Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: foster care, incest, lesbians, survivor of child sexual abuse, The Fosters
Last night I was watching that show “The Fosters” on ABC Family. It’s a really great show about a lesbian couple raising four foster children (most of whom they have adopted), and one bio kid. Anyway, on the show there is this one teenaged child – Callie – and she is a survivor of child sexual abuse from a foster brother in a previous foster home.
In last night’s episode, they showed her trying to navigate a relationship with her boyfriend Wyatt. She and Wyatt decided they wanted to try to have sex but after they got in bed and started kissing, she freaked out, pushed him away and then pretty much ran away. She didn’t want to talk about it or talk to him. Eventually she figured out that she had to talk about her rape history with him, and she dreaded it.
I found myself crying through the entire episode. The freaking out in bed thing was so true to life, as was the dreaded talking about it afterwards. I posted about this several times during my marriage, like when I freaked out before we even got into bed together, , when I described it to my therapist as ‘fucking it up’ for us, and when my voice became that of a little girl’s. Each and every one of these experiences was humiliating and embarrassing.
That’s why you shouldn’t fuck kids. All intimacy becomes a minefield that we have to navigate while injured.
And an innocent act like watching a tv show becomes something entirely different by the end of it. I thought about it this morning, and cried again. This is where I am. This is what it looks like to survive child sexual abuse. These are the parts that no one ever sees. That’s why I keep this blog, logging every detail about the hidden ways surviving has affected me.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fear, incest, moving, safety, survivor of child sexual abuse
My therapist once told my Mom, about me: “The sexual abuse doesn’t define her.”
My therapist has been right about a great many things in my life so far, but she was way off on this one. I think the whole problem with me is that the sexual abuse DOES define me. It’s why I keep a blog detailing the reasons you shouldn’t fuck kids. It has defined every fucking thing about me so far, from my choice of jobs to my choice of husbands to the way I don’t leave the house to every other fucking detail. Right down to the dream I had the other night about being in a room with serial rapists.
It’s almost as if it were wishful thinking. If we say “it doesn’t define her”, maybe it won’t define her. But it did before she said it, and it still does afterwards too.
I think the goal of therapy is to get to the point where it DOESN’T define me. Where I am no longer the victim, but the victor. Where I didn’t merely survive it, but thrived in spite of it.
I would like to get there, but I don’t know how. I am 40 fucking years old, and I need to sleep with the lights on because I am afraid of the dark. Her saying that it doesn’t define me is like me saying I don’t like to curse. It’s nice to hear but in the end it’s complete bullshit.
As my longtime readers know, my husband became a woman and my marriage ended. We still live together. We live like sisters and raise our son. It is safe.
My job is coming to an end, and I have a choice about what kinds of jobs to take next. The safe choice is to stay here and take the job that allows me to stay here. The risky choice is to apply for jobs elsewhere and leave safety.
I wish I had the courage to leave safety, but I don’t. This. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bugs, incest, marital therapy, survivor of sexual abuse, therapist
We’re sitting in our marital therapy session, and I spent the majority of the session crying.  What’s funny is that with my other two therapists, I cried maybe twice in their offices. With this new therapist, this is my 3rd time crying in the six months or so since we’ve been seeing her. This makes me think that perhaps marriage, and the intimacy that is required of good marriage, hits me in a place so deeply that it makes me cry.
Anyway, so we were talking about the ant that fell on my face while I was sleeping. That fucking ant. That motherfucking G-ddammed horrible shithead of an ant that has torn my whole sense of safety in my home to complete and utter shit. That fucking ant.
In therapy, I projected everything at the huz. How I need to leave this marriage because he doesn’t want another baby, and this ant made that clear. How I am tired of fighting with him about it. How he obviously doesn’t care about me.Â
She says “Wait a minute. Last week, you were both taking some great steps, and you felt like you were really moving towards something great together as a couple. Last week, he assured you he does want a baby and that he does care about you. So let’s take a step backwards and discuss how an ant means the dissolution of your whole marriage.”
