I Don't Know What To Call This

Part 1

I have to put the words somewhere. Writing this in private never helps. Talking to a therapist doesn't make me feel like I'm doing enough. So maybe putting this out in the world will be enough. Maybe it will just be another step in a long journey. All I want to do is move forward. This feels necessary.

So, I am an abuse victim and survivor. Putting victim only always feels like I'm putting myself down. Yet, it's something I have to admit. I am a victim. Something was done to me against my will and out of my control. That does make me a victim. Taking back control and getting out of the situation makes me a survivor. Putting up with the aftermath makes me a continual survivor.

They don't teach you how to get through these things in school. They don't tell you that it's even possible. The most that a school does for abusive situations is have pamphlets available in the counselor's office. It isn't enough. It will never be enough to just have help available in pamphlet form. Why does anyone think that's enough?

I play a game online. A game that I enjoy because the content if family friendly and for all ages. But unfortunately I have run into many children on this game with similar if not worse situations than what I dealt with as a kid. I've counted twenty so far, and all have been in the United States or Canada. The youngest is twelve and is dealing with an older sibling who threatens them with sharp objects on a daily basis. The worst part is there's nothing I can do to help them. If I ask where they live so I can call CPS for them I look like a predator. So, the only thing I can do is give them advice. I advise them to talk to their school counselor if their parents won't help them. I tell them to call CPS themselves and be completely honest, hold nothing back. But these children will never take my advice. They're scared of their parents and families. They're terrified that something worse will happen to them.

I get it. That's how I felt. That's how I thought growing up. I played the waiting game. I loved school because it kept me from going home. I hated school because I was bullied by so many other children and teachers. All I kept thinking was, If I can get through this I'll be ok. Ten more years until I'm eighteen. If I can get through this I'll be ok. Just Five more years until I'm eighteen. I'm almost there. If I can get through this I'll be ok. One more year until I turn eighteen.

Because I grew up being abused I never saw what came next. I wasn't taught how to get out. I wasn't taught the warning signs. So, I found myself playing the waiting game again but in a new way. If I get through this I'll be ok. Just do what you're told and maybe he'll stop yelling. If I get through this I'll be ok. Just work harder and maybe he'll stop hitting me. If I get through this I'll be ok. Just sleep with him whenever he wants and never say no, even when it hurts and maybe he'll stopping cutting himself. If I get through this I'll be ok. Just stop bathing and he won't threaten me with a knife. If I get through this I'll be ok. I can take everything as long as he's a good father.

I was not ok, nothing got better, and I ended up being scarred mentally and physically. No one told me how to handle that. No one taught me how or when to say enough was enough. I was so scared and so terrified that it would get worse if I did anything to stop it. Yet, I didn't see that it would never get better.

People love to tell me what they would have done in my situation. They love to get angry and scream at you and call you stupid for not doing what they would have done. They also love telling an eighteen year old mother how to raise their child. How to handle their divorce. How to handle the now ex. Only they never do it before the shit hits the fan. Ever trip over a step, then someone tells you, "There's a step there." It's like that except it's a cliff with a deadly drop and you hit some trees on the way down that break your fall enough to save your life but you break every limb and rib before you get to the bottom, have to pick yourself up somehow, drag yourself back to the top, dust yourself off, haven't even begun healing yet and then your friends and family say, "There's a cliff there."

That last sentence was a run on sentence on purpose. That's how those situations feel. You can't see the cliff, but everyone else claims that they saw it a mile before you dropped off of it. They never warn you about, but they'll claim that they did. By the time you get back to the top you're broken and out of breath. Instead of helping you they tell you it was your fault for not seeing the signs. Meanwhile, looking back at the signs, you see they are covered in overgrowth and moss.

I'll admit, knowing the signs afterward does help you to not fall back into the same pattern. But we should be teaching children in school to look more closely for the signs before they even get close. If we taught the signs in school and how to get out and how to get help then maybe those twenty kids I met online wouldn't be in the situations they are in. Maybe they could get out. We need more than a pamphlet in the counselor's office. I stared at those pamphlets for years and never touched one because I played the waiting game. And now? Because that's all I knew how to do, my son has to have visitation with a father that may turn on him any day now.