the sound of silence

I feel like talking about my ex today

That ex who will never be fully out of my life. 

Because we had a daughter together.

After he pressured me to have sex even if I told him I wanted to wait until I was taking the pill (I had stopped taking it as I had been celibate for more than one year, since I was unemployed and with low income at the time), or to at least put a condom on. 

That ex who accused me of making him bear responsibility for another man’s child, even though he knew I’m demisexual and wouldn’t have sex with anyone I don’t have deep romantic bonds with (not that there is anything wrong with someone doing what they want with their bodies, this is just my preference) because I became pregnant on “first try” and “the dates didn’t coincide” even after the doctor told him that the pregnancy was already considered about two weeks along at the moment of conception.

That ex who abandoned me in hospital alone with my six weeks old child because I had complications due to delivery and breastfeeding. 

That ex who told my mother “you better convince her to take the epidural, it has lasted long enough” after I’d been suffering for almost 19 hours - including 7 hours with an IV drip to speed up the delivery process (doctor told me that under natural circumstances, the process would have lasted minimum 48 to 72 hours more, after 12 hours of regular, 3 minutes spaced contractions)

That ex who forced me to hand him over my grandmother’s inheritance because I was worthless and useless, since I was unemployed, and if I didn’t do it, it’d mean I was just a gold-digger. 

That ex who still accused me of being a gold-digger and lazy ass and generally awful person repeatedly. 

That ex who told me I was perfect for him to enact his rape fantasy because my past experiences made me an expert on how to react in case of rape, after I told him how I was repeatedly sexually abused as a child.

That ex who insisted that still being friends with the cousin who took my innocence was just a way to be friendly with my family. 

That ex who told me I forced him to assume a responsibility he didn’t want - when I told him that I was fine with raising my child alone if he didn’t want her. 

That ex who coerced me more often than not into performing sex acts I didn’t want to do. 

That ex who tried to force me into a swingers club so I would just sit there while he would cheat on me repeatedly - I made it clear from the start that we were in a monogamous relationship and it wasn’t up to negotiation. 

That ex who told me I should have had an abortion, and when I replied “then I’d probably be 6-feet under” (it was no idle words, I have a past of self-harm and suicide attempts. I recovered from it through therapy but I was fairly certain that lose my fetus would make me lose what little stability I had by the moment I found out I was pregnant… even if I hadn’t shared it with him at the time. I’m pro-choice, the emotional trauma would have been terrible on me) and he replied “Great! Yes! Then at least I would be free!” 

That ex who shoved me repeatedly into the general electrical box while choking me and then flinging me through the room like a twig after I broke up with him over the abortion comments when I dared tell him I’d fight so he wouldn’t have full, equal rights on my daughter. (yes, my daughter. He lost the right to call her his the moment he wished she had never been born)

That ex who tried to convince the woman who was keeping an eye on my daughter to stop doing it so I would have to abandon my studies and be completely in his mercy. 

That ex who had his lawyer call me a Medea in family court and pretend I was going to hurt my daughter just to spite him. 

That ex who tried to have me put my daughter in schools with schedules that would have forced me to abandon my job. 

That ex who called me a frigid bitch, gold-digger, useless slut and so many other slurs to his friends for daring dumping his ass and fighting back.

That ex who figured I’d be an easy prey, since I was seven years younger and past abuse survivor freshly out of therapy. 

That ex who had two faces, and rarely showed the darker one to me overtly. 

That ex who once told me “I love to manipulate people and I’m good at it, but I only do it with their best interest in mind”. 

That ex I still have to see every other weekend, since the court ruled that he had the right to have my daughter over at his place for two nights, friday evening to sunday evening, every two weeks. 

That ex I abhors so much I have physical rashes anytime I stay too close to him for too long, as if my body considered his very presence as poisonous. 

That ex I can’t call “fatty” in front of certan people even if it’s true (he’s tall and strong and big) even if it was the only way I had to address him when I talked about what he put me through without using more explicit and offending expletives. (I am myself overweight, I just don’t think he deserves to be called by his name by me. I never address him by his name (always hey, you, and other neutral words) and when I talk about him I don’t want to use his name. He happens to have the same first name than my first love, whom I have a very fond and tender memory of. I don’t want to associate a name I love to a person I hate more than absolutely necessary. And another thing, I never use derogatory terms in front of my daughter when I talk about her father. I forbid anyone to tell a negative word to her about her father. She has the right to make her own opinion and I’m on the lookout for signs of abuse). 

That ex I’m never sure saw me as an actual human being. 

