the overwhelming session with Michelle, then the issue with Bill - all surrounding this young, wounded part of me.

One of the Firefighters said, "Oh no, no way" and I think has always said, "Hell no. Do not be tender to me!" because this other part - this part that loves so intensely, is very authentic and young and open.

So if I go by the Internal Family Systems model, it would seem that I have an Exile that is beaten down, terrified and wants to be loved, that's being protected by a firefighter that's saying "hell no, stay away!"

But now that I understand it more, it makes more sense and I feel like there's going to come a time when I can talk to that part - or those parts (?) - and soothe them myself.

I never truly understood why it hurt so much  to hear my grandmother say, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry," when she came to the police station and found me beaten and bloodied after my kidnapping. In my mind, for all my life, I've always felt that it was the worst possible thing she could have said to me.

Now I know why: Don't be kind to me!

Of course, there were constant reiterations and reinforcements of this belief....going through so many rapes by men who said they were there to help me; being molested by men in the system; being attacked in hospitals. Why would a child expect kindness or tenderness after that? Why would I expect (or feel comfortable receiving) kindness or tenderness. For years, a soft, tender touch would make me cry. I still sometimes whimper.

Over the past few months, I've felt that terrifying feeling for Bill and for Cindy. Through those pinholes.

I want to explore it more...open them up....break down that wall....

I'm both afraid and excited about it.

Cutting and Self-Harm

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

This isn't an easy blog to write... it's full of stuff that nobody wants to talk/hear about: Self-harm.

I attempted suicide more than once in my life but more recently, in October (?) of last year and then March of this year. Tried overdosing. I'm not the only person who does this, who has my disorders.

Yesterday was a bad day for me. I was overwhelmed and buried, flooded and confused.

Yesterday was Gary's birthday. I cried most of the day.

That wasn't the worst, though...knowing he's celebrating his birthday with his new girlfriend and all the old friends I once knew. (I did call and leave him a voice mail, wishing him a tearful happy birthday).

I also went and got my driver's license renewed, and I got fuel for the house - for heat. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, but to me, it was shameful that it was a big deal. Like whoopy-doo...you managed to do something pretty much anyone in the world could do? I was ashamed for feeling I'd accomplished something. "I feel so stupid," I remarked to Bill in a text, but I couldn't elaborate on it. I just felt so stupid. Celebrate getting your license? You idiot...

I was also overwhelmed by increasing evidence of my DID. I'd apparently spoken to Bill on the phone and spoke in the voice of a child...whispering...saying "Shh! he's coming! Here he comes! Shh!"

This really threw me because I didn't remember it but when I put it together with all the other DID stuff that's happened, the mounting evidence that I suffer from this affliction makes me sick. Sick. I don't want to be that fucked up! No no no! But, alas I must admit I dissociate. A lot. In fact, I was with Michelle when I actually remembered that I'd gotten my driver's license yesterday.

There were a few other things but the worst came when I thought about going to court tomorrow. I began to panic, and I mean PANIC. What if they take me to jail? They'll take Trevor away! OH MY GOD!

I was inconsolable. I was making plans. I called Cindy, I called Bill I told Cindy where there's money so she could buy Bill a plane ticket home. "Please, please don't let them take my baby," I cried desperately. The feeling that was flooding me is indescribable. Trevor....Trevor is what keeps me going every day. He has no idea the strength he gives me. I don't lean on him, mind you. I know the harmful effects of that, but I look at him, and I watch him and I know he needs me and it keeps me straight, although there are nights when I can't be a "mom" and - because Trevor is so, so smart and we're so attuned to one another, he knows that it's a bad night for mom. He's autistic - supposedly incapable of feeling emotions - but with me, he gets it.

We've talked about our disorders. For many years I never told him anything but one day, he asked me about the cuts on my arms and I explained to him that it's part of my disorder (anyone with any experience with an autistic child, knows you can't bullshit them and just coming straight out with the truth [to their capacity] is the best way). He asked a few more questions. I don't feel he has a complete grasp on my disorders, but he understands more than any teenager you'll meet.

