Here goes nothing… (and I am sitting at school writing this, simply because it will distance me from being overly emotional about this.)
As a child I grew up with my grandparents, and it wasn’t until I turned about 12, that my mothers boyfriend told my mother (!) that it was about time we came living at home. When I was 15, my grandmother and my uncle died within 3 months of each other. My grandfather didn’t seem to be going through a hard time because of this. He might have, though, I won’t be the judge of that, but he certainly was going through moral decay with drinking and gambling, even gambling my grandmothers jewelry away… (what a cliché, really)
When I was 16, my grandfather displayed “inappropriate sexual contact” towards my sister and me. I won’t go into details with what it was, I don’t see the need for it, but I can tell you how I felt at the time.
I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing, I was completely detached. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breath. My mind tried to send signals to the rest of me, pleading to do just something, but the transmission got disconnected somehow.
When he let go of me, I just walked out of the house. I was at the end of the small road, when he called me from behind. And I stopped. I actually stopped and waited for him to come over, I felt like I should, for some reason. He pushed 40,- kr into my hand and said: “And then we won’t talk anymore about that…”
I walked away, with the two coins in my hand, and it wasn’t until I was about 100 meters around the corner that I came to my senses again. I threw the coins on the road, thinking that if anybody would want to get a hold on these filthy money, they should at least risk being run over by a car to get them.
I decided it wasn’t my fault. Of course it wasn’t! I had been sexually active for about 3 months, but he didn’t know that, and even if he did, it should not in any way excuse his actions. So, I was pretty clear about that.
I had a long and hard struggle with myself about whether or not I should tell my mother. As you may imagine, we didn’t exactly have a close relationship, and she isn’t the most empathetic person on the planet. I finally decided to tell her the same evening, for two reasons. I didn’t want my sister to experience the same as I (which turned out to be too late, I found out the same night), and also because I didn’t want to see him again, so I figured I had to explain why.
I told her, what had happened and that I never wanted to see him again, and she believed me. Well, she also said something equivalent to: “Was that it?” but at least she believed me.
Then came christmas. And my mother and her boyfriend decided, that my sister and I should come to christmas dinner with my grandfather. Of course we objected towards it, but it was just as worthless as we were. We had to go.
Then, my mothers birthday came up in january, and of course she invited him home. No problem, we could just go to some friends house, right? Wrong. So very, very wrong. I was forced to eat “scrimp” cocktails with him sitting there right in front of me. In my face!
My mothers boyfriend started using it as a very effective element of pressure, whenever we didn’t do as he pleased. “If you don’t behave, you can always spend the holiday at grandpa’s!” With a disgusting smile on his face.
Here’s the thing… When I look at it in writing I can see the absurdity. I really can. But inside my head there are some seriously screwed up discussions going on between me and myself.
I don’t blame myself for not having reacted during the occurrence. But I’d really wish I had reacted somehow, especially when I realized that my last chance of “saying no” was taken away from me by my mother.
The reason I blog about it today is that this memory keeps popping up every time I feel fine. As if my mind decides to say: “Hey, you seem happy! Maybe, just maybe, you would have the surplus to look over *this* youth memory, that you haven’t dealt with completely just yet…?”
So, this weekend I have been going through it all over and over again, and I still haven’t come much further than the last time I went through it. It seems as if there is no relief to this.
I am facing two possible conclusions as to why my mother would force me to see him again after explicitly having told her, I did not want to. One is, that I was overreacting. That it really was just a small bump on the road, nothing to get all moody and depressed about. After all, no direct physical harm was done…
Or, to my mother, I was worthless.
I am not sure, which conclusion I would most prefer to make. But until I choose one of the above perspectives, this memory will haunt me down and ask me to replay it over and over and over again, and I can’t deal with that either.
So, please tell me, what the hell am I supposed to do?!
