I am a 31 year old woman. I am a recovering drug addict and a recovering alcoholic. I am also a sexual assault survivor. These things do not define me, there is so much more that makes me, me. However, the night of my sexual assault, the failure of adults, and the circumstances that followed have filled me with dread, distorted my perception of healthy relationships, and have been my burden to carry for far too fucking long.
I am writing this in hopes of talking to others that have lived through trauma, have been silenced, have been told a new narrative of their trauma, have been told how to feel, have been ignored, have been forgotten. I am sharing my story to finally free the secret that keeps me frozen in time, the secret some long for me to still keep. My story is long and difficult to discuss at times, so I’ve decided to break it up into multiple posts, starting with: The Night Of, pt. 1.
It started off as an ordinary night. At this time, my eldest sister had already left for college, a town two hours or so away. My mother was working the 7:00pm- 7:00am shift at a hospital about 30 minutes from our home. I can’t remember a time my mother didn’t work the graveyard shifts during my childhood. That was just life.
That night I was at home with my other sister. I was 12 and she was 14 at this time. Being home without supervision was a norm growing up, we were latchkey kids. My mother and father got a divorce before I could remember. My father came in and (mostly) out of our lives as he pleased, spreading fear and disappointment on everything he touched. He usually reappeared after selecting his next wife. My guess is that he wanted to trick her into thinking he was a decent father and man, and I think it usually worked. However, I didn’t buy-in to his bullshit. He mostly just scared me. It wasn’t always his fucked up actions or his manipulating and deceitful words, but just a something inside me that was terrified of being in a close proximity to him. I never overcame that feeling.
So, that night. We were at home, alone. Everything was ordinary until my sister informed me that she was about to be picked up by some guys she knew from a town 15 minutes away. She was sneaking out! I did not like this at all. Something about who she was leaving with sounded dangerous, even though I had no idea who these people were. I can not understand why I did the next thing I did. I have thought about this moment for the past 19 years, baffled.
I told my sister I was coming with her. I felt that it would be too dangerous for her to go alone, so my plan was to ride along and to have a concealed pocket knife for protection.
poorchristy 