After a long hiatus I return renewed.

It is no longer other people who silence me. It is I intimidatingly insecure and afraid, unbidden I cultivate a hundred reasons not to write, and I succeed for I am oh so clever and know all my buttons to push.

Shh. It’s a secret.

Shh. Don’t upset Ma and Dad.

Shhhame on you.

Shh. What is wrong with you?

Shh. “You don’t ever tell anyone what goes on in this family.” A direct word for word quote from Ma, chief collaborator when I was 13 and tried to see a phycologist to ask if I were “crazy.”

Why do I return to this? You may well ask. It is because by the time I am done writing several more people will have been sexually victimized whether man, woman, or child. And also because all I have, perhaps all I have ever had of value to offer others is my own hard fought experience.

What do you suppose happens to victims of sexual crimes? How many care? After all can they not just put it behind them and move on? Yes, so very simple, if they just get over it then I am not called on to take any action or change any belief or way of life or friend. I gave my best advice. hush. get over it. Put it behind.

But it does not go behind because it has become me and I have become it. Because in that moment my brain was changed, life interrupted, detours taken in hopes of mere survival. In that moment I became some other person with no more choice of who or what I will be. I am numb, I am alone, I am frightened, I am muted, and one day I will look back and see that that was the day my ability to trust disappeared along with my ability to form close associations with people.

After that day I stood outside the family looking in no longer a part of but apart from while all my years wishing for a family that was just out of reach.

I tried to put it behind me. I tried to get on with my life. I tried to cover it all up for the sake of others who never gave it a second thought or care. But there were two me’s, no not split personality, but the fake me on the outside trying to be good and kind and diligent and responsible and on the inside the broken, frightened little girl still looking for someone to love and care. War ensued and inside my little girl screamed her terror while I smiled and served breakfast to my kids. At night there were nightmares, horrid, shameful nightmares that left me shaken and ashamed at dawn while trying sweetly to see my husband off to work with a well packed lunch and a kiss. But all along the way my insides crept out in outbursts of anguish. See me! And I would tuck it back in where it belonged and tamp it down and get on with my life.

And back it came. Like a dead body without enough weight it resurfaced time and again. It was an almost daily battle between me and me just to survive with some semblance of life.

Eventually my life lay in utter ruin and the dam broke and poured me out into the light. I was 35. My husband and children belonged to someone else. I was addicted to the alcohol, my savior that kept the pain at bay and there was no way to tuck the past back in and move on.

I eventually joined AA and learned how to get through the pain without a drink.

I am still healing. A few weeks ago I wrote letters to my brothers asking for an apology. But none are man enough to say I’m sorry. I also wrote to my husband, father of my children asking for an apology for his part, but I do not expect an answer. It is so much easier to just let people think I am crazy and telling stories for attention, or to excuse my own bad behaviors, or just to be mean as the spoiled brat I am.

But I lived my life; I survived my life when the odds were against me; I will not now abdicate my seat to ease other peoples consciences over what they chose to do.

So I have a true choice now. I can spend what is left of my time on earth reaching out to other victims and survivors and be miserable doing it, or I can do the same reaching out in a joyous and grateful manner. Either way my past is my future, inseparable as it always has been from who and what I am.