I have to stop the Blame

I've been reading a few books about resistance in therapy and PTSD. I've been reading the one about PTSD for about two years now. It has different therapies and different aspects of PTSD. Today, I was reading the chapter about grief. Putting it together, I realized a few things that I really want to work on in my written and visual journal.
1. I have not dealt with my dad leaving the house. I don't talk much about it but I went out the day that I was raped by Kirk because I was upset that my dad was moving his things out of the house. I had asked my friend to meet me at the bowling alley, thinking that he'd remember because it was important to me; but he forgot so I went for a walk and went there anyway. I had been very angry with my dad for many years since he had cheated on my mom, moved in with his girlfriend, and for a time, was allowed to go back and forth between the two places. My mom said she was trying to make things work and had considered getting back together with my dad but one of us, most likely me, had expressed such dislike for the situation, that she reconsidered and decided to go with the full divorce.
2. I need to stop blaming my dad and Kirk for my bad relationships. I used to blame them for everything. My dad never showed me what a good relationship could be like. Kirk made me mistrust men and therefore, I cheated. I also learned cheating from my dad. I'm old enough now, I can have good relationships. Yes, I've had some difficulty figuring out what I wanted out of relationships and how to have one. But it doesn't always have to be that way. I can find friends and mentors to teach me how to have friendships and to teach me how to have a good relationship. I feel that my current relationship has been going very well. We're 6 months in and that's a feat for me since it has taken me a while to have a relationship that lasts more that 2-3 months. I have had a lot less doubts in this relationship. I worry about things that aren't about the relationship, for example, accepting that he'll work hard but he'll always want to paint and he won't have a steady income if all he does is paint. He's a great painter and is gaining recognition, but it might be a while before those good paychecks come in.

I haven't dealt with my dad's leaving. I have dealt with the anger towards my dad. But it seems the whole day is overshadowed by the incident with Kirk. It has taken me quite a while to even think about it. I used to sort of blame my dad for leaving and sending me out of the house. I mean walking in the neighborhood is a good coping skill.  There was maybe once that I was walking around the neighborhood that I saw Kirk, hanging out in his van. I didn't trust him and I thought he might have had a naked girl in the back, hiding. It was a weird thought but he quickly drove away and I was glad for it.
I saw Kirk at one of my brother's parties. He was trying to make it seem like everything was fine. I just nodded my head and wished he would never talk to me. There was at time when he got a job at Dominos making pizza. It was located in a shopping center that I had to pass every time I came home. The other side of the street was the bowling alley (I'll have to write a diagram). I had to pass that if I came from the other way. There was no way around passing his car if he was working. My mom noticed that I looked over at the bowling alley parking lot every time we passed. If his car was there, I felt sick to my stomach. If his car wasn't there, I felt sick to my stomach. I thought that if his car wasn't there, then he must be having sex, taking advantage of another girl, or whatever it was. I don't think he ever told anyone that he slept with me. I think he slept with other people I knew. I know some of the girls who bragged about having sex had worked at the bowling alley in the restaurant part.
At one point, I knew the moms of two of my friends were working at that bowling alley. Ryan and I were in the same grade at the same school. He was cool. He told me that Kirk had asked him to go to a party. I really hated Kirk and the stories about Kirk. I didn't like who hung out with him, either. But they were the same as my brother's friends and my brother didn't like me to hang out with his friends.
Another time, my friend, Christy, and I went to the bowling alley. I didn't think that Kirk had continued to work there. He just showed up. I was showing Christy who he was and she was saying I was staring, which made me upset because she wanted to know what he looked like and I was pointing him out. It was enough for me to stand there while he was there. I can't tell you the sequence of all these events because I can't remember.
At some point, Kirk moved to be a cook in Oregon and I knew I didn't have to worry about seeing his fucking van, where he raped me, again. But when my brother knew when he was coming back for a visit, I would get paranoid about any Oregon license plate that I saw, thinking that he'd be in it. I later found out that he was getting married. I wondered how that happened. I hoped that his family didn't have to go through what my family.
I remember when I started to realize what a life he must have had, to look to women as objects and as nuturing him. I infered that his mother wasn't affectionate and probably didn't pay him much attention. He was overweight. I don't know how much he weighed but he seemed so large. Then, he had liposuction. He looked a lot less taller. I think when he was leaving, after the first time I saw him after his lipo, I got a half-assed hug from him. I now realize a few things while writing this-- that he really let other people know what he was up to-- he liked to have his network of people knowing his every move. He liked the attention. But he was so uncomfortable with himself. It still doesn't give him the right to do what he did, knowing full-well that it was wrong.
I remember his friend Flipper. Flipper was dumb. His real name was Dave. I would be surprised if Dave ever got off his ass and did something. I wouldn't be surprised if he's dead from a heroin overdose. Flipper told me that everyone in the neighborhood knew what happened so, Kirk or someone else said something. My brother told my mom that there was a rumor I had sex on top of a van. She told me, "Now, it may not be true that you had sex with someone, you might have just been making out." I did not come out of my room for two weeks. I didn't eat except for a few things every couple of days. One day, my mom even brought food to me. All I wanted to do was kill myself. I wanted to set myself on fire in front of the bowling alley. I wanted people to realize that I was very hurt by the actions of Kirk and this rumor. It seemed like everyone came together to get all up in my business and to call me a slut, when they didn't know shit.

