The strong pecked at the meek with their razor sharp teeth while their soothing voices cajoled and white washed and made one feel guilty for crying. I learned to watch, wait, and listen. It was never quite enough.

Two of my brothers and a couple of my sisters had cruelty running through their veins as much a part of them as the blood it ran in. I would say to myself now “Just get over it” but it is not about that. I do not hate or hold grudges. There is not enough energy or time. What there is is me still struggling to resurrect the me I may have been had the environment on the farm been less cruel.

Secrets were everywhere. They lived in the walls, in the air, and in the din of hushed voices far above my toddler head as well as in my head.

Danger…watch out for…pregnant…hit-and-run…slut…tramp…her fault…her fault…her fault…the hole in the blackberry grove is for her… It entered my mind and never left. But I had my own secret to keep and live in spite of.

When I left home to escape my Dad’s groping hands and two brothers I feared I took my paranoia with me. I peeked out windows, I hid from the ringing of the phone, dreaded a knock on the door, and thought any moment I will be found out, kicked out, put in my place.

I lived with my boyfriend whom I never shared my weird thoughts with. He had already let me know my “regular” thinking was “silly” dumb, and ignorant, and I tried desperately to hide my ills from him. Try as I did there was no remedy for my emotional leftovers spilling out all over an otherwise serene world. My childhood hell lived inside of me and when I tried to sort it out verbally the result was always the same. My boyfriend would say all the phrases that made me feel stupid, weak, and inept. “Just get over it.” “Be happy now.” “Put it behind you.” “Move on.” “Whatever happened, it doesn’t matter now.”

People still say some of these things to me. They do not get that being sexually used from the age of three and a half by three older siblings, a nephew and my Dad, spending my youth watching my back instead of being a child, learning from a very early age that girls were bad, boys were good and that I was guilty, guilty, guilty of anything and everything forms a terribly warped mind.

Sometimes I feel anger at spending vast amounts of time still recovering from who I became and how other people see me due to things I have done as a result of the mess I was when I left home. But crying “unfair” does no good and it is up to me to do what I can to fix me.

The alternative would be to still allow the crap inside my head drive me crazier by “burying” it where it can keep on popping out of me like an alien from my gut. There is no easy answer, but I am grateful to have made the journey through years of suicidal ideation to a place where I can see a real light ahead.

Most of my sisters and brothers have never stepped into the bright light of freedom from the secrets, the paranoia, and the shedding of old tapes that keep them reeling. I am an anomaly. I strayed from the norm of protecting family honor in favor of taking care of me. Besides, my family had and has little honor. They both fear and hate me for speaking the truth. That is not my problem. It is theirs. I must be more outspoken.