part 58

***TRIGGER WARNING***

Apparently when people hear that I’ve said the neighbor across the street raped me when I was fourteen, and then worked out with my dad to pay to do it two other times, they are not terribly shocked. They actually find it easy to believe.

What the FUCK?

I am angry. There were things going on in that neighborhood for years and years. I really don’t give a shit about who claims to have known nothing was amiss, they all had opportunities to do something to help me. ALL of them.

I’m talking about these men’s wives, and other neighbors who were close with that same group my parents were in.

Of course, everyone knew the rapist-neighbor across the street also beat the shit out of his wife and kids, and nobody did anything about that either.

Why?

Why don’t people speak up? Is it fear of being seen as crazy or a troublemaker or rocking the boat? Is it that the allegations of child abuse have such serious consequences when everyone starts to learn it is true? Is it a fear of having these feelings that something is going on, but not wanting to falsely accuse anyone?

Is it because it would mean looking at yourself and what possible part you could have played in the abuse happening?

All of the reasons are based in the fact that all of those adults were too concerned with themselves and how they might appear to others if they shook things up.

They should be sick with the guilt of opportunities lost to help an innocent child. They should feel terrible that they chose to believe the ridiculous lies that were told to them rather than see what was clearly right in front of their faces. They should feel sick they have done nothing NOW, when it is out in the open, but continue to hide in their pretentions.

People were preying on the girls in that neighborhood. Why wasn’t anyone outraged enough to do anything about it? Why?

Did people think that they just wouldn’t let their own daughters go to any of those predators’ houses and so it wouldn’t be their problem?

It hurts so much to think about how I saw these people day after day after day, and not one of them went out of their way to try to help me.

I really, really don’t give a shit how innocent and ignorant any of them may claim to have been about what was going on back then. I honestly don’t believe they all knew exactly what was going on, but they saw something bad and dark and scary. Did they not want to associate it with themselves by saying it out loud? Did they think that by attempting to interfere on a child’s behalf that they might be ostracized or look bad?

All I really have to say to every single one of them is GO TO HELL.

Fuck all of them and their feigned innocence. Not one of them has done a single thing – with the exception of my own mother – to renounce what their husbands and neighbors did over years and years and years of it happening in their own homes, on their own street, in their own neighborhood – right in front of their faces.

I have had a tremendous amount of support from so many people – except the people who live there, where it all happened. To me that only makes their guilt and shame more obvious.

I have been open to anyone. I have been available to anyone who wants to talk to me about this. I have gotten one email from one person who also grew up there. I have gotten one phone call from one other person who grew up there.

Where the fuck are their parents? Where is their outrage? Where is their disgust? Where is their acknowledgement that bad, bad things happened so close to them and they chose not to see it?

Are they all so ashamed that they have been perpetuating the notion that I was crazy? That I was a trouble-maker? That I just wanted attention? That I was a liar and a slut and a whore?

Do they want to continue to pretend all of these things about me are true so that they do not have to look at themselves?

They all make me sick. Literally, physically sick.

I will walk down that street any day and hold my head up and look into any of their eyes without shame or humiliation. Why are these people hiding from me?

I can’t find any answer to that question beyond guilt, shame, and a continued desire to not be associated with any of it.

When I am not overcome by images and feelings and smells of being ripped into and penetrated and threatened and raped, I am able to sleep soundly. I am sleeping soundly more and more as time goes on.

Maybe when those people are tossing and turning and trying to find some rest anywhere in their bodies or minds, they will be reminded of the pain I went through, and of how they could have done something about it.