So we started talking about it. As we were talking about it, I realized that it was ME who was afraid of having a baby, and that fucking ant was the crack in the system that showed it to me. I have been unable to sleep in our bedroom since that ant fell on me. I have been living on edge ever since that ant fell on me, because that ant, as miniscule as it is, is proof that things can and will touch you, by surprise, without your permission. Can you imagine trying to care for a newborn while being afraid of your own bedroom? Me neither, and that realization was fairly upsetting. That fucking ant.
The therapist said “What if the ant falls on you?” I said “Then it will have touched me without my permission.”Â
She said “Okay, and what then?” I said “Well, it can go in my ear.”Â
She said “Okay, and what then?” I said “Well, sometimes bugs get stuck in people’s ears. Then I would have to go to the hospital and get it surgically removed. As a matter of fact, that is a major reason that children in the inner city visit the emergency room.”
She said “Okay, and what then?” Here’s where I started to cry. I said “And then I would have to walk around knowing that there had been an ant in my ear and I had to have it surgically removed, and everyone would act like I was normal, and I would know I wasn’t. I would have been through this horrible thing and I would have to act like nothing happened in my every day life, when really my whole life had been torn apart. And I would be afraid every day after that because I would know for sure that ants fall in your ear.”
She said “Oh sweetie. So you never get to ‘okay’, do you? There’s always something worse down the line, and nothing ever gets to the point of okay.”
I looked at her through tears, and the truth is, ‘okay’ was never even a thought in my mind. She was exactly right.Â
She said “You have lived your whole life trying to navigate down such a narrow path so that danger never comes near you. Really, if you think about it, it’s quite a smart strategy, and it has helped you survive terrible things. But it’s not working for you anymore. That little girl inside you is so afraid and she keeps alerting you to all possible dangers, and the adult you is suffering along with her.”
The truth about that ant is that it proved to me that no matter what steps I take to be safe, I am never 100% completely safe. That ant is the crack in my system, the chink in my armor.  And if an ant can fit through the cracks of my system, who knows what the fuck else can fit through there?  And now I am worried that if something as small as an ant can show me my fragility and my lack of safety, I feel hopeless as to ever feeling safe again. Hopeless. That’s why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
P.S. I made an appointment with a second therapist. I hope she is good.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bullshit, incest, survivor of child sex abuse
 You remember that colleague who argued with me about how some kids get fucked and are okay (when really none of us are okay)? In that same argument, she also said: “It’s been happening all throughout history and it is still accepted in other cultures.”Â
I like to call this line of thinking “the same bullshit that many pedophiles use when they tell themselves it’s okay to fuck kids.”
Whenever I hear people say that it is acceptable to fuck kids in certain cultures, I always think to myself “Yeah, and in those cultures, those kids are victims of rape, same as in our culture.”
Take Ancient Greece, for example. The Ancient Greeks used to fuck little boys, turning history into cycles of pedophiles, and now everyone points to this type of example as ‘proof’ that some cultures think (or used to think) that fucking kids is okay. The thing is, a lot of things used to be okay. Like wife killing. Or a modern day example, smoking. Smoking was thought to be okay too until it was proven that it will kill you.Â
The truth is, none of us were alive during Ancient Greece, so we can’t say definitively what happened there, but shit, I can take an educated guess based on the survivors of today. And my guess is that they got as fucked up from their abuse as we do today.  Do people, like my friend, actually fool themselves into thinking this was not abuse?? That this was somehow the choice that those little boys would have made?  That just because adults said it was good for them, the kids weren’t fucked up from it? Adults groom kids into sex abuse now too, same as they did then.Â
If those Ancient Greek boys had access to computers and blogs, I bet one of them would be writing this as their 181st reason not to fuck kids too, because they too would have had 180 reasons before this one how the sex abuse fucked them up.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: incest, survivor of child sex abuse, trust
Saturday night into Sunday, I dreamed that I was in my home and couldn’t figure out how to get the dogs in or out. I knew I was in danger, but couldn’t figure out how.  A woman appeared with a friendly smile, but something about her made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I immediately didn’t trust her, and tried to hit her with a baseball bat. That’s when her male friend came in and began raping me.
