Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: forgiveness, sorry, survivor of childhood sexual abuse, survivor of incest
Always when a survivor begins speaking about her trauma of incest or childhood sexual abuse, someone inevitably brings up the concept of forgiveness as a means towards wholeness. What a bunch of bullshit this crap is. I mean, if survivors feel the need to forgive their abusers, then I am totally on board with it. What I am not on board with is other people saying we need to forgive.
Whenever I hear someone tell me some shit like that, all I hear is “I am uncomfortable with all of this, and if you forgive your perpetrator, then you will be done talking about it and I don’t have to hear it anymore.” They no more have my interests at heart than the perps did.
Just to be clear, I am not at all against forgiveness. For people who need/want to forgive, the act of forgiveness can bring some much needed healing. For people who don’t need/want to forgive, nobody should be pushing them into that shit.
In order for true forgiveness in any situation to even be contemplated though, three things have to happen:
1) The wrongdoer must apologize to the person he has wronged.
2) The wrongdoer must be truly sorry.
3) The wrongdoer must never do it again.
In most cases of childhood sexual abuse, if we were still kids now, they’d still be fucking us now. It’s only because we outgrew our little bodies that we were allowed to be freed from the abuse. So why exactly should we be forgiving people who have not apologized, are not sorry, and would still be raping us if we hadn’t had the fortunate circumstance of growing bigger as a natural result of age.
In those circumstances, I say fuck forgiveness. See how hardened my heart is? That ain’t right. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: baby, child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome, roland summit, self-soothing, survivor of childhood sexual abuse
All the ‘experts’ say that babies need to learn to ’self-soothe’ themselves to sleep. We’ve had sleep problems with my son, and everyone in the world says to let him cry it out, because “eventually he’ll learn”. Yes, it’s true that eventually he will learn that when he cries, mama won’t come running. But let’s break that down a bit. If he was an older child, and he was crying at night because he’s afraid of going to sleep by himself, it wouldn’t be right to leave him alone to figure it out. If he was an adult, and he was crying, shouldn’t we all take notice?
But somehow because he’s a baby (now a toddler), the world feels that I should let him cry. Well, I think that is disgusting. And I cannot help but think of all the nights I cried because I was afraid to go to sleep by myself too.
Yesterday, I read this article by Roland Summit called “The Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome”, and one of the lines in there really struck me. It said something like “Bed covers take on magical properties against intruders”. That is just so fucking true. I have always used my bed covers as though they could protect me from the kind of shit that had happened to me.
I never did learn to self-soothe. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: birthday, survivor of childhood sexual abuse, survivor of incest
I recently celebrated my 36th birthday. Every birthday, I picture the number of years I was alive while being abused (almost 16), and the number of years I have been alive after that (20 years). I have been alive longer than I was alive during the abuse.
I am starting to see silver hairs. It’s absolutely wonderful. Every year that I get farther away from childhood is absolutely wonderful. That feeling is exactly why you shouldn’t fuck kids. Childhood shouldn’t be so painful that you are happy with every year that you get away from it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: babysitter-child sexual abuse, diet, exercise, fat ass, survivor of childhood sexual abuse
It has been established elsewhere in this blog that I have a fat ass. I have determined that I am unsucessful so far at straight dieting, so I have decided that I need to exercise. I talked to the huz about it, and he said “That’s a great idea, we can bring the stationary bike up to the spare room and then you can have that room to exercise in.”
I said “That’s a great idea, but we would need to put a lock on that door first.” The huz asked why. And yet again I am brought face to face with another reason you shouldn’t fuck kids.
I can’t get lost in an activity like exercise without knowing that I am safely locked up in the room in such a way that an intruder would have to work hard to get in. I am positive that this has everything to do with the fact that I was an innocent child who lived in a safe world until that babysitter showed me that people will take every opportunity to hurt me, especially when I am not expecting it. Ever since then, I have always looked over my shoulder, expecting her or someone like her to hurt me in the worst of ways. And so now I need a lock on the fucking door in order to exercise.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blowjob guy, child sexual abuse, hillbilly, incest, therapist
When I was in therapy (at 19 years old, for wanting to kill myself), I told my therapist that I didn’t like it when people made incest jokes. She had no idea what I was talking about. She said “Who makes incest jokes?” I am now realizing that maybe if you are not a child sexual abuse survivor or incest survivor, maybe you wouldn’t be sensitive to this shit the way I am, so maybe she didn’t realize how we as a culture like to downplay and make fun of incest.
