An Uncomfortable Existence: One Woman's Journey Through Childhood Sexual Trauma. (CHAPTER 6)

A few weeks after moving to my new city and new school, I met a boy named Sam. I genuinely liked Sam and Sam liked me. We only casually dated at first and I still slept with other people (I told you I moved FAST), but he was something different to me. This wasn't just about teen hormones or trying to fit in or be liked. This was perhaps my first REAL relationship and we eventually started dating exclusively. I loved him and he loved me. A first. Of course, it still wasn't accepted by most people, certainly not by my parents. At the time, I was deeply drawn to black culture. I loved the music and dressed in a hip-hop style. I had posters of Michael Jordan in my room and loved basketball, Arsenio Hall, and In Living Color (Oh, the 90's!). This isn't a big deal these days, but in the early 90's, as a southern white girl in a conservative & racist family? I might as well have been from Mars. The truth was, I finally felt that I belonged somewhere. My parents, racists that they were, hated this about me. Hate is a strong word, but it's absolutely what they had for my tastes. One day I returned home from school to find that my Jordan posters had been taken down and all my hip-hop & rap cassette tapes removed. Even my MC Hammer pants and shoes were gone. NOOO! My parents were trying to strip all black culture from my life in hopes that I would distance myself from blackness and, therefore, from Sam. Obviously their plan didn't work and, in fact, it probably only sealed my inevitable fate.

In early summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I got pregnant by Sam. We were both 15-years-old. We'd been dating for probably 5 months by this time. We'd sneak to see each other during the day or at night whenever we could. Naturally, I lied to my parents about seeing him. By then, I'd had so much sex with so many guys that pregnancy wasn't a real concern anymore. I became reckless. I hadn't given pregnancy fears a thought until about a month later when I started feeling really sick. By this time, I was visiting my mom for the summer and hadn't seen Sam at all, but something in me knew. What I didn't know was that my mom had been recording all my phone calls. I had confided my pregnancy concerns to a couple of friends over the phone. That's how they found out.

On a Sunday morning before church, after a week of harsh morning sickness, my mother walked up to me and abruptly asked, "Do you want to tell me why you haven't started your period?" Obviously, I was absolutely stunned by her words. And terrified. Then, without a word, she pushed play on a tape recorder I hadn't noticed sitting on the table. There my voice was, talking to my friend about my fears of being pregnant. I couldn't lie my way out of this one. The yelling started. The tears started. I can't remember the details of everything that happened that night, but I do remember crying myself to sleep. The following day, she took me to a doctor to confirm the pregnancy. When the doctor came back in with the positive results, she immediately burst into tears and said, "the father's a [n-word]." I will forever and always believe that his skin color was more of a concern to her than the fact that I was pregnant at 15-years-old. After all, they'd known I'd had been having sex and said nothing. Hell, my mom was a teen mom as was my aunt. It was basically like I was honoring a family tradition! Except, I dared to cross those taboo race lines and they were not going to stand for it. Later that same day, my mom walked into my bedroom, where I'd sequestered myself for the previous 48 hours, to offer up an ultimatum: I could either get an abortion OR she'd pack my bags and drop me off at homeless shelter in Houston and I'd be out of the family forever. Then she walked out. I was weak and so scared. I didn't want to have an abortion, but I also didn't want to lose my family. Shitty as they were, they were the only thing I had. I wish I'd been braver. I wish I'd stood up for myself. But I didn't. Like so many other times, I caved in to what was being done to me.

The following day, my mom told me to call the clinic to schedule the abortion. I immediately burst into tears. I didn't want to. At some point, I remember standing next to the phone on the wall back when that was such a thing. She picked up the receiver and began hitting me over the head with it while yelling at me to call "right now!" whilte also reminding me that I'd be out of the family if I didn't. Through sobs and with fear clogging my throat, I called the number she'd scribbled on a piece of paper. I don't know how many days passed between that call and when the procedure was done, but it was enough time to shed a thousand more tears. I apologized over and over to the fetus inside of me. I think I wrote a letter to it in my journal. I longed to be with Sam and wrote to him as well. I wanted to start a life somewhere new with him, but there was simply no way. I was in a small town, miles and miles away, on my own and being forced to either terminate a pregnancy or face homelessness. And, the reality was, we were 15-year-old kids. There was never going to be a life somewhere new with him. But you can't convince a broken-hearted 15-year-old of truths like that.

The Procedure was done a few days later. Maybe it was a week. The timeline is a little fuzzy after all these years. In any case, I'm not going to go into details about that experience because it was awful. I do remember, once again, though, that my love for people of color was solidified once more. During this whole ordeal, not one person had comforted me. I was going through something huge and traumatic and was completely on my own. The nurse that was with me during the intake process and the procedure showed the only kindness during that entire time period of my young life. I kept crying and telling her that I was scared and that my mom was making me do this. She held my hand, called me baby and sweetie, pushed the hair out of my face gently, and told me it would be okay. It still makes me cry to think about it. More than the fact that I lost that pregnancy, this moment is what makes me tear up. This stranger, a black woman, was the only person in the entire world who showed compassion towards me. She nurtured me when no one else would. To this day, I remember her face.

