Over the weekend I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Satisfaction Through Calefaction. In her post last Friday she talks about her struggles growing up and how it lead to her eating disorder. She briefly discussed how she was sexually abused and how she went to therapy.
This really got me to thinking about my own personal experiences that I have never talked about with anyone. And I wonder if this specific event has shaped my life. I have a hard time trusting men. It is not that I don’t try… I give it my all to believe what they tell me but for some reason or another I always seem to get betrayed by them.
When I was 7 years old I was walking home from school with my little brother and some friends. When a man was trying to start his white van. He was having trouble when he asked me to help him. I walked up to the van when he picked me up and threw me inside. And he left my brother and friends behind. (luckily, I had some smart friends and they ran to the nearest house and called police)
This man drove me all over the city (getting me confused to where I was) I only remember him stopping at some sort of rock pit / lake. I then remembered my mother telling me never to get into a car with strangers, don’t talk to them, ect. ect. but I guess at 7 I wasn’t thinking that at the time. Things are a little fussy from this point in time. I don’t really remember what happen next. I just remember him driving fast as we heard cop cars. He then reached over me and opened my door and pushed me out of the van as it was still moving. A few minutes later the cops found me on the side of the road.
Later, when the police were talking to my mother they had said a man fitting his description and the van, kidnapped a little girl and she had not been found.
It has taken me 30 years to repeat this story. And it is not much fun as the rest of the blog posts but I wanted Heather to know that I think her telling her story was very brave and I am so proud of her trying to help others with her post.
And I hope that others who read my post will understand a little something more about me.
I was silent about the abuse my father put me through for 17 years. I told my mom and then gradually told my friends. It probably had a lot to do with my age but at some point the fact that I had broken the power of silence my dad held over me for SO LONG just overwhelmed me and I felt the need to tell everyone. Maybe not for their sake so much as mine, but getting it out there in the open is just so refreshing. I'm proud of you for finally starting to talk about it, I'm sure you have a lot of pent up emotions you need to sift through over all of this. I'm proud of your friend for having the courage to blog her abuse out (even if she just touched on it briefly). And I love that her choice lead to yours and hopefully yours will lead someone else to talk about theirs. Since I'm 100% anon on this blog I haven't blogged it out there yet, but I have blogged it out on my other blog. There is such freedom in breaking the silence!! <3
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