I mentioned in my first post about cutting off extended family. Well… here’s the heavy stuff. Trigger warning – sexual abuse.
It happened in his apartment. He had Chips Ahoy cookies in a clear glass jar on a tiny kitchen table. Figurines from The Lion King sat quietly on the windowsill.
The air was stale. We slept in his bed. I stared off into space. My eyes locked onto the red light on the fire detector. I stared at it for so long, it started to look like the red dot was moving.
Flash forward to when I was finally old enough to understand what happened. I never told anyone. I didn’t want to. I didn’t think anyone would believe me. But at 30, something shifted. I realized I needed to say it out loud, not for me, but for the safety of others in the family. Never in my life did I expect my family to betray me the way they did, but they did. They refused to hear me. They told me I made it up. They asked, “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” They said, “It was probably someone else. Maybe you’re confusing them.” I wanted to say, “This is why I didn’t say anything. If you don’t believe me now, you would have shattered that 7 year old little girl’s heart back then.” It took me a few years to realize they would never believe me. I stayed connected to them because I loved them. I felt like I had Stockholm syndrome because no matter how much it hurt, I still didn’t want to let them go. I kept holding on, hoping they’d choose me, their first grandchild, their niece, their cousin. But, they didn’t. They chose a fifty-something-year-old predator.
I look at pictures of that 7 year old little girl now and I just want to hug her and let her know that she will be okay. She will grow up to be successful. She will be believed. It’s a hard truth to feel that kind of abandonment, but luckily I had my mom, sister, and husband that never left my side.
Repressed memories exist. We hide things in our mind when we can’t handle the truth at the time. Then, one day when you feel safe, a box inside your mind opens. Whether you want to rip that tape off or not, it’s opening. Memories come flooding back and you realize how much unresolved trauma has impacted you.
I now know why I experienced my first OCD episode at the mere age of 8. Scrupulosity is a form of OCD that involves religious or moral obsessions. Am I going to Hell? Am I a good person? Did I turn volume to the right number or will it make my mom die if I didn’t? I have to turn this as many times as it takes to feel right. It’s exhausting, but I’ve learned to adapt. Some days it’s worse than others, but for the most part, I pray.
I’m sorry this one was a deep one, but I hope it can encourage someone else to heal in their own way. You’re not alone in this, even when it feels like you’re stuck in the deepest, darkest pit. God knows, and I find comfort in Him on my darkest days.
Just Winging It 
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