I woke up from this dream, and my husband said “Good Morning! Happy Mother’s Day! How did you sleep?”
This is not my first rape dream, or even my second. Not my tenth, not even my hundredth. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids. We have dreams where we are being violated, because we know what it is to have our body and soul violated. The bad dreams don’t stop just because it is a holiday or a special occasion, or because you have a sweet husband laying beside you.Â
One of the things I struggle with in this blog is whether I should post the same issue twice. For instance, I have posted before about bad dreams and how they plague us survivors. Part of me feels that each reason should be a completely new reason so that no asshole can invalidate what we survivors are going through by saying “No, you really only have 173 reasons not to fuck kids, not 174, because one of them is a double.” The other part of me feels that these reasons aren’t like baseball cards, where a ‘double’ is suddenly invalidated because you happened to have that card already. Each rape dream is a reason you shouldn’t fuck kids, because each one is one I wouldn’t have had if that babysitter hadn’t done this to us first. Each time I have a panic attack when my husband and I are in the middle of kissing is a new reason you shouldn’t fuck kids.
But I will ask you guys – what do you think? Should each reason be a completely new one?
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: fireworks, incest, sparklers, Steven Gold, survivors of child sex abuse
The other night, my husband and I were over at his parents’ house. We all had dinner outside, and then his dad lit some sparklers. The baby absolutely loved them. He was clapping and enjoying and laughing, which of course made all of us clap and laugh and enjoy.
My husband was standing to my left, and my mother-in-law was standing to my right. I looked at my husband and said “I bet this is what it was like for you growing up, huh? Nights like this where the whole family gathered and special things like sparklers.” My husband said “Yeah, they were always doing stuff like this.” As has always been the case whenever I see functional families, I felt that familiar feeling. It’s not jealousy or envy, just a sense of ‘we never had nights like this’.
There’s this author, Steven Gold, and he theorizes that for sexually abused kids, it’s not just the sex abuse that fucks us up. It’s the fact that we come from the types of homes where shit is so dysfunctional that it allows sex abuse to happen (whether it’s incestuous or not). The sex abuse becomes just one of many fucked up things that have happened to us, and we are reacting to a whole life of people betraying us, letting us down, turning their backs on us, letting us get abused. I couldn’t help but think about that when I was standing there with my husband, watching our baby enjoy his first fireworks display. It wasn’t just the sex abuse – our home was rife with strife, and big on dysfunction. But the sex abuse was constant personal betrayal that made me never trust in good things again.
My mother in law looked at me, and maybe she could see my tears in the darkness. Who knows. She has no idea what went on behind the walls of my home. Anyway, she said “Now you have your own family, and you’re going to have all those nice things.” I hadn’t thought about it that way, but it’s such a nice idea, isn’t it? It’s so enticing. I was raised in shit, but I hope my son is not raised in shit. I wish I believed with my whole heart that this is my life now, but I don’t. Always is the ever-present thought that all this can be taken away in a second. This is why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: butterfly, child sexual abuse, incest, marital therapist, marriage counseling, psychiatrist, sex, therapist, zoloft
The other night I woke up at around 4:30AM. I just lay there in the bed wide awake. And it hit me – I hate our fucking therapist. As you readers suspected, she just wasn’t right for me. We went in for our first together session after our “separate sessions“, and she said “How did you feel our single session went?” I said “Uh, this is awkward, but to be honest, I felt like you opened a big can of worms and then left me to deal with the worms by myself. With like a minute left to the session, you were still bringing up new shit about my sex abuse. Then the session ended and I was left with a big pile of shit.” I explained how the dog stuff was upsetting, and how that happened to be one of the few things I had never previously discussed in therapy.
Dear readers, you are going to love her response to this. She said “I think you were upset because I was and still am angry at your mom.”
Isn’t that great? She’s angry at my mom. Well then, why don’t we stop the session so that we can focus on her feelings? The poor thing, having to sit there with her anger at my mother over what my brother, father, and babysitter did to me.
