This is something I have carried with me and kept close to the vest for nearly twenty years. My parents know, my husband knows and with the exception of one or two close friends, that's it.
This is my story.
We had assigned seats on the bus, and I sat next to a girl slightly older than I was. She had big glasses and wore skirts to school every day. I was bullied quite a bit, but my seatmate was one of the few kids I encountered every day who was nice to me. I liked her, and I liked sitting next to someone who left me alone. Since she was older than I, she had the option of choosing whether she wanted to sit by the window or by the aisle; she chose the window, leaving me with the aisle seat.
It's funny how such a small choice--one made by someone else, someone completely unrelated to you--can shape your life.
I can't tell you when it started. I just know that one day, a boy three years older than me got on the bus and paused when he passed my seat. He reached down and touched me between my legs.
I felt an immediate sense of shame. I knew that what he was doing was not okay, but I was still confused. I knew this boy a little. He was a friend of my brother, someone I always considered to be nice, someone I wanted to be friends with. He was well liked. While he wasn't exactly a popular boy, he had enough friends to navigate the playground without drawing too much attention to himself.
I decided not to say anything. I was embarrassed and surprised and confused. I didn't know what to do.
The next day, the same thing happened. He got on the bus, stopped next to me, and touched me between my legs again.
From that moment on, I began plotting ways to prevent him from touching me. I tried to put my backpack on my lap, but that didn't stop him. Instead, he shoved his hand under the weight of the canvas bag filled with books and grabbed me, hard. I'd never felt something so scary before. Nobody had ever touched me like that, and I hated it. I tried to switch seats with the girl who sat next to me, but even that didn't work. He just reached over her, rubbing me between my legs, pushing the seems of my jeans against my skin in a way that stung and pinched. Even today, I remember that feeling.
That's how things continued for several weeks. I vividly remembering walking to the school bus and feeling afraid. I begged my parents to drive me to school or let me stay home all together, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them what was going on. My parents, not knowing that I was in danger, grew annoyed with my constant bargaining. Eventually, I just stopped bringing it up. Eventually, I just got on the bus every single day knowing that he was going to touch me.
At some point, I worked up the courage to tell the bus driver that this boy was touching me, but nothing came of it. Maybe I didn't explain that he was touching my "private parts", or maybe the driver didn't understand what was happening. Either way, when I finally worked up the courage to reach out to someone, it was swept under the rug.
Sometime after that, it began to escalate.
The boy and I shared a recess together, despite being a few years apart. When he first started molesting me, it was isolated to the bus. He would leave me alone at school (I still wonder sometimes if was because I was so unpopular that he didn't want to associate with me or if it was because I was so much younger than he was). As my "encounters" with him continued, however, he grew more and more bold.
On our old playground, there was a piece of equipment we called the "Jack and Jill slide". It was smaller and less thrilling than anything else out there, so it was largely ignored by most of the kids. It was basically a platform with a A-frame roof and the slide came off of the top platform. The most novel thing about this piece of equipment was that underneath the platform, there was a large amount of open space. You could crawl under the slide, into this little nook and nobody could see you. I loved that space because I could go hide during recess and nobody would be mean to me. I could go there and be safe.
One day on the bus, the boy told me to meet him under the Jack and Jill slide at recess.
I don't know why I went. It's hard to say for certain. Maybe I wanted that boy's attention because he was well liked and if we were friends, the other kids would be more kind to me. Maybe I was desperate for someone, anyone, to like and accept me. I suppose it doesn't matter now, and any reasons I provide are products of speculation and a desire to make it all make sense.
He had gotten there before me. I crawled under the slide and he was already sitting there, waiting. I'm not sure of the sequence of events--if he talked to me, if he held my hand, if he was nice to me. The truth is, after I got under the Jack and Jill slide, I don't remember much of anything. Most of my memories are like video clips, they are little pieces of action. In most of my memories, there are moving pieces, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells.... The memories of what happened under the slide are just 3 still-frame images; one of him pulling my pants down, another of him getting on top of me and grinding his pelvis against mine, a final picture of him climbing out from under the slide.
It's odd, because I have depersonalized these memories so much that it's almost as if I'm watching it happen to someone else. I see this little girl, I see these things happening to her, but I'm not always able to process that it's ME--that those things were real and that they really happened.
That was the final straw. I came home from school and told my parents about what had been happening on the bus. I wanted to tell them about what happened under the slide, but I was too ashamed and embarrassed and afraid. As a child, all I could see that I made the decision to meet him there. In my head, that one was on me. That one was my fault, and I was so afraid that my parents would be mad or worse, disappointed.
My parents were irate with the bus driver, but they were even more livid with the boy. They were amazing with me, though. They talked to me about what happened, they talked to me about how I felt and assured me it wasn't my fault.
