NOTE - There are explicit details contained in this post that may be emotionally difficult for some people.
PLEASE do not go there if you are not ready.
This is written to document my own personal journey.
I don't remember when it began. I've racked my brain so many times. It had just always happened. Maybe it started before the incident with the cousin. Maybe not. There is no beginning. It just was...
As a very young child I was taught that nothing was given for free. There was a price for everything. If I wanted to go to a friends house, if I wanted someone to come over, if I wanted a new toy, if I whatever...I just had to be there to give in order to get.
Love was not based on emotion, it was just a word. "Love" was what you did to get what you wanted. It was even thrown around almost as a way to kill the silence. I love you.
My grandmother would say it a thousand times a day. I know, I'm so lucky, that's such a wonderful thing... You know what, I don't ever remember sitting on her lap. I don't ever remember her comforting me. And, when I needed her the most, when I was at the end of my emotional and psychological rope, at 15 years old...she turned her back on me. Refused to protect me. This thing she "loved" so much. This child she took as hers, she believed that I was the monster. I was a fucking CHILD!
I'm getting ahead of myself....please pause as I recompose...
Sorry, some of this stuff is still really hard to wade through...
I was super close with my grandfather. He did stuff. My grandmother just sat and read and watched shows or talked on the phone. My grandfather cut wood, seined the ponds for fish, worked on the truck, he built stuff. I was a total tomboy, getting dirty was my favorite thing.
I had a few friends that lived nearby. My best friends when I was little were Jan and Angie. We'd play Charlies Angels all the time but I'd always get stuck being Sabrina. Jan was the prettiest, and blonde, so she was ALWAYS Farrah and Angie always got to be Jacklyn Smith cuz she was, well, I don't know why...I had to be Sabrina cuz I had short brown hair. I hated Sabrina.
After they moved it was Julie, she moved across the street (Read the Door To Door post) then it became Sandy. She had a pool and her mom was everything I had always wanted. She was beautiful and could play piano and did these cool crafts and cooked super cool fancy foods. She'd brush my hair and make me pretty. Sigh. I'll tell the story about them another time.
My grandmother worked as a teacher, then the librarian, at a school in Belton and she'd stay after classes ended doing stuff, so it was me and my grandfather most of the time.
If I wanted to go somewhere after school I knew there was a price. And I did it. I didn't think anything about it as a child. It was what it was, I thought it was perfectly normal. Everybodys daddy was like that, right?
He'd lay on the floor in the living room, or on the bed, or in his truck...I'd unzip his pants and masterbate him. Sometimes he'd put me on top of the freezer in the basement or lay me down and put it between my thighs till he got off. He never penetrated me. Not that it makes it any better, lol.
It was the price you paid to get what you wanted. It was how you showed love. It was how you earned love. It was just that thing you do.
We had a farm, my grandfather loved going there for the weekends, I think because my grandmother didn't like it. There was a shitty single wide trailer there with no air conditioning. It smelled of old people and rotten vegetables.
He grew nightcrawlers in the bathtub, right next to the toilet where his mom died, lol. (I vaguely remember it, I was really young but I do remember driving out there late at night cuz she'd called him and wasn't feeling well.)
He loved the farm. He loved to take me too. Maybe that's why I liked to fish so much. I'd spend all my time running the 10 acres and 4 different big ponds. I'd make mud slides into the water, sit for hours in the minnow pond and let them nibble on me, catch crawdads...
He'd get the entire weekend to fuck with me.
I loved it when my cousins came down. Not only did I love being with them because they were older and so much cooler than I was, but I could relax and not have to worry about anything while they were there.
Here's the thing though. Until I got older I didn't realize it was bad. I knew it was a secret but I didn't understand why. And I loved my grandfather. He was my dad. I knew I didn't like it, but I also didn't like green beans or liver - I still had to eat that shit.
By the time I was about 12 I knew. I knew it was wrong, I knew I hated it, I knew I wanted it to stop. I knew I was fucked up. I was dirty. I tried to avoid situations, I tried to stay away, but what could I do?
I was having severe stomach pains, like doubling over intense stabbing pains. Doctors said it was stress. I got shingles, again due to stress. My grandmother put me in therapy. I didn't say anything...I couldn't do it.
I didn't want my grandfather to go to jail. I didn't want to go away and live with my real mother - though I tried to reach out to her. I found out where she was in some shitty hotel but she was too doped up to even answer the door. The unknowns were a far greater risk than continuing to live the way I was.
When I was 13, my uncle and his wife were in town visiting us for about a week. At one point he invited me to come along as he went to some market to get stuff. During the ride he asked if I would like to drive. Well, duh! I was 13, of course I wanted to drive!
The trick was that I had to sit on his lap, just in case...so he could still control the car. As we got going he reached between my legs and began to rub me and grind against me. I told him to stop but he said he just wanted to show me what the boys were gonna be doing to me soon.
I broke down. I told my grandmother and grandfather about it.
My grandmother's response, I swear to God....."DJ wouldn't do that, he'd never do that" and that was the end of that. It was never to be brought up again.
I knew right then that I was completely alone. Nobody was going to save me. I just buckled to it I guess. This was what it was and it was not going to change and I just had to make myself accept it. I did sneak into the bedroom and stole his $300 in cash though. Motherfucker. Funny that he never said anything about that.
That was really the tipping point for me. I think that was the point I really started to act out. It was also when I first started cutting myself, though that didn't peak till later. I hid my pain well, kept my secrets and moved through as best I could. Little did I know what laid ahead.