The more I thought about it, and mind you, it took me all this time to figure this out, I got PISSED. Seriously, who the fuck does she think she is? I am not aware that she is allowed to have a feeling about my mother. And if she is, why is she bringing it into our session? Is it meant to spur my anger towards my mother? Maybe she thinks I am protecting my mom? Let’s say that’s the case. Let’s say I am protecting my mom, because who knows, maybe I am. THIS IS MARITAL THERAPY. We aren’t here to talk about my anger with my mom – we’re here to talk about how my protection of my mom might be affecting the fact that my husband and I aren’t fucking. And frankly, I don’t think that’s the reason we aren’t having sex.
Her “anger” was an inappropriate response for a therapist. Readers and blog commenters, you had it right all along. So, I sat the huz down (later in the day when he was awake), and I told him how I felt about the therapist. He said “No problem baby, we’ll find someone else. It’s not going to work if you hate her.” So we fired her.
In the meantime though, I made an appointment with a psychiatrist for myself. I stopped taking the zoloft a few weeks ago. Let’s be honest with ourselves – it wasn’t working for me. I was in a lovely mood all the time, but I was still experiencing anxiety and panic. I think I need more help than a primary care physician can give me, and I think it’s time to see a psychiatrist. Maybe he can find the right drug for me.
I am nervous about going to a male psychiatrist. I don’t generally seek out any males for any of my paid needs. My primary care physician, gyno, urologist, etc – all females. Even my hairdresser is female. Part of this is probably the feminist in me, in that if you can give money to female workers, you should. But the rest of it is about the sex abuse, and this is why you shouldn’t fuck kids. I don’t like being around men, especially in rooms alone with men. And that is generally what happens when you pay them to fix you – it requires time spent alone with them.
I dread the part where I have to tell him my fucking story. How many people do I have to tell what the fuck has happened to me?
It’s almost getting comical, really, all the people that I have hired to fix what has been done to me. It almost reads like a shitty joke: “How many people does it take to fix a Butterfly?”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bulimia, child sex abuse, fat, fat ass, incest, Jewish, losing weight, subconscious, survivor of childhood sexual abuse, weight loss
I suppose I cannot blame my whole fat ass on the sex abuse. I mean, I am Jewish and come from a family of Jews. We Jews are not exactly known for our restraint with the food. Plus, my whole family is a bunch of fat asses too.
BUT. When my brother started molesting me, I did start eating in a conscious effort to change my body. I thought that perhaps if I ate enough and got fat enough, he wouldn’t want me anymore. When my dad started molesting me, I ate for the same reasons. Only his shit made me so sick, I would throw it all up. I couldn’t take it. I would literally have bulimic attacks anytime I thought about it. For years, I binged and threw up on his birthday.
This Monday, I had six weeks of solid dieting under my belt. I hit 10 lbs of weight loss. I got excited. I went shopping for a new shirt. I calculated how long it would take for the next five to come off. I thought about how great I would look. How I would fit into my skinny jeans again. How men would find me attractive. How being thin opens me up to the possibility of rape.
Just so we’re clear – I understand that women (and men) of all shapes and sizes get raped. I get that. In my mind though, if I am thin, it is easier to overtake me, to overpower me. The size of my ass is directly related to my own comfort level, both up and down the scale. It’s not rational, but frankly, fucking kids isn’t rational either.
I told myself that I was getting healthier, not thinner. Rape doesn’t have to happen just because I get thinner. I will never be a child again, and no one can ever do that to me again the way it happened to me those times with my brother, and my father, and that babysitter. I am an adult now. Getting thin is just about getting thin, and that’s that. And then I binged my brains out and threw it all up while crying.
This seems to happen to me every time I hit some sort of milestone on the scale, like 10 lbs or 20 or 25, etc. The whole process of weight loss is just so fucking frightening. As more weight comes off, more of my real body shows. I am so used to being hidden under layers of fat, and as the real me emerges from underneath – well, it’s terrifying, frankly. Last time my real body was shown, a babysitter took interest in it, a brother used it against my will, and a father stared at its growing parts. This is probably why I hide my body in layers of fat, and this is also why you shouldn’t fuck kids.
Reasons You Shouldn't Fuck Kids 