Once the initial shock of Mom’s death wore off, the depression swelled, numbing and dark and appropriate for January. Everything was in greyscale. I was canceling on my tutors more and more, much like my absences from school had begun. Half the time I was physically ill, and the rest of the time I was just too panicked or depressed to care about a math test.
The two warning signs of my depression are not eating and/or sleeping more than 9 hours a day. I was going to sleep around 4 AM and waking up around the time my boyfriend would be getting home from school, maybe eating one meal and then mostly living on Mountain Dew and Skittles. Not that this was much of a change from my diet before mom died, but I was eating less and sleeping more.
I was already isolated by living in the woods and not going to school, but Mom dying alienated me from the world in a whole new way. Everyone assumed my dad was some sort of parent, so no one was really checking up on me. I was alone like I hadn’t known before. And unfortunately there’s something about being vulnerable that predators can smell from a mile away.
My dad never physically assaulted my mother in front of me. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, as he hit me on more than one occasion, but I never saw him do it to her. Probably because she ran and hid instead of shouting back. I’m pretty sure if you are capable of hitting a child you are probably fine with hitting adults, but luckily it was at least a rarity, and was never the immediate threat when he picked a fight.
That’s a thing that victims do, by the way. We always make note that we know it could be worse, often downplaying our suffering. We know people don’t make it out alive, and so we view our survival as the privilege it is. There’s also something called survivor’s bias where we assume if we experience something, that others will have the same outcome or experience. You have to remember that just because you made it through something, that doesn’t mean everyone can or will. I try to be aware of both knowing how shitty I had it and also knowing how good I had it, which is pretty much the exact experience of having one loving parent and one fucked-up one like I had. You come out with an oddly balanced ego.
The first time I was physically assaulted by someone who wasn’t my dad, I was 9 years old.
I didn’t wear typically feminine clothes and my mother had long since stopped trying to encourage me otherwise. I was a “tomboy.” I played with micro machines and hated wearing dresses. I had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle hat I was particularly fond of that I’m sure I was wearing at the time of this particular incident. As far as I can tell, the only thing that signified I wasn’t a boy was my braid of blonde hair, which was so long I had to be careful I didn’t dunk it in the toilet when I sat down to do my business.
I was staying with a friend and I was outside playing on the sidewalk with him. This was notable because I lived in the woods with no sidewalks or neighbors to play with. This was a rare experience for me.
I was sitting on one of those Roller Racers (I didn’t have a bike or anywhere to ride it so I didn’t know how, and honestly Roller Racers are fun so don’t judge 9-year-old me) when a neighborhood boy, probably 3 years older than me, came up behind me, shoved me to the ground, and jumped on top of me. He hit me in the face. He held me down with his whole body’s weight on me until someone pulled him off.
I weigh 102 pounds in adulthood. I was much smaller at 9 years old. I could not get him off of me despite kicking and hair-pulling. Adults had to be fetched. Afterward, everyone tried to act like it was normal. I would have expected an “oh my God, are you okay, what the fuck?” but I guess people were convinced that acting like boys attacking you in the street isn’t a big deal meant it wouldn’t upset me or something? My dad made an offhand comment congratulating me on trying to fight back and that was about it.
Dear current adults – please teach children that it is, in fact, not fucking normal for anyone to attack innocent people in the street, and please react appropriately when it occurs.
I cannot tell you concretely why this boy jumped me in the street in broad daylight. Did he just like cruising the block, beating girls up for fun? Was it because I was a girl wearing “boy” clothes? Was it because we teach kids that boys being mean to you means they like you and he REALLY liked me? I’ll never know. My only take-away was that boys are expected to randomly assault people in the street.
I had given up working at the department store, but I would still visit the mall on a regular basis and I was still friendly with David (who had wanted to visit me in the hospital). Being friends with older boys was cool. Being able to stay out late and drive around and play video games was cool. I was desperate for any attention that didn’t make me feel worthless.
My boyfriend Bradley was kind and lovely, but wholly ill-equipped to deal with the tornado of trauma that was swirling around me. I was good at pretending to be functional but I needed a whole lot that he could not (and should not have been expected to) provide. He was in his senior year of high school, preparing for college, doing normal teenage boy stuff. I was watching my life burn inside a dumpster. We spent our evenings and weekends together when possible, but I was a mess.
An adult should have been taking me to therapy and scheduling doctor’s appointments. An adult should have checked up on my school work. An adult should have known were I was. I needed an adult.
I was 11 years old when I broke out of my “tomboy” phase and started occasionally wearing dresses. This would have been 5th or 6th grade, 5th being when I was first kissing boys (with tongue!) The girl clothes came after the boy kissing. I was always interested in boys. I had been interested in boys so much that I think that’s why I dressed like them for years. But then I realized you could make out with them as well and was like “ooh, yes please.” Puberty is a thing.
