Letters to My Therapist

By C Martin

A survivor of sexual abuse shares her story with her therapist via letters. It is told with raw emotion and cutting sarcasm. The letters from the author refer to when she was abused by her stepfather and how it has affected her life, touching on everything from depression and self-harm, to anxiety and her identity as an adult.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483581989

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C.Martin 2016

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ISBN: 978-1-4835819-8-9

Contents

Letters to My Therapist

When did it start? Where did it start? Is there a true answer to this? I guess we all remember a moment when that juts out in our memory, a boulder that marks when our innocence was lost. Mine wasn’t in a fit of lust and force on his behalf. It was not a first time rape, and it was not wandering hands going where men’s hands should not go on little girls. I do remember the first time I noticed something was wrong. It was a movie. An old VHS tape, cracked. I was nine. That seems so young now, so unbelievable young and innocent, almost unbearably so. All I knew, in that first instant, that opening scene, is that I was not supposed to watch this. People weren’t supposed to be naked.

Oh, my mom wanted me to watch this to learn about sex. That is what he told me. Weird, but ok. I knew my mother, skittish about some things, so this did make a bit of sense. Little did I know, that I would know far more than most kids my age. Well, except for the others who learned as I did. Learned that this was not about what Mom wanted or how smart I was or how everyone learned this way and did this or that. My innocence was not shattered in a thrust, but in a lie. A smooth, silky lie, as deep and as dark as a midnight sky after the stars have died.

That is the really heartbreaking part now. Looking back and seeing all that I was and all that amazing potential, all the somebodies I could have been, should have been. I feel a sense of loss, not only for myself, but for those who loved me and didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. I sensed something was wrong and yet, even though against my will, I had partaken in it. That, my friends, is how you put on the cloak of shame. It is unbelievable how it still weighs on my shoulders and back, my upper arms, my neck, even my head. It is why we walk so bowed, no? The fucking thing is, it is not even mine to wear!!! It belongs to HIM! Oh, I know, the church girl says, Yes, it all belongs to Jesus now. The very human part of me screams, screams until I am hoarse, IT IS NOT MINE TO WEAR!!! IT BELONGS TO HIM! HIM being the perpetrator, the liar, the thief of all things good. I shout this on good days, and whisper it on others, on those days I am confined to my bed for no other reason except that I cannot, under any circumstance, force myself to get up.

I have learned to lose some of the weight of the cloak. I no longer walk with my eyes constantly on the floor. I am not afraid to tell people I was abused, for fear they won’t believe me. That is theirs to contend with, not mine. I am learning to drop the cloak by saying no when I don’t feel like doing something, by saying no, when I am being manipulated and pushed by obligations. No. I don’t have to do this, you can’t make me do this, and it is not the end of the world. Tough lesson to learn, right there. That we aren’t responsible for everyone simply because we couldn’t be responsible for ourselves as a child. That is not our loss to cling to; that belongs to those who didn’t step into battle. No, they may not have known, but that does not make it more our fault.

Look, we have been over this! Talking about the abuse doesn’t bother me. Not sure why you think it defines me now. So I have some issues; bipolar, depression, PTSD, but who doesn’t have scars? Chicks dig scars. Oh, not supposed to say that because no one knows I’m gay. Oops. No issues there either. I can handle it.

Sigh.

Fine.

The abuse sucked. Oh, wait, I sucked. Get it? Eh, not funny. But true. You know the really bad part? I was good at it. I knew how to get him where he wanted to go. See, no one told me not to and no one pulled me away and no one seemed to know where I was when I was with him. Do you know how shameful it is to be good at something you loathe? Something you literally choke on? Hot buckets of shame thrown in there with semen and whispers and swallow.

I don’t think this made me gay, but it sure solidified some shit.

Yes, I know you agree.

Were there good times? Of course. I wouldn’t be alive if they’re weren’t. They don’t always bump in my mind like the abuse, jostled here and there, but they exist. The moments that let me know I was still alive. The moments that let me still be happy I was