This is my voice, hear me now, for suppression causes deep seeded long term issues.
Honesty post. If you aren’t buckled in for a long read feel free to skip over this post, but I think it’s time I share some things that have shaped my life. For those of you who know me know that I struggled with having a relationship with my father. I found myself trapped in a body that my step-mother deemed unworthy. She looked at it for all its flaws, telling my sister and myself that we were “fat” and “pigs” even though we were elite gymnasts with extremely low body fat percentages. So along with my father being absent for the good majority of my life. Him and his wife were heavy alcoholics. My younger sister and I were practically under the care of my older step-sister whenever we were at their house. Missing volleyball games, forgetting to call on birthdays and Christmas’, guilting and lying to my siblings about things that my mother was doing or had said. They were the definition of part time absentee parents, and they fueled a body image issue into every fiber of my being. This lead to not only residual feelings of never being good enough it also built up a distrust that people would never come into my life in a permanent nature. I thought I found my savings grace when my mom met my step-dad. However, after being a father figure in my life for almost 12 years. My mom and him got a divorce. This was extremely confusing at first, but I was supportive of my moms decision for her pursuit of happiness. A few months after the divorce, I found out that they didn’t get a divorce due to a pursuit of happiness. Rather they got a divorce because my step-father had taken my laptop on day to install updates. However, my laptop in his hands was not safe. The truth came out and I learned that he was a sex addict. With my computer in his hands he had taken provocative pictures I had taken for my boyfriend at the time and put them on a flash drive for his personal use. One night he asked my mom to get his flash drive that he had left at work, and in doing so she found the images he had taken. This not only caused me to feel like all innocence I had ever possessed had been taken from me it also caused me to quickly realize that people are not always who they appear to be.
I remember one day in the car my mother turned to me and asked me if I had ever been taken advantage of, touched inappropriately, or harassed by an older man. I didn’t know at that time she was referring to my step father, but this question caused me to tear up and cry. Several of my brothers friends would make inappropriate comments and would try to cop a feel when they could. But there was one friend who was particularly bad. I was 7 years old and he was 15, he was staying the night at our house. He convinced me to go into my brothers room with him. Everyone was asleep in the living room, and it was there that my I felt the first fleeting moment of my innocence. He got me into my brothers bed where he proceeded with every inappropriate action he could think of. I woke up in the chair in my brothers room. My step dad came in in the morning. He woke me up and yelled at me for “sleeping” in my brothers room with his friend. He proceeded to tell me how inappropriate it was, but he never stopped to ask me what happened that night. He never told my mom about what had happened and the actions of this young man never got any kind of repercussions. I tried to tell my “friends” but they all mocked me telling me that I was making it up for attention. No one would listen or help me get my voice heard. When my mom turned to me with this question this was the flashback and incident that came to my mind. Instantly, tears took control over my eyes. Tears began to roll down my face, she instantly was concerned. When I told her about the story her instant reaction was relief. This was because she had learned it wasn’t my step dad but in that moment my voice again was belittled. She was relieved and never made any acknowledgement of the story that I had just told her.
I’ve never had my voice heard and this has caused these problems to become deep seeded. This has caused me to be untrusting and detached from getting as emotionally close to someone as I can. I’m turning here because somethings just need to be put out into the world in order for the healing process to begin.
Welcome to my journey of healing, and realizing that all these actions were not my fault. It is also a way for me to get my voice heard. I understand that this post maybe a bit of an overshare. However like I said my voice, like so many others, deserves to be heard. Society needs to learn that all voices, no matter how young, need to be listened to.
