Don't Look Back

"You dream of sharing your heart. Instead you share your bed.

And your heart beats empty and cold with all the tears you have shed."

                                                                       -Dustin Kensrue I Knew You Before



Remember back when I wrote about rape, and the societal and emotional consequences?

I'm talking about those emotions. Those questions that victims ask themselves, or think about. I am trash. No one can take me after this. What did I do? Why?

What happens when you force yourself to go through with it? You break down to the point where you don't care, even with your heart screaming. Why? Because you, no matter how small the thread, are truly desperate for someone to be close, to love you. No matter how strong you are, how many times you tell yourself "Don't do it", it seems like you're not strong enough. Are we preconditioned? Is it family, friends, media?

This is what I'm facing. You see, in some ways, through experience in school and at home, I am preconditioned not to make a scene, whatever that scene may be, because no one's going to help you anyway. My childhood taught me to take caution in trusting even the closest friends. My last 5 years have taught me that even my own father can break my heart in the deepest ways. I learned from ancient literature, combined with personal experience (you really do learn from your mistakes) what the wisest choices to make are. Or, at least, I learned how to handle different situations. I spent most of my life buried in pages.

From the outside, and sometimes the inside, my family was unbroken, happy, well; yet I lived as one who lived with a single mom, or a broken home. I had few friends, and many of them turned and stabbed me in the back. I was repeatedly raped and molested when I was four by my own babysitter (a woman). I told no one then, I tell few now. My classmates, even my friends, spat on me, threw rocks at me, called me names like "cyclops" and "spit wad". Even in high school many friends ostracized me, and others threw food at me.

And then...

Two young men befriended me about two and a half years ago. They began my healing. They undid most, if not all, of the distrust I harbored. They taught me to open up, to trust people, yet be careful with my heart and not give it away on a whim. The three of us shared all our secrets, our burdens, and what wisdom we had to offer. They taught me the meaning of true love, and all the various forms (brothers, friends, lovers, or even strangers). I carried many burdens, and out of love for someone they barely knew and had never seen, they carried them with me. I learned that it's okay to let others carry my burdens with me; I didn't have to carry them alone, couldn't carry them alone. Because of them, I grew to have a capacity for real Christ-like love that seemed beyond human comprehension (and still seems so at times).

Then, last summer, I went on my first date. Read back about three posts, and you'll know all about that. It didn't work out, but he had solidified all I learned. All that those two young men taught me was no longer just a concept and way of life we shared alone, but was now something I could share with others.

But then something happened to me. It was a sudden vacuous emptiness, threatening to make my heart implode in on itself. I handled it well at first, until my strength and resolve began to weaken. For some reason, I no longer had a support system. The group of friends I had, and loved, dwindled down to one. I was truly lost. If there was a path I needed to take, I couldn't find it. Some of it wasn't even my own emptiness, and it would seem that God is doing this for a reason. I wasn't going through it alone, even though I couldn't talk to him.

On Halloween (just four months ago) I decided to go with my grandparents to their church's costume party. I avoided everyone, and a few avoided me. But I caught the eye of one person. A young man, who thought at first that I was weird, but introduced me to everyone anyway. He told me he liked me, and later that he loved me. A couple weeks later, he asked if I would date him, and I said "okay". What harm, right? The last guy didn't try anything stupid, what makes me think this shy nerd will? Especially since he understood that I was still getting over the last guy, right?

Right? But no. It didn't take long before every phone call got dirtier and dirtier. The first walk we went on, he french kissed me, and later we "made out" (I didn't want it to turn into that. I apparently set him off and didn't realize it until 5 min. later). I was in shock for a week, and I told him we can't do that, and he agreed. But that didn't stop it. It became a game, I became free range. And it only got worse. I wasn't strong enough to keep him off me, or, a few times, to keep off him. And when I was strong enough to say no, he broke me down, guilted me, until it just didn't matter. I just became numb, which was yet another mechanism I gained in early childhood. No one could help. Until, after two months, I broke up with him.

It's taken my whole life, and I'm still learning some difficult lessons. I now have a church, a truly good and alive one, and some pretty good friends, but there's a lot I've lost. Whatever shred of innocence I had left has been broken down and taken away over the last year. Yet, I'm still here, I'm still me. Somehow I've managed, even alone. But I still have Jehovah Elyon. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here.

It all makes me wonder. They say you should never look back; "Don't play with the past". Why? Because you feel pain when you do? Without pain there is no growth, and without a past there is no future. Inevitably, you only relive your past when you ignore it. There's a reason we all go through what we go through. I hope it is a lesson we can all learn one day.