Finally, my "Eureka!" moment. Getting all the memories to "click", now.
Uncle Clover
triggery talk, here. Proceed with caution. Primarily *b*se, s**ual in
nature. After the spoiler space, I haven't asterisked anything or made
abbreviations or any such thing, just so you know. That said...
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<spoiler space>
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<had enough yet?>
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<monotonous, isn't it?>
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<just about done....>
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<okay, NOW...> :-#
As some of you know, I had been sexually abused as a child. By more
than one source. It was so hard to make sense of some of the memories,
and so I theorized and plodded along as best as I could, trying to
make sense of what little had been clear and fit it in with what
little was well-known to all.
My mother once told me of a time when she was pregnant with me, where
she was alone, and she heard someone enter the basement. It was night,
dad was at work. She heard steps coming up the basement stairs, and
finally watched in terror as the doorknob moved a little. He must have
heard her gasping or something, because he stopped, and eventually
left. I could imagine her terror during those moments, unable to move,
holding her breath, sensing another presence just on the other side of
the closed basement door - a door with no lock, as it was an inside
door and hadn't needed one at that point. She and my father had been
having trouble with his father for years. His father was an
emotionally abusive man who liked to intimidate and make threats - he
yelled up a pretty wicked storm for such a short, little and
insignificant man. He was a hate-filled man, full of bitterness and
malice and an inescapable need to be cruel. She knew it was him.
All these years later, and now I know it, too. He had been known to
molest one of my uncles and to try to molest another one. Dad said he
didn't know if Grandpa ever molested him, though he did remember
waking up to see him hovering over him in the middle of the night.
Jerome is a very small town. You didn't need to lock your doors at
night, you didn't need to be afraid - or so everyone pretended to
believe. No child that I am aware of went unmolested, at least not
anyone I've ever spoken with during which time the subject of
molestation ever came up - anyone who mentioned the subject at all had
a tale to tell. All of my friends were, and I was certainly no
exception. Jerome was just that kind of town.
I had thought that the man who hurt me was my mother's father. I spent
countless nights at their house, keeping my grandmother company while
my pig of a grandfather went out and whored around with his cheap,
trashy women. He was a child molester, too, at least towards his own
daughter. Those nights when he would come home drunk after grandma & I
had already went to bed - I figured it must have been him. It only
made sense, even though it didn't quite "click" entirely. He may well
have done something like that, too, but if he did, I slept through
most if not all of it.
I used to be afraid of Bigfoot and the dark. Our rooms were upstairs.
When I lay there at night, I always saw in my mind a dark and shadowy
figure at the top of the stairs outside my room (there was no door on
the hinges, it was all open). I'd also imagine someone coming out from
under my bed after I'd crawled into it. The one at the top of the
stairs, the neck was concealed when I imagined him - I assumed it was
because he was Bigfoot, and the hair that hung straight down from his
head simply concealed the tapering of his neck. It wasn't hair, it was
a hood.
It was my grandfather, my father's father. He used to creep into my
uncle's room and make him perform oral sex on him. My father
remembered waking up to the sight of him hovering over him in the
dark. My mother remembered him creeping into the house after he
thought she'd gone to bed. And all this time, I never really quite put
it together - he had been creeping into the house all those years,
creeping around in the dark going into little boy's rooms and
molesting them in one form or another. I was just one of many. The
body sensations, I remembered the suffocation, and all those years
when I stressed up and had asthma attacks - it wasn't regular asthma,
it was a body-memory. It was the same feeling, every time I got really
upset about something - suffocation, gasping for air, a crushing
feeling on my chest.
One time at my maternal grandparent's house, I had a dream of someone
laying down on my back as I slept and putting something in me from
behind. I woke up. I always thought that it wasn't just a dream, and
later on in life when I found out what that really felt like, and it
was the same - I figured it was my mother's father, that I had felt it
in my sleep and woke up just after he left. But that time, that
particular night, it was just a dream - a remembering dream. It had
been my father's father, in my own bed, some time before that night
when I actually remembered it.
All the pieces fit. I could make some degree of sense of it before
with the explanations I had come up with, explaining it in the only
way I could think of to make sense of it. I could make sense of it,
but yet - it never "clicked".
Now, it does. Everything clicks. Perfectly. All I have to decide now
is whether or not to tell my parents. Would it do any good? Would they
want to know for sure? Should I just say, "I've remembered it all now,
there is no mystery any more, and I can move on" and leave the rest
unspoken? Maybe that would be enough for them.
