My Story
By: Richard
"Remembering what happened was the biggest thing...I had to say it to myself first as it had been blacked out for so long. My life, well, I keep wondering why I can't stand the thought of there still being air in my lungs or blood in my veins....
An evening--no, an afternoon it was. The house was more than familiar, although it wasn't mine...nor my family's. It was almost as close, spending more than days there...friends. A part of me is what it was, being the place I would be during the day with my parents hard at work for their family...close friends. I was 6...though I wish I had been a lucky seven.
A person's best friend is who I was. Looking through past books, I find notes..."Always called out for other kids...loves playing with other kids...very little solitary play...always plays with other kids...called out to other kids...."
It was a full house of children that day, there was no question there. Aside from the young, there were two youth, one of age 13 and another of a similar like. Natural those two girls were, no media shaping their bodies. Full of laughs, we were upstairs...a very messy room.
Hiding on the lower bunk of the beds piled that high, I hid among the stuffed animals, not moving a muscle...hearing only my breath. The laughter roared as they burst in the room...I was an easy find despite my bluest of eyes. Capturing me and tickling me, one warded the others off...the old door with it's old lock was closed.
Half kneeling, half sitting on the bed with the animals, something hit me on the inside...wham. The door shut, she turned around...I knew...help. It only took her two steps to reach the lower bunk, where her friend had stayed...with me. Back to the wall, head barely touching the next bunk above me, a wall to my right, a huge dresser to my left...them in front. I didn't know why, but I didn't want to be there, I wanted to go out and play with the others. She came, sat down on my right as two pairs of eyes turned on me from my right and another from my left.
They were smiling, but had the same playful smiles as just moments before. For a child that's luring. "C'mon, take your shoes off, you shouldn't be wearing them in here...take your pants off too." "Yeah, take your shirt off, it's hot in here." Words became actions before they were even spoken...my jaw dropping as my shoes were removed. A hand reached over and gently pushed my chest down...I started screaming on the inside. My pants were removed, not giving me a chance to kick...though I did afterwards. Whatever shirt I had was rolled up and pulled over my head, the soft hand now resting directly against my entire chest. Their hands rubbed all over my legs and arms...ripped apart.
I almost started to cry as I tried to bundle myself up...all too sudden. Pressing against my inner thigh, it was there her hands rested. They just looked at me...my eyes, until they knew I wasn't moving any more. Their look...I wanted to scream, wanted to move, wanted to--I couldn't...just lay there, screaming inside.
I was being drained. My happiness, my person, my emotions...my self worth. For the first time, I began to get scared...scared to the very marrow of who I was...or what was left. Frightened to my marrow, I stood...feeling empty inside and not wanting to lose the last thing, but not knowing what was going to happen.
Their smiles widened with my little pair of briefs still on. They wanted everything a body like mine had...too crushed to cry. I desperately tried to budge, but I couldn't do anything against them. I didn't know what they were really doing, except in a literal sense. It was stimulation, tease...my briefs still on, them smiling. My briefs slowly slid down my legs...I wanted to die, be anywhere but there...screaming so loud inside.
Touch...no, it was all I was to them. Every feeling, felt like a sledge hammer hitting me on the inside...not my guts, but me...hard...planet-crushing hard. The soft hand resting on my chest and heart...connected to everything that was taking my body. They wanted me inside them. It more than kills me knowing that...it rips the tears right out of me, like wrenching all the water out of wet rag.
Tired of trying, they began to hurt me too, squeezing, pincing...just laughing and doing it again, just to see what it was like. Wincing with the occasional, slight pains...eventually I let out a soft moan amidst all the pain I was so desperately trying to hide...they stopped hurting and went back to before. Missing not a spot, smiles and all, soft touches and all, their fill was taken as the shrieks and laughter of the others reached the far side of that door. Laughter filled the room as they tossed my clothes over me, hiding me, and went off to play some more. I couldn't move...just lay there. I was sprawled out, but shaking...not feeling able to bundle back up. That's why I was shaking, I couldn't bundle back up.
Hearing the calls downstairs to leave, I was silent...no words for the rest of the day and night. Shattered, yet silenced, I put my clothes back on fairly slow...it wasn't right, not the feel of them. Walked downstairs, dad picked me up...hugging him closely, though deathly silent. Went home, went to sleep...distress in mine eyes, though I couldn't even cry for some reason.
I knew it was wrong, but I never knew how I managed to do what I did the next day...judgement day. So clear...standing there in the kitchen, by the microwave...talking. The best this lady was, knowing me, knowing them...the best intermediary, even above my parents. Told her, there I said it. "Well, I'm sorry Richard, I can't help you. I can't do anything about something that happened yesterday, today." "Bu-," she turned around and went to check on one of the other children who was now crying. Nothing. Thirteen years later, "Justice is the attempt to serve the fair."
At this point, I would like to write that years passed, but it was barely a few weeks. It was early summer, a nice, warm, sunny day...playing behind the houses under some tall deciduous trees. Shady and nice, I was playing with cars...the other kids in the backdrop. My favorite navy blue with white stripes conductor hat, small shoes that almost all would consider cute, green pants getting dirtier by the minute...just playing.
