**trigger warning s/a & child abuse themes
I have this new friend from work who is my age and is similarly is coming out of a 10 year long emotionally abusive relationship that had really similar themes to my own nine year relationship.
I kind of did what I always do when talking about myself and sprinkled in themes to explain that I had a long trauma history, but after spending about two months working with her and spending time with her outside of work, she asked me to go in the more detail yesterday.
So I gave her kind of the breakdown I talked about how I jumped between custody arrangements between my grandma and my dad between separate sexual assault allegations by me towards my dad. I explained my trial where my dad got 73 years in prison. I talked about the retrial where my stepmom and her family slandered me publicly as a 12-year-old.
And then I started talking about my grandma…
Up until that moment, I was completely put together, I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t getting worked up. I can explain the trauma around my father like explaining roads on a map.
When I started talking about my grandma,
My voice started shaking.
Tears started falling from eyes.
My hands wouldn’t stay still.
I talked about how much I loved her but how much she scared me. That it was never obvious physical abuse, but for years, I wasn’t waking up easy in the morning so she would pull me out of bed by my ankles or pour glasses of ice water on me.
I talked about how I started stacking towels on top of my mattress just to be able to sleep on the wet fabric.
I talked about the year that I spent living in my closet because I felt safer on a pile of blankets and pillow pillows that I did in my own bed.
I talked about the day that my grandma told me I looked like my dad when I got angry because I wanted a Pokémon game and then told me video games are for boys. I was seven and separated from my dad because of sexual abuse.
I talkedabout the day I got my braces off and I just wanted to go get soup at my favorite restaurant and instead we went to get steak as a family.
I talked about how often the things I would eat would make me sick because of undiagnosed and unmanaged all allergies.
We talked about how every time I would be sent to therapy, my grandma would get me a new therapist whenever they asked her for changes.
When I finally looked up and saw my face, I even said it out loud “ my dad didn’t hurt me like this. I was always told this was because of him, I went to so much therapy, But this isn’t because of my dad. My family just doesn’t want to hear it.”
My new friend just hugged me and she said: “I believe you. one thing about you is that I would’ve never said that you portrayed yourself as a victim. So many people say they have trauma. I did not believe it was going to be that bad. You hold yourself so highly and you never shrink back from anyone. You’re not timid you’re not broken. I am very impressed by you. You do not deserve this”
I’ve waited so long to let anyone back into my world because I’m so tired of arguing and defending it but, maybe I really am in a position to have more than I have had.