Experiencing rape and the trama left behind...Then on to recovery.

Part One ~ The Beginning

     When I was 12 years old I was attending a very small private school in Germany. One day in February I was up grading one of my papers and passed out. I woke on the couch in the principals (who is the preachers wife also) office.  I had a few techers (who were members of our church also) standing around me. They wore concerned frowns on their faces and I starting crying.
     Mrs. Graham, the Principal, asked me what was going on with me. I was exhausted and tired of the burden that I had been carrying for over a year. I came clean with her, slowly, painfully, I told her that my stepfather had been sneaking into my bedroom for over a year and touching me and doing things to me that he shouldn't be doing.
     As I went into detail of the horrific acts he was defiling me with they all started crying and were beyond shocked. One of the teachers was also my best friends mother. She offered to take me home because Mrs. Graham had insisted that I report this to my mutter. I was scared out of my mind.
     The whole way down the autoban I cried and fretted. I had never wanted to tell her. It was embarrassing and terrible and he was her husband and she loved him.
     Once inside the house I broke down. Mrs. Hefner had to help me to the sofa. My mutter was anxiously asking about me. When she sat beside me on the sofa, I blurted it all out. Well, actually, I told her only part of it. I couldn't bare to tell her all. I told her that he had been sneaking in my bedroom and touching me on my breast.
     She started crying and looked at me like I was the devil or something. Then she questioned me, believing it a lie. I swore to it and still she couldn't or wouldn't believe. In the end she believed.
     When he came home that evening she questioned him and ofcourse he denied all. I was furious and cried out at him. After a long ordeal he finally admitted to it and begged my mutters forgiveness. My sister was crying and upset. Telling me that I was ruining our family and why was I lying on her daddy ( who was her stepfather also, but she was 5 yrs younger than me and been with him since she was 2).
     My mutter left it up to me. We stayed with him or she left him. Everyone was crying and devastated. I felt trapped and like I was the bad one there. As a 12 yr old in despair I made the only choice I could. We stayed.
     Nothing was the same for me afterwards. I was depressed and afraid all the time. I felt utterly alone. This was the first time that suicide entered my head.

     When I was 14 he started being sneaky again. I was a mess, I had been sick 3 days out of 5 every week the year before and barely passed the 7th grade. In all rights I shouldn't have been passed. I was in and out of the hospital. Until the doctors finally came to the conclusion that it was stress.
     So when I started noticing him standing outside my bedroom window at night I knew that I was finished there. I had to leave. He would go into my bedroom and mess with the blinds, I guess so that he could see in from outside.
     I left home after the next blow up. I was utterly alone. Sad, exhausted emotionaly. I had no idea what was to happen to me.

 

Part Two~ Rebellion

     I had no self-esteem. I didn't believe in myself for nothing. I was worthless, obviously...my own mutter didn't love me enough to put me before a man. After I turned 15 and was reunited with my mutter, for a while anyways. I told her the rest of what he'd done. SO the whole truth was out and she still stayed with him.
     I started drinking, and going out with older friends. Smoking, smoking pot. Dating guys who were 18, rockers, partiers. I didn't care about anything.
     Then one night at a party I met this guy that turned my world rightside out and made my heart stop. He was 18 and I had been 15 for 2 1/2 months. I won't go into this story because it is what my book is about. It will be available for purchase soon. What I can say is that I finally had a little reason to live. I still acted out, but couldn't seem to help it.
     I drank more, started doing shrooms, acid and gummed coke a little, but nothing like the other drugs. I had quit school, on probation for a B and E and Criminal damage to property and a few others. At this time I was also raped by 3 guy friends at once. It was very tramatic and was one more damaging event on my soul. I had sliced my wrist several times, I have many scars. I had overdosed, drank myself almost into a coma, had car wrecks, motorcycle wrecks. I had been taken into a chapter of the Hells Angels. Taken, means exactly that too. Claimed is another word for it. The leader, Shane, who is dead now, decided he liked me and that was that. Until I convinced him that I needed to be with my love, Jamie. The guy from above, in my book. A big story there! I got my tattoos done by them too.
     Later, I started going clubing and I was in a constant high. I didn't come out of all that until I found  out that I was pregnant at 19 and put myself in a christian home called Teen Challenge. Savannah was my angel baby. She saved my life.

 NOTE: There are way to many details in my rebellion to go through in this short article. Everything is in my book. The pain and rebellion is great and explosive and explained completely.

Part Three~Recovery

     Recovery is a constant. Sometimes I feel like I haven't gotten any better, then other times I don't even remember it.
Between the molesting and the rape and other severely tramatic events not to be discussed in this, itis amazing that I breathe.
     I was in counceling for 7 years and I think that between that and the anti-depressants it helped. I don't think about it all the time, but I know that it is still there. Everytime I have to stand up in front of someone I feel it. Be in public. I know this is due to my extremely low self-esteem. There are some things that are hard to do.  I can easily be a hermit. I am quiet, but don't piss me off because I am dangerous then. My anger boils up and over and it's not just an Irish and German temper coming out, it is rage. Amazingly I have done really well raising my children. I have much more self control and patience than I ever thought I could. Ofcourse, some abused become abusers and others go the opposite direction completely. That would be me, thank God! A great testament to my recovery, I think. I am in a constant struggle with the rage, the deep all consuming despair that can take hold of me but I have some sense of control over it.
     The recovery process is hard and long. But I find that I can't stop trying.  I talk to other women and girls in groups. I try to help out as much as I can. To me that is as much a part of healing as anything. Everyday is just like AA says. One day at a time.
  
      Finding ones innocence again is impossible, I know. But when it has been ripped away from you and you feel lost and scared, those feelings stay with you forever. No matter how much one recovers, the innocence is still gone, never felt. A mystery. Something that every child needs to have had. To be without it, not know it, is a greater loss than anything else imaginable. So to strive to reach it is sometimes what we victims do.  When we find that we can't obtain it, it can be a blow.
    So no matter how we take one day at time to become who we need to be to be healthy partakers of society, we continue to want that innocence back.   

 

NOTE:
     Not every expereince is the same. Not every reaction to the action is the same. For instance, my situation was magnified by previous abuses of different natures. My rebellion therefore was magnified. My healing process will take longer.  I understand this. Others may or may not of had previous abuses to deal with and that can alter their reactions, make them maybe less rebellious. Ofcourse it also depends on the mind set of the person in the beginning.
     I was blessed with the fact that I knew that no matter what happened to me I had an Angel watching over me and God above making sure I was in the end, ok. If I did not have faith, christianity, strong beliefs instilled in me from birth, I would not be here right now. I know this for sure. I am now as I write this, ok, and am working on, great.

     Everytime I write on this subject I know that I have let someone know that they are not alone. That someone else understands.

~I wish peace and love on all. Believe, and in the end, all will be well.~
 

oh yes...just so you know, being half German, and born and raised there I speak German. And so when I speak of my 'mother', I call her 'mutter', out of habit.