One thing I know for certain - my dad said he didn't remember grandpa
doing anything to him, he just remembered waking up to him hovering
over him. He said he didn't know if anything more had ever happened or
not. He may not know, or maybe he does and he just doesn't want to say
it. But I do. I don't even need to think about it. My grandfather
wouldn't have been able to resist doing more than simply "hovering" -
once he got into a boy's room, he was there to do what he was there to
do, and there's no way in Hell he'd hold back, no way in Hell he'd
ever stop. I can't help but to wonder if dad would want to know. He's
almost 70 - does he really need to think about that sort of thing at
this point in his life? For my dad, the important thing is that he
never perpetuated the abuse, himself. I know he didn't, and he knows
he didn't, too. Maybe that's enough for him, maybe he doesn't need to
remember anything else.
It's a horrible thing we do to our children sometimes. Looking back at
my grandfather - both of them, both child molesters - and I understand
how the whole thing transfers. You either go on to repeat the abuse,
or you overcome it. The process whereby we come to repeat it is a
process of taking the anger and the hate that those actions create in
you when you're so young and defenseless, and not being able to
process them, and eventually when you're older, turning those feelings
back out and projecting them again onto the world. The only way to do
that is to make someone else feel it, too. Those are the things he was
feeling when he was doing it to me.
I could hate him for what he'd done, and part of me does. Yet I know
that the only reason those things were in him to begin with - that he
felt those things, that wasn't his fault. I'm not sure I can even
blame him for the fact that he was never strong enough to resist them,
or to ever realize why he should. I forgive him for what he did,
though I think I can only do that because I never turned around and
did it, myself. Had I perpetuated the abuse, I don't think I could
have ever worked up to the point where I could forgive him, because I
wouldn't have been able to forgive myself.
Somehow, I broke the chain. But there are others among his victims who
didn't. I'm sure of it. And I don't know what to do. And I don't know
where it all began - who was the first person in that chain of abuse.
How far back did it go? A few generations? A dozen? Maybe even
hundreds of generations?
I may never know. But I do know that the chain appears to be breaking.
It never seems to be completely broken, but more and more as the world
wakes up to this phenomenon and grows to understand that these things
happen and how they come to be - the more we come to understand, the
more we seem to be naturally equipped to fight these things. I don't
know if I could have broken the chain if I didn't have access to all
the knowledge and the information - and the support - afforded to me
by the modern information age. Every thought, every feeling is
communicated, and shared, and you know right away that there are
thousands, maybe even millions of others just like you who have gone
through the exact same experiences and felt the exact same things -
and that really -does- make a difference. That really does help,
knowing that you're not alone, that you don't have to suffer by
yourself and that sharing the pain doesn't mean having to inflict it
on someone else. The need to share it is excruciating, and I suppose
that may be what drives victims to become new offenders - the
unwavering compulsion to share the pain, to make someone else
understand what it is you felt. Sometimes when you don't know anything
more, the only way the mind can figure out how to make someone else
understand is to inflict the same pain upon them.
Thank God (or whomever) I didn't need to go that route. I don't know
that I would have, but if the world were a much more closed-off place,
if I had been much more isolated, I can't honestly say that I would
have been able to avoid becoming an offender. Honestly, if I didn't
have some sort of outlet like the Internet and Usenet, I truly think
the only other thing I would've known how to do is to offend, myself.
And that's a horrible thing to feel. I don't -know- that it's true,
but I strongly suspect it.
Thankfully, I never will get to know for certain. For this reason and
this reason alone, I encourage anyone and everyone with a story to
tell - to tell it. Don't keep it to yourself. Even if all you have are
a few nameless, faceless strings of text you call "friends" in some
obscure corner of the online world, don't keep it inside. Get it out
of you, get it outside of yourself in a way that doesn't hurt someone
else - before you feel compelled to "make" someone else "understand"
the -hard- way.
Thanks for listening.
http://www.USENETHOST.com 100% Uncensored , 100% Anonymous, 5$/month Only!
astri
and no one ever thought to lock the doors
or, apparently, even to *have* some doors
sigh
:(
they should have locked the doors
> One time at my maternal grandparent's house, I had a dream of someone
> laying down on my back as I slept and putting something in me from
> behind. I woke up. I always thought that it wasn't just a dream, and
> later on in life when I found out what that really felt like, and it
> was the same - I figured it was my mother's father, that I had felt it
> in my sleep and woke up just after he left. But that time, that
> particular night, it was just a dream - a remembering dream. It had
> been my father's father, in my own bed, some time before that night
> when I actually remembered it.
>
> All the pieces fit. I could make some degree of sense of it before
> with the explanations I had come up with, explaining it in the only
> way I could think of to make sense of it. I could make sense of it,
> but yet - it never "clicked".