After I spent the two weeks in my room, I asked my mom if I could go see my grandparents. I went to see them for a few days. I needed that one-to-one attention and a change of scenery. I don't remember much about it. I don't think they really knew what to do with me. But I had an OK time, having email for the first time and smiling that my friends did care about me. I had difficulty believing that for a while.

I left my journal on my bed back at home. My mom found it and read it. She told me, she knew that something had happened. She thought I had sex. But she didn't even realize to what extent it was. And I think she realized the seriousness of it when the police were interviewing me. Then, they couldn't do anything because no one knew that it was rape. Fuck that. I know the difference between regretting sex and rape. I didn't ask this man to put his hands on me and he did. He violated me. And they took his side. They made me feel even more helpless, like I reached out for help and it was slapped away. Luckily, that record is sealed and according to them, no one has access to it. I don't want some fucking perv getting off on that shit.

I think I've ran out of steam for today but I feel I definitely have some ideas for stories and artwork.

Thanks for reading. It feels important to my healing journey to have a voice and an audience.

Kurt and Rant about Vincent

I started having a memory that came up more than once. When I was 12, I dated a boy, Kurt. We held hands and kissed. Eventually, he put his hands down my pants to finger me and he broke my cherry. Then, we broke up. I wasn't too upset with it because I was upset that he had tried to get me to do more and that he had touched me in the first place. One of the things I've learned is that victims of sexual abuse feel that they don't have the right to say no. I felt like it was what everyone else was doing and I might as well do it. I hated the way he kissed and touched me. It felt like I sort of wanted him to touch me but I would have enjoyed myself better if we just talked.

I got mad at him, I told friends that he had touched me and eventually felt that it was necessary to tell the school administrators what happened. It was months of them interviewing our friends and even our family about what happened. I was too scared to even mention the fingering thing until it went to the school board.
What I remember most was the principal. She said some very messed up things. She seemed mad at me for one reason or another. What hurt the most was that she asked me how he was supposed to know that he wasn't supposed to touch me if I held his hand. When I look at it now, I think, "Are you f*cking kidding me?" She made this imaginary link between holding hands and groping. I can't imagine that being OK in anyone's mind. It is beyond reason.

I look at this now and think, "No wonder I blamed myself for Kirk raping me." I had this story in my head-- well, I did go outside with him, I did talk to him. How was he supposed to know that it wasn't OK to have sex with me? In reality, I told him no. I was reluctant to go anywhere with him and if he wasn't looking so much to get laid and wasn't a f*cking scum bag, he would have seen that. Instead, he took advantage of a young girl who didn't know what to say to get this piece of shit to stop bothering her for sex.

