You don’t know me, and you aren’t even trying to understand me…
So, last night, I lost my shit again. Why doesn’t matter at this point. It’s just another trigger in a long, long list. I started talking about how I was initiated into sex abuse by my babysitters after they found my porn stash. I was 7. I started stealing porn that year to bribe the older boys with, and they gave me the pages they didn’t want. I got the pictures of the “ugly women,” and I got the sex stories.
This is a paraphrased account of what I ranted about on Twitter. And, before I go on, I have to say, I sometimes feel bad that my followers have to deal with these frequent explosions from me. I try not to react so much to other people, but once I’m upset, I can’t contain my emotions and I blow up.
Someone wrote DMs to me, telling me how what happened to me was not my fault. They said I’d been groomed by my “pedophile” baybysitters. That would be a pair of sister, one 11, the other 12. This person who thought to help me was ready to label other children as pedophiles for experimenting sexually. I pointed out that I already knew about sex when they found my porn stash. I was already curious and wanting to explore, so their offer seemed like a good idea. I’m not saying I wasn’t abused, or that it wasn’t molest, or that it wasn’t a bad thing. I’m saying, what this person said didn’t match reality. It’s the story that they wanted to make up about me, so that I wouldn’t have to be responsible for my own mistakes.
Since that first idea didn’t fly, and it was clear that the little girls who approached me were not pedophiles, this person changed direction and said it was those older boys who groomed me for sex by giving me the porn. Again, this is simply not the case. I was not instructed to steal porn for them. I made the choice to steal it so I could bribe them, and then they would stop hitting me. After the first few stories I’d read, I requested the letters and stories. I groomed myself.
I’m not saying the boys were innocent angels. They beat me so often, I was afraid of all boys. But they didn’t groom me for someone else to exploit me. I did it. It was my mistake, and what followed after might not have totally been my fault, but there is no outside source who was coaching me toward my corruption.
And y’all people can’t handle that kind of reality. I lose track of the number of times that people tell me that what happened to me didn’t really happen that way, and there must be someone else to blame besides me. Y’all are so eager to absolve me of my crimes that you’re not willing to hear my story. I can talk about it all I like, but you don’t hear me. You hear the voice in your head that narrates my story in terms that are more appealing to you. You lie to yourself even as I’m trying to confess my truth.
People who get tired of me talking get mad and ask what the point of my constant confessions are. Am I wanting other kids to grow up like me? No, I wouldn’t want anyone to grow up the way I did. I wouldn’t want anyone to grow up feeling worthless and unworthy of affection. I talk because I want you people to open your eyes and look at everyone. I want you to see the warning signs around kids who are at risk of being exploited. I want you to care more and to stop projecting your outraged feeling on the victims to silence us. I want you to try and understand our pain. And what depresses me is how many of you put your outrage over the thoughts and feelings of the victims.
I don’t feel angry at that person for denying the validity of my memories, or at anyone who’s done this to me over the years. I know that this need to absolve me is your misguided efforts to help me feel better. But it does depress me, because I wonder how anyone can begin to understand why I feel so broken, when they aren’t even willing to accept the story of how I broke myself.
How can any of you know me, when you never stop talking to hear me?
