It Is My Time

Secrets and obstacles. It's funny how sometimes they can blend so closely together that they become the same thing. I'm trying to move forward in my life, but there is so many strings from the past, and problems in the present that are holding me back. Cutting the strings aren't that easy. Even admitting that they are there is a challenge.

The biggest string is a secret that I have carried for many years, a secret that even I wasn't aware of until fairly recently. My mind blocked the memories out, hid them away, and I completely forgot about it all until last year. I was molested when I was 11 or 12 years old. It all came back to me one morning like a movie playing in slow motion in my mind, every detail, every feeling, every bit of confusion and shame. I was in a state of shock for a few days following that revelation, but I'm glad I know.

I was in bed, I had my own room, which was a pretty privileged thing in our house as there were only 3 bedrooms and 4 kids. My parents had been having a small party downstairs, a few of their friends and the next door neighbors were over. Many of them were drinking, and I clearly remember listening to my father play his guitar and singing as I fell asleep that night. At some point later, I woke up to find our neighbors son sitting beside my bed. I don't know how long he had been there but he was leaning over me slightly and he had been watching me sleep, and for some strange reason he had his dog in the room with him. He was only a few years older than me, but he had been drinking, he had a beer in his hand. His parents allowed him to drink as long as they were around, lucky me. After I woke up, he started to talk to me, I don't remember what was said, only that he got into my bed with me. It was a double bed, so I was able to move away from him some, but I was pinned between him and the wall, with no way out. The frame of the bed was an antique and the footboard was about 4 feet tall, not much shorter than me at the time. Besides, I was terrified, I didn't know what he was thinking, or what he was going to do. At first he just laid there and made comments about my bedroom, things about how he could live with that bedroom, he'd just have to change a few things. For some reason I remember him making fun of me at that point for the poster I had of Gowan on the wall.

I know I moved further away from him sometime after this point, because that's when it started. At first it was like he was taunting me, saying things like, are you afraid of me? think I'm going to touch you? And then he did. Part of me says I got off lucky, because there was no penetration, but part of me is still so angry, so confused, and so ashamed. Every now and then, I can feel where he touched me, like a phantom sensation.

I still believe that the only reason it didn't go further than it did was because of my father. He came upstairs to use the washroom, and saw my bedroom door open. My bedroom door is never open when I'm sleeping, so he came in and he saw him in my bed. Dad was furious and ordered him out of my room. However, Dad was also very drunk. Even though he most likely saved me from some much more serious traumas, he had no memory of it in the morning. He still doesn't to this day, and I just don't have the heart to tell him. It would break his heart, literally crush him, and he would blame himself.

I didn't forget it all immediately, but I didn't understand what had happened. I told a friend, which turned out to be the biggest mistake I made. We were in middle school, she didn't understand it any more than I did, she thought I was making stories up about "making out" with him to try and be "cool". Rumour mills are not nice things, the fact that I spoke about it got back to him, I don't know how distorted it was by this time, but he was pissed off.

He showed up at my back door late one night, when he knew that my parents were away. It was just me and my baby brother. We had both been playing games upstairs so most of the lights were off downstairs. When I heard the doorbell, I came down, but by the time I got anywhere near the back door, it had turned it to multiple rings on the bell and loud banging on the door. I knew who it was without having to look. There was an small enclosed porch between the door he was at and the door I was behind. I could peek through the curtain without him seeing me to confirm it was him, and then I tried to ignore him. I was frightened out of my skull. My baby brother was very confused. I told him who was at the door, but that we couldn't let him in, and my brother just didn't understand why, but he went along with it. But he never let up at the door, it felt like hours, but I was watching the clock. He banged and pushed on that bell for 20 minutes straight, even began yelling at me to open up because he knew I was in there. My brother was now getting upset, very upset, and it was only for his sake that I opened that door.

He came in like the speed of light, and he wasn't alone. He had a friend, who happened to be the older brother of one of my friends ... that's how it all got back to him. I backed up into a corner of the kitchen, I had an open door on either side of me, but there was no where I could run. My brother was right there with me, cowering behind my legs. He stood by the back door, never coming closer that 10 feet to me and chewed me out for spreading lies about him, trying to ruin his reputation, insisting that nothing happened. And he refused to leave until I agreed with him, that nothing had happened, he made me "admit" that I had lied, all for the benefit of his friend and ego I'm sure, but to the complete obliteration of me.

He finally left and I locked all the doors, ran upstairs and cried. I don't know how long I cried for, but my brother eventually came into my room and very quietly and so gently came up to me and told me not to cry. He then asked me why "He" was yelling and being so mean. My brother was so young, but he was so sweet and caring in that moment that it still brings tears to my eyes today. It was my brother that got me through that night, he gave me huge hugs and even brought me his favourite stuffed animal. I set it all aside, and my brother and I got back to what we were doing before the ordeal at the back door. After that, I don't remember anything.

I don't know how long it was before the memory was buried in my mind. The emotions that came with the experience never went away, just the memory. And I think that made everything a little bit harder to deal with. I was going through the trauma, but I didn't understand why. My behavior got out of control, I never really crossed the line and did anything illegal, but I was a brat. There was a full year where my mother and I didn't speak to each other unless it was necessary. I became very sexually promiscuous, and I went through relationships like water. Maybe this was all a result of what happened to me that night, but we can only speculate.

I was 14 when my cry for help came. I was in grade 9, and I was not adjusting to anything at all. At times I would walk out of class, throw books ... there was just huge amounts of anger surging through me and it was bursting at the seems to get out, but I didn't know why or where it was coming from. Eventually, my math teacher took me out of class one day and asked me to go see the principal. When I was in his office, he basically asked me why I was acting out like this, and before I could think, before I even knew what I was saying, I had told him I had been raped.

The police got involved, my parents were devastated, there were councilors. All the while I'm panicking in my head, trying to go with the story, and not get caught. Then the guilt set in, I harboured it for years. How could I make up such a claim, when there truly are women out there experiencing the trauma and violence of rape everyday? What kind of person was I that I could lie about something like that?

All that time, I didn't know what had truly happened to me. When the memories came back, it made more sense. I was trying to deal with the trauma of my experience, but without the memory of it, I was left blowing in the wind. I guess part of me knew something had happened, why else would rape have been what I made my distress call with. It's true that I never was raped, and there are many, many women who experienced far worse trauma and violence than I did, but a friend pointed something out to me. It's not a competition. What I went through isn't any less valid because there was no penetration. I still experienced the horrors of sexual assault and the aftermath of it all.

When I approached my mother and told her the truth after I remembered, she told me she knew I hadn't been raped. They all knew, the police, my parents, my councilors. But they also knew that something did happen to me, and I they would just have to wait until I was ready to share it on my own time.

It's taken 14 years, but it is my time.