memories that stand out-2

this is me trying to get things out.
this is me trying to tell stories about things that affected me.
everyone that ever experienced any kind of abuse knows all too well that it never really leaves you. ever. that the best thing you can do is accept what happened, understand that it wasn't your fault, understand that it wasn't right, and move on, and do the best you can, and learn to trust people again.

warning: this is one of the darkest memories i have. i have never fully told anyone the entire story. every time i bring it up i get terribly choked up about it. it's really hard for me to talk about because it's one of those things i always wished i could erase. wished it never happened.

here is the thing: looking back on this situation, i see that it was completely preventable. or at least, it would've been had i not been in the state of mind i was.
or if i had made some different choices. alas...i may never completely understand how i initially acted or what transpired or why i never told anyone much about it. i have my theories, which i will discuss here, but i can't know for sure.


july 2006(less than a week after my 17 birthday)-

it was one of those days. i was depressed. well, i was depressed pretty much all the time back then. this was before i was given any official diagnoses, before i really understand much at all about what was happening to me.

afternoon:

i was home alone. i don't remember where everyone else was, just that nobody was there. chances are they had all gone out somewhere and me being so depressed i had opted out of such things. i really don't know. i'm sure, perhaps, that someone else in my family might remember where they were that day.

i holed up in my room. typical for me, really, at that point in time. i was depressed. lonely. disintegrating, as usual, on the inside. wondering what the heck i was going to do. wondering what point there was to living. wondering why i kept feeling the way i did. wondering why it made me act the way i did. just wondering.

i only fell deeper and deeper into that dark hole i was in. deeper and deeper. at some point, the me i know lost control of this body. some other me took over.

i used to get really frustrated about this. i told myself that i wouldn't do certain things, but when things got so bad that i got lost in my feelings, some other me easily took over.

(i have learned a lot about this whole thing in the past year. i have read some books and had discussions with therapists about the things that often occur with DID. my eyes have been opened up a lot and this new knowledge has helped me to understand a lot about myself).

other me took over. and always did the same thing. the next thing i knew, i woke up. in my bed. it was later in the afternoon, and i had bloody toilet paper wrapped around my arm. my first thought is always the same: fuck.

i was always distraught every time i ever woke up to find cuts on my arm yet again. this time, it was pretty bad. my left forearm was cover in small cuts. i was distressed. frustrated. this only made things worse. i was freaking out. panicking.

needed fresh air. walks, bike rides-i knew these things often cleared my mind enough to rationalize and regroup and calm down just enough to manage.

i headed outside and hopped on my bike. it was summer, but i wore my bright orange sweatshirt to hide my wounded arm.

picked one of my usual routes, riding down past where a friend of mine lived, not much more than a mile away. rode on around the neighborhood, then headed back as the sun started to set.

i wasn't too far away from home when i noticed the group of people on the corner. and i recognized one of them.

his name is Kurt Bennett. Most of you will not recognize that name(though you could find him in one of the old yearbooks if you wanted to). he was not in the same class as me. he was younger. he was an idiot. i considered him in general as this stupid, short, puny guy who often made inappropriate remarks and was often just an annoyance. i am not hiding his name because:

he doesn't deserve it
it makes this whole thing more real, actually putting his name there

someone i recognized. someone who, at the time, i really did not hate, though i didn't exactly consider him to be a friend.
still, my theory is, i saw someone familiar and just wanted to connect, speak to somebody. anybody at all. because i was in total distress.

he called out to me.
really, i should have just kept riding. he wasn't worth my time, even if i felt some desperation for human connection to confirm that i was really alive myself, right in that moment.

but i stopped. walked with my bike over to the group of people.
kinda stood there and said a few things.

next thing i know, everyone else is leaving. but Kurt was still standing there. just me and him. i didn't think anything of it though. i was just about to head off myself, but then he made some comment about getting a hug.

(a hug, hey, that sounds nice right now-that's probably what i felt. need for human connection. need to stop hurting, start feeling. something).

and then he wanted to talk. and he was leading me over off a little ways into the one side street, stopping behind the fence on the side of a house. (random fact: a good friend of mine lived on this street, not that it would've made any difference, unless he had randomly appeared and stopped what was going on).

i don't really know how it started. we were standing there. he pulled me in closer. i think i stopped breathing for a moment at that gesture. and then he started touching me. not in a nice way either.

i'm pretty sure at this point i began to shut down. entirely. rather than fighting or saying no, i shut down. froze up. i don't know why. i was afraid, even of some puny idiot that i probably could have easily beaten up if i had thought of it at the time.

but i shut down. and he kept touching. it got worse and worse. that, and he started kissing me. ew. it was awful. like...just ew. it was like some dog just slobbering over my face. ew.

his dirty hands on me. disgusting. right on my skin. up under my shirt. down my shorts. ew.
and then his mouth. on me. i was starting to panic. we were outside. public place. how far would he really try to take this? i had no idea. and i was starting to freak out. did not want this. had to stop it somehow, but i couldn't find my will. couldn't find my voice. not until he started saying he wanted to finger me, and the thought of his dirty, disgusting hands inside of me, well, that sparked some kind of life into me because every time he brought it up i said no. refused. no way in hell was i going to let him go that far.

the sun was setting and it was starting to get dark, and somewhere inside i finally found just enough courage to tell him that i really needed to be going home, that my family expected me back, etc etc i had to leave. i'm pretty sure he got my phone number out of me though, but to my knowledge he never called except maybe one time. i'm not sure.

i did not find enough will to punch him or push him away or anything like that, but i found enough of a voice to tell him i had to leave, to keep him from going even further. i hopped on my bike and rode away, fast as i could towards home, checking often to make sure he wasn't following me.

i made it home, and still nobody else was home. i headed straight into my room, where i lied face down on my bed and cried and tried to process what the fuck had just occurred.

the next thing i can recall is the next day. the next day was the day i broke down and called my mother and told her i needed to go to the hospital. i packed a bag and we she came home and drove me there and finally i got admitted, where is stayed for a couple of weeks.

i think of this occurrence as the even that set me off to the point where i could not face things anymore. i had to do something, and fast. and being in a mental hospital seemed like a good idea. safe place. chance to get away. i needed something. i couldn't keep going on the way i was.

------------------------------

i never really told anyone that this happened. i went to the hospital so soon after it happened that i didn't really get a chance to even try to bring it up beforehand (i was still too shocked to know what to say, to find the words).

being in the hospital, a certain psychiatrist there (whom all the patients hated, basically) talked about molestation and rape as if there is a significant difference in how it affects people, as if being molested really isn't that bad in comparison to being raped. (who the fuck in their right mind speaks to patients in a mental hospital, victims of such things, like that? that and the fact that he just had to point out any possibility of phallic imagery in my art (though obscure and certainly unintended by me, the artist).

yeah.

so you can imagine, being talked to that way, that i only felt more ashamed of what had transpired. i only told one person, who and in general, what had occurred.
i really should've told more people. even if just to talk about it and deal with it the way i should've at the time. but i was ashamed. yes, i really did think i might just get laughed at because of who it was that did it to me. how pathetic was i that i couldn't even stand up to someone like that? even after KM (who i mentioned in a previous post) tried to help me get into the habit of standing up for myself?

i wanted to finally tell this story though. i have always had such a hard time with it. but i needed to account for it. i'm done being ashamed about it. i'm done letting it just sit there inside of me, refusing to admit that it happened and finally try to really get over it. going through the whole story, to the best of my memory, is helpful to understanding and moving on.


now i shall go medicate with sweet music and kind words and beautiful drawings and such.

all my love,
Heather