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Skin
It seems like it would be obvious when you’re body’s been invaded by someone unwelcome. But when someone has convinced you that your mind is untrustworthy, that your narration is unreliable. It is easy for you to convince yourself, that your body is also sending you false signals.
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Over the years I have done a lot of research on emotional and sexual abuse; searching for answers. Most experts agree that emotional abuse is “consistent actions and behaviors intended to psychologically manipulate someone else.” How simple. How deceivingly straightforward. This definition doesn’t mention that what makes this abuse so alarming is that it is sneaky and hard to detect, even to the victim. It can lurk in someone's choice of words, subtle behaviors, things that you only notice once you realize that you don't recognize yourself anymore. It doesn’t mention that emotional abuse can also make sexual abuse difficult to recognize.
Listen to your body. Listen to your mind. They are biologically wired to protect you. They have eons of knowledge that’s only purpose is to keep you from harm.
Listen.
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I’ve found lists of things a survivor might experience in the years following. Denial, fear, hopelessness, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, trust issues, insomnia, and guilt frequently make an appearance. While I have experienced, and continue to experience, many of these things, these words do not capture the constant fear and loneliness of being a survivor. The fear of making a wrong move, of saying the wrong thing, of ending up in the same situation all over again. The people-pleasing to avoid confrontation. The way you continue to stifle your voice because you have learned that speaking up is detrimental to your well-being. The lump that rises in your throat every time you have to voice something negative. The hours, or sometimes days, it takes to work up the courage to have a difficult conversation, and the surprise when that conversation is met with constructive solutions and love.
Even years after, I am surprised by the lack of conflict in my life. I’m surprised that my voice is listened to when I can find the strength to use it. I’m surprised by how quiet everything is. It’s palpable, the quiet. Like an invisible, amorphous, being it fills rooms, leaks under doorframes, creeps into the unguarded kingdom of my dreams. Slowly, I’m learning to welcome it.
Cautiously, I’m learning to trust it.
Every survivor has a different response to trauma and a different path to recovery.
I am not claiming that we are all the same, that we all have the same story.
I just want to get past that lump in my throat,
and tell you mine
I have a hard time remembering what you did to me. Every time I try to recall you it’s like I’m looking through fogged glass. I just have fragments. I have a sound bite of you screaming at me in the middle of Target, people’s stares piercing me, blinding me, while I sit in the middle of the aisle empty and silent. I have a snapshot of the hole you left in your bedroom wall inches from my skull and the exact shade of red the blood was as it dripped from your knuckles. I have the feeling a pillow pressed against my face, damp from the tears dripping from my eyes, and heaviness of your body pinning me down. It infuriates me that I only have these pieces. I want to paint every time that you made me feel worthless on the sky. I want to yell every word that you used to erase me into a bullhorn. I want to distribute leaflets of every time you coerced me into submission to people on the street.
I want everyone to know what you did.
I want everyone to know who you are.
You broke into my only home. Quietly, at first. Gently. You took what you thought was yours. Armed with justifications like “I love you.” “You’re my world.“ “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” You convinced me, a girl so starved for love, for recognition, that your invasion was allowable, defendable, excusable. Your inability to keep your hands off of me was confirmation of my value; was a demonstration of what I meant to you. I was fourteen, then fifteen, sixteen... You made me believe you’d be counting worms if I left. Seventeen. You wrecked my home. You tore yourself through every drawer, every closet, every forgotten corner searching for everything I was unwilling to give.
I ran. I didn’t care how many worms you counted. I ran as far and as fast as my legs could take me.
I’ve spent years searching for what you took.
Clinging to what was left.
It’s been six years and eight months since I ran out the door
but sometimes
I still look up your address
on the National Sex Offender Registry.
355 miles away will never be far enough.
My mind may have forgotten but my body remembers. If someone asks me to take initiative at a party, to pick the music, or the food, or the next game my heart feels like it’s going to pound itself straight out of my chest and onto the floor. If someone I’ve just met seems a little too keen to get to know me my hands start vibrating like they’re trying to take flight. If someone asks me a question unexpectedly my voice catches in my throat and I’m so preoccupied with how to free it that my answer comes out shallow, half-thought. My mind knows that I have something to offer. My mind is confident in what I have to say.
My mind knows that these people mean me no harm. But my body remembers.
No matter how many times I tell it “We’re safe now. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
My body doesn’t want to forget.
"I’m sorry” spills from my lips without thought. It’s habit to apologize, for my words, for my presence, for my existence. The tracks of “I’m sorry.” cut deep into every road tracing through my mind. But slowly I am learning to overwrite “I’m sorry"s path with “Thank you.” Thank you for your patience. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for drawing attention to my mistakes so that I can try to do better next time. Because I’m not sorry anymore. I’m thankful for every lesson I have been taught, no matter how hard. I’m thankful that I am lucky enough to have this experience of being human.
“Thank you.”
I’m learning to love this skin I’m in again.
To reclaim it as my own