Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business trip, cutting, incest survivors group, panic disorder, survivor of child sexual abuse
You remember that friend I talked about in Reason #152, the one who used to cut herself? The same friend who doesn’t like to go to certain buildings alone. This last weekend, we had to go to a work conference together. We stayed in the same hotel room. We’re not very close, but we get along.
The reasons she cut herself were similar to my reasons. In her case, she was raped by her then-boyfriend (when she was 15). In my case, three people used my body for their own sexual pleasure and power, during my childhood.
Anyway, so we were at the hotel this weekend. Knowing that she has a history of trauma, I wondered if she was all fucked up the way I am fucked up. No one would really know just how fucked up I am if they don’t know me. I mean, since I succeed at work, people think I am okay everywhere else too. They are wrong, of course.
The hotel room that we stayed in had two big beds. When it was time for us to go to sleep, we turned out most of the lights. She said she liked a little bit of light. I appreciated that, obviously, and I took it as a hint that maybe her trauma affected her too. (I thought maybe she is afraid of the dark too.) It looked like she fell asleep fairly quickly, but I couldn’t. I started panicking at the thought that there might be an intruder in our hotel room with us, hiding behind the curtains. I couldn’t summon the courage to get up and look, but I also couldn’t get past my fear that he was there. I laid there huddled under the covers, shaking, for about a half hour. Finally, I used some positive self-talk to get myself through it. I assured myself that there was no way anyone could have gotten into my room, and I also assured myself that I had been right near that window when I adjusted the curtains. The self-talk seemed to work, and I finally fell asleep.
The next morning I told her that I had trouble falling asleep because I was afraid there was a man behind the curtains. I figured if I divulged a secret fear of mine, then she would admit that she had panic as well. But no, nothing. She remarked how weird that was, and didn’t say anything after that. It was quite the “Don’t Share Your Pain With Fools” moment. Then later on though, she said she couldn’t sleep either and had to put in headphones with rock music just to fall asleep.
This whole weekend was so difficult for me. She and I used to be fat together, but she is now thin. She is not only thin, she runs outside alone, and has been doing that for a while now. It was like this whole weekend highlighted my fatness and her thinness. I spent the whole weekend comparing myself to her, and it was such a stupid thing to do. No one is ever going to win that type of competition. But I didn’t realize I was doing it until after the weekend was over.
I just don’t understand. How is it that she can survive rape and now she goes running. Alone. And yet I survived child sexual abuse and can’t step foot outside my house alone without it being a big major decision that scares the shit out of me.
When I used to be in an incest survivors’ group, the group facilitators told us we shouldn’t compare abuses. They said that everyone’s pain is painful, and comparing is stupid. They were right, of course, but I still find myself comparing. I think what we were trying to do in the incest group, and what I was trying to do this weekend with my friend, was figure out a way that we are not as alone as we feel. Surviving incest is lonely. It feels like I am the only one in the world who experienced it, and the only one who is so fucked up from it. And I think the instinct to compare is actually the instinct to see if other people share the commonality of traumatic experience.
Panicking about an imaginary man in my hotel room during a business trip. That’s why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business trip, panic disorder, survivor of child sexual abuse
Last week, I had the most ‘Reasons You Shouldn’t Fuck Kids’ moment ever, seriously. The huz was away on a business trip, but my mom was staying with me so that I didn’t have to be alone. Mom got sick with some sort of tummy bug though, and one of the effects of the bug was that she had terribly smelly gas.
I was totally freaked out trying to sleep in bed by myself, even with the lights on, and my big dog next to me. Here’s the RYSFK moment. I had to decide if I should stay in the room by myself and just be panicked and have panicked sleep, or sleep in my mom’s room with her smelly gas. The patheticness of the situation was not lost on me, and I almost laughed as I thought about the absurdity of the whole situation.
Seriously, this is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bulimia, business trip, mom, panic disorder, survivor of child sexual abuse
In the not too distant future, the huz has to go on another business trip, so my mom will be staying with me when he goes away. I am really really grateful that mom is coming to stay with me, since I am a complete panicked mess when alone at night. This will be the first time Mom and I have seen each other since our together session.
My husband always tells me stories of how the other guys at work have these wives who are thrilled when they go on business trips. I always tell him “Yeah. You didn’t marry that kind of wife. You married the kind that got fucked as a child, and now can’t stay by myself because I am all fucked up.”
Even though mom will be staying with me, I am stressed. I am afraid. And I am beating myself up for being afraid, even though the therapist told me not to. This whole thing is so embarrassing, and even though Mom now knows some of the extent of it, I am always embarrassed when there are witnesses to my life of protracted panic. Still though I would rather swallow my pride and have mom witness it than sit here alone and frightened for an extended period of time.