This was also the first year I was allowed to get the bus and take it home at our driveway instead of at a babysitter’s house. I was finally old enough that Mom couldn’t make excuses for why I couldn’t go or be home by myself.
On my bus were two boys from the junior high school. They were such jerks that most of the time they were assigned to the front two seats behind the driver. They pushed people, they mocked the kids with disabilities, and were just generally disgusting.
Their punishment was to be assigned the front two seats of the bus. Being in close proximity to the only adult was, I assume, meant to deter their horrid behavior.
It did not.
Instead, the boys turned their punishment into a game to see how much they could grab my 11-year-old ass, and other parts, every day I was forced to walk past them to get off the bus. They would whisper sexual things at me. They would laugh as I hurried past trying to block their hands with my backpack.
It went on for months.
One day I was wearing a sleeveless, soft flannel plaid dress I really liked. I remember it because I kept it for about 10 years because it had adjustable straps and it went from cute on a 12-year-old to revealing but still cute on an 18-year-old. But on this day, I was wearing that dress because it was warm out and I had a jacket so I tied the jacket around my waist in the hopes of blocking hands.
Instead, one of the boys grabbed all the way inside me. I remember getting off the bus and instead of going inside I stood out in the front yard by the line of trees in the front and cried. Not a sobbing cry. Just that uncontrolled water that seeps out of your eyes when you can’t think of anything else to do.
It was too humiliating, too embarrassing. Being known as the girl that this happens to wasn’t something I wanted. So I never said anything to anyone about it. Eventually the boys were put on a different bus route.
And then one night I got a call from David inviting me to hang out at his place (or what should appropriately be named his mother’s place) one evening to watch anime. I was happy to have somewhere to go. I needed distraction.
Of course, the TV was in his bedroom, and everyone else in his house was gone that night. But that wasn’t a problem for me. I no longer had rules. I could stay up at older friend’s houses and be cool. Boys liked me because I was “different than other girls.” I was cool. I was cool.
I can tell you the exact layout of the room. Where the TV was on top of the dresser. How the twin mattress and box spring on the floor was right next to the door. The thin, tan, patterned sheets. The blue and white light from the TV lighting the room.
The show ended.
And then he was on top of me.
And I said no.
And I said stop.
After it was over, I eventually collected my things and got into my car. The sun was rising unseen behind spritzing rain clouds and the sky gradually shifted to lighter shades of grey, or maybe that was just the depression lens. I remember the sound of the windshield wipers.
I got in my car and cried. Not a sobbing cry. Just that uncontrolled water that seeps out of your eyes when you can’t think of anything else to do. I’m sure I must have put on music. It was a 20 minute drive home, but I couldn’t tell you if it took me 10 minutes or 40. I was shutting down. I don’t remember being concerned about whether my dad was home, or if I would encounter him on the way inside. Luckily he wasn’t exactly concerned about me either.
I got home and into my room upstairs without incident. I sat on my bed. And after a time, I very calmly decided that I had to tell Bradley that I had cheated on him.
And that’s what I did. And we broke up.
I want to be able to definitively tell you why I did this, but I do not know that I can. The memory of being in that bedroom, with the glow from the TV screen, hearing the words “no” and “stop” pass through my lips is very clear, and it was just as clear then. I guess I needed to try and block that out with anything I could think of.
Maybe my sense of control over my life was more important in that moment. My mother was dead and my abusive dad stole money from me for drugs. I needed to be able to take care of myself. I went to a 19-year-old dude’s room alone at night, so how was this not my fault anyway? I told myself that I wanted this to happen and I think that made it okay for me. Maybe the last thing I needed to be was a victim of something else.
In my head, the story of how I hooked up with a guy from my work and broke the heart of my boyfriend of many years became a story of youthful ignorance and grief. I was a confused kid with a dead mom and a junkie father who just didn’t know any better, and at least I had owned up to my mistake and took responsibility. What a believable and relatable story I had written.
When you have to construct stories and perform mental gymnastics to survive day-to-day, it isn’t that you don’t know what the truth is. The truth is there. It’s maybe got a few layers of paint on it or it’s under a pile of laundry you refuse to clean up. Sometimes you forget why the pile of laundry is there or why you painted over that wall. But you eventually remember it’s there. It’s meant to be a temporary fix that you can deal with when you can. Sometimes we are lucky enough to reach a point where we can clean up the mental false walls we’ve constructed. But some messes just sit in there, rotting in the basement and seeping into the foundation. And you are so used to the smell that you don’t notice it anymore. But then you invite someone over and they are like, “Excuse me, but what the fuck is that smell?” Embarrassing, right? So it’s best to clean it up before you have to mentally or literally move house.
Ending the 3-year relationship I had with Bradley demolished the only positive relationship I had, or really the only relationship I had left. There was no more normal.