A SURVIVOR'S PAGE

SURVIVAL

This is the story of a little girl - much like you and I were at
one time. Like most little girls, she was Daddy's girl, but she
was also Grandpa's girl. But Grandpa died when she was three, and
Daddy left when she was five. All she had left was Mom and her
younger brother and sister. Mom was always telling the little girl
never to say no to an adult, no matter what. This would later prove
to be disastrous.

A little over a year after Daddy left, Mom remarried. Then this
little girl's life changed - for the worse. Her new "Daddy" drank
all the time and was mean to the kids. Sometimes it was something
like lining the girl and her brother up against a wall at the top
of a staircase and slapping them both, accusing them of lying to
him. Most of the time, it was just that little girl and him.

The times it was just the two of them, "Daddy" made this little girl
do things to him that she didn't want to do. She was always taught
that she couldn't say no to an adult, so she did them anyways,
thinking she would get in trouble with Mom if she didn't. She had
no idea that what they were doing was wrong, she only knew that she
didn't like it. He was always asking her if she "liked that"and
that he was "doing this because I love you". This taught the girl
that this was the only way to express love. Even now, she has
problems with someone asking her if she likes something in those
exact words. She hated her hands getting slimy, hated the taste of
him, and hated that slimy feeling on her privates. The only reason
that she went along with this was because she thought that Mom
would get mad at her for saying no and "Daddy" was threatening her
if she told anyone.

This went on for somewhere around a year. As it turns out, he was
doing the same thing to her little sister, and that's how Mom found
out about it. To this day, that little girl remembers Mom
confronting her about it and asking if it happened, for how long,
and why she didn't tell. Maybe the mom remembers the answers she
got, but that little girl doesn't. She doesn't even remember what
the threat that was used was, anymore. Mom then proceeded to put
the creep in jail and divorce him. Unlike now, in those days this
problem was lesser known and he was only in jail for a few months.

When the "Daddy" got out of jail, he went to a friend's house, stole
the friend's gun, and went after the Mom for putting him in jail.
All three of the kids were there when the Mom was being held at
gunpoint. When the Mom told the kids to run, they were so scared
that they couldn't even move. That little girl now can't remember
the incident, but is terrified of guns. She didn't know why until
the Mom said something about the incident, many years later.

After this was all over, the little girl tried to talk to the Mom
about what had happened to her. Mom refused to talk about it, so
the little girl wound up bottling it all up inside her. She didn't
know of anyone else she could talk to, either. When the little girl
was eight, the Mom started her seeing a psychiatrist. The little
girl thought it was because she failed math that year, due to the
fact that she had gone to four different schools and changed school
districts for one of them. The other district hadn't been teaching
multiplication yet.

As the little girl grew up, she went through man after man and
counsellor after counsellor. All her life, the Mom was always
telling her that she wasn't pretty enough for this, not smart
enough for that, etc. This caused the girl to believe that she
was basically useless.

At age twenty-three, the girl went through a similar situation
again. She moved in with a man to help him take care of his two
daughters after their mother abandoned them. She had a boyfriend at
this time, and the man knew it. This man used pressure and mental
games to get the girl into his bed. She was for all intents and
purposes abused yet again. He also made her do something that was
against her moral code, but he made her feel like she didn't have
any real choice in doing it. She lost her boyfriend over this
situation, and never forgave the man for what he had done to her.
This was the beginning of a long period of severe mental problems.

Most of her counsellors centered their therapy around what was
happening at that time, instead of what was causing the problems.
The only counsellors that would let her talk about what had
happened at all only wanted repetition of the details, which didn't
help the girl at all. At age seventeen, she had found a group of
people that had the same type of thing happen to them, but that
group focused more on the details of what had happened and didn't
really help her - mostly because most of the details had been
blocked out with a lot of her childhood so she didn't really
remember a lot of it. When she started having mild flashbacks at
seventeen, she talked to her church minister about it. He told her
it was "the devil - cast him out". This caused her to leave the
church.

It was twenty-five years later, after four nervous breakdowns and
three suicide attempts, when she had moved to another town that she
found the kind of help she really needed. She found a group there
that wasn't focused on the details, but was focused on the feelings
that had resulted from what had happened. It was this that they
talked about more than anything. They didn't want to hear the
details unless the person felt they needed to divulge them. It was
this group that turned the girl's life around for the better.

That was five or six years ago, and now the woman is in her late
thirties. She is still around and living the best way she can. To
this day, she can't stand being alone or without a man around. She
has six children, and has been married and divorced three times.
She has found out that she really is pretty to some people, and
smart enough to do things she never dreamed of as a child. She
still has trouble dealing with the deaths of loved ones and with
letting the dead go. Most of the time it takes her years to
actually express her grief. She is very thankful for the help that
she got, and is planning to repay that help by helping others in
the same situation. She is trying to make something of herself now, too.

That little girl hurt still exists, too, inside the woman. There are
times that she comes out in the form of temper tantrums when she
feels like she's being hurt again in any way. The woman has also
learned how to soothe the little girl and how to take care of her.
That little girl will probably be there until the woman dies, but
the woman now knows how to handle the girl.

This is the story of only adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
There are too many of these stories for me to publish. Some of the
sexual abuse stories are from boys, too. The results of this kind
of thing can be catastrophic and ruin entire lives, like this
girl's was. There are a lot more things that happened in this
girl's life than were written in this story. These are things she
still can't talk about for various reasons.

There are many ways that people deal with this or any other kind of
abuse. Each person is different and handles things differently. I
have heard of some girls who turn away from men because of it; some
who develop multiple personalities to hide from what happened; some
who bottle it up inside them until they can't deal with it and
commit suicide over it; and some who just outright won't deal with
it at all. In my opinion, it's the latter ones who actually hurt
themselves more than the rest of them. Those are the ones who need
the most help. I can only hope this story will help them realize
what they're doing and get the help they need.

Disclaimer: This "poem" was written by a personal friend of mine. This
person prefers to remain anonymous. There is no copyright on this poem,
but if you want to use it on your site please link back to mine as the
original "publisher" of this work. Thank you.

HEALING

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