>
> Now, it does. Everything clicks. Perfectly. All I have to decide now
> is whether or not to tell my parents. Would it do any good? Would they
> want to know for sure? Should I just say, "I've remembered it all now,
> there is no mystery any more, and I can move on" and leave the rest
> unspoken? Maybe that would be enough for them.
do they need to know?
> One thing I know for certain - my dad said he didn't remember grandpa
> doing anything to him, he just remembered waking up to him hovering
> over him. He said he didn't know if anything more had ever happened or
> not. He may not know, or maybe he does and he just doesn't want to say
> it. But I do. I don't even need to think about it. My grandfather
> wouldn't have been able to resist doing more than simply "hovering" -
> once he got into a boy's room, he was there to do what he was there to
> do, and there's no way in Hell he'd hold back, no way in Hell he'd
> ever stop. I can't help but to wonder if dad would want to know. He's
> almost 70 - does he really need to think about that sort of thing at
> this point in his life? For my dad, the important thing is that he
> never perpetuated the abuse, himself. I know he didn't, and he knows
> he didn't, too. Maybe that's enough for him, maybe he doesn't need to
> remember anything else.
maybe not
> It's a horrible thing we do to our children sometimes. Looking back at
> my grandfather - both of them, both child molesters - and I understand
> how the whole thing transfers. You either go on to repeat the abuse,
> or you overcome it. The process whereby we come to repeat it is a
> process of taking the anger and the hate that those actions create in
> you when you're so young and defenseless, and not being able to
> process them, and eventually when you're older, turning those feelings
> back out and projecting them again onto the world. The only way to do
> that is to make someone else feel it, too. Those are the things he was
> feeling when he was doing it to me.
>
> I could hate him for what he'd done, and part of me does. Yet I know
> that the only reason those things were in him to begin with - that he
> felt those things, that wasn't his fault. I'm not sure I can even
> blame him for the fact that he was never strong enough to resist them,
> or to ever realize why he should. I forgive him for what he did,
> though I think I can only do that because I never turned around and
> did it, myself. Had I perpetuated the abuse, I don't think I could
> have ever worked up to the point where I could forgive him, because I
> wouldn't have been able to forgive myself.
don't know that we want to forgive
yw
-- astri
======================
to email send to astri
======================
at volcano dot org
======================
cometz
thank you for sharing all of this. i do believe the click moments are
true moments. it is the time when the certainty ends all the fogginess
and you know.
if you want to let your parents know that you know the reality that
seems fine and understandable. if they want to know more they will
ask. or you can let them know they can ask if they want to know.
beyond that i guess that i would say it is up to them to choose what
they want to know.
i suspect you are right about your father being abused as well. i
think rapists find all opportunity impossible to pass. if he doesn't
remember or doesn't want to talk of it then i guess that needs to be
respected.
all of what you say about the endless circle and the shadows necessary
to continue it are true true. for some reason that is a big issue for
me. i mean beyond the obvious connection.
anyway, thank you for taking the time to write this.
betsy
jill
In article <egtgi51glc79mh15d...@4ax.com>,
Uncle Clover <Uncle...@SpamMeNot.com> wrote:
Very powerful pieces you put together.
I don't know if it is possible to ever know how far back abuse goes. I
can trace it in my family back two generations before me, but before
that... I can't tell. Maybe it didn't go back further than that. Maybe
it started with the great grandfather for some specific reason
individual to him. Or maybe it did go back further for reasons I can't
piece together.
I agree that what is most important is that it not continue! That you
(and I) were able to keep it from happening means that we have some
sort of inherent strength. Whether it is because of external support
(the net), internal power (will power and conviction) or something
else, I don't know.
As for talking to foo. I really don't see the point if it isn't to
protect children in the present. Your father was never a perp and is
old enough now that he might not be able to handle looking back.
If there is some personal reason inside of you that would be helped
by talking to him then you should consider how much of a benefit there
would be vs any damage you might do to him. Or maybe there is some
other way you can help yourself that doesn't involve him directly.
And now that all the pieces clicked into place you can take the next
step in healing and grow even more. I found it liberating when I was
able to do that. To put the past in it's place and move on from there.
Rainbow Colors (Jill)
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The colors blend, the edges soften. Swirling and mixing
we are becoming white light.
ji...@tuells.org
confuzzled
> I'm going to spoiler this whole thing. There is lots and lots of
> triggery talk, here. Proceed with caution. Primarily *b*se, s**ual in
> nature. After the spoiler space, I haven't asterisked anything or made
> abbreviations or any such thing, just so you know. That said...
>
>
moment that will bring you healing