When I was dating blowjob guy, he told me a story about how he knew some guy whose daughter was now a teenager and wore bikinis. The guy made some joke to blowjob guy about how he had to control himself around his daughter because he found her attractive. Blowjob guy laughed while he was telling me this. As someone whose father did not ‘control himself’ around me, I didn’t think it was funny.
Last night, the huz and I went to a dinner theater event. We’d been planning it for a few weeks, we never go out and do fun things (because we have a baby), and we were really looking forward to it. The play was about hillbillies (seriously, the title had hillbillies in the name). Within the first few seconds, they started incest jokes about dad having sex with daughters, and all other family members fucking each other too.
We planned a night out, for fun. And here I am, yet again, an incest survivor, supposed to laugh and act like none of this shit is personally hurtful to me. I am unable to find the humor in child sexual abuse and incest. I was pretty pissed that we paid $70 to basically hear jokes made about the most hurtful part of my life. And yet again, a perfectly innocent night out to try and relax and enjoy life becomes a reason you shouldn’t fuck kids.
If a veteran came home from war, and we joked about the fact that he had to kill people or see his friends’ heads blown off, no one would think that is okay. Yet all of us fucked kids are subjected to these disgusting jokes that make light of not only our suffering, but also the events that caused our suffering. It’s not right, and I am ashamed that I gave my money to this dinner theater event.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: babysitter sexual abuse, Open Window, RAINN, survivor of childhood sexual abuse
On the RAINN website, (that’s short for Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), there is a link to this movie “Open Window”. I watched the trailer to the movie, and it was absolutely haunting.
In the movie, there is a husband and wife. The husband opens a window at some point in the movie. At a later point in the movie, the wife is doing something in that room with the open window. Someone comes in through that window and rapes her. Later in the trailer is a scene with her therapist. The therapist asks her something about the rape, and the wife says “Well I left the window open”. I thought that scene pretty much said it all, in terms of the myriad of ways we find to blame ourselves for the disgusting things that people do to us.
Every night, my husband has to check all vulnerable spots in the house. Windows, doors, closets, dark spaces, corners, etc. Locks on doors need to be checked twice, the way the door fits into the door jam needs to be checked several times. I have done this for years, and now that I am married, I am grateful that the huz does some of the checking for me.
I was talking to my husband about this trailer that I watched, and about that scene in particular. I told him that this scene hit upon my exact fear, that if I stop checking for all these ways that intruders could hurt me, then that will be the exact time when an intruder hurts me. I feel like I need to be extra vigilant about checking all the time so that I can stop possible hurts, the kind of hurts I have already suffered as a child.
It’s not my fault that the babysitter found an opportunity to molest us when my mother hired her to care for us while she ran an errand. It’s not that woman’s fault that the window was left open and some degenerate prick chose that opportunity to harm her. Knowing that it’s not my fault and that it’s not her fault does not stop the hypervigilance and the constant fear of the dark. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: atonement, babysitter sexual abuse, Judaism, survivor of child sexual abuse, Yom Kippur
Last night, my mom and I went to Yom Kippur services at our local temple. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement. It is a time when Jews atone for their sins against their fellow humans, and against G-d. For the ones against G-d, we apologize to G-d. For the ones against our fellow humans, we apologize to them.
I spent the entire service crying. I am just so scared all the time, and I need G-d’s help. May G-d forgive me that this is what I prayed for on Yom Kippur. I asked for help for myself, which in my own eyes is a sin. Yom Kippur really isn’t a time to ask for help, it’s more of a time to apologize for all the wrong shit you’ve done to everyone and G-d.
Since I was already apologizing, I took my husband aside and apologized for all the times I have been shitty with him (like critical or short with him, etc.). I apologized to G-d too, for feeling far away from Him lately.
The Rabbi’s sermon was about hatred, and how hatred is a sin. He talked about those idiots in Kansas who hate in G-d’s name, and go around protesting funerals because they think that G-d rightly ‘killed’ those people as punishment for all of America accepting gayness. The Rabbi said that not only do we need to accept the GLBTQ community, the very idea of hatred for hatred’s sake is wrong. (It’s a reform temple.)