I had a bulimic episode last night, first time in a while. I am sure it was stress related. The force of it broke some blood vessels over my eye. When I came to bed, the huz said “What happened to your eye!?!” I looked at the floor and said “I threw up so hard it broke some blood vessels over my eye.” I looked at him. He looked so scared about this news though. I said “It’s okay, it’s happened before.” But I couldn’t quite look him in the eye, because I was so embarrassed. He put his arms around me, and hugged me for a long time.Â
All of us fucked kids have some sort of coping mechanism for surviving abuse. Mine happen to be panic and bulimia (and a whole host of other things, 224 other things so far, since this post is #225). The truth is that there is no way a child can survive things that are antithetical to human survival – like abuse – without developing ways to live. These are my ways. This is how I am surviving child sexual abuse. That’s why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business trip, child sexual abuse, panic, skype, tired
My mom lives in another state. Tonight we were skyping (talking to each other while also seeing each other on the video screen – it’s a wonderful free service that lets you see the person you’re talking to), and she said “You look tired sweetie”.
I am tired. I am still getting over the fact that I was traumatized last week by my husband leaving on a business trip. This happens every time he goes away. We go through a period afterwards of what I call “residual effects”. For some reason, this time was harder than some of the other times that he went away. I sure was grateful that I had my sister-in-law here though.
When my husband and I were dating, I told him that I don’t think I am the kind of person who can ever live alone. Or really, who should ever live alone. It was embarrassing, this admission on my part. He knew my past by then, so he said he understood.
My mom understands too. When she said I look tired and I told her I am still not quite over my husband’s business trip, she said “I understand.”
And I guess I understand too. Understanding doesn’t make it less embarrassing to be a grown woman who is so afraid of the dark and of being alone that I am traumatized by a business trip. I mean, come on, that’s fucked up. That is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
What happened to me when I was a child was not my fault. But now I am an adult who is afraid like a child. It’s pathetic and embarrassing. I am grateful that mom understands, that my husband understands, and that I understand. Great, we all understand. That’s great. But I still look tired, you know?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business trip, child sexual abuse, panic, pee, peepee, terror
Last night, I woke up from a nightmare (about me being alone in the house; a residual, I am sure, of the huz having left and come back from his business trip). It was 2:30AM, and as always when I wake from sleeping, I had to pee. This happens to everyone, so this would not be one of the reasons you shouldn’t fuck kids. What comes next is.
I stumble in the middle of the night to the bathroom, and sit down and start to pee. I hear the cat downstairs running. I think to myself “Oh my G-d. She is running from someone. Someone is in my home.”
“Hurry, pee. Please hurry.” I am begging myself to hurry now so that I can run back into the safety of my bedroom where my husband and baby are sleeping. However, as is usually the case when I am nervous, I can’t fucking pee. So I am sitting there terrorized by my thoughts, feeling like I have to pee, and not being able to pee. The panic gets worse, as I indulge in these scary thoughts for some time more. Finally, finally I am done peeing, and I run back into my bedroom, lock the door behind me (and hope the noise didn’t wake the baby), and just stand there for a minute contemplating what just happened.
Terror while peeing in the middle of the night. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business trip, child sexual abuse, fear of the dark, fear of the night, hypervigilance, panic, war
My husband is home from his business trip. Thankfully, it was the easiest possible of hard time that I had to do, with the circumstances I was in. My sister-in-law agreed to stay overnights, and I paid someone to stay with me babysit my son for some of the other time.
I cried every day, especially in the mornings. I thought to myself on one such morning how being a parent means waiting till you are in the car alone to cry so that your kid doesn’t see that mommy isn’t okay.
Tonight, my husband and I were talking about the fact that we were both coming down off of a stressful week. I said “I really can’t even compare my stress level today to what it was every day previous. I mean, it would be like comparing how I would be in a war to how I would be well – now.”
This week was not nearly as bad as it could have been. I could have had the worst – being alone over night. For me, that is the worst. I didn’t have that. Yet I was still constantly hypervigilant each second. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t breathe easy. Every moment I was “on”. And now even though I am no longer in that situation, I am still fucked up and having a hard time coming down. Gee, what situation does that sound like? To me, it sounds just like the situation of being sexually used when I was a child and now I am an adult, and yet I am still fucked up. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids. It’s like a war, and even when the war is over, we’re never right again.
