My heart is weary and my spirit is wounded from the trials and pains I’ve gone through. I don’t even really know where to begin or how to get it out, but I’ll tell it as best as I can. In all honesty, I don’t even know what is wrong with me. There is something wrong with me, I am ashamed and don’t even know what I can do to be a normal person again.
Ever since elementary school, I’ve had trouble with my studies. The less interesting it would be, the more I’d have to force myself to even struggle through it, but the information wouldn’t stay in my head very well. I’ve always been forgetful of important stuff, got called a liar once because I couldn’t remember something and a family member was sure that I did know. Crying doesn’t mean that I was lying, I was unhappy that I was being scolded and called a liar. Even now, in college, I have difficulty getting high grades not because it’s difficult material, but the labor of doing something I’m not interested in always discourages me. No, I’m pretty sure I don’t have a learning disability, but this is also one of the least of my worries.
I always have felt that I should not speak things that come to my mind, because when I do, I feel shamed into wanting to have not spoken at all based on other people’s reactions. Now it’s hard for me to speak very much at all. Should I? Should I not? When should I? When should I not? I feel more safe in silence, but I also feel more lonely.
The worst of my pains is the abuse I’ve suffered in periods of my life. 4th grade through part of 5th or 6th, I was sexually molested by a family friend. My sister and I first met him and his wife when my family attended their wedding when I was small, though I barely remember it, but I remember visiting the couple on a number of occasions a while after that and always enjoyed spending time with them. He’d called me a little angel, said my sister was just silly. When it would be just me and him for some reason, he started getting sexual with me. One of the first times, he used it as a means to teach me about conceiving a baby, one other time, how to satisfy myself. At this time, the word “sex” was nowhere in my vocabulary, along with anything and everything associated with the word. Because of this, I had no idea what he was doing to me or that what he was doing was wrong, all I knew was that I was scared, embarrassed and uncomfortable with what he was doing. I didn’t like it at all. And yet, it took a long time before I could tell him that I didn’t like it and to stop. He’s never touched me since then, thank god. Unfortunately, the damage was long done.
Since that started happening, I put up my first walls and enclosed myself in the world that was my mind. Over the years, I’ve slowly become more and more of a hermit and I’ve become fearful of a number of things as I matured. I started fearing men’s thoughts and intentions, I feared telling anyone what happened, being judged, being worthy of a future husband, etc. I even got nervous from my own instincts, as the molestation triggered physical needs sooner than they should have begun. Come to find that this would soon be exploited again twice when I was 18 by someone that was a friend from my freshman year. The first time being senior prom night in a dark area just outside the building the event was held at, the second time the following August before I went to class in the morning. Fortunately, I was able to stop him that time. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him after that, but the final nail in that coffin was hammered when I found out that in the past, he’d almost gotten his then-girlfriend pregnant. I can’t even look at him in the face anymore and I feel on edge if I see him around and pray he doesn’t see me.
After about a year in school, I started to relax and felt it was ok for me to bring my guard down a bit. I had to focus on my grades because I had some GPA repair to do after taking way too many units in the spring term. I felt I was getting myself back on track. I was one year into a long-distance relationship with the man I loved more than anything, finally feeling happy, and working on getting my grades back up to par. Little did I know that letting down my guard would prove to be a mistake that fall semester, as it turned into the first of many emotionally taxing terms I would have to date. An international student I met and befriended would not think friendship was enough for him. I told him many, many times that I was in a relationship, but he would not have it; he wanted me to be his, no questions asked. It would be this semester that the sexual exploitations would be a near-daily occurrence and my virginity was taken away. I grew fearful and confused from the way he emotionally manipulated me. I skipped a day of school just to avoid it and he looked everywhere on campus for me, calling and texting me many times. I started thinking about leaving town and running away just to get away from him, but having very little money and being unable to drive, the idea was quite a long shot. I also knew that it would terrify my family if I vanished and I didn’t want to tell them what was going on with me, didn’t want them to worry about me. It finally ended that winter, but not without damage to me. I’d had one time in which I was afraid I could have been pregnant despite the many times he’d withdraw or I’d fight so much that he’d get mad and frustrated enough to nearly drop me right where I was and walk away, lighting up a cigarette.
Fear has become a major part of my emotions as well as guilt and sadness ever since. I felt I let everyone down, that I wasn’t the perfect daughter, friend or girlfriend that I strived to be. I was far, far from what I wanted to be. All these years, I’ve been unable to discuss any serious topic that applied to me; I literally cannot speak in such cases. The more serious the topic and the more directly it applies to me, the more incapable I am of speaking up. I’ve tried, but my breath and my voice would be gone. The most I could do would be to open my mouth and a split-second’s worth of sound might come out, but not enough to even say “I”. I can only write. That’s all I can do. I’ve thought about if I were to use sign language and have someone translate for me, but I don’t know how trusting I’d be to have another person brought in, or how trusting I’d be of myself to listen to the translation and not break down in a million pieces before I even say what’s wrong with me. My signing skills aren’t that advanced yet anyway, so it’s a moot point. I’ve attempted to cut myself on several occasions, some of which were unsuccessful, most of which I hesitated enough to only scratch the skin enough to break it rather than a full cut. On the other hand, for the longest time, I’ve always cut or picked at my nails so they’d be very short rather than letting them grow out. They’re not brittle or anything, nor do I bite them, but I have trouble letting them get to a decent length. I seem to do this most when I'm nervous or upset. I also have had a habit of interfering with any healing wounds, mainly scabs. Probably the closest I get to cutting would be another habit I have, which is picking at, or sometimes biting my lips when they’re even just a little dry. My family knows I did this as a child because I wasn’t good at hiding the evidence of blood, but they don’t know I still do it now. They just think I get chapped lips every now and then and that I need to keep them moisturized with chapstick.
Never in my life have I seen a psychiatrist for any reason, nor do I like the idea of going to a stranger for a one-on-one discussion of my personal issues without anonymity. I feel like a lot of my life has been a masquerade and I keep waiting for midnight, when everyone would remove their masks and show their real faces.
Sorry for how long this is, but it's the best I can do.