part 56

******TRIGGER WARNING *******

I am not interested in hiding anything. Hiding things is what makes the continued abuse of women and children possible. It is not comfortable not hiding things, but it is what I can do.

I do not wish to deter any sort of discussion on all of the things I have written about, especially concerning the neighbors. I was made to keep silent for years through shame and fear, and I will not attempt to do that to anyone else.

It is okay if people do not believe me. It is okay if people think I am crazy, or vindictive, or whatever people think to avoid believing the things that happened to me really happened.

I cannot say it doesn’t mean anything when people I have known my entire life find it much easier to consider any alternative to what is real rather than considering that what I am saying is true. It does not feel good, but it is understandable. I don’t know if it is justifiable, or logical, or empathetic, or excusable. But it is certainly human, and at the end of the day I can’t really begrudge anyone that.

I don’t have to accept it, though.

I know very well that it doesn’t matter what anyone says or does or believes or threatens – none of it will make what happened to me not real.

The opposite of real has been shoved down my throat for my entire life. It is a pretty effective method of keeping anyone quiet, particularly the vulnerable, such as children. Like I said though, it does not make what is real not real anymore.

Regardless of who says what, or feels any certain way, or views me in any way, what happened to me really did happen to me.

My father raped me repeatedly. He tortured me. He brainwashed me. He used me. He took money to let other people rape me and abuse me. He produced child pornography and used me as the child. He got me pregnant and then called me a whore. He tied me naked to a tree and then called me crazy.

One of my neighbors molested me when I was little. He pretended to be performing some sort of habitual and necessary form of ensuring proper hygiene and then put his fingers in me. I was five. When I was about twelve, that same person made a monetary arrangement with my father to rape me. He was sweet and flirtatious. He acted like we were somehow both voluntarily doing something we would both enjoy.

That guy was not able to “seal the deal,” and then he and my dad had a monetary disagreement. I don’t know anything more about it than that.

Another of my neighbors made a very successful transaction with my father. My dad told me to go over to his house to get something, so I did. The guy invited me in and very politely took my pants off and turned me around and raped me in the middle of the day in the middle of his living room. When I got back home, my dad asked me if I brought back what I was supposed to have retrieved. I had not, and so he told me to go back to that house and get it.

I did what he said. It was an envelope with cash in it. I got it from the neighbor and gave it to my dad.

A third neighbor violently raped me in his basement when I was fourteen. When I was seventeen, my dad made an arrangement (again monetary) with him to rape me as punishment for voluntarily having sex with someone else. It was at a hotel. When it was over, my dad took the cash and pulled a twenty from it and gave it to me. I took it.

My dad and that one neighbor both made me believe, on different occasions, I would die at their hands, and made me believe that I deserved it it. They both strangled me to the point that I knew I was going to be dead. I didn’t die, but I have not forgotten what that felt like, and what it looked like to look at them killing me.

I believed I deserved it then, but I don’t now. As I said, it doesn’t matter what anyone says or believes or accuses or threatens, nothing will make those things not real.

I will sit down and talk to any of those men any day. I will remind them face to face of what they did to me. I will tell their wives and their children and their friends and neighbors face to face what they did to me. I don’t care how angry they are. I don’t care how much it might make other people’s lives uncomfortable. I don’t care if they sue me for slander or libel or whatever. I don’t care.

I don’t have to care about any of those things because what they did to me was real, and what they did to me was wrong. It was horrendous and disgusting and revolting. There is nothing anyone can say at any time to make me believe today that I was somehow responsible for the things they did.

I wasn’t responsible. I am not ashamed. I’m still scared, but I’m getting used to living in spite of it. I don’t care what anyone thinks or threatens or does or says, because nothing anyone can accuse me of or believe about me will ever excuse what those men did to me, or make it as though it never happened.

It seems crazy because it is. What happened to me, how I grew up, how people got away with hurting me, it is all crazy. It is very difficult to believe that such circumstances could exist at all, let alone in a predominantly white, predominantly Christian, predominantly middle class neighborhood in a predominantly white, predominantly Christian, and predominantly middle class town.

I mean, we all had health insurance. We all had regular dental care. We all had new clothes and shoes and free-standing single-family dwellings. We were all what we believed we were supposed to be, so how did this happen?

I don’t fucking know. I just know that it did, and nothing will ever change that.

I wonder if retaliation will come in the form of physical harm, to me or to my family, or to anyone else I love. I wonder if writing all about it and knowing that A LOT of people read what I write and know exactly who I am talking about would be a deterrent to beating the shit out me or killing me. I mean, there is no way they could get away with it, right?

I am sick of this shit. But I’m still here. I’ve survived worse before and do not doubt I will survive this, too, even if it is only figuratively.

I’ve done what I wanted to do. People know. It is out there.

And now I will stop thinking about this and go live my life some more.