For the most part, I believed them. I knew absolutely that it wasn't my fault that he'd touched me on the bus, but I knew that what happened under the slide was my fault. I never told a soul about it, until today, I guess.
The boy who abused me lived with his grandparents, and my parents called them right away to inform them about what had happened. His grandpa came to our house and talked to my parents about it, he assured them that he would deal with his grandson--that there would be consequences. He apologized to me, and that was it. That was the last it was ever acknowledged. The boy never apologized to me or, to my knowledge, recognized that he'd done something wrong.
.....
Ten years later, when I was a sophomore, that boy and I were still going to the same school. We were involved in the same activities like band, theatre and speech. He was the school's theatrical superstar, landing leading roles in every production we put out since his freshman year. His popularity had only increased since our bus-riding days, while my stock had plummeted. (I've written before about my experience in high school, so I won't go into it again. Needless to say, I was a fucking loser and it was commonplace/accepted/expected to bully me). When he began to show a romantic interest in me, it was the first time I'd gotten that kind of attention from anyone.
I'd largely forgotten about what had happened when we were children. Suppressed might be a better word for it, actually, because while I didn't think about the abuse, I'm able to look back now and realize how much of my personality was (and, to an extent, still is) defined by the fact that I had experienced sexual abuse in my childhood.
We began seeing each other, and after a couple weeks, he asked me to be his girlfriend. There were 2 conditions to the relationship, however. The first was that nobody could know that we were dating, the second was that our relationship would end when he graduated high school. Blinded by "love" and bogged down by low self-esteem, I accepted these terms. From the very first moment, I was under his complete control.
The boy who molested me as a child became my first boyfriend, and after dating for less than two weeks, I lost my virginity to him.
.....
It's only in hindsight that I see the sickness of it all. It's only in hindsight that I realize the brutal, demeaning sex acts I "consented" to were part of his game of control, manipulation and abuse. It's only now that I realize how that relationship damaged me and all of my relationships after that point.
For years following our relationship, I thought I enjoyed being degraded. I thought I enjoyed being submissive and being treated "like a whore". It's almost as if claiming to enjoy those things made me empowered. If I asked for it, then it wouldn't be abusive. If I asked for it, I wouldn't be a victim.
When we were together, the boy who abused me and I never discussed what happened when we were children. I always wanted to, but I couldn't bring myself to say the words.
Looking back, I wonder if I was so in love and so attached to him because of the abuse. Our romantic relationship made those horrific, scary, uncomfortable memories easier because all of a sudden, they made sense. He didn't abuse me, he loved me. He had always loved me. He had always wanted me. I was special, and he was the only one who saw it.
Of course, that, too is speculation, but if it is the reason, my heart breaks for myself.
The truth--my truth--is that I was molested when I was a child by a boy who was old enough to know better. My truth is that I spent most of high school in an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship with a manipulative abuser who knew, absolutely, what he was doing. My truth is that my virginity was not given away to someone I loved, but taken from me by an individual who had robbed me of my power and innocence long before I laid down and gave it to him. My truth is that, until I met my husband, no man had every truly loved me.
.....
For years following the end of the relationship (he broke up with me after almost two years of dating), I didn't think much about the abuse. I looked back on the relationship the way most people look back at their teenage romances, fondly but without a sense of longing. Until about a year ago.
That's the funny thing about trauma, it tends to resurface. The fortunate thing about this is that it usually (in my case, anyway) takes place when you are in a safe enough (or far enough removed) place to be able to sift through it all and deal with it.
And, that's where I am now. I'm in this place where I'm trying to deal with it, but it often feel so overwhelming.
I still have moments where I blame myself---my childhood self--for allowing this to happen, for not asking for help, for going under that fucking slide. I still have moments where I feel like that little girl again, moments when my husband's hands lovingly touch my skin, and I feel myself rising out of my body--watching everything happen.
I can't seem to forgive myself for entering into a relationship with him, knowing what he did to me. I can't seem to forgive myself for loving him, for telling myself that I enjoyed the painful, degrading things he would ask me to do, for telling future partners that I enjoyed those same acts. I can't seem to forgive myself for letting that abuse mold me. Mostly, however, I can't seem to forgive myself for holding onto it so long. Why am I still processing this? It's been twenty years since he molested me on the school bus, ten years since I entered into that relationship, eight years since it ended, eight years since I've even seen him.....and yet, here I am, obsessing.
Here I am, letting it affect my life and love and relationships and sexuality all these years later.
Everything I've read about abuse and trauma says that this is normal, but it still feels so alienating and frustrating. Mostly because I never shared my whole story. I wanted to protect both of us--my abuser and me--from any fall out.
Well, fuck that.
When I was a child, I was a victim a sexual abuse.
Now that I am a grown woman, I realize that I am a survivor.
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