It took me almost all of my teenage to slay the demons of my childhood. It took me my sanity and my peace of mind. I wouldn't say that I have come out of it completely, but I have managed to stop blaming myself for what happened to me, it was NOT my fault.
What wasn't? I'll tell you-sexual abuse.
Life has a funny way of making you realize things. I was a cool kid-the girl all the others in her batch envied yet loved. In junior school, I was the house captain, had a bunch of loyal best friends, a dozen followers, my grades were perfect, my talents hardly went unnoticed, my teachers loved me and my parents were proud of me.
But things changed one fine day.
For worse but somehow for the better.
I remember that weekend like it was a nightmare fresh from last night. I was lost, vulnerable and ultimately destroyed by him yet I put up a brave face. I didn't let the tears show. I hid them from him. I hid them from the world. I hid them from myself. I didn't even know the gravity of the situation till realization dawned on me while I was watching the Oprah Winfrey show one day, where this girl who was my age, or probably a little older was subjected to nearly the same thing as me. I was numb. The nightmare was really true, I had been raped. Repeatedly. I had been raped repeatedly by the man I loved.
I had nobody to talk to. I had nobody to share the trauma with. My parents are great, but I didn't have the guts to tell them about it. My friends too were too young to understand.
I was lonely as hell.
I cried myself to bed every night. The shame, the horror and the self-loathing took a toll on me one day and I couldn't even cry anymore for my tears had run dry.
I became a cutter.
I started to punish myself for something that wasn't even my fault.
Then the drugs came in-all kinds, juvenile stuff, herbals, chemicals and even pills-anything to keep the pain away, anything to keep me numb.
I was a junky by the time I was 13. I started to alternate between Dr. Jeckyll and Miss Hyde.
A few years later came the promiscuity. I had reached a point where it didn't even matter to me anymore. I had already lost my so called "purity" so how did it even matter?
I dissed the friends who started to figure out that there was something positively wrong with me. I pushed them away and befriended others. Making new friends has never been a problem for me. I started to choose fellow addicts and abusers over seemingly 'normal' kids of my age.
For a whole year or maybe a little more, that was what my routine was like- I'd go to school stoned, stone in school and then come back home and stone some more. My parents had no idea because my grades were still intact. My teachers in senior school were either indifferent towards me or tried to understand why I was so queer and 'different' from the others.
It was during one of those evenings when I had done god knows what with god knows who and then felt the need to get high and subsequently cut myself when my mother decided to come back home early from work. That was the moment when I knew that I had done enough damage to myself and that I needed to rid myself of the facade. I came clean to her. I came clean to the person who had given me life. I thought it was only fair that she knew.
I probably have the most supportive and the most strong willed parents in the world. Though they do not know the exact extent of the trauma, that day they made a decision that has brought me where I am right now. Instead of condemning me, they chose therapy.
But things weren't all joy and sunshine. I didn't hate my therapist that much, but I HATED my shrink. I tried to avoid all the pills that he prescribed to tranquilize me and stop me from using. I even tried to run away from home. My parents were on the verge of checking me into rehab but decided against it, probably because of the social stigma attached.
The initial sessions with my therapist seemed like scenes from a horror movie, but I gradually opened up to her-finally that one person who understood me and wasn't judging me like all others. She helped me. I let her. Things have improved since. I no longer cut myself all the time. I don't blame myself for what happened to me.
But I DON'T regret having done any of the things that I did during those years. They make me who I am today. I am bipolar. I am bisexual. I am the embodiment of all those things that your mother asked you to shut your eyes to. Judge me if you want. It doesn't matter anymore.
So now you're probably wondering why I even wrote this post in the first place, the reason is that juvenile sexual abuse is something that I have had a first hand experience of and I know how badly it can fuck a person up in their later years. If you have been subjected to any form of abuse,then DO NOT BE ASHAMED, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. Speak up against it, feel no fear. I used to think that I was the only one but this organization that I occasionally work with, fights for the cause of victims and helps them come out of the trauma and trust me, you're not alone...we are all there with you, like you...