That ex who thinks he owns me and is entitled to my time, even if it’s almost five years since the break up and I’ve repeatedly signified that I want to have as little as I can to do with him. 

That ex I’m sure is trying to convince my daughter it would be just marvelous if mommy and daddy got back together. 

That ex I sometimes want to slowly and painfully emasculate with rusty tools as I’d make him feel as helpless and weak as he made me. 

That ex who abused me in every way he could. I had come to terms with the emotional and physical abuse… but I only recently realized the sexual abuse too. I cannot remember one time having sex with him enthusiastically. I was always guilted, coerced, cajoled, berated… no matter what I did, it was never enough.

That ex who sexually aroused me and then went to finish himself off in front of porn while I laid frustrated and sobbing because even if I was never good enough for him (I was good at convincing myself it was what I wanted) and laughed it off when I tried to -clumsily- initiate more sexual contact because he had me so aroused I was begging for it. 

That ex who forced cunnilingus or manual stimulation on me just so I would feel compelled to give him a blow or handjob, even if I told him I didn’t care about giving or receiving either (it was my abuser’s techniques, after all, and it could be easily triggering if he combined certain moves with certain words)

That ex who was certain he could get anything from me given enough time… and I realize how true it was. If he hadn’t said that he wished my daughter had never been born and then become physically abusive after the break-up… I think I’d have complied with anything. Physical violence and brute force were the only abuse I had learned to recognize. 

Because… emotional abuse was something I learned was normal from a very early age. Thanks, mom. Thanks, father. Thanks, brothers. Thanks, society. You almost did your job. You almost broke me. 

Finding the words

When I try to come out about what happened to me, the insidious and discreet abuse I’ve been put through by different people, I mostly receive the same kind of feedback. 

But you never said a thing

You didn’t stop spending time with him

You were so quiet, only troubled children have troubles

You must remember wrong

You’re exaggerating, I don’t remember any of that

I would’ve known

… 

Most of the people I try to talk to about it were adults when I was a child, and I think most of their disbelief stems from their facing the possibility that they failed me when I was a child. When I try to dig a little deeper, most end up saying things like “if I had known…” and try to tell me the many ways they’d have acted if they had known what was happening to me. 

I don’t buy it. 

My own aunt walked in on my cousin touching me inappropriately. She saw it happen. You know what she did? She turned a blind eye to it and pretended she never saw a thing. 

So no, I don’t believe any of them would have acted, except one or two of them… Like my godfather and godmother. They’d have done something. 

My father’s family knew a lot of things were wrong in the household. For one, they knew how my father abused of my mother - and elder brother and I - and they kept taking us away from her whenever they could even after she broke up with my father. 

They knew.

They didn’t face the knowledge consciously but they knew. 

How can you expect a child to confide in you, adult, when the child’s closest and supposedly most reliable adults are abusing them? Especially when you, adult, don’t tell them something like “you can tell me anything, I’ll believe you and do my best to keep you safe”? How is the child supposed to guess that you, adult, would be more reliable than their own caretakers? 

Children know a lot of thing, but it mostly stems from what they’re taught, from what they learn, from their experiences. 

So if a child learns early on that the people closest to them is unreliable and will abuse them when they dare talking… why would they talk to you? 

How can a child stay away from the abuser when they’re the child’s main caretaker? 

It’s so fucked up to tell those things to the child or adult trying to come out and say what was going on for them. 

It’s blaming the child for everything that happened past the first occurrence of abuse… and treating them like liars. 

It’s hard

to break the silence. I find that it’s the hardest thing to do. Recently, my godfather came over because my mother told him she was concerned about my daughter’s safety. Not mine, no. She made it clear that she doesn’t give a damn about me, only about my daughter. 

So when I started to mention how she’s been policing and destroying my life since early childhood, he was surprised. 

Surprised because I was such a quiet child, never complaining, never actually sharing any distressing detail.

Gosh, godfather, you’re a cop. You’re supposed to know better. 

Well, now you do. You know better than trusting my mother’s word. You know better than believe that all was pretty flowers and butterflies just because you were never told otherwise. 

Or were you?

Did your parents never tell you how my father terrorized his mother and younger sister, your own aunt and grandmother? (my godfather is my cousin on my father’s side)

Did your parents never tell you how our uncle had to hide my mother and us because he threatened to kill us all? 

Did your parents never tell you why my father was kept away from the family while my mother and her four kids were welcome? 

Did your parents ever tell you why my three brothers and I were regularly taken from my mother for weeks on end during holidays? 

Did they tell you that they were trying to give us something else than the life we had with her, and with him? 

