I’m awakened out of a dead sleep. Disoriented by the realization I am not in my own bedroom. Through the near pitch-black darkness I recognize the backrest of the love-seat as my ceiling, the emptied seat of the couch as the wall to my left and the propped couch cushions making up the wall to my right.
Lying there in my own section of the fort my cousins, step brother, and I built, I wonder why my heart and arm hairs are equally electrified by nervous energy within the safety of my own living room.
My mind searches for any trace of a nightmare that could have caused such panic, but comes up short. I try to calm my breathing and my thoughts… but my internal alarm is only getting louder.
Suddenly I realize why.
I see a male figure crawling through the sliver of an opening in the hanging blankets that are my makeshift doorway. I can hear my step brother’s sleepy breathing through the cushion to my right so I know it is not him.
My mind starts racing through all of the other possibilities.
When he is less than half way into what was once my own little safe-haven turned hell in an instant… I recognize his distinct smell… like stale saliva on a thumb.
I know him. And in the moment I make a last ditch, desperate effort to assure myself there’s no reason to panic… but truth be told, my instincts clearly know better.
Remaining optimistic I ignore my intuition and fight the urge to call out. Instead, I play dead. I decide to lie there, stiff as a board, legs clenched tightly together, discreetly trying to elbow my step brother through the cushions between us. I beg, silently, over and over and over for him to please, please, please wake up and make his conscious mind be known.
He does not.
In that same moment I realize my tiny child legs are much too weak for the ravish of a beast. So I move to Plan B.
I try to roll to my side, now clawing at anything surrounding me that I can gain leverage from. I am repetitively forced to accept that I am the prey and am far too small to win this battle.
Suddenly, I begin to feel something my nine year old brain concludes to be a foot between my legs. As I’m wondering why someone would want to forcefully shove their foot into my privates I hear my teenage brother come home to his seemingly warm, safe, sleepy house.
My relief is almost instantly demolished when the aggressive intermittent rocking continues. My mind escapes to a beach where I am trapped in the surf trying to break free of the powerful crashing waves against my tiny body. I am so entrenched in this vision I have lost my breath as if I’m really drowning, the sand seems to be scraping away at my insides, and I feel an overwhelming sense of doom like something within me is dying.
I snap out of it from the excruciating pain.
Within the transition, I muster the courage to scream. I can feel my face strain, my mouth open… but nothing comes out.
Finally, after what seems like days and fleeting seconds all at once… he’s gone.
I lie there wondering if this is somehow the nightmare I woke to just moments ago. Was it real? I reach down… it was real.
I wait for any sign that it’s safe to escape, becoming more and more exhausted by the tense body I find myself sitting in. Finally, I believe he’s fallen asleep.
I inch my way out of the fort until my body is half way free. I decide to make a run for it. Across the room, up the stairs to the safety of my big brother’s arms.
Before I can even finish telling him what happened he is at my mom’s locked bedroom door banging and banging and banging and banging for what feels like a lifetime as I sit across the hall in my bedroom wishing I’d just slept in my own bed.
Finally she opens the door and listens to my brother’s retelling of what is now a pivotal part of My Story.
I was nine years old when my cousin raped me in my own home with four other family members sleeping within feet of me. Ensuing years feeling guilty for letting it happen, for giving him the impression he would get away with it, and for whatever I did that made him want to do it to me in the first place. I also went through periods of not only being angry at myself for not killing him, but being angry at those around me for not killing him either… or, at the very least, recognizing they needed to protect me from him.
Looking back over the past 20 years since that evening, I can pinpoint specific life decisions, boughts of depression, and whatever it is that makes a victim be known to other predators due solely from this monumental life-altering experience.
Now that I am a mother of a precious, vulnerable, innocent little girl I’ve regained my strength. I’ve nurtured my dignity and self worth. I’ve realized none of it was ever my fault or anyone else who loved me for that matter.
I had to learn a very hard lesson at a much too young age. But, because of my experience my daughter has someone that much more equipped to protect her. And for that, I will forever be grateful.
For all the women and mothers out there; trust your instincts. Anyone offended by your protective and preventative measures… well, you were probably right to take those actions.
For anyone reading this who has gone through anything similar; you are not a victim. You are a survivor. Whoever harmed you took enough away from you, don’t let them take anything more.