I am the victim of childhood sexual abuse.
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Trigger warning* – Sexual Abuse
I am the victim of childhood sexual abuse.
I write candidly about coping with the sexual abuse at the hands of my grandfather on my blog. My blog is about the isolation from my parents. It is about looking at the scary things in my life.
This is one of those scary moments.
I was physically abused by my mother when I was fifteen. I also visited these transgressions on others.
My mother hit me with a stick about thicker than a quarter for more than a few months. She doused me with water. She hit me with a belt. She did everything she could to force me out of bed.
Her abuse was to motivate me to get to church and sort out my life. She knew I was backsliding. She understood that the music I listened to was ushering the devil into my veins. She saw the Dungeons and Dragons books hidden in my dresser. She knew I was torturing myself with self-pleasure.
I was spiritually dying, and she had to do everything she could to save me.
“Spare the rod, spoil the child,” as it were.
She didn’t know I was sexually abused two years earlier. She didn’t believe her father would go back to molesting children again. The evidence was there for over twenty-five years at that point. She refused to believe there was a problem.
She also refused help. She often would tell me that psychiatrists wouldn’t help either of us. They were only interested in money and making you drugged. They were there to take your information and sell it to the highest bidder. Even though it wasn’t explicitly said, the fact hung in the air like the smell a rotting pumpkin.
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Shut your mouth. No one is going to save you. Showing people you are weak is a weakness. Take the abuse and be stronger because of it.
She broke the sticks later in a show of spiritual strength. She told me she was sorry for hitting me months later. She told me God had motivated her to express righteous anger. She was done listening and if I didn’t want to go to church, I didn’t have to.
The damage was done, though. It was already time for me to become the monster I was meant to be.
WHEN THE HORRIFIC WOUNDED MONSTER STRIKES
I should have been thrown out on my ear and turned over to the police. I should have been stapled to a wall and beaten. I must have been crazy, but it was a cold and calculated madness.
I spanked a child that wasn’t my own. I ruined a good relationship. I probably damaged someone in the process.
The oath I swore when I was little was denied. I visited abuse to a child, and the monster truly grew.
There is no excuse for it, of course. The child pushed me over the edge and in my depressed state, I exploded much like my father. I wanted to administer punishment for a child endlessly taunting me. I wanted to take out my anger on someone who wasn’t deserving. She wasn’t capable of defending herself against someone twice her age.
I stood there as the mother, rightfully, laid into me. My tears were genuine and I knew I had crossed the line more than she knew. My head was bowed and my arms extended, almost as if I expected to be carted away to jail. I was still fifteen at the time, but I fully expected prison rape at this point.
The lessons of my youth expressed themselves in that moment. I lifted a hand and struck a child.
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It was at this point I swore I was not worthy of being a father. It was at this point I murdered the dream of being a parent then and there. I committed to the idea of lineage death.
This was the point I swore never to have a legacy again. I understood it. I knew it. I was the last in line, ready to ride into death with open arms in hopes this family wouldn’t spread like the pox it was.
I was fortunate they were forgiving. I was grateful they were able to turn an eye to my rage and anger that I hadn’t seen before. I burned through a lot of social capital with this one act. I swore I would do everything in my power to work it back up to a reasonable amount.
It worked for a while, and I earned my way back into their good graces. It wasn’t until the family left and my mother fell for my aunt’s lies that I spiraled into a deeper depression.
The only goal now was to kill me and let the line end. This cursed line. This horrible, devil cursed line.
WHEN WILL I FORGIVE MY LOATHSOME SINS?
Twenty-five years later, here I am. The monster unveiled. The self-deluded martyr of the McCabe and Eaton clans, ready to take the spear to my flank. I will offer forgiveness to those who never needed it in the first place.
I’ve avoided this for years because this was the moment where things turned ugly for me. This wasn’t a casual moment in my life I could shuffle into the deck of terrible things. I couldn’t say it was an unfortunate circumstance.
I possibly, and directly, ruined a life.
The anger and depression I felt tore down the thin walls holding in the beast in place. This moment unleashed a depressive monster upon the world.
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I expected the world to understand what they did. I wanted to hold the world accountable for releasing this demon upon the world and make them pay for what they did.
I could have been someone amazing.
I could have had amazing children.
I could have had an amazing family.
The blood was on their hands. The world should die along with me. A slow, painful, pitiful death. I can hear whimpering like the small child in my heart that wants only peace and acceptance.
Twenty-five years later, I read a book about male depression and the stigma of abuse to children.
A storm of emotion and hate swirled in my heart. Reading about the slights adults visit on children. Accepting the perception of what they meant to them, opened the cage once more. The rattling of the nails on the walls of my heart shook me to my core.
The thing was loose again.
An ancient evil.
An unholy reminder of oaths gone by.
It was the guilt of becoming the monster I never wanted to be, but that I was destined to become. It was the reason why I declared my doom and demise. I was the reason why I should never sire children. It was the reason why heirs and legacy weren’t as cracked up as they should be.
I am the victim of abuse, and I abused, thus becoming what I had feared the most.
There is no amount of consoling I can give. It is the demon I must face on my own with a rusty sword in hand.
This post was originally featured at My Loyalty is Killing Me.
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Photo: Unsplash