Tag: sexualabuse

Avoidance

I’ve been bargaining with myself all day.  Trying to make it through the work day and all the unpleasant tasks that it held.   Stalling all day.  Trying to avoid all the dull things that must be done today.  I managed to kill a lot of the work day putting up pictures.  Now there are 50+ framed and hanged in the apartment.  It’s starting to look decorated.

I’m still struggling to get started on anything creative, but I figure hanging the pictures is a good start.  More inspiring environment or something like that.   I’m planning on filling my hallway with pictures of friends and the happier pictures from my family — mostly ones of my brothers and me. I’ve been going back and forth on whether I’ll put up any pictures of Dad. Part of me thinks I should do it, after all, he did love me and I did love him and I know he cared about me even though he behaved like a monster.  Part of me thinks I don’t need to have any reminders of him in my home. Part of me thinks the omission of photos of him will act as a reminder, still.  Maybe my grandmother had the right idea of just hanging up pictures of people in their coffins.  (Seriously creepy, right?) Maybe I should just focus on pictures of friends and my siblings in the mean time.

Doctors appointments this week made me get nervous again about my longer term well being.  Sometimes I get really afraid for myself with my weight and health.  I can delude myself and tell myself my health is OK, because my blood sugar, chlosterol, etc have usually been OK, so far.  A little high some years, but not enough for treatment.  But I know that doesn’t last forever.  I think my overeating and weight gain is very related to the abuse and how I handle stress.  It’s complicated — it’s not just a coping mechanism, it’s also intended to sabotage myself, I think?  Let’s put it this way: there have been many times in my life where I consciously was glad that I (think I) am unattractive. I pretended it saved me from danger, or at least hassles.  Sometimes it’s good to feel invisible.  But sometimes it doesn’t feel good. It feels lonely.  I would say I can’t remember the last time I had a relationship, but I can. It was in 2004. Since then, the others have all just been “friends with…” or one time things.

That hits a nerve, to type that out.  It hurts to admit that I am the reason for my own unhappiness. Surely, others contributed, even started it, but I’m the one keeping the house of cards propped up now.

Things I spend way too much time thinking about

I feel like I finally am starting to feel some closure about my last heartbreak.  I never understood why I felt the loss so deeply, when I never really “had” this person as mine to lose.  But I did — just not in this life.  And perhaps I did have him a little in this life.  I’d like to think that there was a time when he was as drawn to me as I was to him.  Just thinking about it makes me ache. I used to say this was heart ache, but really it is an emptiness.  He left a hole that I haven’t been able to fill.  Perhaps because I kept looking to fill it with someone else, perhaps because I didn’t look very hard to fill it at all.  But now I know that it doesn’t get filled with someone else.  That particular emptiness was for him, and now I must fill it myself.

What really helped was being hit with the realization that where he is headed is not where I want to be. We won’t end up in the same place. It makes me sad to realize, partially because I am still feeling his loss and partially because I think I will end up in a better space than he will. I don’t want him to be unhappy. But it seems like that is what he picked this time around.  I won’t tell myself it’ll work out next time, because I cannot keep holding space for him. I have to let go.

It sounds like my upstairs neighbors are having sex really loudly.  Either that or they are yelling while moving furniture.  It feels a little weird to be, essentially, listening in. Especially when *I* haven’t had sex in over a year. Over a year.  That’s kind of depressing and pathetic.  I haven’t had sex since the memories started coming back, and while I want to, I’m also the tiniest bit afraid I’ll react badly.  Or dissociate.  Or remember too much past garbage.  But, I want it more than I fear what will happen.

If only it were that simple. Everyone always says that for girls it’s easy, but I’ve never experienced that. I guess it would require putting myself out there at all.  Maybe that should be my goal — make everyone aware I’d have sex with them, lol.  (Not ‘everyone’ literally).

Sometimes I wonder how many of my friends would be willing to sleep with me.  That stupid ‘meme’ the other week pulled a couple out of the woodwork, but of course it’s only the unavailable ones who want to inform me they were interested. Past tense.  The single ones… not so much.  Does hinting not work because they’re not interested? Or because my efforts to flirt fall totally flat and are unnoticeable?  What’s the worst that could happen?  Make a friendship incredibly awkward?  Actually, I guess having really bad sex would be more awkward for a friendship than being told ‘no thanks’.

Shaming the victims

Abuse at the hands of someone who was admired and respected, and of course, the response from dirtbags is that it’s just a money grab and a shot at five minutes of fame.

https://www.vibe.com/2016/04/afrika-bambaataa-sexual-molestation-ronald-savage/?utm_source=sc-fb&utm_medium=ref&utm_campaign=afrikabambaataa

Ask yourself what a middle aged man would think he’d gain by telling of abuse that took place 35 years earlier, especially when naming a legendary figure in the hip hop community. He knew he people would call him a liar (and worse) and ostracize him.

He has nothing to gain by doing this except having his voice heard and possibly preventing it from happening to someone else. Can you imagine how much fear, humiliation and shame someone would have to face to decide to let the whole world know they were abused? Even moreso than when a woman comes forward — I think as a culture we look at a male victim differently after learning this part of his past. Society (and I think particularly hip hop culture) punishes men as being weak for allowing another male to victimize him, even when the victim was just a defenseless child at the time.

I wish there weren’t more stories to be told, but I hope more keep being made public. Sexual abuse of children and teens is so common in this country, and we just look the other way. We create an environment where one does not feel safe enough to tell anyone. As a culture, we willingly protect accused abusers when we insinuate the victim is just looking for attention or money. Guess what, rich people, famous people, respected people are guilty of child molestation too.

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