Approached...by one. Standing there, I looked up and saw her, then smiled and went back to playing with the car that was in my hands, just like had it been anybody. She was blunt, mainly because all else was outside of hearing range. "Hey Richard, um, do you want to show me it?" "Show you what?" I asked, totally innocent...and dumb. "What's between your legs." "My penis?" "Yeah." There was a brief moment of silence.
In that silence, I thought. She was doing it again. I couldn't stop her and nobody else had proven they could, so no choice had I. That's what I had, what she wanted...what I could give...what I had...what I was to her. "If you say yes, we can go over there and you can show me your thing...if you want. Otherwise, you can say no and you can JUST stay here and do nothing." "But, if you say yes, we can go over there and you can show me what you have. So do you want to show me?" I nodded, but still with that playful look I had on my face minutes ago, like everything was normal. I even lifted my hand up to hold hers...she held it and walked me...there.
The backyards of the enclosed condominium were all connected...we went to my neighbor's yard...nobody home I could tell. Part of my own house acted as a wall to their yard...we stood close to it, she made a point for us to be right there. "OK, you can take your pants off now." I don't know why she said that because she did it herself. Lifting my shirt and jacket up to get a better view, she then asked me to hold it up...I took my left arm and I did. I was hugging my chest the whole time.
For the first part she stood tall, looking. She was talking and saying things. My heart sank, I began to disappear. With what she said I knew that's not 'what I was to her'...I knew that's 'what I was'...period. She knelt down...rubbing and feeling and gazing again...though this time there wasn't any pain. It's what I was and that what was being taken from me...what she said made me know it.
Suddenly, something in the air didn't seem right...looking into her eyes. Something was going to change...an action. Salvation...the cavalry. "Hi. What are you kids doing?" my dad shouted from the only window on that side of our house. "Pull up your pants, quick!" she whispered. Done...by the time he finished asking his question. He went back inside, it was over...what was done was done, nothing new could happen. Years passed.
Over a decade passed...aging...but not growing...nothing to grow. Girls passed in the hallways without a "hi" or "hello" said back. Birthday parties where I'd have to force smiles...feeling amazed at how that was exactly how I felt...somewhere. Watching TV and looking to others for the proper displays of emotion...stoic. Years of nothing other than solitary play. Years of silence...years of black spots...even to my very own mind. Years of fear of being trapped...tunnels, rope...years of sub-conscious fear. Years of the following nightmare...
It was damp, fairly lit, dank. A dungeon...my arms and legs chained to the wall my back needed to support itself...my head slung down. I couldn't feel anything, hot or cold...but I could feel things...I knew things. Not doing anything...not being able to do anything. My fear arose...she came down the dungeon hall. Heart beat racing...fear, not being able to do anything. She'd arrive and stand there...look at me...move towards me. Snap...no more chains. I could not let them hold me back...had to at least be able to do something. Fades away. Often...I know it very well.
Years of worthlessness...years of passivity. My bluest of eyes are now hazel. I wasn't worth it...but at least I could do things. I knew I could do awesome in school, be the best dad I cold ever be, be the best husband I could be...I knew it. Worthless, but I could do those things...do that for someone, mean something to someone...hopefully. Years of being taken from, taking in, not giving...not worth it.
Thirteen years passed...being this way. Finally, for the first time since it happened, I decided to talk about it with myself...remove the black spots, the biggest...this. It took everything, anything less seemed to ricochet off of the black...but I forced it. Flashback...momentary...a bat hitting my head. I thought...thought of everything that is now here.
Telling this to someone was hard...the green words appearing on the screen. That person kept saying I was worth it. I wanted to believe that so much, I broke down...I had never wanted to believe that before because that's never what I was. I broke down...but I didn't. I just sat there, reading that person's words, feeling broken down on the inside...knowing how I was feeling on the inside, but just staring plainly at the screen.
The thought of being an equal, allowing me to give instead of being taken from...is that something for me? It's something new if it is.
I can't receive touch any more...it only hurts. Chairs, beds, objects mean nothing, so it feels like I'm touching nothing...emotionally. Human touch...hurts. Hands on ribs, devastating. That alone feels like my ribs have all been broken and my body is caving in under its own weight. The feeling doesn't die down in the least...not until removed, then it all disappears.
To be honest, there were too many times where I'd have rather had nothing down there...times I just wish I could never had been taken from in the first place. Friends with girls, never, however nice I would be with them on a daily basis...just like anybody else. Every time I'd see one, I would only ever think I was a male...something to be used...not worth anything, but that's what I was.
I am worthless...defined as the most important thing for such a social creature having been lost. Worthless because a big part of being human and a person was used...just used...and all the meaning taken with it considering how it was taken.
It is for this reason that I consider rapists who do not kill their victims to be the most immoral/inhumane creatures on the planet. I consider them such because they leave that person/people alive to go through the mental anguish of knowing they are only something to be used and are left with nothing. That is also why I choose to spend a moment to ask all future rapists to at least be partially humane and kill your victim(s)...please."
Remembering all this, bringing it up to the surface, it brought everything back. I wanted to die so much, but I told somebody what happened before I could and now I'm receiving help.
It's long, it's more than hard. I still cry when somebody says that I'm worth it.
I have forgiven my rapists. I always considered myself a victim 'til I finally realized I was a survivor. No matter how impossible it feels tell someone close, someone guaranteed to listen. Just close your eyes, jump, and say it. You don't have to be alone if you don't want to be.
Richard