K is for Knight's Disguise

This is the third installment in a series covering the issue nearest to my heart.  I still hope to have one every day, but we'll have to see how that goes.  I want to share how I came to the passion that I spend much of my time and resources on.  Since this story is mine and mine alone to tell, there will be portions that are vague and I apologize in advance.  The road to healing is a personal one and it's not my place to tell the story for someone who may not be ready to have their part of it told.  Some material may be triggering.  Please read at your own discretion.

"Hey little girl would you like some candy, your mama says it's okay.  The door is open come on outside, No I can't come out today.  It's not the wind that cracked your shoulder and threw you to the ground.  Who's there that makes you so afraid, you're shaking to the bone?  And I don't understand, you deserve so much more than this."  ~ Sarah McLachlan Good Enough

I drifted through the rest of my teenage years, largely unfeeling.  Behavior was constantly a problem.  I really think that I was trying to claw out of my skin.  To change me.  To do something...I don't know...radical.  I got in trouble for shaving part of my head.  I started smoking.  I experimented with self mutilation.  I think part of me was trying to make myself unattractive.  Part of me was just trying to feel.  Part of me was going for shock value so that someone might pay attention to the slow death occurring inside of me.  I look back and try to remember any emotions that I had at the time.  I know that I can't recall happiness.  I don't really remember a whole lot of anger either.  The two states of being that I remember living in most are confusion and longing.

My mother had taken me to a new group of doctors.  My psychologist who did therapy with me was pretty good.  She may have been great had I told The Secret.  But we all know that wasn't going to happen.  The psychiatrist who prescribed my medicine was another story.  Had I been the person then that I am now, I would've had his license.  What kind of monster can tell that there is something obviously vulnerable and victimizing about a patient and exploit that?  If I'm angry at anything anymore, it's that a person who was supposed to help - who took an oath to help- was another abuser.  Thankfully, there wasn't much that could happen in the uncomfortable 15 minute med check sessions, but they felt like hours.  It began with him asking about my cutting.  He would ask increasingly uncomfortable questions under the ruse that it was information he needed as my physician.  The last time I saw him (and refused to go back, although never telling my mother why), it escalated to him putting a hand up my skirt and telling me that no one would believe the crazy girl.

It's somewhat odd that for wanting to make myself unattractive to ward off unwanted advances, I was obsessed with body image.  It's an interesting dichotomy of wanting to avoid advances yet craving attention. I was constantly comparing myself to girls in magazines and on television.  I think I had a love for actresses because they could pretend to be someone else. After all, I had been pretending my whole life.

I know now that it's not uncommon, but it still seems a little out of place for me, that girls with a history of sexual abuse can become over affectionate.  They seek closeness.  They want to find someone who will love them, but because their definition of love and the examples that they've been shown of such are skewed, it leads to unhealthy behaviors.  I had to have a boyfriend.  I didn't want just any guy; there were plenty of very nice boys who asked me out and told me beautiful wonderful things about myself that I cast off as pretty lies. I didn't want those boys.  I needed the bad boys.  The damaged boys.  The unavailable boys.  And those boys treat you like shit.  Which further affirms the belief that you are shit.  Which makes you look for more boys that will treat you like shit.

One of the saving graces that I had at this time, was that as much as I hungered for male attention and picked the ones most likely to give me negative attention, I actually picked really good female friends.  And I was a fiercely loyal friend.  My best friend K, gave me a piece of myself back.  I had never really known what it was like to have someone be there for me unconditionally.  To fight for me.  Her parents didn't really want her hanging with me at first...no one's parent's did.  But she pressed on.  They grew to love me.  They still do.  And so does she.  That's the first part of this madness that leads to happiness.  I still have her.  I think she was the only person in my entire life up to that point to tell me when these boys were treating me like crap: "You don't deserve this."  Four simple words.  She even "forced" me to avoid one boy in particular in the hallways at school.  It was the first time anyone knew that someone was shitty to me and told me that it was wrong.  Unfortunately, being both from military families, we moved away from each other.  I think being without her put me a few giant steps back.  As bad as things were, they were about to get worse.

I don't know how it began that I started dating much older men.  I had an on again off again relationship with a boy the remainder of my high school years, which truth be told, was not that super unhealthy.  Yeah, he treated me like crap.  But only in a high school douchebag kind of way.  Not an abuse kind of way.  And it's still sad to me that I defend that.  I still sometimes have a problem with awarding men with medals for not being complete pieces of shit. 

Anyway, the age of 17 brought all kinds of new drama.  I started using sex as a tool. A tool to feel wanted, to cope with pain, to get what I wanted.  Perversely, I thought it made me powerful. I think in some ways, I wanted to give it away before the prospect of it being taken could even come up.  If I made the decision, then I kept the power.  But I was being driven by my own misconceptions and by the lack of value I had in myself.  Furthermore, I still had the warped belief that sex is what ALL men want.  ALL the time.  A pretty face, a beautiful body, a wonderful soul meant nothing if you weren't spreading for them.  I dated a guy with mental problems who accused me of sleeping with his friend and ran me over with his truck.  I was luckily uninjured.  I wasn't sleeping with his friend.  But he pissed me off.  So then I slept with his friend.  I dated a man who was separated from his wife (so I thought) who encouraged me to skip school to hang out at his place all day and play house.  He was screwing some other chick on the side.  And was not leaving his wife.  They reunited when he moved to Pennsylvania.  I ended up dropping out of high school partially due to all the absences that I had accrued.

And then I met Him.  

He was gorgeous.  Smart, attentive, polite.  Suave and gentle.  He engaged me in real adult conversations.  He was interested in everything I had to say.  It was the first relationship that I had been in where I felt like I mattered.  We discussed everything.  He was constantly asking me if I was comfortable.  I felt safe and saved.  I felt as though I had given him my everything.  He was my Knight in Shining Armor....I gave him my soul in exchange for this comfort. 

I wish I had known that I had sold my soul to the devil.

To be continued....