I don't know what happened but I cut last night... somehow it serves so many purposes. I emailed my therapist, told her I'd cut. I actually said, "I am emailing you to tell you that I cut tonight. The reason I'm emailing you is because I don't want to talk about it."

Incest survivors, particularly, are prone to self-harm and self-injury. It could be in the form of bulimia, hair-pulling, cutting, overdosing, alcohol abuse, or any other kind of self-destructive, self-effacing, self-abusive means.

There's all kinds of literature out there about it but I'm just gonna tell you straight out: It relieves pain. It releases a rage you're afraid to feel. To see blood or vomit helps you know you're alive - you're a living person, not a shell.

In reference to cutting, I've actually read that - in the schools nowadays - it's the new "anorexia" for teenage girls. Many girls cut.

But most cut in hidden places. I have one friend who cuts on her inner thighs. I've known them to cut on their ankles, their upper arms, their stomachs. Anywhere....anywhere, just to bleed.

Me, I've always cut my wrists. I had a short bout with bulimia and I was a hair-puller in my 20's.

There's another reason people do this: It's a scream for help. It's a way of saying, "I have this pain inside me and it's eating me alive but I can't show it to you or tell you about it." And they won't. They won't tell you about it.

Today, in therapy - though I had said I didn't want to talk about it - it was the elephant in the room. I know - because of the many moments of awkward silence, that she was giving me room, just in case I brought it up.

And I did.

There's practically no worse feeling than waking up with a couple gashes in your arms (one of them really needs stitches but you can't go to the emergency room for stitches on your wrist because most doctors don't understand that it's not a suicide attempt) and then knowing you scared the shit out of everyone who matters to you.

You feel like a loser, a failure, a mistake, hopeless, omg what's wrong with me?

Yet, there's also this strange fascination and even a sense of pride... you want everyone to see....but you want nobody to see.

Oh God if I could stand in the middle of the world on a huge podium and shout, LOOK! LOOK AT MY WOUNDS!! and somehow, magically, everyone would understand it's not a manipulative way of getting pity; it's not "for show" (as I've been accused of by my ex); it's not to show off how you've hurt yourself.

If I could show everyone these wounds and these scars, and somehow give a voice to them...let the wounds and scars talk for themselves... oh how I wish people would/could learn.

Gratefully, those closest to me (Cindy, Bill, Hannah, Howie) understand (and understood last night) that calling the police or ambulance is the worst mistake in the world. They understood I was overwhelmed. They know (a couple of them because they, too, experience this insurmountable pain and rage), that it's a temporary release.

I just want to note here, that I would never let Trevor see me cut and he does not know it happened, just in case anyone's wondering. He was safe in bed, asleep.

Self-injury is punishment for the "bad" that we are, because we did things. We performed fellatio on our fathers or cousins or uncles. We "allowed" ourselves to be raped. We created our own misfortunes and we must be punished. It's so, so, so much easier for me to turn my anger on myself, than it is to be angry at the father who beat, humiliated, tormented, molested and abused me (and my brother). Being angry at him is just unheard of.

In therapy today, I finally broke down and cried.

"Why do I do this?"

"What?"

I couldn't respond. She gave me a minute as I held my wounded wrist (covered by a long-sleeved shirt) to my face, wiping my tears, staring out the window.

"Why I cut. Why do I hurt people I love? Why do I cut and then tell everyone? Why do I cut?" I asked.

Very gently, very calmly, she responded, "If all your scars and your wounds could tell me their story, what would they say?"

Oh dear God what a great question.... and one I must mull over. It was frightening to even answer it to her.

Cutters are not losers. They're not idiots or manipulators. They know exactly what they're doing, even if they don't always understand why.

Next time you see a slit wrist, just know it has a story to tell.

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.