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And I'm angry

A page in the diary "Wednesday's Child"
Written by vivica 17. Aug 2008 11:33 PM

Why do I do that to myself? One little thing reminds me of a million equally little hurtful things, and I get into these long reminiscings of all the bad things.
Tonight has a theme, thanks to an incident at work.
I'll put a language warning right here.
I hope I don't offend.

I'm 12. Daddy warns me that boys are bad, boys only want one thing and I shouldn't trust them. Silly Daddy, he worries too much...
I'm 13. My sister, 17, has a new boyfriend. He's 22. He confides to my sister that he is attracted to me and my twin sister. He goes on to move away with my sister, and subject her to his abuse for months. She comes home, bruised and bandaged. Oh, but he came back, too... my twin sister, my little sister. She didn't know any better, she never has.
I'm 14 now. My "friends" are trying to make me up, make me over, because "boys will never want me". A boy, 14 too, leaves his girlfriend for me and I refuse him. He's no good. He pins me down and holds a 10 pound compact bow to my chest, and calmly explains what would happen if his fingers "slipped" from the string.
Now I'm 15. I start going out with my boyfriend. The boys at school tease and ask me personal questions about our relationship. They tell me my sister is a whore. They tell me I'm a whore, slut, scrag for getting drunk, they tell me I'm making myself look bad because I smoke and swear. Or was it the other way around? I tell them to f*ck themselves, with a smile. I'm in my rebellious phase.
I'm 16 now and my head is shaved. And old man stops me in the street to tell me I'm gorgeous and can he touch my hair? I tell him I'm only 16 and he asks me to come home with him. I hurry away. Young men in cars scream abuse at my shaved head, they yell "get a f*cking wig" they call me "dyke". They, too, can f*ck themselves.
I'm in martial arts. I hate the way my small breasts are apparent behind my shirt. I hate my breasts.
I'm 17 and I'm angry. It's New Years. I'm with friends, and I'm hurting, so I get myself as messed up as I can on alcohol and marijuana. A friend of mine, he's gay. But I'm lying on the grass and he jumps on me. He rubs himself against me and tells me I'd be with him, not my boyfriend, if he weren't gay. I'm terrified, he's stronger than me. But all I can do is laugh, everything's just so funny. I don't know how to feel, he's such a good friend... He apologises profusely when I tell him later what he did.
I'm 18 in the music store. A young man starts talking to me. I can't meet his eye. I'll assume he's a bastard anyway. And when I'm drunk (and I often am), I need a friend to take care of me. People will try things, you see. Young men makes comments to and about me, inappropriate things. My sister becomes pregnant, he boyfriend becomes violent, psychotic from the drugs. I make her go to the police.

I'm 19 now. And I'm every teenage girl you've met.
And I'm angry.

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Comments from the community:

I dunno Vivica. Life is a learning curve and there are some bad people out there, trick is avoiding them
wherever possible. And when you can't, you will feel like shit for a day or so, then move on having learnt.

Written by maple, 18. Aug 2008 10:58 AM

Hi Viv,

This is an amazing entry full of insight, passion and mostly anger. I can feel anger pulsating through it.

There is nothing wrong with anger. I have had it for many years.

Our past stories bare great similarities, many.

Over the last 18 months I have worked very hard to loose the intensity of my anger. I have done this mostly by reframing my thinking about childhood and adolescent events.

When I would assess my life and look back on incidents such as you mention, I would judge myself with an adult’s perspective.

I was very savagely raped as a 14 year old by my "boyfriend". You know I had laterally forgotten the incident (in the front of my mind) and a friend mentioned something about an assault she had ad as a child....and it clicked on in my head. What followed were weeks and weeks of reframing, how could I have known? I did not ask for this. I did not tell my parents because I would have been slapped and called stupid. So until that day I told my psychologist I had told no one. There was anger, very strong anger.

The flood gates opened and I started to recall many many things I had suppressed and I hated that she made me do that, I hated I was so weak as to have not dealt with it.

But now?

I worked hard, I spent a long while in hospital when I could not face living anymore and I continue to spend time with my psychologist, although now it is far less painful. And certainly my depression is not magically gone, I still struggle and am feeling relatively OK just now.

In telling you all of this I just want to let you know that it took me till I was 43 to start to do this. You should be angry but please don’t look at the events and decisions of your childhood and youth with an adults eye or hindsight.

To quote my psychologist “you did the best thing you could do at the time, based on what you knew and what resources you had available"

So true. So very true.

Part of me wants to wrap you up and keep you safe (the mum part) part of me wants you to learn the insight and how loosing all that anger can free you. And the part of me that wants to tell you to focus on your amazing qualities, insight and intelligence.

Keep venting, as much as you can, soon you will find you run out of steam and I am pretty confident it wont take you near as long as it did me!

Care support and wisdom to you,

Liz

Written by keller, 20. Aug 2008 07:03 PM

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