The Un-Crumpling Part 2

The Un-Crumpling Part 2

These posts are intended to inform, educate and hopefully help others. I have found my own sources of help that have led me to wholeness. My prayer is that other victims may find healing and wholeness as well.

I don’t remember when the abuse started; my guess is I was nine or ten. It was around then that my parents thought it appropriate to subscribe to all sorts of periodicals including Playboy and occasionally Penthouse. These magazines were readily left out along with the latest copies of National Geographic and Popular Science. At the time I had no point of reference for the lack of suitability these publications were for my adolescent brother and me. My mother and father’s paranoia ensured I didn’t venture into neighbors’ homes and by no means was I allowed to have anyone over. Being homeschooled guaranteed a cloistering from the typical and mundane of the lives that surrounded us in our blue-collar suburb. 

I probably will never know why the abuse started but I do know why it stopped. In the flurry of magazine subscriptions there happened to be Seventeen ordered especially for me. Again, questionably appropriate for an eleven or twelve year old but ultimately it was a saving grace. The cover is etched in my mind, a leotard-clad model stretching forward in a Jane Fondaesque manner typifying the mid-80’s era it was published during. One of the cover stories that month was, “Incest: What You Need to Know.” The information in the article felt like a sledgehammer. How could I have been so stupid? I panicked and wanted to run away or throw up but all I could do was sit paralyzed on my bed surrounded by my Cure and INXS posters that had been pinned over my yellow kitten wallpaper.

The strength came. I am not sure if it was rooted from pure terror but I found within me the strength to confront my abuser. He was unperturbed and in an almost arrogant fashion casually switched the blame onto me. Then to finish it off he uttered, “I wouldn’t tell anyone if I were you, I wouldn’t want anyone to think badly of you.”

It was like a vault closing. I crawled into myself vowing to pretend it never happened. I would run from the truth into a better life. I convinced myself I would be fine and would triumph over all the possible bad outcomes the article outlined.

I did.

I succeeded.

But the thing about abuse is that it takes a place in one’s being and sets up shop and peddles insecurities, rage and shame. It rots the soul and eventually I couldn’t out run it.