That afternoon, as I lay on the couch recovering from The Procedure, my stepdad came home from work, looked at me laying there and said, "So, are you de-pregnant now?" and that was the very last time anyone said anything about the pregnancy for years. It became the walled up secret that everyone knew about, but no one spoke about.
Much like the other secrets I'd long kept buried deep within me. Further, the word abortion became taboo. It was never mentioned, not even during those coveted social debates. No one dared utter the word. It became such taboo and such a painful reminder that I would shrink away from the word in absolute contempt. I carried the full weight of all its ugliness for years. Shame, it seems, never left side.

By 15-years-old, I was the psychological archetype of every excepted outcome of child victims of sexual abuse: promiscuity, low self-esteem, loneliness, feelings of worthlessness, poor decision-making, desperate for attention, reckless, etc., but I rarely thought about the molestation. I didn't necessarily forget about it, but it wasn't something I thought about with any sort of regularity. I certainly didn't believe it affected me. I was simply a trashy girl who loved sex apparently. That's the message I was given, anyway. My parents even tried to hospitalize me for sex addiction after the forced abortion. Yes, for real. The only reason I wasn't sent there, apparently, is because their insurance wouldn't cover it.

My family wasn't sure what to do with me after the abortion. My mom and stepdad didn't want me back, obviously, and my dad and stepmom were also struggling because my stepmom couldn't have children and the fact that I'd just had an abortion -even though it was FORCED by my family who was ready to disown me if I didn't- didn't sit well with her. So for the rest of that summer in 1991, I bounced from relative to relative while they figured out who had to deal with me. Eventually, it was decided that I would return to my dad's and start sophomore year as if nothing had happened. By this time, Sam and I had completely lost touched. Almost two months had gone by since the pregnancy was found out. We never had a chance to speak about it or the abortion because I was under strict watch and was rarely left alone. Perhaps, too, part of me didn't even want to talk to him. I was still emotionally reeling from the pain and heartache that my family was desperately trying to hurry up and bury.

It shames me to admit this, but when school started in the fall, I chose to ignore Sam. I couldn't be with him and I knew it. My family would make sure we had no contact. Hell, they'd already threatened to disown me and force me to terminate a pregnancy. I was more scared of them than ever. Emotionally, it was as if I as an orphan. I spent the entire summer completely locked in my own thoughts. I really didn't know how to move forward with all that had happened. Sam only knew I was pregnant because my family had called his and demanded they pay for half of the abortion, but beyond that? Nothing. I suppose I wanted to distance myself from all the pain. Sadly, that included him. He was obviously hurt and turned to bullying me. He'd yell mean things at me in the hallway at school, as would his friends. He'd throw stuff at me. I was heartbroken by everything and couldn't talk about any of it with anyone. No one at my school knew about the pregnancy or the abortion except for my best friend. Unfortunately, she didn't approve of the abortion and eventually quit talking to me.
So I started sophomore year already a social pariah and in absolute emotional disarray.

In a turn of events that no one saw coming, I remained a good student and a great trumpet player. I excelled in band and was quickly moved to the honors band where I met new friends. Nerds! I was still relatively new to the school and because the last part of my freshman year at this new school was spent knee-deep in sneaking around with Sam, none of them really knew me or my history. None of them knew about my small town slutiness or the school suspension. None of them knew I'd dated black guys. None of them knew I'd been pregnant over the summer or that I'd had an abortion. None of them had anything to judge me about. It was very much like having a fresh start. Somehow, without rhyme or reason, these band nerds accepted me. Deep down, that's all I'd ever wanted. They weren't the popular kids or the friends I would have necessarily chosen for myself, but they welcomed me and I absolutely found solace in that. Within a month, I was asked to homecoming by a fellow trumpet-player. The night of homecoming, he would ask me to be his girlfriend. I would say yes and we would continue to date all through high school and into our freshmen year of college.

Less than a year later, it was as if all the awfulness from freshman year no longer existed. To my parents, I had done a 180 thanks to them and the forced abortion. Oh, and they had successfully destabilized my fondness for black culture! /sarcasm #1 I had a steady boyfriend, continued to do well in school, kept company with wholesome nerds (I was one of them now!), and genuinely played the part of a "good & normal white kid". I went to every school dance. Had friends. Had a job. Watched Monty Python. All was hunky-dory! Naturally, my parents knew that my boyfriend and I were having sex, but again, nothing was said. No discussions about safe sex or anything of the sort. Ahhhh, but he was white, so who cares, right?! Right. /sarcasm #2

Sometime before my 17th birthday, memories of the abuse began to resurface. I don't know why. I can't remember now what I was feeling about it or why those memories rose to the surface, but they did. I decided I finally needed to tell someone and, for whatever reason, I decided I would tell my mom. She came to pick me up to take me out for a birthday dinner. God only knows how the conversation came up or how I mustered the courage to finally say something, but I did. Over a Monte Cristo sandwich at Bennigans, I looked at my mother, found the words, and confessed the secret I'd been carrying for more than a decade.

