Who needs a therapist

In his final years, after my grandmother had passed, I finally got up the nerve and told my grandfather that if he ever touched one of my kids that I would kill him with my bare hands. It was a very freeing moment. One of those that stands as a turning point in my life.

The sad thing is that even then he blamed ME for it.

ME!

I was a fucking CHILD

But, I'll tell you, and nobody ever fucking understands it. When he died I was crushed. He had been the only father figure I had. He was all I had left.

I loved him.
I still love him.

 My past haunts me It always does, even when I say it doesn’t and put on this front that I’m some super human person who doesn’t let her past scars show. Inside I am just a mess of self imflicted wounds that are still open and bleeding. I may have stopped cutting myself on the outside but inside I’m just as active as I was when I was in my teenage years.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a depressed person. Oh hell no. I have that shit all locked up so tight. I’ve even repainted it multiple colors and put fancy flowers all around it to make it look just spiffy.

Are you buying this?

I have my moments, like this one, where that door gets cracked and shit starts oozing out and I can’t get it all shoved back in. I don’t really even know WHAT exactly I am feeling, or better yet WHY I am feeling the way I am - all I know is it is deep and so gut wretchingly sad.

My body hurts, my lower body - my hips, my knees, my feet - they all just hurt - for no fucking good reason. And the shit thing is that I KNOW it is in my head. My physical pain is manifested by my emotional pain. The pain is very real, but it is because of emotional trauma that is not being dealt with.

Thank you very much, that will be $200 for the self diagnosis.

I just stood there...

I watched her being beaten. I watched her fighting him off. I watched him rip her clothes, force her down and, ultimately, force himself upon her. 

I watched it
and I did nothing
in my own house.

I can't even remember her fucking name. 

My grandmother had taken this girl under her wing. She had been staying at our house for a few days. She was a few years older than me, blonde, cute. I don't know what was happening in her life but she was there - until she wasn't.

I grew up being molested, I lost my virginity at 13 (and in a shitty way), my entire concept of love was fucked up, to say the least. Basically, if I wasn't treated like shit, then obviously, they didn't care. Because you only fight with/for the things we care about the most, right? 

I was great at picking assholes who would treat me like I thought I deserved to be treated. I recall being forced into the shower and scalding hot water turned on as everyone laughed and held the door closed. There was the guy who would lock my head between his thighs and burn me with his cigarette. I'd been strangled, beat up, brutalized, raped, controlled - all by the guys who were supposed to "love" me.  But - this was the first time I saw it happening to someone else.  I was 16 years old.

I honestly have not thought about that day in so long and I don't even know how it all started but my grandparents were both gone (which was rare) and the guy I was seeing came over. At some point he began trying to talk to her and when she wasn't open to his flirting he began to step it up and get aggressive about it. I got jealous and we got into an argument so I locked myself in my room.

Then came the screams and crying.

I stood in the family room looking into the dining room. He had her on the floor, his knees digging into her upper arms as he was hitting her. Her kicking and screaming not stopping him at all. 

I remember yelling and telling him to stop but he didn't even seem to hear me. Maybe nothing came out of my throat, maybe I just imagined yelling. I don't know. But I stood there.

I just fucking stood there.

He got her pants down and forced himself in, and I stood there. My throat clenched, tears in my eyes, and I stood there watching the nightmare unfold in front of me, like the many times as a kid, I would lay on the bed and watch the shadows dance across the ceiling from the trees and just imagine myself somewhere else until it was safe to come back into my head...I just stood there.

He finished, got up, walked over and grabbed me by the throat and told me to keep my fucking mouth shut, and walked out the door. 

The girl got up and yelled at me for not doing anything and I defended him! I fucking defended HIM! What the actual fuck was wrong with me? She didn't deserve that, NOBODY deserved that. I justified the entire ordeal, placed the blame on her for being a fucking girl and encouraging it in some way. I am not proud of this, not in the least. But, karma has a way of coming back at you - I paid many times over for this, including being raped myself, but those are other stories for other days. 

She grabbed her stuff and took off.

My grandmother questioned me about it all later and, like I was told, I didn't say a fucking word. I never saw the girl again.

For the majority of my life I was with assholes who treated me like dirt, really until I left my first husband. About that time I grew a brain and found myself...I also found the ability to run toward a fight lol. God help the person who is abusing someone around me as I'm the first to jump in and get in the middle to protect someone else. Many times without thinking about my own safety, but I'm guessing maybe this memory is where it stems from.

I can't even remember her name...

God Dammit, Alice!

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I spent most of my years growing up listening to my grandfather and grandmother arguing.  I don't remember what it would be about usually, but the ending was always the same.

My grandmother would say something, he'd say something back, and then after she responded it was always "God dammit, Alice! I'll just go on out and blow my damned head off, then you can be happy. Hell, you'll all be happy once I'm gone!" Then he'd storm off down the stairs to the basement. Occasionally he'd change it up and offer to take her with him too.

Being about 6 or 7 this was completely tragic. This was even more terrifying than when I thought my friend being grounded meant like hamburger - that scared the shit out of me...this was damn near mortifying.

I'd run to my room and hide in the corner between the bed and the wall and plug my ears and hum to myself just waiting.

and waiting
and waiting.

I'd hear the gun go off in my head a million times to try to prepare myself for what it might really sound like. I had fired a gun, I knew how loud it was. I imagined the kick back and the smell...I tried not to imagine the impact but it was really hard not to.

Eventually, as the years went by, I just kind of got used to it, and even though I would still brace myself for the sound, there were parts of me that wished that he would. 

Crouched in my corner,
thumbs in my ears,
rocking myself...
Just do it already.
Put me out of this fucking misery.
Relieve me from this pain, and filth, and shame that I live in.

JUST FUCKING DO IT!!!

He never did, but by the time he finally passed away I swear I had imagined it 1000 different ways, many times by my own hands.