I have to say though, through all of this, I really feel like G-d provided for me here. I try not to get too spiritual in this blog, although sometimes I can’t help it, but honestly – I begged G-d to let me do easy time instead of hard time. I feel like G-d said yes this time. I am grateful. It was a war, but I lived through it and I came through it only partially scathed this time, unlike the original war that was going on when I was surviving the child sexual abuse and I came out totally fucked up.
Everything comes back to that for me. It’s like I can’t say that it’s okay for me to have come out okay this time, because I know I didn’t come out okay the first time, and I am terrified that there will be another time when I also won’t come out okay, when I also will be powerless to idiots who say it’s okay to fuck kids. I pray this never happens again. Not to me, not to you, and not to any other children anymore. Please G-d, no more.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business trip, child sexual abuse, Dancing with the Stars, fuck, phobias, tv
Sometimes I think this blog more closely resembles my tv watching habits, rather than a litany of reasons that my life has been fucked up by my history of child sexual abuse. Stay with me anyway on this one, I’ll show you where I’m going.
So, I was watching Dancing with the Stars the other day. Do any of you watch that show too? The huz won’t watch that one with me, although he loves many other reality shows like American Idol and Survivor.
Anyway, I was watching the show, and one of the male “stars” had a difficult time performing a dance move because it involved him almost falling on his head. He had a serious phobia of falling on his head because one time when he was playing basketball, he fell on his head and this experience scared the shit out of him. His partner finally had to change the dance routine because he was so afraid of this particular move. When the host of the show needled him about it, he said “What is wrong with being afraid of falling on your head?”
I thought about his reaction to the host’s jokes. He didn’t feel like he had to defend his fear. No, instead he pretty much attacked the host for being stupid about not being afraid of falling on his head.
I wish all of us trauma survivors acted this way when we felt embarassed about the shit that we do as a result of surviving our abuse. I mean, like how this whole week I have been embarrassed about being afraid to be alone while the huz goes on a business trip. When I was a child, people did things to my body. Against my will, if I was allowed to have a will, which for the most part I wasn’t. But instead of owning my fear and being like that Dancing with the Stars guy and saying “What exactly is wrong with being afraid of being in the same situation I was in with three different people when I was a child and they were abusing me?”, I said “This whole thing is humiliating. My reaction to this situation is humiliating.”
The difference is that everyone understands when he says he was playing basketball and he fell on his head and now he is afraid of falling on his head. If I said “A babysitter fucked my brother and I, and then my brother molested me, and then my father molested me, and now I am afraid to be alone”, everyone would stare at me the same way they do when I say the word “fuck” in mixed company.
Of course, I wouldn’t be afraid to be alone in the first place and subsequently humiliated by my fear of being alone had these people in my life not molested me, and this is why you shouldn’t fuck kids. I shouldn’t need some Dancing with the Stars guy to inadvertantly validate my fears and phobias. I shouldn’t have these fears and phobias in the first place. I should just be able to watch a nice show with some beautiful dancing in it, and think that’s all there is to know while watching tv.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: business trip, child sex abuse, hating myself, husband, panic disorder, sex
As you know, the huz and I don’t fuck each other, and haven’t now for about two and a half years. We stopped seeing that marital counselor, and surprise surprise, we still aren’t fucking each other.
One of the things I generally complain about to the huz about is the fact that when we go to bed, he immediately falls asleep, whereas I think a few minutes of pillow talk and then sleep might be quite the asset to our marriage. I have also commented to him on the fact that he could at least make the move to kiss or hug me when we are in bed. I feel like I am always the one doing this to him, and it would be nice to feel wanted (in a safe and good way with my husband).
I have been panicked for days now about the huz’s upcoming business trip, and while I didn’t spend last night crying, I did keep going over and over and over again in my head the scary things that could happen while he is away. When we got in bed, my sweet husband reached out to me and tried to pull me closer. I am all caught up in being panicked about his business trip though, and plus I am irrationally angry at him for leaving.
So he reaches for me, and I said “Look, why don’t we skip the whole part tonight where you pretend you’re into me, and let’s just go to sleep.” Startled, he said “I’m not pretending, baby. I am into you.”
I thought about what my husband said. I guess the truth is, with this latest round of humiliation where I am scared to be alone, in a constant state of panic and tears, and then humiliated further by everyone saying no to staying with me –well, I am just not that into myself now. I hate this part of me that is so afraid of everything. I am pretty sure that were it not for the fact that three different people broke my trust in humanity by molesting me when I was a child, I would not have spent the rest of my life afraid of what the rest of humanity has planned for me too. Now that I am talking to other survivors on a regular basis through this blog, I know I am not alone in this either. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Reasons You Shouldn't Fuck Kids 