The Stairs

TRIGGER WARNING: This post has details of child abuse and marital rape. I have imagery I drew to express what I remember as part of art therapy. Please skip this entry if you feel like this might trigger your as a survivor or it may be too difficult and painful to read as a supporter. Practice good selfcare techniques and be good to yourself. This entry is my personal memories of abuse that comes to me in flashes and beats against my head until I express it or address it in some way through art, writing, or talking about it. The flashes skip around a lot. I remember different things at different times to to my brain saving me from having to know and remember. I spoke about this on twitter about memories coming flooding it. They were more vividthen. This is what I can remember today. This entry is part of me writing my story and processing that trauma. You are under no obligation to read it. Please take care of yourself.

I left this space for you to exit before the words and drawings start.

I remember being at the bottom if the stairs. It’s night and dark. There is some light coming though the window. Maybe it’s the moon or a street light. I can’t move. He is holding me. The abuser. The child molester. He has something in his hand. He’s holding it near my face. It’s a knife. A box cutter. The blade is out. I’m frozen in fear. I can hear my breathing and my heart beating loud in my ears. I feel something burning. Am I burning? Am I being cut? It goes black.

Then he memory jumps to a cigarette close to my face. Close to my right eye. It looks like a huge burning circle. I feel cold with the fear. Then he burns my leg. Something else burns. Between my legs. It hurts really bad. The something. Then I feel something think and wet. It’s my blood. It goes black.

Then-I’m in the tub. There is blood coming from between my legs. I am very small. My legs don’t reach the end of the tub. There seems like a lot of blood. It turns the water pink. I hate this color. I hate pink. I throw away my clothes. They are pink too with my blood watered down where I tried to wash it off. I can’t wash it off. I am never clean enough. I scrub my clothes, my body. Nothing helps. My skin hurts. Black again.

Flashes- I’m under the bed trying to hide. In the closet. I’m down the hall laying on the floor in the dark near my brother’s room. I can’t sleep. I don’t want to wake up being hurt again. I’m in my bed and looking at the way the sheets make little holes and caves that elves or other fairies could live in. Little landscapes I could shrink and hide in.

Flash- I pray. I beg. I ask god to help make it stop while it happening and on other nights that I am scared. No answer. More pain. It just keeps happening. I can’t tell adults because he will hurt my Mom, kill my brothers. He said he would. I am protecting them with my pain and secrets. I give up on praying. No one is coming to help me. There is no escape but the one into my head. I don’t know what age this is. I haven’t prayed since.

Flash forward- I’m married. I am asleep. I am having a nightmare/memory that the abuser from my childhood is raping me. I wake up. My husband is raping me. Same way, same position. Except I’m an adult. I hold still and wait for it to be over. A nightmare turns into a nightmare. It happens multiple times and I freeze because I am so scared he will hurt me more if I move. Who? My husband, the child molester, who is he. Where am I? I can’t escape. The 2 realities are interwoven. It’s the same. They are the same. They blend together. It goes black again.

Flashes to I told him about this. I told him that I didn’t like certain sexual acts. I told him I couldn’t move and I freeze. I told him not to try to do sexual things to me while I am asleep or even tough me at all because I was raped as a child. He pretends to care. He pretends to listen. He cries. He wants ME to console HIM. He is weak and stupid. Another monster. He hurts me many more times.  I tell him to get help or leave. He leaves. Coward. I leave town and move to another state. I get a divorce.

Back to the stairs-My mind ran from the memory and pain of it, flashing forward to avoid the memory. I remember his breath on me, the burning pain of his fingers inside me. Various places, all burning and stinging with pain. He is happy about it, he grins, laughs, mocks my pain and any noise I make. I am now silent, waiting for it to be over. He has a weird look on his face. I am terrified. Frozen. Can’t move. So much pain. There is no thought of running away but cause I’m doing my best to survive each millisecond, each heartbeat. Then it’s over and he dumps me off his lap. He leaves. I am cold. Alone. Abandoned.  I am no longer useful or interesting. No one but me and the darkness. The light continues to stream through the window as I lay on my side and look at the shapes that the light makes on the wall, the floor. I don’t cry. I don’t speak. I just lay there.

Back to the memory of laying in the hallway next to my brother’s door. I feel safer there but I don’t knock or go in. It’s proximity to a safe person that helps. I lay there, awake, and I wait. I wake up later and go to my own bed before anyone gets up.