The Beginning, Surrender

I've lied, to myself and to others about how I really feel.
I've said and try to think what I'd come to understand by others standards as RIGHT.
I didn’t live by THE STANDARD though, that would be total surrender, the only time I ever did that I got burned badly.

I was just a child...less than Five, he was between Twelve and Fourteen.
The details become fuzzy to me, they aren’t exactly something I want to remember.
Yet, I find myself trapped and haunted by the things that won’t leave my mind.
A dimly lit room, a door with a bad lock, various action figures popular in the late 80’s.
There is a flash light, a towel and different “tools” as if I were an experiment for a mad scientist or alien invasion.

It’s starts with coaxing, maybe a bribe of candy or just threats of inflicting pain, if I do not cooperate. All I know is I want approval and I don’t want to hurt.
So I lay down, I watch the door, I cover my mouth and I surrender.
I always had to go “pittle” before the “experiments” got to in depth.
I remember one time being forced to sip his own urine.
Bruises and “owies” were always apart of this process.
Irreversible damage was done that I would not realize until much later in life.
These episodes lasted anywhere from Ten minutes to Forty-Five.
Sometimes they were interrupted by oblivious parties who were one track minded and on a mission to get something and leave again.
Other times threats were passed out with a proof slugging on the arm or leg to the other party.

Sometimes it didn’t hurt, it just felt funny...I can remember on several occasions a painful burning sensation and soreness for several days following.
These episodes happened every several weeks sometimes more frequent sometimes less.
I never told anybody, I had promised my “invader” silence in exchange for his approval and bribes. Some times it felt good, I remember this new sensation that seems to tingle the core of my body... and I hated that about myself. Was I a monster for liking any part of what was happening to me? At 5 years old I did not understand the DEPTH of damage being done to me, emotionally and physically. I hated this new longing in my body for something I did not understand and felt gross about myself for even wanting. I imagine this must be how a porn or drug addict must feel about them self for wanting their addiction no matter how disgusting.
I surrendered my voice, my body, my pain and innocence for such a small unworthy prize.
At my age it was all I knew and all I wanted. I learned I could have ANYTHING I wanted for a price. This "invader" rapist and molester was my half brother.

As I got older it made sense to me that if it cost so much for such a prize, how horrific must the cost be for real love and acceptance.
What I didn’t understand was, that God my savior had already paid that most tragic price for me with His son so I could have REAL love.

I spent my childhood acting out and did what ever it took to get what I wanted.
Screaming, crying, wetting the bed, anything to wear down my parents and get what I wanted.
My brothers called me the brat of the family... and unfortunately I held that title with royal gusto.
My father and I never had much of a relationship. How could we? It was nothing to him to backhand and verbally abuse me. "You disgust me" with the look of having just vomited in his own mouth on his face will forever be etched in my mind. I believed he didn’t love me and there was no point in trying to understand him or his ridiculous rules. I believed if he did love me it was only because he had too. I couldn’t believe my father loved me for who I was, I didn’t even love me for who I was.
My Mother and I had our spats but I learned that to get what I wanted from her I had to step in as secondary momma hen. She had too many children and too much responsibility to do it alone so I had to step in as best a child could.

Bossing became my role, I did chores that she taught me and when she had to be gone, I was in charge of teaching these chores to the other siblings and seeing to it that they got done. This was my self proclaimed job.
This took lots of practice and more fit throwing to now wear down my siblings and get what I wanted.
I had endurance in this game mastered, I sensed when someone was ready to break under my pressure.
I knew how to get them to surrender. I was the queen of manipulation.

As I got older into my early teens low self esteem hit me like a ton of bricks.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I could get everything I wanted.
I wasn’t sure I liked this girl in the mirror, in fact I hated her.
I HATED how she had been so relentless in her selfish acts that her brothers now hated her. I hated how things between her and her father were so messed up and out of control. I blamed her.
I hated her awkwardness, her big freckles, her boney elbows and knobby knees.
I hated her big ears and UN-tameable mane.
I was sure there was nothing inside to even attempt to love. I hated her and it was all her fault.

Then the nightmares began...

No one knew of these things, they just knew some days I woke up in a bad mood and wrote me off as pissy or pms-ing.
Most nights I couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard I’d worked that day.
It felt as though I had to exhaust myself with thoughts and worries before I could get any rest and then, suddenly wake up from dreams that my invader had returned.
Sometimes it scared me and sometimes it comforted me because it was all I knew.
The longing for love on such an intimate level had been awakened before it’s time and it was growing into a monster. What a shame such a pure thing as love was so dirtied by the incestuous act of an older brother.

One day about the time I was Sixteen a fellow pupil in my youth group made a comment that blew me away.
“Your boobs are awesome.”
What do I do with that, I wondered?
Part of me felt empowered I now had something that made me “beautiful” in every sense in which I understood this word.
Part of me was scared to death... what if they attract another invader?
What if my nightmares become reality again?
In the end I decided I had lived through it once and I could do it again if I had to.
This time though I had more things to worry about, things like getting pregnant or an S.T.D.
My knowledge on these things was limited, I was given just enough information to fear them and to fear the penis.

I managed to make it almost to 19 before I had sex and it was, as it is for most...not what I expected. It wasn’t exactly romantic, we were exhausted with rumors in our home church that we were having sex already in the CHURCH parking lot. So in a less than brilliant moment we decided an old barn with raging hormones would be just fine.
It didn’t full fill anything, it even borderline freaked me out.
The intimacy all around the actual act of sex was something I had never known before and it was the only thing that kept me coming back.
I didn’t know anything about sex except that my male counterpart was willing to do all the work and get himself off if I would just surrender.
My lover knew hands below my waist were not allowed and I had to see his face the entire time or it might otherwise turn out disastrous. If I started having a flash back I usually just laid there and my eyes would glaze over while mentally I was fighting back and trying to find a way out.
It usually ended with me shaking and my lover thought I was just cold, he never knew otherwise.

I had done it, the forbidden act of sex outside of marriage. I didn’t care too much, I didn’t love myself and, I really didn’t think I could still be considered a virgin after my childhood. Plus, I was in love and sure that magically our lives together were going to be a happy ending to my nightmares. Could God have used me before? I didn’t believe so, I religiously played it like I could be a SUPER Christian for God, but this was not my self image. I longed for it but it didn’t magically happen so I concluded that I could justify my sin because I didn’t have a fighting chance before.

What a tragedy, I was set up for horrific failure. More rapes and incestuous sexual assault crimes were committed against me.
This was only the beginning of surrender.