I've been meaning to come back to this (I know, I know... I keep saying that, I'm terrible). My plans have been, that always during the month of October, I stitch while watching horror movies and in the past, I've done commentaries on those movies as kind of a... review of them. I was hoping to do this on here this year. Since it's already the 5th, I'm a little behind because I've only watched one so far this month "Dark House" and it was so dull that both my husband and I slept through most of it... Yes... that bad.
However, I have been watching a lot of polarizing opinions on my Facebook feed and I feel the need to put in my two cents to this. Since I am not from the US, it doesn't really affect my life, but it does affect a lot of women I care about, so I need to speak. And yes, I'm talking about the Kavanaugh case in the US and the women speaking out about him.
As I said, this issue is polarizing with people either believing Christine Blasey Ford or completely disbelieving her. A lot of people argue because she didn't speak up before that she must be lying, or because she doesn't remember all the details, she must be lying. So I want to tell you a story about my life. It is different - but as I said... deep inside myself, I need to share my truth with you.
Those closest to me already know this story, I have not been shy, or quiet about what happened to me for years. I have been living with my truth for 28 years, and for at least the past 13, I have been at peace with it (mostly). The reason I found peace with what happened to me is that I accepted that I had no control in my scenario and that there was nothing I could do to stop it from occurring. Are there things others could have done? Maybe... but I'm not here to point fingers. The only person who needs the finger pointed at him is my abuser but to be honest, if I was to go to court, I'm not sure I could win and I'm not as brave as Christine is. However, if my abuser was about to be put in the Supreme Court and into a position of so much power over women, I might be able to find the courage to accuse him openly as well.
So I will start - my abuser started when I was a child - only 7 years old. Younger than my youngest child is now. He didn't start with hurting me, at first, he considered himself my "papa" and he would "discipline" me when I did stuff he didn't like. At first, it wasn't often but as time went on, he would get more inventive in his punishments. If I didn't drink the milk in my thermos, for example, he would force me to - after it had sat out of the fridge for 3 days in my backpack and had congealed. Being a parent myself, of course I find it frustrating when my kid doesn't eat their lunch - money doesn't grow on trees - but I would NEVER make them sick to prove a point. One day, my mom came home to find him and I arguing over one of his more inventive punishments and she laid down the law with him - I was not his child and he was no longer allowed to discipline me. Unfortunately by making that ruling, she made me more of a target, though she wasn't aware of that at the time. I don't blame her, she was overworked and stressed as he was draining her bank account faster than she could blink, cheating on her and using her money to pay for the other woman in his life. He was a disgusting excuse for a human and every man in my life from that point on, has been judged based on how they relate to him. If they remind me even slightly of him, I want nothing to do with them.
Because I was no longer his "daughter", I was now a target. I cannot remember what day of the week it was, or even the time of the year.... I think fall? I do know that day I was supposed to walk home from school alone the way that he had mapped out with me. I chose instead, to walk home in a group of friends along a different route. Little did I know, he was following in his pickup truck to see if I was doing what I was supposed to do. He met me at the front door, fuming mad. How dare I not walk the way he said...
I will spare you the details of everything he did that day, but I will tell you, he took me down to the basement where I had a blanket laid on the ground to play with my barbies. It was 10 feet away from his gun rack. That to me, stands out since it was my childhood killed that day. He took a gun out of the gun rack, and told me if I didn't do everything he said, he would not only kill me, but also kill my mother when she came home from work that day. So suffice to say, I did what he asked and that day, I was forced to do sexual things with a man in his mid-30s. I was 10. As I said, I was 10. He was in his 30s and had a gun. I had no control over that situation, which is why, after many years, I am at peace with my end of this. That doesn't stop the tormenting thoughts that occasionally raise their ugly head and pierce a good day with bad memories. The wrong smell can ruin my day. I don't remember the name of his cologne, but I can't stand smelling it. The sound of his voice puts me into tears. I blocked those memories for years, pretending it didn't happen. When I was about 15, those memories came flooding back, and I had to deal with the flood of emotions and triggers that occurred. A man walked into my work with the cologne and I cried in the break room for 30 minutes. A man that sounded like him, had me retching for an hour and huddled in the fetal position crying.
The biggest test for me, was later, when I actually ended up working at a job that had his company as a client - I worked in his territory and he was on my call list. I tried... I truly did, but just hearing him speak on an answering machine put me into full-on breakdown. I went to my boss and told her what had happened and asked to not have to call him. She listened, but then she went into the same comments that I have heard so often lately in regards to Kavanaugh - "Oh, I don't believe it of him. That's not the family man I know. I can't imagine he would do those things" I put my foot down and I would call his secretary, but never him, leaving that to my boss to speak with him if necessary. I know I couldn't have been able to handle that conversation. Not many people would, to my understanding.
To be clear, I have never pressed charges against this man. This is a choice I made for my own protection. I could have done so, however it always would have been my word against his and what are the words of a child in compared to an adult? Especially so many years after the event. There is no "proof" of what happened that day and my mom found out about him cheating soon after, so I was safe, though not because she knew what had happened. She did find out, but not until she had me in therapy when I was a teenager.
Because of what he did, I didn't value myself for years. I still have a little voice inside my head that tells me I'm not good enough, that I'm not important enough to matter, that no one will ever care about me in truth and I battle that voice daily. I can't believe my husband who has loved me for almost 19 years when he tells me I'm beautiful because I still hear that man in my head telling me I'm so ugly that no man will ever want me. I was the first one in my group of friends in high school to sleep with my boyfriend, because I didn't value myself at the time. As far as I was concerned, I was already damaged, what was one more going to matter. And our society confirms that belief, one of my male friends (not one I dated) told me the word in the change room was that I was "a good lay if you could get past the bitch" I think he was trying to protect me but I thought it was funny. Media promotes this viewpoint and young women are encouraged in high school that they need men to value them to be considered important. In my view, at least they were thinking about me... which is terrible if I think back about it.
I can tell you that I still argue about this with myself. Should I have gone to the police about what this man did to me? Probably. I hope he's not doing it to another person, I hope any kids who might be in his life are safe. But here's what I know....
When I told my father what happened to me, he said I was "talking out of my ass"
When I told my female boss who knew him, she said she didn't think he was capable of it.
When I was 7, this man made me lie in court saying my father had abused me, told me exactly what to say but they couldn't prove it and the charges were dropped. The court told my mother "we know someone is hurting your daughter, but we can't figure out who" and NO ONE looked at him. He was an attractive man, tall, dark and handsome and no one could believe he was even capable of hurting a child. But I can promise you, if I had taken him to court, that would get dredged up by his lawyer, saying "see, she lied before, how do you know this one is true?" My mother and I were both set up in this case and both of us would be smeared.
When I told one of my best friends, she thought I was exaggerating the story.
When I told a family friend about it, she got angry with me for not trying to protect other children, even though I was a child when it happened.
After so many people have had such different opinions, especially my own father, can anyone be surprised I didn't think the police/courts would believe me?
My husband thinks I should have charged him and since I made the choice not to do so, I'm supposed to just shut my mouth and live with this silently. But damnit, I'm not the type to be silent and even if I know that I couldn't win in court, I refuse to live with this silently. Because that gives him the power over my life for the rest of it, and I will not do that. I will not give him that power.
And I'm glad that even if it has been over 30 years, Christine Blasey Ford stepped up and said this man should not be in control over women's rights. I can't imagine what it would be like to hear my abuser's voice again in such a public forum and to know he would have such power. Thank god I don't need to.
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