Chapter

I tried to avoid attention because I must have sensed my boundaries were not respected.

I also hated food when I was a child, I did not like to eat, and I was so very slim. My mom always tried to make or had food that I liked prepared so I would put something in my stomach. But eating was not something I enjoyed. The feeling of food touching my lips when entering my mouth was repulsive, I would pull my food in with my teeth as I bit into the fork (I did this until my early forties). I am not sure why this happened, but that is just how I felt about food. And it was simply that, no bulimia or anorexia, just no enjoyment of food intake (unless it was ice cream or chocolates). Maybe I should correct this statement, I also did not like eating much up until my late twenties. It always felt like a chore, something I had to do, not something that I would look forward to doing.

The abuse which started when I was around twelve years old, with the perpetrator being my cousin, brought a whole lot of other consequences to my mental and emotional health: insecurity, fears, shame, blame, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, constant nightmares, and of course a lot of confusion.

My sleep was also affected due to the abuse. For many years in my childhood, I was so afraid of going to sleep, I had constant nightmares. Every night I would try to stay awake so I would not fall into that horrible dark space filled with terrifying images. I would check under my bed, I prayed that nothing would happen to me, and mostly I prayed that I would not fall asleep. Inevitably, I would, and the nightmares were there, waiting for me to doze off. Many times, these nightmares were recurring, others were new.

A couple of the worst recurring dreams I had would show me swimming in the ocean and trying to reach a wall, which I could never. The waves would keep pushing me back every time I make way. I would swim so much, I would be exhausted and drowning, and that was the time when I’d wake up.

Another ongoing nightmare had me looking at the ocean and a huge wave was forming, a type of tsunami wave, and I tried to warn people and would go in to get the kids out, but I just could not save them all! It was so distressing, and I would wake up terrified and ever so tired.

Up until my forties these terrible dreams were there. I was always a very light sleeper too. Oh goodness! The fall of a feather would wake me up (figuratively), any little noise would. Then miraculously the nightmares slowed down, likely because of all the psychological work I’ve done for my recovery -certainly, a good side effect to have!

Now, although my sleep is never continuous or uninterrupted, the nightmares come seldomly now and I can proudly say that in the last year or so I have had uninterrupted sleep lengths of up to five to six hours! Woohoo!

Fear seems to be a constant companion after we are abused. For me, fear was present each day of my life. It still comes around every so often, but it is highly under control. The constant work I have put in has worked against my fears. But when I ponder about how fear played a huge part in my life not so long ago, I can tell you that there was no place in this world that could keep me safe.

There were shadows and mostly humans around every corner, every turn, every place I could be at, and they were dangerous. The horrors of life could be at any turn, and I could be attacked! And all sorts of terrible things could happen to me.

It is horrible to live like that. It really is not a good life when you are afraid of most actions you need to take each day. Fear was my own shadow; it followed me everywhere and it grew with the sun and with the moonlight.

Only when I was with my last husband next to me did I feel safe. But of course, he could not be with me all the time.

It was in recent years that I learnt the meaning of shame. I was looking at it from its superficial meaning. You know, the “oh what a shame this or that happened”, “shame on you for talking to this or that person like that”, or the feeling one gets when mispronouncing something in public, or just talking in front of a crowd, calling someone the wrong name. No, those are little shames that are not altering my life except for a fleeting moment.

Now, I understand better the true meaning of shame. As a survivor, I experienced shame by hiding what I was doing or what was happening to me as if it was my wrongdoing. Experiences that I knew in my little heart not to be ok, something that I was told to keep a secret, something that apparently not everyone would understand, and this was the sexual abuse that I was a victim of.

The shame that weighed a million tons which was given to me and was not a product of my actions but by others, was part of my growing up. It was given to me by an individual who was much older than me who influenced and misguided me in every way possible. A shame that walked along with fear right by my side. This load of feelings that were inflicted in me had the power of making themselves my responsibility, even if they became mine by the wrongdoing of my predator, and this was and will never be fair. Then again, who says that life is fair?

Because of the shame and fear, I doubted everything around me, me included, and all my movements as well. I continuously asked myself what I did wrong and why was I being punished like this? Why would these assaults happen to me repeatedly? Did I have a target in my forehead or my back that I wasn’t aware of? Were these attacks on my integrity and my body my fault?

I questioned and guilted myself so much, for things that were not my own doing. Now that I have more clarity and peace in my life, I see how easy it was to think that I was somehow inviting these ‘situations’; but the reality is that no child or adult would ever summon or desire this kind of suffering and pain in their lives, and I am no exception. These predators appear to have an acute instinct to identify their victims, to easily pray over those who are most vulnerable, and those who will appreciate the slightest attention. What happened to me was not my fault. Not my doing.