This has been a weird week I have found myself angry and very disturbed. I am sure you have heard about the case of rapist, Brock Turner from Standford.
It has flooded my personal Facebook news feed and everywhere else. I have read several articles, the letters from the rapist father, the survivor, and those two “evil” Swedes as they were called in court.
I watched a video yesterday titled “20 Minutes of Action” and how we can use this tragedy to teach our sons and daughters. I started to shake and cry after watching it because the blogger was right 20 minutes of action changed the victims entire world.
Damage is Done No Matter The Time
I have struggled about whether I even needed to share my story, but the more I read about this story, the comments on posts I feel the need. Maybe I wasn’t found unconscious behind a dumpster, hair full of pine needles, and dirt in my vagina with scrapes on my knees.
I was not an adult, but a mere child when two disgusting human beings took advantage of me and not for only a period of 20 minutes, but over two years.
I was molested several times a week and made to do things a three and four year old little girl shouldn’t have to do. I won’t go into detail as some of what was done is too graphic and horrific to even write down in this post.
BUT when the father of the rapist said it was ONLY 20 MINUTES, he must have never been raped or abused.
I might have only been little, but what was done to me changed the very woman I am today. They took my innocence and created a silent monster inside of me.
I was held back from starting kindergarten because I was so full of rage, I took knives to my sister’s dolls and shredded them at the age of eight, I hated my body, I felt unwanted and unworthy of being loved.
I was hypersexual as a young child and only because I was terrified of getting pregnant did I do everything else, but sex.
It wasn’t until I was 15 and had tried to take my life that I started to realize how what happened to me was still that huge elephant in the room.
I got so bad at 15 even my parents moved our entire family to a new state to give me a fresh start and save me from the destructive path I was on. I had pastoral counseling and life went on.
I started a more “normal” life from graduating with honors from high school, starting college, working and eventually I married my soul mate.
For years I struggled with my sex life in our marriage. Seemly simple things that most other couples would do I could not do them. There was a part of me that felt icky and while I had a desire to love my husband it was this inner turmoil and battle.
When I became a mother for the third time I had a complete break down due to postpartum depression and spent nearly a year and a half in counseling.
I would be given homework from my counselor to journal about and while I initially started counseling for being an overwhelmed mother the sessions took quite a turn.
I realized through counseling how I had this huge FEAR wrapped around my entire being and I was a control freak because of it.
I could not give a simple pleasure to my own husband because of a disgusting human being who made me do the acts with him for over two years.
I created coping mechanism that as a child saved me, but as a grown woman were ruining my life.
So, when I listened to that video on my Facebook feed about how 20 minutes can alter a life – I agreed.
The two plus years I was sexually abused changed so much about how I viewed my own body, how I had sex with my own husband, and how I felt at the core about who I was as a woman.
Certainly, it also affected my mothering.
Thanks to counseling I am much better, but I still have triggers and PTSD. My father recently died and while back at their home in the same town I was abused, I had two anxiety attacks with crying episodes. I saw places where the abuse had happened.
I want people to understand it does not matter if it was 10 minutes or two years when someone takes their liberties with you, without your permission it has lasting effects.
It changes you to your core and leaves you picking up the pieces.
Thankfully I have a husband who was patient with me and when I finally had my break through so did my relationship with my husband and my parenting.
I don’t normally write this openly about my abuse, but I did not want another woman to feel ugly, unworthy, and alone like I did for so many years.
I did not ask for my abusers to do did what they did and I feel we need to break the silence and the culture of rape and molestation.
We need to be able to talk about it without be abused all over again or judge.
If you have suffered I encourage you to find a good goal and homework based counselor because mine not only saved my marriage, but my life.
I am a survivor and proud of who I am and how far I have come.
I promise you I won’t let what those two people did to me have anymore power over my life or how I feel about who I am. <3 Amee
