Acknowledge Us

Content Warning: Incest, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Child Rape, Being Drugged

I am strong.

I am powerful.

I was drugged so I could be controlled.

I was wounded.

I was broken.

I was shattered beyond any repair.

Or so I thought.

I recently was given a book written by a fellow childhood sexual abuse survivor. It’s almost funny how magnetizing those stories are and how so many of us find each other. Almost funny. ‘Cuz it’s really not, but it goes to show how powerful our stories are and how they draw us together. Our stories pull and shift so that we can find each other and know that, despite our abusers’ efforts, we are not alone.

The past month has been deeply shifting and transforming for me. A lot of layers were ripped back so old toxic wounds could be cleaned and then healed whole. A lot of these wounds have had to do with my mother. But two weeks ago in particular, I turned to my partner and told him that I realized I was feeling exactly how I did when my memories returned two years ago. Then I forgot about it because well life.

However, as I started reading the book my sister had given me, that uneasiness began to return. I made it 4 chapters into the book and had to put it down and walk away. I couldn’t read it. She was talking about how much she remembered and how she’s able to trace the abuse all the way through her childhood up to adulthood.

I am realizing as I write this that this is how I felt just before my memories returned 2 years ago. It was this uneasy sense of my story not being enough. Combined with a sense of something seriously missing but not being able to pin down what. Since some point last week, I have been carrying this uneasiness that something was shifting. Along with a deep desire to find someone who has a similar story to mine. It is really difficult to find another story like mine – one where the father was the rapist and the mother was the abuser.

As things were really sitting heavy with me yesterday, I kept trying to pull back to gain perspective. But as I did that, something started to fall into place. As I drove home from dropping my oldest off at school, I started tearing up. I have long thought that there was a good chance I was sexually abused at least once before being raped by my dad. Something happened before I could actually speak – the very least, speak in full sentences. This would line up with some of the things that didn’t get explained through the memories I have already had come back.

I have done a lot of work with reintegrating my younger self back into my soul, I even did a soul retrieval and brought her home. So when I got home from dropping my oldest off at school yesterday, I knew something was about to come through. I had lunch with a friend and thoroughly enjoyed chatting with them, but I felt the walls started to shatter and knew it was only a matter a time before it all came flooding out.

Yesterday afternoon, pieces started coming together. It was like I was standing there and calling those missing pieces to return to me. And they were coming back. Pieces were lining up, pictures were forming, and I could see the timeline starting to come back together.

I was sexually abused multiple times between the ages of 1.5ish to 7ish.

I believe the abuse started sometime before or during me being potty trained.

I couldn’t have said no. I didn’t know how to say no. It was not my fault.

The memories and feelings and sensations I’ve had return explain all of the gaps in my memories that I still didn’t have answers for. I still have missing places in my memories, but I am convinced those are because my brain couldn’t handle it anymore.

It explains my mother’s actions towards me even more.

I have been sitting with my youngest self and holding her and comforting her. My younger self who was brought home after my soul retrieval has been sitting with us too. We are both whispering and loving our youngest self and giving her the safe space she needs to “tell” us what happened.

I am sitting here watching my 2.5 year old happily play and build big legos all by himself. He unquestioningly trusts me to protect him and can be vulnerable around me and my partner. I watch my 5 year old feel safe enough to have a melt down because school was hard and he needs to just feel safe and held. Watching them have so much trust in us is a punch to gut knowing I once had that for my parents. Not only did neither of my parents hold that with respect and gentleness, they used and abused me and took advantage of my unquestioning trust in them.

I am sitting here and being gentle with myself today. Holding space and believing everything my youngest self gives for me to see. I am more present and grounded than I even have been with having memories coming back. My body is feeling relief of having the rest of the pieces.

And So It Is.