The People Behind My Eyes

We talked for only a few minutes, but what she said was profound. I asked if I could write about this. She said yes but that I couldn’t use her name.

She was just a kid when things turned from child’s play to the tragic reality of adulthood. She said she wasn’t sure if being abused by a female babysitter made her gay. She said was having sex early but only with like her best friend. Only one friend told her mom what she was doing with them. She worries now that maybe she abused those girls. They were of the same age, about 15 but she worries now that she abused them. She said that she once thought maybe all the girls in the neighborhood had the same baby sitter because none of her best friends objected to her advances. After having sex with her babysitter she worried that she might be gay and addicted to sex. She tried to force herself to like boys because the other 15 year old girls liked boys. Things got so confusing. When she visited her uncle and he tried to “mess with her” she figured it was because she bounced from house to house as an adopted child that no one really wanted. She was adopted but she still bounced around from one adopted family member to the next. She began to wonder if not being wanted by anyone made it okay for people to hurt her. Maybe that made her accessible to everyone no matter what the request, big or small.

It makes me wonder why people adopt just to abuse. I have to shake my head in disgust because I’ve heard it too many times. Children are given up in hopes of them getting a good home but they don’t. It’s a touchy subject, a sensitive situation; one that we hope will end up good for the child. It’s sad really, when someone gives up a child so that they can have a good future but then that child is broken by someone that by all rights could have shown some self control, a speck of morality and a bit of human compassion but they chose not to. That hurts beyond belief. Those that have been adopted into abusive families certainly have more questions than answers. They have a longer healing road than anything I could imagine.

She and I talked about being abused and about how our childhood friends seemed to be victims of abuse also. I told her it’s because we are drawn to each other the same way that abusers are drawn to kids that have been abused. They know us when they see us. They know what to look for and how to read our body language, our speech patterns, and our manner of dress. They know an abused child the way a ship recognizes a distant beacon signaling the presence of land.

Anyone that has had any significant amount of therapy knows I’m an abuse survivor. I dress like one, I talk like one, and I walk like one. I’ve got that beacon even though I’ve been in therapy for 15 years. It shines and anyone looking for someone to hurt can see that beacon. Anyone not looking for someone to hurt but that has been hurt themselves can see that beacon. My clothes are overly baggy. The sleeves on my shirts come down over my hands. My hats are pulled down on my head so that I can cover my eyes in an instant. I’ve got a million pockets in my pants; my hair is pulled back in a pony tail under the hat or in a bun so you can’t even see I have hair. I have a rather boyish appearance when in fact I feel very feminine most of the time. But it’s a way to protect myself, to make myself not stand out as a “sitting duck”… a girl. But all the things I do to keep myself from looking like a victim mark me as one. My behavior shines one big neon word “VICTIM”. I don’t consider myself to be of the victim mentality but the way I hold myself seems to scream it. This was true as a child too.

When it came to hanging with other kids that were abused, I could find them like a ship following that beacon. I could see their beacon the same as they could see mine. I didn’t know I was looking at it but that’s how I ended up with friends that had secrets.

When a survivor stumbles across another survivor they find comfort knowing that someone else understand how it feels to live with a secret. We know they understand how hard it is to do basic things without seeing that persons face right there reminding us that they humiliated us repeatedly. When we lay down, when we eat, when we dress, when we walk and talk, that person is right there affecting it all. When we find someone that knows how hard it is to function this way we find comfort in it. This person knows and we’re not going to hear how we should have done this or that. We should have told this person, we should have screamed louder, fought harder, ran faster, prayed harder. It’s almost like being held emotionally when we find someone that understands what we live with. We’re drawn to them by the same beacon that draws abusers only our intension is to connect not to destroy.

The same beacon that was used to hurt us can help us. When we find someone that understands we can be a source of support for them. We can offer support as well as receive it. It can be a way to decrease the brightness of that light that draws abusers to us. If I had a choice I wouldn’t deal with these issues of light but I do have to. If I had a choice I wouldn’t have a beacon on my forehead that draws people to me, but I do. In order to move forward I have to decide how to use that light. I have to realize that its there and I have to know how to filter out those who are drawn to it. I’m gonna get both abusers and survivors. I have to know which is which. If I never use the skills learned in therapy then I will never know who is who. I’ll never be able to turn something of potential harm to definite good. I want that for myself, I want to see something positive come from this big neon sign on my forehead.

Joan of Arc inside Morton’s Pride

The Abused Child’s Beacon
Monday-February 27, 2006-6:27 PM