I was in some physical pain last night, running around with my friends and then with the kids and barely getting any sleep because of all the adrenaline – my body was spent. I have tried to explain this to Rich in the past but sometimes I am too tired to sleep. I can’t get comfortable enough or relaxed enough because I’m beyond tired and into the exhaustion space, which is closer to pain than relaxation. I gave in and decided to take 1/2 an edible. This is usually fine, I usually fall asleep easily. Not this time.
All the pent up feelings from the day, the odd comments, the attempts at connection I brushed off, the touches I dodged, the eyes I could feel following me and the kids, the same implicative behaviors I seem to notice that no one else does, all of it leaked out in confusing fragments. Emotions ebbed and then spiked in a swirling cascade of anxiety and fear. I started to get confused about what I was feeling… what it all meant… whether I was just being ridiculous and over-dramatizing, condemning these innocent people for things I had … maybe made-up? What was wrong with me? Why am I so cold? Is it my fault I’m like this? I started to feel doubt on what was real and what was imagined, the room crumbled around me.
But eventually, I fell into a deeper sleep. And in the dream world I found myself resting as well. In bed. I was warm and under the covers in our old house. But I was aware my dad was looking for something. Searching from room to room. I didn’t know what, but I hoped it wasn’t near me.
He didn’t quite look like him, in fact faces were fuzzy in this dream and it was if I was viewing everything from the perspective of laying down… or it could be what I was familiar with when I was small. But the feeling I used to get, the subtle nervousness, the mounting tension, the anxiousness that something bad was going to happen…that was familiar, very familiar.
As I heard his quick and heavy steps near the room I was sleeping in, I hid a little and slid further down into my covers. I pretended I was asleep. But eventually he came over and grabbed a magazine that was near me. He stopped and stared at my sleeping body. And then walked away.
In the dream, I fell asleep, and the lights in my room were still on. And then moments later I woke up to a dark room with only the moonlight streaming in.
I suddenly became aware of a dark shadow looming over me and someone’s body weight pressing into me. I groggily became aware of the warmth of another person. And this person was grinding their hips into mine. I started to panic, and the sounds that came from my mouth, I sounded small.
I asked what was happening and was told to hush and that I would like it – don’t worry. I could do nothing but whimper, scared, confused and alone.
And then I felt it… as real as if I were awake. With a sly and eager smile the figure forcefully and painfully slid himself into me and started to have sex with my small inexperienced body. I pleaded for him not to. I could feel it, the fullness and how my body shook w each thrust – the dream was so unbelievably real. My heart rate was spiking from the overwhelming terror mixed with pain and confusion and betrayal.. and helplessness… I tried to stifle my cries because I didn’t want to be hurt anymore and I knew if I didn’t keep quiet, I might be. Through light sobs I begged for him to stop, questioning why this was happening. I hate this detail… but I’ve seen this fragment another time… my arms wrapped around his shoulders, like a child might wrap her arms around a protective and loving father as he carried her. But this was anything but that. And how I felt or what I said didn’t matter, and I knew it didn’t matter. I knew it was hopeless to say anything at all. It always is.
I had to wait minutes that felt like an eternity for it to be over and I could feel myself giving into the experience my body going limp and in a way I started to feel like I was no longer there. Like it didn’t actually matter. Because I didn’t know what any of it meant it wasn’t as painful as getting hit… but it was violating in a different way that I didn’t full understand. And I had no one. No one to explain what was happening, no one to protect me, no one to save me. I felt every shocking thrust of being raped… until it was over. I don’t remember the end, I just remember the horror and then blackness afterwards.
I woke up from this… dream….momentarily. So scared of what I just felt… endured… witnessed. I didn’t know what was reality and what was dream.
And the first thought that entered my mind as I realized I was now awake?
That I hate myself.
I hated myself for the fact that it happened. For being a girl. For being a sexual target because I was weak and vulnerable and small. I hated myself for these things that made it easier to take advantage of me. I wanted to run away and never look back to this part of me.
And today, I can’t seem to feel okay… and I have to see my family today… again. I just hate my self so much… I can’t even explain it.
I don’t deserve to be here do I? I’m really confused today. I don’t have any one to talk to but it’s okay. Just put it all aside… and take the punishment like you’re supposed to… like a good girl.
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