Hoo, boy!
Yeah I can go for a while on this topic.
Things that should have scared me but didn’t:
When I was 15 or 16 I was staying at my grandmother’s and one of my cousins was there as well. Very rural area. The roads were paved but there was very little traffic and the closest neighbors who weren’t family were half a mile away. My cousin K and I were going to walk to “town” which consisted of a gas station and a tiny grocery store about 3 miles from our GG’s house. I had broken my glasses and have REALLY bad vision. This truck drove past us and stopped about a hundred feet away. The man got out and was standing beside the truck. I just kept waking. K screamed “Oh my god, HF, he’s flashing us!” I squinted as hard as I could and said, “Are you sure?”
This man was naked from the waist down and I could not tell. We fell on the ground laughing and he got in his truck and drove off. We ran back to GG’s house and told her what happened, and she called our parents who made us call the police. So this cop comes over and takes our report and then tells me that technically no crime was committed against me because I didn’t see anything. To this day that pisses me off, for that to have been dismissed so flippantly.
When I was a college freshman and still only 17 I did something that makes me sick to think about. I went to the state fair with a friend and started flirting with this carny guy. You know the ones that run the games? I went off with this guy. To the sleeper compartment of a truck. And I had never seen an adult penis before. No lie. And I had never heard of fetishes. This guy… just wanted my feet. At some point I managed to pull myself together and got the hell out of there. But holy hell!!! How was I not murdered and left in a ditch or something? It absolutely horrifies me.
Things that should have passed me off:
Working in Labor and Delivery was my first nursing job. One evening I was at the desk and one of the doctors was sitting and flipping through a magazine. He held it up to a lingerie ad and said he bet that would look good on me.
3 or 4 years later I was working L&D at another hospital in the same city. I’d gotten married, had a baby, and divorced during that time and was still carrying a little bit of baby weight. I encountered one of the doctors I’d worked with at the first hospital one evening and he asked me how far along I was. ( and can we just say that’s a life lesson some people really need to learn). I said I had a baby and hadn’t lost all the weight yet. This man, this licensed, board certified OB/Gyn medical doctor said to me, “HF, you’re too cute to be this fat. You need to lose that weight and be a little show pony again.”
Dafuq?????? Why didn’t I just slap his face?
And the one that still haunts me:
I think I’ve told this story here before. We had a yard sale at my church. It was late and there was an older couple just browsing around and we were ready to shut down. One of the ladies said, “We’re getting ready to close so I’ll make you a deal. Grab whatever you want, we’ll take $XX and call it a day. The man was standing by me and he turned to me, drew his hand up my hip, up my waist, cupped my breast and then grabbed my arm. I was in shock. Could not move. Could not speak. He laughed and said, “She said to grab what I wanted.” They got their yard sale shit, paid and left and I still couldn’t move. By the time someone asked if I was okay and I told them what happened, the people were gone.
I don’t take that shit anymore. I used to cringe silently whenever anyone would grab my shoulders from behind or put their hand or arm around me. Now I ask them to please not touch me and respect my space. I don’t understand people that constantly touch other people. If you’re not my parent, offspring, sibling, niece or nephew, I’m good with waving. Or fist bumping.
As adults my brother, my sister and I all got therapy to heal from the trauma of our childhood. We were in a chaotic, unpredictable and unsafe home ruled by my mom’s uncontrolled mental illness. We were sexually abused and terrorized by our uncle. And we never ever discussed it until we were grown. We all reacted differently but dysfunctionally. My sister became hyper-responsible. She followed all the rules. She was a very, very good girl and went to bible college. My brother drank and smoked weed through high school. Me… I aced everything in school so the teachers all loved me. But behind that I pushed every limit. I never met a rule I didn’t want to break, and my absolute favorite thing was getting out of trouble. Taking off with the carny guy, all kinds of risk taking that could have gotten me hurt or killed more times than I can count.
But here’s the good news. As adults and young parents we were determined to change things for our kids. We got counseling. We got it for our kids when they needed it. We got our shit together and you know what? I have 2 beautiful nieces who have never experienced sexual abuse or trauma as children. One is getting married in October to a man who loves her like 1st Corinthians 13. She escaped an abusive relationship 3 years ago that she’d been in since high school. The other is my brother’s baby girl and she is 15. My brother also has a granddaughter who is almost 8 and has never experienced family as anything but loving and loud and happy when we are together. We changed the legacy of our family from abuse and trauma and premature specialization to one of love, forgiveness, and healing.
As y’all well know, I’ve still got some work to do. But thank God Almighty I am not who I used to be.