Trigger warning. Childhood SA memories.

I tried to put this in trigger warning brackets around the worst, most detailed part (in my mind because dissociation is real!) of this post only to realize it’s all terrible. Don’t read this if you’re already on the precipice of sadness. Definitely don’t read it if you’re close to having that last straw break you today. My need to have people get me thought I could just tell you to skip a few paragraphs but it’s all terrible. Every word in this post. Read at your own risk I guess. 

My cousin sent me a message on Facebook. The first of many surprisingly random messages from my family. 

I was angry, that was my first feeling. 

Of course she felt a connection with my mother. Everyone loved my mother. She was fun. Smart and sarcastic. I care a little too much what others think of me so I feel like I do the same thing. I’m a joker because I want people to like me. 

Which was what made it harder to be okay after I felt abandoned. What had I done? Why wouldn’t she pick me? How terrible was I that both my parents treated me as an inconvenience? I was shocked when my mother told me why my name was Desiree and it was because they wanted a baby so bad. 

I feel like I heard that my mother had a miscarriage before me. It’s the only way I can envision my parents getting married. Out of a misplaced send of duty and then she miscarried. Would that other baby have been more cared for? Better as a human? More worthy? A boy, don’t all men want boys? Was their shit so broken they thought a baby would fix it? 

I’ll never know. 

But my cousin’s message brought immediate anger. Yes. My mother connected with her. She connected with many.  I thought we were a family unit. I loved her just as much as every other blind eyed person who wants to share their great story about my mom with me. 

I’m surprised to find I’ll take them and greedily. Why not other people’s memories? Memories might hurt me but they are also good and cathartic sometimes. They might form a more cohesive picture of my mother. One where it’s not viewed through the strain of our relationship. Mother daughter relationships are always complex I guess. Mine more so than others, if I do say so myself. Probably not as fucked up as some others. So the stories, the memories are things I have to accept. But for every sweet one, the ones I get jealous of, there are just as many bad ones. One cousin recollects how he spent his whole day getting to her house after she moved back near him and when he got there she didn’t have the time for him. Feels familiar, like how she just dropped into my house on the way to clean out her boyfriend’s dad’s house. Maybe she was just awkward? My next sister down has more memories than I do. Or she thinks she does. Things don’t match up in a way that makes sense on some of these memories. She insists she remembers mom and her high friends putting out cigarettes on her. Maybe that was an accident? I don’t remember her being cruel. I write that and realize how insane that sounds. Do I just not want to believe she could be mean? I KNOW she could be mean. Passive aggressive, martyrlike. It IS cruel to subject your child to a step father like mine. I also remember running my finger down a mirror, not understanding why it was dusty looking. My mother laughed and said to taste it. I don’t know why I did but my mouth went numb. White drugs of some kind. I guess cocaine? 

Maybe she figured she’d birthed us, so she could do whatever she wanted to us. Maybe she was cruel. Hell, maybe I was a favorite. Maybe she wasn’t trying to be cruel. I have other memories of things she did “right”. Like never punishing me in front of my friends. That kind of backfired on her when I’d bring people with me after I ran away to get things from home. But she also insisted on telling everyone she knew when I got my period even though I was horrified by that. Or how she called H’s mom and told her she’d call the police on her for hiding a runaway. Refusing to give me my SS card. My birth certificate.  Maybe she was an actual mean person. She’d crow about how she didn’t believe in spankings like my father but she’d smack the hell out of me in other spots like my back. Pull my hair. How do I actually think she WASN’T that mean? Just rotten? Life has lead me to believe people are rarely so black and white. There was some reasoning. The booze/drugs clouded it, I suppose. 

Textbook psychology would say she was likely abused as well. But I broke the cycle. I may not be the best parent but I at least accomplished that. While I used to think she couldn’t have really known (in more generous moments of mine, or maybe that’s just something I tell myself to feel better, like she didn’t know she was feeding me to the wolf), I realize after talking to my little sister that is false. Memory bubbles in my brain have just crashed up against each other and shattered. 

 

I’d act out, try to be annoying so he wouldn’t want to be near me. If I knew she was going out anyhow. But then she’d tell me how I should appreciate him, after all, where would we be without him since my father was a piece of shit. She always condemned my father for abandoning me and I never did. I suppose that’s why she was so mad when I’d idolize him. I didn’t think he had abandoned me, in all actuality. I figured he also decided he couldn’t have my mom be a part of his life and I was part of her life by default. That she was THAT crazy. I was sad but I didn’t really blame him. I blamed her or myself. If my sister is to be believed the memories of mine are hazy. They are, of course they are. I was little. When I asked why she didn’t live with us anymore, I was handed down stories of her grandparents having more money so they could buy off the case. That her dad asked for custody but it was really his parents who wanted her and she’d basically been stolen from us. I remember going to visit her a few times, but mom didn’t stay and never seemed like she was that sad. I was also told recently by my sister she only showed up at court because she was subpoenaed. She just had babies and then abandoned them every time. I don’t think I understood that at the time, how she never stayed to see A, I figured I just got a weekend with my little sister and my mom got some kid free time. Somewhere I heard about the case or maybe my brain filtered a conversation my little sister swears we had about if our stepfather touched me like he did touch her. I don’t remember this conversation, it’s one of the things I can’t quite fit into the puzzle. She’s 3 years younger than me? Maybe only 2, but even then that would mean she was 3 or maybe 4 when she says we had this conversation. What kind of 3-5 year olds could have a talk that made sense to anyone? Let alone about these kinds of things? I remember my mom coming home early one day and catching M in the bath with me. I didn’t know why but she seemed freaked out. I didn’t get it. My grandma took baths with me. Probably my mom too. It didn’t seem like a big deal but I remember feeling shame. 