I thought about it though. Hatred for hatred’s sake. May G-d forgive me, as I have been feeling some hatred lately. People who fuck kids are #1 on my shit list obviously, and I, like many people, hate them. The thing is, hating them doesn’t help anyone. Hating them doesn’t make any of us any safer, it doesn’t help those who have already been abused, and it doesn’t help those who are currently being abused. Hatred and fear are two sides of the same coin, in my opinion.
I hate that babysitter, as much as I fear her. I feel she did this to me. She is the reason I am so afraid all the time, the reason I can’t go to sleep until my husband has checked every dark place in our room, has assured me that the door to our room is shut tightly and the lock checked, the garage door closed and locked, all the fucking doors closed and locked, etc. She is the reason I embarked on this journey, the reason every family I look at is now circumspect when I see a father figure/daughter figure. I hate her. She did this to me. She broke me. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bomb, butterfly, caterpillar, my name is earl, survivor of child sexual abuse
I was talking to a friend last night, and our discussion wandered over into a discussion about which post of mine so far is my favorite. I told her that my favorite one was the one I wrote after watching a particular episode of My Name is Earl. That particular post – and I just looked it up – it was Reason # 22, so it happened fairly early into my keeping this blog – really hit home for me, because it was such a light bulb moment.
In that particular episode, Earl hurt some guy by hurting his car. By hurting his car, it attracted many other hurts in this guy’s life. Pretty soon, this guy went from being happy to being all fucked up. By the time Earl meets up with him again, this time to right his wrongs, he spends the whole episode thinking the guy is building a bomb. And the way the guy acts, we all think so too. He’s a loner, he lives in a hotel room, and he keeps buying all these weird things that could be used to make a bomb big enough to hurt a lot of people.
By the end of the episode, we find out that the guy is actually building a rocket ship that will take him far away so he doesn’t have to be with people again. This is when Earl realized that by hurting this man like that, he not only closed this man’s eyes to all the good in the world, he also opened this man’s eyes to all the bad in the world. I feel this is an excellent representation of what happened to me – the aftermath of that babysitter betraying all that was good in my world by molesting my brother and I. I was apparently a very happy child until then. And then after that, I was someone who always looked over her shoulder, covered my head with the covers, wore so many blankets in summer, etc. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
I am so afraid these days. It’s hard to leave my house, and I am afraid even in my own home. I told my friend that I feel like I am a caterpillar who is wearing a butterfly mask.
My friend had the loveliest thing to say about it though. She said: Well, for me a butterfly is what it is not because of its face, but its ability to fly. If this mask is what enables you to fly, maybe it’s not that bad to wear it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: child sexual abuse, consensual incest, father-daughter incest, Mackenzie Phillips, the mamas and the papas
I am sure that by now my survivor readers have heard about the Mackenzie Phillips case – her father was a member of the musical group, the Mamas and Papas, and also a shithead disgusting pervert incester.
She calls it “consensual incest”, and in my mind, there is no such thing. Here’s the thing: there is always a power differential between parents and their children, no matter how ‘grown’ the children are. We always revert back to our original roles with our parents. They always have parental power over us. Even if she walked naked to her dad and said “Fuck me now”, (which by the way, she did not), any normal father would have said “Mackenzie, no. I will never have sex with you. I am your father. I will protect you, and I am going to help you find counseling.”
Like many incest survivors, she feels somewhat responsible for this incest that happened to her. (I would call it rape, by the way. But I am using her word, incest.) She is not responsible. What kind of disgusting pervert fucks his own daughter? The kind that would also somehow help her to understand that this was all somehow her own doing, as if he was some sort of innocent bystander in a seduction game. I mean, seriously, come on. They’ve been pulling this sort of shit since Freud. This is how the abusers work – first they call you a liar, and then when they realize no one’s buying that story, they say “She wanted it.” I mean, seriously, how do people keep falling for this shit over and over again.
This perv is dead, and as usual, there is a debate as to whether she is telling the truth, whether she wanted it, etc. People need to think that all rape is violent. I mean, it’s just so stupid. When people fuck kids, it generally doesn’t start out violent. And sometimes it’s never violent. Fathers who fuck their daughters already have all the power, and you see what happens when daughters tell the truth – a whole world is ready to condemn her, ready to call her a liar or a seductress. She herself is the first one calling herself these names. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids. We’re not liars, and we didn’t seduce you. You know what you did, and we know what you did, and soon the whole world will know what you did, just like Mackenzie Phillips.
I stand behind her, and I am proud of her for telling the world. When one of us goes public, we save many.
