HEALING OUR LIVES
I have a story to share with you. It is the story not only of my life, but of thousands of others. It is a story of betrayal, of violence, or unrequitted pain. It is the story of the tearing of the very fabric of the life force itself.
I emerged into this world, totally helpless and defenseless, naked and vulnerable. I was a gift of the divine essence. I trusted completely, loved unconditionally. When I looked upon your faces, I saw the faces of the Gods. This is not blasphemy, for that is what you were to me. That is what you should have been to me. All I must know to survive, I was to learn from you. I could not even feed myself until you taught me how.
To hold me in your arms is to experience the surrender that comes from total trust. To look into my heart is to see love that knows no bounds or limits. I would do anything for your love, your embrace, for my need for love is as great as my capacity for it.
Till you came, my existence was one of beauty, wonder, and love. It was not just my body you desecrated with your acts, it was also my soul!! Any physical damage you may have caused will probably heal, and may even heal without scars. My soul, however, will never by the same!! I may heal, I may grow beyond your act, I may one day realize that it was not me that was wrong, but you, but I will never again be what I was before you. You stole my innocence, my ability to trust and to love completely. I will forever question the motives of any who claim to love me. There will always be a part of me that I must hold back. You have transformed all of my Gods into possible demons.
As I grow, I can find few, if any, friends to share my pain with. To most, I am damaged, deformed in their eyes because of your acts. Still others will see me as an easy mark to prey again on any innocence that I may have left. From those I think as friends who lack the compassion or maturity to understand, I face possible humiliation, ostracism, and further betrayal. The betrayal follows me throughout my entire life.
In time, I find others like myself and we share our stories. Some can recall all of it, some can reacall but shadows and fragments. Some who never recall fill our streets with prostitutes, drug and alcohol addicts and fill our prisons.
We enter adulthood and most of us enter into abusive relationships. Again, the blame is placed on us for having "chosen" these relationships. In truth, these men see our wounds, understand our weaknesses and know how to manipulate their ways into our lives. We are further isolated, further harmed, further scarred. when we cry for help, again our cries go unanswered. If we retaliate, we are punished, by our captor-mates as well as by society. If we leave, we are stalked, assaulted and abandoned by friends and family. Should we turn to the law and the courts for help, we are treated with indifference and financially destroyed by a system that will do little or nothing to protect us.
If we suffer in silence, we are masochists and deserve our fate. If we seek help, we meet closed doors and deaf ears. If we seek love in the way you taught us, we are sluts and whores. If we cannot derive pleasuire, we are frigid. If we fight back, we are deemed violent and institutionalized or imprisoned. If we speak out, we are unfeminine and vindicitive. If we cry, we are weak and emotional. If we show anger, we are labeled man-haters. If we find strength beyond our pain, we are emasculating bitches. If we turn from men to our own kind, we are condemned and further ostracized. Should we decide to have children and thse children become victims, we are blamed. Our children are stolen from us, their betrayer unpunished, instillilng in them the belief that they must have been wrong, for they are the ones being puished. the chain continued and strengthened by society's ignorance. The isolation perpeturated by ignorance, the damaged magnified by improper actions.
All of us have been given life sentences by these offenders. Our wounds may heal, but when they do, they form scars. We may learn to use these scars to fight for change. We may learn to love, to again see beauty and hope. The scars may fade, but they will never go away. few of us ever see the punishment exacted on our violators, and when we do, it never comes close to the sentence we have been given.
I have heard you stories. I have listened to your words. You say you are not animals, yet the truth is that you preyed on one incapable of fighting or refusing you. You stole what you knew you had no right to. You deceived one you know had no ability to distrust. You harmed a divine gift, a creature bestowed to bless this world. The child's innocence you stole can never be recovered. You seek to blame others, make excuses for you "weakness". You seek pity, compassion, understanding, forgiveness for your crimes. You assault those who have felt your hands, felt the pain that acoompanied them throughout life foe being unable to grant you your wish. You call them sick, ignorant, and unforgiving.
You cry you have served your "time" , paid the "price" for your acts. Yet, the price they paid will continue to be paid till they take their last breath. You wept with self-pity when the souls you have damaged are taken from your reach. You shout in outrage when financial damages are demanded (if they ever are) and your wallet must carry a part of the burden of the price of their healing. You cry unfair when they demand to know your names to attempt to protect their chilldren from the pain they have known. You rage of the loss of your rights, yet your victim has never been granted any. You cry of your shame mad public, then cry in private of the shame they fear to share. You cry at the price you have been asked to pay for you act, yet there is no price, no act, no deed that will ever begin to repair the damage you have wrought. there is no puishment, no retribution that can ever begin to erase the scars you have left.
If you truly wish to understand our fear, our rage, then look into our souls at the pain you have seared into it. Feel our hearts bleed every time we see another child wounded at you hands. experience our outrage everytime one of you walks away unpunished. See our tears each time we read of another child destroyed, another tear int he fabric of life, another innocent lost. think on this the next time you reach our you hand to one that cannot understand that which you wish to take.
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"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering." Dr. Judith Herman
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