Shattered Innocence

Childhood is supposed to be a time of joy, fun, laughter, and innocence. A time when the adults in charge of us seek to provide for us to become grown, healthy, functioning adults, to protect us from the evils of the world, and make sure that we are nourished in all the ways that a child should be. They are supposed to hug us when we are sad or hurt, kiss the boo-boos, mend the ripped jeans, and regale us with bedtime stories and tales of once upon a time. They are supposed to protect us from strangers and those with bad intentions, especially when we are ourselves to young to do so. But, sometime life goes wrong and the grown ups don't follow the rules that they should. Sometimes the innocence of a young child is ripped from them in the worst ways.

It's funny how you don't always remember when a person enters your life, especially at young age and yet, you can remember when that person changed your life forever. I don't remember when my step-father came into my life. I just know I was a toddler, young and full of love for anyone. Typical kid. I had grandparents and great-grandparents who adored me and showered me with all the love they had. I had parents, one of whom loved me as best she knew how, one who loved drugs and drinks, and anything but me. I think I was two when they separated. Not old enough to really remember, or to be insanely affected by the split. Not old enough to care or know what divorce meant. That's when mom brought this new man in. My step-father. That's when she unknowingly changed the course of my life.

Ahhh the step-father, the one who was supposed to protect and love me and raise me up. The one who would step in and be the dad mine wasn't. Ha, isn't it something how we have such grand expectations? What a joke mine turned out to be.

I was four years old. FOUR. That's when my step-father first started to molest me. To groom me to think that it was okay and normal but yet somehow, something to be kept between just us. I was four, what the hell did I know? He made it seem like the most special thing in the world that we shared this secret, that it was something for just the two of us. Isn't that what kids love? He knew that apparently and he used it. Daily.

I remember about the time I was in kindergarten, maybe it was first grade, I don't know, but we moved into an apartment complex. I had a friend who lived a few doors down and man we were so close it was like we were sisters. We would play and just have great times together. She would come over and I remember loving that because it meant two things. One, I got to hang out with my best friend and just be a kid, and two, he wouldn't touch me while she was there. That was all well and good until he brought her into too.

I won't lie, I don't remember him specifically touching her like he did me, and yet I am certain still that he did. I do remember the ways that he would instruct and order us to act out things no child should know or do. He would tell us that we were stars in a private movie, that one day we'd make it big. All the while he'd watch, touch, pleasure himself. I wish had known then that it was wrong. That what he did was evil, evil in the purest form. One of those if I'd known then what I do now things... To this day, I wonder if my friend remembers any of that. I could ask, but honestly, I don't know how to bring it up. I do know that I feel guilty now, looking back. I guess I feel like somehow it was my fault that he molested her too, that I brought her into the hell I lived. Oh, but he made out like it was the greatest thing, a secret that we now got to share with her.

I think sometimes that once you're a victim, you have this stamp on your forehead that tells other predators, so that they can just hop on board and do more damage. My step-father ended up not being the only one who felt I would make a great secret keeper. My uncle on my dads side, he was a notorious drunk. This time I honestly can't say when it started but it was like he knew I'd already been groomed to think this kinda thing was okay and normal. He molested me longer than I care to admit, and to this day I don't think I've ever mentioned it. So, to sum this up, I would go to my grandparents house to escape the abuse, only to end up enduring more there.

The sexual abuse from my step-father lasted until I was in the fourth grade. My mom was pregnant, and I remember one day he told me that he was going to put a baby in my belly just like he had mom. He assured me that it only meant that he loved me and wanted to share something special with me. Of course he reminded me that I couldn't let mommy know because she would be jealous and he wouldn't like that, and neither would I. He would tell me if I ever told that I wouldn't see my grandparents or great-grands again. That was threat enough to keep me silent, and I was young enough that I didn't know better.

When my sister was born, my mom eventually had to go back to work so she hired someone to take care of the baby and me. It was my aunts sister. My mother's brother's sister in law. I didn't understand why the abuse stopped those days, or why I, a fourth grader who was a child myself, had to watch the baby when I got home from school. Wasn't that what this lady was here for? It wasn't long before it made sense. The step-father ran off with the babysitter. Classic, huh? I remember thinking that at least my little sister wouldn't have to endure what I did from him.

How amazing it would have been that it could have stopped with him. My uncle however still molested me almost daily. I couldn't say anything. What would I say? I had been taught since I was a toddler that this was okay, it was normal. I didn't realize that the very people who I trusted to raise me and teach me how to be treated had taught me all wrong.

Sexual abuse is enough for anyone to have to live with, but man I must've been special, cause I got some of the physical abuse too. See, my dad, the drug addicted alcoholic who was never in my life? He like to come around and beat on me now and then. Always when my grandfather wasn't around. He knew better to lay a finger on me in my grandpas presence. I can't tell you how many times I'd be left with bruises or scrapes and pains from my dad. This abuse lasted long after the sexual abuse stopped.I remember at 18 he beat me with a stick, picking me up by my hair and throwing me to the ground, hitting me over and over. Why? I had the nerve to wear shorts in August in Georgia. Ever been to Georgia in August? IT'S HOT!

That beating happened right in front of my grandmother, at least until he drug me out of her room by my hair, down the hallway, so that he could proceed to choke me, leaving hand prints around my throat as evidence for the cops. When they came, my grandmother told them she didn't see or hear anything. She did this every time. To this day I don't understand how she told me she loved me in one breath and lied to protect the man who I was afraid would kill me one day. I guess since I'm typing this we know how it went.

At 14 I had my first serious boyfriend. We lasted two years. He was the only person who I ever told about my step-father. He held that secret until we split. At some point he told my mom. She confronted me and asked if it was true and I guess I somehow said it was. Then the family knew and it was a whole uproar. Mom took me to a counselor one day about it. I remember it was raining buckets. The office was in an old brown two story space and this doctor was on the second floor that you had to take stairs up to. Mom sat in the car while I went in. It was a male counselor. Why didn't they think back then that a male wasn't the best idea when the issue all started with a male?

I remember sitting there in that damned chair an this guy looking at me, almost like he had no desire to be there, like he already hated me. Then he spoke. He opened his mouth and said to me, no lie, he said to me, "What do you think you did to cause this to happen to you?" Was he serious? I think that day I stopped. I stopped thinking that it wasn't my fault, that I had no one to turn to and trust, and I stopped existing.

They say that when you experience enough trauma, you mentally shut down and while you still grow and learn and such, mentally you become stuck where you last were happy. I believe that to be absolutely true. It's also said that victims of abuse often develop PTSD and I think that might be true too. I feel like it would explain a lot. My step-father and uncle, they never got punished for their abuse. No one ever thought to find my step-father and press charges. Why, I have no idea. My uncle eventually died, so drunk that he fell on the steps of the porch, broke a rib which pierced a lung and over four days he pretty much suffocated.

I don't know why I chose to tell this story now, what I thought it would achieve or accomplish. I just felt that it needed to be let out. If it helps anyone feel that they aren't alone, that they have someone to listen, believe, and talk to then it did something good.