Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Flashback

It had been 3 days since I'd actually had a meal. I had been surviving on yogurt, pudding and vending machine snacks to make it through my classes. I was too weak to walk up the 3 flights of stairs to English 101 today and I knew I was in trouble.

This battle with food and taking care of myself had happened before. It grew worse each time it happened, and it went unnoticed by my family. In all fairness, they rarely saw me as it was. I went up to three months before calling my mother a few times. It was at least that long in between visits to see them. I avoided holidays with them and had been doing so for years by this time. Mom was always "busy" it seemed. I guess I came by that honestly.  I don't know what kept me going.
I wanted nothing more than to lay down and die. I could barely fall asleep though.

I was losing what little health I had and it was getting worse at home.
"You're such a disrespectful bitch!" He started yelling. "I asked you to do one thing today and you are so busy being wrapped up in your own little selfish world you can't take care of one damn thing!" I would be sitting on the couch crying as the shouting started. The "one little thing" he was talking about could be anything on any day. It could be something like washing a load of laundry to mowing the yard or sending a text to him at lunch.
Any of these was punishable by vociferating, followed by, "Get in the shower you cunt you stink." Or something similar. Weeping, I'd run to the bathroom and shed more tears as I scrubbed off imaginary filth. This shower was a preparation for being raped. I knew it and believed I had no escape.
I would take the longest, hottest shower I could stand in hopes it would numb me somehow for what was about to happen. I would put on my robe, slowly open the bathroom door, and he would be waiting for me. I would be taken by the arm and manhandled down the hall to the bedroom. I'd be thrown on the bed. Sometimes on my back, sometimes face down, depending on his mood.
If I was face up he usually said something like, "I want to see your face and watch you enjoy it." (As if that were possible.) If I was face down he would say, "I can't stand looking at you tonight, I'm doing this for you."
I would lay still and lifeless as possible. I sometimes strained or winced in pain, or shed silent tears and endured flash backs from my rapes and abuse as a child.
I hated myself for not fighting back, not protesting, not running away.
After my rapist monster got himself off, he would all but collapse his fat, sweaty body on top of mine.
He would catch his breath and make some comment like, "god you're a great fuck." I would lay in humiliation and defilement on my side so my back was facing him.

This is why I had no appetite. This is why I wanted to lay down and perish. This is why I weighed 96 lbs on a 5.4' frame. Each rape was different and yet all of them were alike.
I was sinking.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Perfect Storm.

"You are so ugly." says the voice in my head.
The sun is shining and beams of light penetrate through the layers of curtains and shades that cover my windows. This scene playing out in the mirror of self hatred, disgust and shame looks ridiculous to those looking in. I get paid to model, walk the run way, pose for pictures and host public events because I am beautiful physically, or at least that what the agents tell me.
All I see is a skeletal frame of a starving woman's body with a frightened little girl trapped in her eyes.

I hear my phone buzzing on top of my vanity. It's a text and my already tired and wounded soul takes another hit and shudders. It's him. He wants to know what I am doing... what time is my next class and when I will be home. I respond with the wanted facts and then he texts me again "wuts wrong? wheres my girl today?" my heart sinks and that stupid knot of torture forms in my throat. This is a subtle manipulative text that I must respond to with enthusiasm and some form of happiness no matter how fake. "I'm here handsome just gettin ready for class. don't wanna b late" I hate myself a little more now for speaking this way but, I know if I don't the consequences will be hell to pay.

How did I get here? I am trapped in a house with a rapist, a cousin rapist no less.
Why don't I run? Where the hell is my sense of self preservation? These are questions - that at time of this real life scene in front of my looking glass is taking place,- I am not even mentally capable of having on my own.
I am sleep and nutrition deprived. All my actions and reactions to any and everything are fueled by fear, shame and manipulation by my rapist. I don't see a pretty run way model with a perfect body. I see a skeletal frame covered in scared skin and sunken eye. If it weren't for my eyes and something in them begging for hope... I'd look dead. I look all but dead today.

Oh how nice it would be to lay down on this bed and put my head on a pillow and never wake up again. I think to myself. I am to cowardly to take my own life but, there will be nights I spend begging God to have mercy and take me away, and He won't.

This how I ended up here.
I had just lost my grandfather a few months prior to this day. I wanted a change in my life from a dead end job to a career and education. I also had a fiance and wanted to be closer to him and his college. I needed to move to the big city, away from my small town rural life.
This man, my cousin a 59 year old divorced man offered me a place to "crash." Encouraged by my own parents I took him up on his offer. I had tentatively planned on working and going to school and at some point getting my own place hopefully with my fiance... my soon to be husband...who never had any intention of marrying me.
I trusted this man... this family member, this undercover monster.
 He groomed me, built up my trust, helped me find a job and get into college.
Then it happened, I had a miscarriage with my fiance and we broke up after I finally realized he was a liar and not ever going to marry me. I was devastated and relieved all at once.
After all the abuse as a child I never developed a sense of self worth. I knew I didn't have the strength or self love to leave my fiance for myself. It took losing an innocent life and realizing my someday children deserve a better father than that. I couldn't leave for me but, for my now dead child I would never even look back.
 It was a perfect storm for my predator cousin. He introduced me to drinking. I was a pathetic lightweight. I had only consumed 3 shots of wine before in my entire life. I had an entire beer and was passed out of the couch after crying myself to sleep.
I also had been to see my Doctor for chronic back pain from an injury sustained working on the family farm like a man. I was prescribed pain medications to take at night or when my back pain became unbearable. After my miscarriage my back pain returned with a vengeance.
Every night I fell asleep after drinking and or taking my pain medication.

Then the rapes began.