In my mind, I still think of the way Kirk acted and the way Rafael acted. Rafael much younger and I'll say horny, knew that something wasn't right and chose to leave the situation. Kirk was on his way to becoming a man and felt that he had to get this out of the way before it was "really" illegal, even though it was illegal then too. A few more months or years doesn't make a person more able to make an adult and responsible decision, as we can see with Rafael.

I think of other points too, where it seemed that by some societal or media influence, I got the message that it's OK to just go along, even when it's not in my best interest to go forward. I think about the times I felt that if I had sex before, I might as well have sex with the guy who I'm dating or that he'll expect it so I might as well do it. There wasn't anyone there or any voice in my head asking, "Do you really like him? Do you see this lasting a long time? Does he have any particular qualities that you really dislike or that you find attractive and unique? If you get pregnant, have you both decided what's best for the situation? In any case, do you really want to do this?"

A lot of time my sexual experiences were about disconnecting for my body. I wouldn't be in the moment. I would get headaches with fighting with my conscious that I didn't really want to do anything with anyone. I wanted to be alone and to feel safe with a friend or a lover. I remember writing about how during sex, I'd think of roads I went down or houses that I saw that I liked. I would now identify that as dissociation. I wasn't present during sex; I had simply given into hormones instead of rational or emotional thoughts/reasoning.

--Warning: Rant--
When my older and immature boyfriend at the time, Vincent, read this passage in my journal while I was on vacation and had hidden that journal, he had said it was OK. He had also made it clear that if I didn't want him reading it, I would have hidden it better. OMG, A-hole!
Vincent was a special (read: traumatic brain injury "retarded") person. His thoughts were more like a 10 or 15 year old boy instead of a 23 year old man. He'd make up these crazy stories. We broke up because I was tired of dating him. Our dates included us sitting on the couch for hours, watching TV, barely talking. I got bored. I could do that by myself and have more fun. He didn't want to do anything else because everything else required money and he didn't have job. I asked for an engraved bracelet back. He didn't want to give it back and instead said that I must have taken it back. In his mind, the only reason I'd ask for it back was to make him feel guilty (because in his world, I already had it). Eventually, he gave me back the bracelet and a bag that I had made. But as a last bitch move, he put "Vincent and Venus" in paint marker inside of it. I gave it to a friend who said she really liked it because I was still trying to use it despite being pissed at him. After all that, he had an older friend call me to see if I would date the older friend. Then, he started mooching off some 17 year old in the next town over, while still leaving me voice mails (on my pager, back in the day) saying I was the only one for him, he didn't know how he'd find someone else, reminding me when our anniversary would have been, and asking me if I had driven by because he saw someone with a similar van and kind of looked like me. He created screen names with his new girlfriend's name in it, something like "VincentLuvsLindsey123" on my parents' AOL account (because my screen name had been something like "VenusLuvsVW123" for my VW van). He sent an email to my mom asking her out, making it seem like he was just sending out to see if any single women wanted to date him. He sent me various voice mails over the course of two years, wherein I didn't call back to talk to him once. He was so dumb, he asked me to hang out but not if I had a boyfriend. He also drove passed my house several times. He made me scared for my safety. I was worried that once I moved to San Diego, he would still find me and stalk me. These thoughts stopped after moving again. They have also disappeared now that I'm on a different coast from where I grew up.
This girl, Lindsey, left a voicemail one day before I cancelled my account. I talked to her briefly. She said that he had lived at her dad's place, she was paying for this cell phone, they had broken up and she was calling numbers on the bill. Some of the places, she reported, were really weird. She asked if we met up or I cheated with him. I said the truth; I hadn't talked to him and didn't want to talk to him. We talked a bit about him and what had happened between them and what had happened between us. I made sure not to mention where I was moving for school, but that I was moving. Again, I was worried about his odd behaviors.
---- End Rant----

I'm glad that I can get this all out. I really needed to just sit and reflect. It's interesting to me when I have these memories that are persistent. I often wonder what's in my life now that is triggering these memories to come up. Sometimes there's a connection. Sometimes it takes me a while to see what I was trying to tell myself through these memories. I think, though, it might be time to make some art while having these memories in mind.

Thanks,
Venus