 

That said, it makes a lot more sense why I went to my dad’s house suddenly. When asked, I was told it was because they needed to get ready for the new baby mom was having. Much more likely that I was sent to the other parents house while the molestation case against my step monster for my little sister was being built. If my sister is correct, and I don’t see why she’d lie, except if her family wanted her to feel better about it all, he was found guilty. And she was placed with her dad and my dad GAVE ME BACK to my mom. It’s not as simple as that, it rarely is, but that hurt. I always figured he didn’t know, but maybe just suspected. That was enough to give me one decent parent in my memories. Truth is they were both super flawed people who should not have had children together, or maybe at all. My dad was just as much the ostrich with his head in the sand as I always thought my mother was. Just pretend it’s not true and it won’t be? My sister insists her grandparents would have taken me as well but no one would allow that to happen? I don’t know. Neither one seemed to want to have me around, so maybe that’s a lie her grandma told her when she was very sad about not having her big sister around. And since I had a new baby sister, I didn’t ask about her as much I guess. Maybe I thought it would make mom sad or maybe I just knew it was a bad subject.

 

It makes more sense in this context. I remember going to Sue’s mom’s house for daycare after school. If it was supposed to be short term why did they move so many things around for me? I remember being there a lot for a minute but being upset about it. And then they went out of their way to keep me from coming over after whatever happened with my stepbrother. He was older, but I knew things I shouldn’t have. Maybe I thought I could make him like me by doing sexual things. Maybe it was my idea. That doesn’t feel right, but who knows. I was a pretty screwed up little kid who would say things little kids shouldn’t say and not even know it was wrong until an adult would look shocked. That’s also a murky memory, but I do remember hating him most of the time while also really wanting him to like me. Older brothers were supposed to protect you but he never did and instead told on me for things I didn’t do and I’d get a spanking for pulling the dog’s tail. So I assume someone was like..what is wrong with her? Although it should have been clearly obvious what was wrong with me especially with a molestation trial going on. But I didn’t fit into his new life with Sue and maybe she was horrified. What had she done, getting herself aligned and married to a man whose daughter was a complete head case and was now affecting her children? She did what any NORMAL mother would do and kept them away from me. I was the problem. Little me who looks forever innocent in past pictures. Was I ever innocent? I feel like there was an instance with my grandma’s boyfriend where he picked me up and took me to his house and I was excited to ride his motorcycle. He took me to his place and asked if I wanted to get undressed. I said no, and he said he wanted too so he did. Again nothing felt alarming about this. Was I just assaulted so early it seemed normal?

 

But I also remember saying something to my mom or grandma and suddenly I never saw that guy anymore. He never touched me. Just got naked in front of me. Does that even count? I used to wonder. I know better now. 

Maybe this conversation she remembers us having happened, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it happened later after my grandma died, but who knows. I remember grandma being protective but was she really? Could she have been if she didn’t know? I learned to lie once I realized I wasn’t supposed to know these adult things.

All I really come back to over and over is that the choice I made at 15, the control I felt like I had, the agonizing about it later, none of it mattered. 

If I’ve told you my story you’ve probably heard the small version. The one I can put a funny spin on because the cops showed up and my mom assumed they were there because I was in trouble but they were there to talk to me about reports of sexual molestation. The last time I told someone was my ex co worker and I just said “my stepfather was handsy and my mother did nothing about it” and I guess that’s true. Because if there was a case before and I was put back into daily contact with that sick fuck; even if I’d told the truth at 15, he would have still been around. I watched my mother that summer. I learned how we’d be if he wasn’t around like she always asked me. I loved it, no worrying about my step monster and I got far more attention from her. I always did when they weren’t talking. If she was pissed, I was sure to get a bong hit or extra cigarettes while she treated me like an adult and bitched about him. It felt like we were against the world again like I’d once felt before he’d come into her life. 

