part 59

One of the big things that sucks about being in therapy for so long is that I don’t stay constantly angry the way I used to. Instead, I get angry and then begin the process of recognizing the pain and fear behind the anger.

I have been very, very angry for about 95% of my life – that is a lot of pain and fear.

My anger with the neighbors – every single one of them – has led me to realize how much it hurts to know that all of those people who watched me grow up could have done these things to me, could have watched others do these things to me, and find it easier to look the other way.

Another big part of my anger is realizing how much it hurts to recognize that none of these people see me as anything more than the manufactured image they have always had of me.

It hurts because of how much I have worked and grown and changed and overcome. It hurts because I have been able to do these things in spite of them and in spite of what happened to me. It hurts because it has always been easier – and is still to this day – to write me off as crazy rather than look at what is true.

I can admit I may be wrong about how these people are today, but they have offered me absolutely nothing to lend any change to my conclusions about them.

It also makes me angry to recognize that I give a shit about what all of these people think. Part of my survival and the process of recovery has been to write off and dismiss as much as I possibly could about what the neighbors think. I always felt like a freak there, and I still do.

That was not all in my head. Even the wives of men who did not abuse me still actively participated in perpetuating the idea that I was crazy and a liar – to everyone else, and to myself.

It was very difficult knowing that no one believed me growing up, but it was more difficult knowing that people were trying to convince me that I did not believe myself.

You don’t have to molest or rape a kid in order to hurt them or make them feel unsafe. Treating them like they are a freak and reiterating that you believe they are lying whenever they say almost anything can also really do a number on them.

It did a number on me.

And now I am coming to the point where I am confronting the pain of that – how painful that has been for my whole life, including now.

The piety and pretention of these people is so incredibly frustrating. It makes me very angry. And then I am again reminded of the hurt.

Acknowledging and feeling that pain, though, allows me to get beyond fear. By accepting that they are mind-fucking assholes who have been selfishly hurting me my whole life, I am able to write them off as mind-fucking assholes who have been selfishly hurting me my whole life.

Instead of yelling that I don’t give a shit what they think or believe or say or do, I can simply not give a shit about what they say or think or do.

My survival – physical and psychological – depended on believing that everyone in my home and in my neighborhood did not want to hurt me. I didn’t have a choice – I didn’t have anywhere else to go or anyone safe to run to.

I have had to really twist and contort what is logical and real about myself in order to believe I was acceptable to them.

Another very present and giant fear behind all of my anger is of the rapist across the street physically harming me. He lives so close, and I have no doubt that he would very easily hurt me if it benefitted him in some way.

I know that it would not be logical or good for his reputation to do anything to me at this point, after I have been telling people what he did to me. However, what is logical and good for his reputation has not necessarily been at the front of his mind.

How logical is it to rape a fourteen year old girl and successfully tell yourself that she had it coming? That she deserved it? That the fact that her father accepted money from you to allow you to rape her again, and then again, meant that she could be written off as a dirty little whore?

That doesn’t seem very logical to me, so the whole consideration of what might be logical to this man does nothing to comfort me or make me less afraid of him.

I am tired of my fear of him being so paralyzing. I am tired of fear in general being so paralyzing.

The paralysis comes and goes, ebbs and flows. One of my biggest accomplishments throughout therapy and everything has been the ability to accept the way I am affected by what happened to me without shame. For example, I did not leave my house at all from Friday afternoon until last evening.

I did not spend that time in my house doing things constructive, like cleaning or organizing or doing yoga or taking especially good care of my family. I spent it in my bed. I watched TV and ripped images from magazines and made collages and ate chocolate and drank coffee and stayed in my bed for over 48 hours.

I can recognize all of that as a part of the effects of what happened to me, and what is happening now. I don’t think it is good, and I don’t think it is healthy, and I certainly do not want to live my life this way, but I also don’t believe I am a lazy, crazy, fucked up worthless human being.

Instead, I know that I apparently need some rest from the outside world, and am confident in the fact that I have gone through periods of time like that before –A LOT – and that I do my best to get beyond them and to be free from that fear.

I know that just because I can’t even handle being out of my room for two days, it doesn’t mean that I will always be in my room. It is simply a way that I can heal, it is a part of that process.

Feeling less ashamed about that makes a huge difference in the way I look at myself, and in my overall ability to carry on and be the person I want to be. It makes it EASIER.

It also makes it possible for me to acknowledge and accept and feel and process the pain that has always been a part of me.

I may have stayed in my bed all weekend, but it is Monday now and I am considerably less fearful than I was on Friday. All of that pain and fear and anger I have been experiencing intensely has greatly subsided, or even just been filtered out.

It is much easier for me to see the people I have been angry with and hurt by as the small, inconsequential people they are, and not as the jury that makes the decisions about whether or not every little thing I do is crazy.

It seems so silly to let those people have such an immense influence on the way I think about myself. That doesn’t mean I automatically don’t let those people have that immense influence, but recognizing how silly it is – and how it has hurt me over my lifetime – is allowing me to view those people and what they believe as what they really are.

Right now I don’t even feel any of them are even worth the energy of conjuring the words to describe what they are.

I just know that I am not nearly so angry, and not in nearly so much pain.

That was A LOT for me to accomplish over the weekend, even if it just seemed to other people that I sat in my bed and did nothing.