The pain that that teenage boy caused me, came and went all through grade school and high school. No official diagnosis was ever given. I have no idea how long it took for me to finally tell my mom what happened to me at the babysitter’s house. One night she was helping me with my bath and I finally told her. It had been a while since I had been there, but I was having a flare up of pain so this prompted my mom to ask if anyone else had touched me where they were not supposed to. I got mad at her questions, I knew who the monsters had been.

Once my mom knew what had happened and what was ,wrong with me, she wanted to get the law involved. My mom had seen the changes in me, she had seen me become withdrawn, shy and fearful. When she finally knew the source of my troubles and pain, she wanted to do something about it. My step dad convinced her not to get the law involved because back then, they didn’t believe the kids who told this kind of truth. He told her it would me more traumatic for me and we weren’t guaranteed to have any kind of victory in court. He did not think any police officer or judge would believe my story.

I did not learn this until I was an adult. I wish I had at least been consulted about it. It left me feeling like there was no one there to stand up for me , no one to fight for me. I became someone that was self sufficient to the extreme that I never asked anyone for anything. I also became someone that felt the need to stand up for and fight for others because I knew what it was like to not have that. This was a good and bad thing in my life. Good, because it made me a good friend, bad, because I developed unhealthy coping skills.

I lived in fear most of my childhood. I was haunted by nightmares of Gremlin’s and witches and warlocks coming after me, trying to hurt me. I would dream of bad men outside my window trying to get in and hurt me, or trying to crab me when I took the trash out. In the dream I would try to cry out but I had no voice. I couldn’t sound any alarms that would send help my way. There was no safe place for me to be. I would hide in closets, under my bed, behind chairs and couches. I was always hiding from something or someone. I was always afraid. Part of me wanted to be found, to be looked for and found and the other part feared being found. My home was a tumultuous place to live. My mother too was very depressed and very angry and it come out and exploded all over, all the time. I would try hard to stay out of the line of fire, but inevitably I got hit with her mean words.

Any one that says words don’t hurt, or that stupid sing song thing, “sticks and stone may break my bones but words can never hurt me,” are liars. Words hurt and do more damage than any physical thing. My mom said things like, “ You are such a slob, I can’t take you anywhere!” “Can’t you do anything right?!” “You’d be pretty if you lost weight and wore a little make up.” I did not need to loose weight back then, I was made to feel fat and ugly not only by bullies at school, but also because of my own mother. Her word’s “cut me to the quick”. Her words and the words of my babysitter’s husband, are words that have given me my biggest issues. I wasn’t good enough, I was nothing. I was nobody of any kind of significance or importance. I hated myself, I was insecurity, co-dependent, and addicted to TV. It was my way to escape my life and my reality. I was depressed and I was utterly broken.

My mom finally convinced me to go to counseling to process and finally deal with being molested. This was during my Freshman year of college. It was nice at first, to be able to finally talk about it all. It didn’t take long for me to get to where I felt like I was paying someone to listen to my problems. Then the doctor started pushing for me to take anti-depressants. I finally had enough of her pushing and I told her, “ your meds, won’t fix what is wrong with me!” My problem was NOT in my head. It was something that had HAPPENED TO ME. A real thing to overcome and process. The hurt was in my heart and the damage was to my spirit. The damage was to the core of who I was.

During my second year of college, I was due for my first female exam. My regular care doctor attempted to perform the exam but could not, it hurt me too much. Unfortunately her attempts to do her exam, brought back that pain that used to awaken me in the middle of the night. It was worse because it didn’t just hurt in the middle of the night. It hurt all day and all night. I couldn’t sit, stand, lay down, or move without hurting, “down there”. My regular care doctor sent me to a specialist. This specialist did tests, biopsies etc… There was a test that involved pouring vinegar “down there” and using a special microscope. This test made the burning pain WORSE and it hurt like nothing else I have ever experienced in my life.

It did not take long for the results of this test to come in. I had just gotten home from class and when I got the call. The call telling me I had an STD. HPV, Human Papillomavirus. The doctor tried to make me feel better about the STD I had, because it’s the most common. However, With this particular one there was the possibility that I would give it to a spouse or a child I gave birth to and that some strains of this could later turn into Cervical Cancer.

I finally had the answer to the pain that had plagued me my whole life. My world crashed down around me and I literally crumpled to the ground. I slid down the wall between my kitchen and dining room and I sobbed like I never had before. I was ruined. No one would want me. That teenager had destroyed my life.

My mom hurried home from work to try to console me. There was no consoling me. There was no comforting me, no reassuring me, no making me feel better. For the first time in my life I completely shut down, and I shut out everyone, including God. No, especially God, He after all was the only one who could have stopped it from happening all together. God saw it happen, He let it happen. My faith had sustained me thus far, on this day my faith failed me. The only one that really, truly, could have protected me, saved me, didn’t. God. He had utterly let me down and I had NOTHING to say to Him or anyone else.