My mother HATED it. She had to go on welfare and she missed him. Then I started to think about my little sisters knowing about their father. The kids I’d tried to protect from our parents; and I was going to ruin their relationship? There is a line in a Fiona Apple song “My pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will disprove your faith in man” and I guess I didn’t want to disprove their faith. For all the crap I was put through. For every fat joke and racist comment I had to hear, he was their dad and at least he was around. Not like my dad. How could I take him away from them? I knew my parents were fucked up but my siblings didn’t seem to know that and I couldn’t bring myself to take that innocence from them. I lied on the stand. I wonder if the judge/prosecutors knew. I wonder how many teenagers/kids lie and if they can tell. I bet that’s a hard job. Watching kids be abused and not be willing or able to talk about it. Even when I ended up pregnant at a teen pregnant shelter, I never told my psychiatrist during all those mandatory sessions while I stayed there. I focused solely on the drug abuse as to why I had to run away to explain it when adults would give me the look that said “Why are you here?” and I felt like I had to have a reason. Something to help them make sense of a world where a “good” kid ends up a runaway and pregnant at 16.

But now that whole narrative is blown away like ashes. If I had told the truth, I have no doubt she’d have made it okay somehow in her brain. We already lied about my living there, why not lie about M living with us? Would I be angrier? Like my next little sister down? Because it was a clear choice and she’d always choose him. She chose him over A, she didn’t technically have to chose him over me, but she basically did. I ran away not long afterwards. Between my teenage hormones, my mothers broken mental well being, and the unwanted attention of my stepfather, I had to escape. Another thing I feel guilty about. Leaving the little ones. 

I don’t think he touched his own kids. They were his blood. But who knows? Once, my mother said “I bet you like it” and that was probably the very moment when I knew I’d never say anything. I’ve told myself those couldn’t have been her actual words. I misheard her. This was long before I was 15. In Colorado so I was younger than 13. But probably after she’d told me I couldn’t sleep in just my tee shirts and underwear. I read a book much later that said that’s a big issue with child molestation, because adults know how to make it feel good. And I liked the attention that wasn’t negative which was all I seemed to be getting from my mom unless she was pissed at him. I mean, he knew how to be nice. To play in to my being a teenager and annoyed by my mother. “You know how your mother is”, I’d hear multiple times. Yes, I’d agree, I do know. Insane. Then he’d suggest I go get some “me time” in their bedroom and watch me. He’d show me magazines and sometimes he rubbed himself between my thighs but I guess he felt okay with just touching because it wasn’t penetration? Who the fuck knows. Maybe he thought he couldn’t be jailed if he didn’t have sex? I don’t know and I don’t like putting myself into his brain to try and understand why he thought it was okay. I hope he torments himself over it. I hope he waits in fear until he dies to see if I tell his kids anything about it. That seems fair.

I often say it could’ve been worse. He wasn’t my actual father, but he was the main male presence in my life while I was growing up. He taught me to fish and shoot. Taught me also to fear and distrust all men. 

It just hurts my heart that any adult saw this happening and thought, it’s fine. She can live with this guy (who may or may not have been convicted, I can’t find anything with a search online. Too old or maybe records sealed for minors?) and be safe. Why would my mother give him more kids to potentially fuck up? I know the answer, she didn’t use birth control because “it made her gain weight” she said when I asked her once. Only condoms were used and clearly they were useful since she had 6 of us and two miscarriages. Over 16 years she could have had 8 kids. Because birth control made her gain weight. The fuck?

6 kids is a lot more weight to gain, just saying. 

I’m still making it all mean something. Trying to. Because I’m so angry for my younger self. I used to agonize over mothering Derek. Hell, I still do. I wonder if I’m doing it all wrong. If I was supposed to be a parent. Hoping he feels loved and not like an accident. He was a surprise. Could never be an accident. Meant to be in my life. Much like all the above had to happen I guess. That’s the only way I feel peace, is thinking it had to play out that way. So I guess I should be happy that my so called choice at 15 turned out not to have been a real choice at all. And maybe now I can stop agonizing over if it was the right one or if shit would’ve been different if I’d said he did touch me. Nothing would’ve. 

Not really. I don’t even really know why she did finally leave him. M insists she made him leave because mom wouldn’t. Made him leave because he was sleeping with someone else and he said he “loved them both” and tried to live with both of them. That makes me wonder what kind of other woman wanted his uneducated, racist ass. Probably a younger one. Right? He always liked the younger ones. 

Yet another reason I don’t want to live in Wyoming. Maybe he’s considered a decent example of a human being. 

I’ve been writing and editing this for weeks now. I’m sure it reads like my essays in school, either I haven’t stuck to the subject or I’ve been too repetitious. I’m sure I’m not done. She’s on my mind. Hell, he’s on my mind. I dreamed a few nights ago that I was trying to get away from him again but for some reason we had to share a bed and I just became resigned to it. I guess I was tired. Hell I am tired. If it’s not one thing lately, it’s another and I’m starting to switch from apathy to panic too easily. Rent is going up? Oh well. D woke up with awful leg cramps? He’s probably dying. Ben says oh no, my heart rate speeds up, but it’s just that the drawer was a little broke.

I hope this catastrophe mode ends soon. I don’t love the apathy but the panic in my stomach is worse