I wasn’t sure I wanted to post this when I wrote it late Saturday night.  I thought it was just me needing to get some thoughts out through my fingers and it would just sit in my saved drafts for awhile.  But it continued to weigh on me and I felt the need to post it.  Please note there are some things that may be triggering for those dealing with sexaul assault or related attacks.  Please take care of yourself if you do decide to continue. 

When I found out on Friday that Brett Kavanaugh was being pushed through to the Senate despite everything that had been heard the day before, I literally felt nauseous.

So much of this has happened at this point, why is it still making me nauseous?  Why am I so indignantly angry at this one above all of the other cases?

Maybe it’s because this case touches the community I work in, maybe because this is the first time I’ve had to explain to my students why boys from this school aren’t all like him, or why because he’s the way he is, it doesn’t mean that all of their friends from this school are like him.

 

Maybe it’s because I’m so tired of this.  I’m so tired of turning around and hearing about another guy acting like what is between his legs and thinking he’s the king of the universe because of it.

Maybe it’s because I’m one of these survivors and I’m just tired of hearing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I respect and support all of the survivors (female and male) and them coming forward and hopefully getting the relief that they need by putting it out there.  I understand how hard it is to do that.

It’s hard when you admit that something happened to you and people don’t believe you.

It’s even harder to admit that it was one of the people who is supposed to protect you from everything that is the one who actually hurt you, and even harder when the other person who’s supposed to protect you that doesn’t believe you.

When I realized what my father did years later, my mother told me that could have never happened.  He loved me, he would never do that; I was his little girl, he’d never do that.  To this day, she swears it never happened.

What else is a teenager supposed to do when her mother tells her she’s crazy and it’s clearly all in her head?  She buries it because when Mom doesn’t believe her, why would anyone else?

I know how it feels to hold it in, to push people away because of the fear of being hurt again and not trusting anyone for the same reason.  It sucks, it’s suffocating, it’s like a weight being pushed down on you every single day (whether it comes up on a daily basis or not), it feels like there are times when you can’t breathe.

Part of me feels fortunate in the fact that I don’t have to see the person who caused me pain ever again (he passed away in December 2000), but at the same time, I can’t ever know why he did it.  Not that I would likely get a good answer or even any answer, but I still can’t ask the question.

Over the years, I’ve mostly just said that my father hurt me and let most others draw their own conclusions.  Some I mentioned it to vaguely but never went into detail because I didn’t want to.

In my entire life, Devon is actually the only person in the world who knows as much as I do.  It wasn’t one of those, “let’s sit down and have a conversation” moments, but it’s come out over the years of us being together.  Hell, it started coming out before we were even together.

But the best part (if there could actually be one)?  He believes me.

And there was a point somewhat early on that I just broke down and said that our relationship isn’t fair to him.  Because there were still moments; I still had moments, and in those moments he’d get frustrated or get confused because he couldn’t figure out what he did to make me uncomfortable.  And I couldn’t really explain what it was.  I was broken so many years before he came around and it wasn’t fair to him to expect that he fix me.

Obviously, he stuck around.  He knows everything at this point.  And while he doesn’t claim to understand how it happened or why, he believes me and supports me when I need it.  It is also part of his enormous animosity toward my mother.  Devon is a protector by nature and, like I’ve said here before, he’s gotten very emotional about the fact that he feels she didn’t protect me the way she should have when I was too young to protect myself.

It’s part of why I’ve finally started distancing myself from my mother in recent months.  All the wedding drama she was in the middle of was just like the icing on the cake.  I can’t pretend like it’s all fine when it’s not.

Being heard is so important and I know that and I know that’s why so much of this has come out in recent times.  I get that, I understand that.  I think I’m just more sad that this has happened to so many people and that there are so many people living in silence and living in hurt with this sort of thing.

It hurts and it’s hard; anyone who has been through this knows that.  I wish I had an answer to make it all go away, for me and everyone else that is a victim.  I don’t.  I’m right there with everyone else who is just aching for resolution.

If you are one of the people who has survived this, reading this, I’m so sorry this happened to you and I hope you can find a way to heal.  I know I didn’t hurt you, but it’s still something you deserve to hear, even if it’s from someone from another side of a computer screen.

If you are someone looking for resources for yourself or someone else, please contact a local therapist or local authorities.  You can also find resources at https://www.rainn.org/.