After telling my mom about what had happened when I was 6-years-old, she looked me dead in the eyes and said, "I know." I believe there must have been some small hint of sadness in her voice, finally a moment of compassion from her, but I couldn't focus on that. I couldn't focus on anything other than the fact that I'd heard the words, "I know." Wait. She said she knew. She knows?!!! I...I...my mom knows about this?! This whole time, all my life, my mother had known about the horrible abuse that had shaped my entire life and she did absolutely nothing. In fact, she would actually go on to make my life even worse in so many ways. I remember feeling as if I'd been punched in the gut repeatedly. I couldn't respond to her. Even if I could, what was I going to say? I feared this woman and so, like all the other times in my life that were entangled in absolute emotional fuckery, we changed the conversation and acted as if it never happened. It was her speciality, after all, and I was learning well.
I wish I'd been brave enough right then to stand up to her, but I wasn't. Sadly, it would take a couple more decades for me to find that courage.

I cannot began to articulate to you what it feels like to know that your mother truly doesn't care about you. Oh, sure. She said she loved me. She kept me housed and fed until I was 14-years-old. After I moved in with my dad, she'd call me and I'd visit her on weekends. We feigned some semblance of a close relationship, but in those moments, and in so many more that have since followed, I knew my mother didn't care about me the way a mother should. How could she? She knew her 6-year-old had been violated by a grown man, even knew the man who did it, and said and did nothing. No hugs. No counseling. No acknowledgment. No going after the man who stole my innocence. Certainly she was far too ignorant to realize that my rampant early sex life was a direct result of childhood sexual abuse. Instead of honoring her child and loving her child, she accused me of being a slut and allowed me to suffer alone for a decade. She then allowed me to continue to suffer alone after I thought I was being so brave in telling her. Mere seconds after feeling brave for probably the very first time in my life, it all faded. Only feelings of betrayal and profound sadness remained at the table. I closed up and went back to life as if nothing happened, as I had long been taught to do.

However, that birthday dinner changed how I saw my mother forever. I loved her because she was my mom, but outside of that? I honestly don't think I had a viable emotional connection to her. It was as if whatever small threads of mother/daughter bonds that may have remained were completely severed. Sure, I called her weekly. We talked. We fought. We visited one another. I got married, had kids. Life moved on. But I never felt a maternal connection to her. I wanted to, though. Desperately. Despite all the pain she'd caused me, I still deeply yearned for her love and approval. I wanted her to finally see me for who I was as a woman and mother. But she never could. She continued to treat me as that lying, promiscuous 14-year-old child that she gave away. Therefore, that emotional void could never be filled with anything other than more resentment. She would continue to randomly belittle me and put me down over the course of my life, well into my thirties when my husband finally had enough and stood up to her for me. Our religious, social, and political differences would continue to widen that void until, finally, in early 2017, after decades of silence regarding my abuse and our relationship, it all came to an ugly head. (Thanks, Drumpf.)

After I'd posted a video on Facebook about sexual abuse victims and why they often don't come forward about their abuses, she and I had a private email conversation wherein she blamed me for my sexual assault because I was so sexualized as a child. She accused me of having sex at 9-years-old and went on to write how she didn't understand how or why I could be that way. She ended it by writing how much I had embarrassed her and, yet, she had continued to love me despite all I put her through. After all, she had tried everything in her power to raise me right.

OH. HELL. NO. I took that passive aggressive narcissistic personality bullshit as a child and as a teen and even well into early adulthood. Yes, I had always been too afraid to speak my mind or to stand up to her. But this time? I fought back and it got ugly real damn fast. What I didn't know at the time is that all of this would send me into the worst throes of depression I've ever had in my life. All of the abuses I endured as a child, including by her fists and her words (and so many other things I haven't shared here), would flood back with ravenous hunger. These uncomfortable facts of my life would continue to gnaw at me until I finally allowed myself to sit with them -to sit in the pain and the hurt and the ache and the loss and the betrayal. For the very first time in my life, I knew I had to come to terms with my past. I could no longer ignore it or pretend it hadn't affected me. More than that, I had to allow myself to have feelings about the things that I'd been through. I had never done that before, either. I had always swept my pain under the rug and acted as if none of it affected or bothered me. I never allowed myself to feel sorry for myself or to feel deserving of compassion. I never looked at that wounded little 6-year-old girl inside of me because it was far too painful. She'd try to get my attention every now and again over the years, but I couldn't bear to look at her for long. It hurt too damn much. And now this pain was suffocating me all over again decades later. This time, however, was different.

Instinctively, I seemed to know that in order to pull myself up from this awful cesspool of pain, I had to stand strong. I had to face that little girl. I had to face myself. Most importantly, I had face my mother. I had to strip her of the power she'd held over me all my life. I had to strip myself of the all the ugliness that she and my stepdad had forced me to swallow. There was so much darkness inside of me because of them. My worldview had been muddied for so long and I was exhausted from it. Of course I'd been affected by the abuse and all the pain and my mother. I'd been locked up inside of myself for decades, slowly tearing away at my core because of how I was treated and because of what I was denied.
This time, I knew I had to fight back.

And boy did I.