Do you ever write a common word, like “so” or “and”, so many times that you start to wonder if it’s actually the way that it is spelled? Do you ever say something enough times that it starts to feel not real? It’s called “semantic satiation” and I feel like I’m living it.
I find myself opening up about my abuse as a child more now. I told my sister recently about it, and my husband knows. A few people who know I write this blog and the “real me” also know. And again today I opened up to someone else. It was so strange, because as I continued to talk about it, the less real it felt.
Maybe that’s why when it first happened, when I thought about it as much as I did, I thought I was wrong. I thought my memory was skewed. I thought I shouldn’t be freaking out about it, I should be thinking about it as “bad” because I was young, she was young, we had no clue, right? But no, looking back now (and the more I explain it to people), the more I realize how wrong it was. The more I realize how screwed up it makes me feel now and just how wrong it was. I didn’t ask to be in the situation, she took advantage of my youth and my vulnerability and I am forever thinking about how fucked up it made me.
I suppressed it for many years. I shied away from it because I thought it was normal and I didn’t have any right to think otherwise. (Why, I honestly don’t know now.) I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had talked about it, to my sisters, to my parents, to anyone who would listen. Instead, I wreaked havoc on my mind, my mental state, my love lives, and second guessed everything I did with my sexuality. I thought I wasn’t normal to feel that way, so I suppressed the feelings deep down into my heart and in the recesses of my mind until they finally came back and bit me in the ass.
And the thing is, I don’t understand why I suddenly feel okay with talking about it now, or if it’s just that it comes up randomly in conversation. Maybe I don’t feel okay with it, but I feel like I need to talk about it, and it pops up without me realizing where my conversation is headed. In any case, I don’t know how I feel about all of it.
I suppose I might be one of those people who feels a little “lighter” after they talk about it more, I only hope that it continues to feel real.
Unbeaten Mommy 