Did you wonder why I never shared any detail about my life with my mother except “school is alright” when I was bullied by schoolmates and “my brothers are ok” when… yeah… I was bullied by them too or not telling much and shrugging it off when I was asked question? 

Did you think it was a sign of good health that I was so quiet and withdrawn? 

So now I’m talking, why are you surprised I had a shitty life? Why are you surprised I was prevented from telling much? Why are you surprised I didn’t have the words to tell you? I was a kid. How was I supposed to know better? 

My mother didn’t let me stay at friends’. You know why I think she never let me have sleepovers and things like that? I think she knew she was mistreating me and emotionally abusing me. I think she knew what she was doing and she didn’t want me to realize it. 

Did you know, godfather, that my mother is against the laws allowing children to report and press charges against their parents if they are mistreated? 

Or are you so blind? 

It’s alright, I was blind too. I was raised to believe it was the norm. I was raised to believe I couldn’t stand up for myself. I was raised to believe it wasn’t abuse. I was raised to believe I deserved any blow or any harsh word, any insult. I was raised to believe I was worthless and useless. 

How could you know? 

To start at the beginning

TW: rape, sexual assault, child molestation, victim blaming, rape culture, incest, beatings, … 

But where is it? When is it? What started the long string of betrayals and abuse? 

Was it when my father beat my mother up so bad that she lost my elder sister, making her rely on her next baby to “heal her” and “make her feel whole again”? 

Was it the very first memory I have of him, that is him chasing me through the room until I hid behind a couch - I think he found me, but the rest of the memory is a big hole. I was 2 years old. 

Was it that as my mother recently told me, “your father took you for naps in the afternoon… it always gave me an odd feeling but you always seemed unharmed…” implying that I’ve been victim of sexual abuse for far longer than I ever expected or even could remember. 

Was it that an older cousin - 7 years older - found a-ok to sexually abuse, rape and scar 8 years old me? 

Was it that when my mother continuously triggered me with kids tv shows talking about rape and its prevention and I snapped and screamed at the top of my lungs that it had happened to me already, she didn’t believe me? And when she did her lament was that she had failed as a parent? 

Was it that my mother continued to perpetuate the model in which she was raised, that praised and glorified males while demonizing females, by putting my brothers on pedestals while I was never enough, never sufficient. 

Was it every time one of my brothers lifted my skirts to show my panties off to their friends, like I was their property and had no right to say no and my mother didn’t care until I stopped wearing skirts altogether… and then shamed me for not being feminine?

Was it that I’ve been forced to silence about all that happen to me because a girl just has to tough it up and let the past go? 

Was it that people at school thought it was alright of bullying me all year long and only use me when they needed me and I let them, because I was so fucking needy for attention, any kind of attention and positive feedback, that I put up with 11 months of torture for 1 month of acceptance? 

Was it that when I tried to come out as a survivor to my closest brother, his reaction was “so… you got yourself raped. So what?” 

Was it that I was until I broke contact with my family - again - my abuser was allowed to leer at my young daughter and most people laughed it off as nothing? Even people knowing what he did to me? 

Was it that whenever I try to share what I went through, I’m called “attention whore”, “whiny bitch” or so many of the other slurs that exist for women like me who try to speak up for themselves? 

Was it that I was denied access to therapy or the means to get better until I was legally adult, and once I did, I was ostracized and shut off because therapy “made me change” and “they couldn’t recognize me anymore”? 

Was it that I was forced to sit in the same room than the man - he was 15, he wasn’t a boy - who took advantage of my childish body with only other women as protection - my mother and my aunt - women who didn’t believe my word, only his when he admitted to committing the crimes I was accusing him of. 

Was it when I was told that speaking about the abuse or try to get justice would make the family explode and the constant feud would be my fault, making everyone sad and miserable just for a little mistake? 

Was it when my mother told me that I didn’t matter, that I had no importance in her eyes except for the child I had born, before she told me that she was going to try and take my child for me because she deems me unsuitable for mothering a child? 

Was it when my boyfriend thought ok to belittle and mock me in front of his friends, then when I tried to call him out on it, he said “but you constantly do that to me”? 

Was it when I told him about the abuse, his response was to try and enact a rape scene because it was his fantasy and I’d know how the fuck to react accordingly? 

Was it when he though ok to deny me release after arousing me, and then getting off on the control he had over me because I physically couldn’t masturbate as it triggered me? 

Was it that this year is the twentieth since the first violation on my body I can remember and that twenty years of silence brought nothing but more pain to me? 

Was it that I am sick of being silenced and being told what to feel and what to do? 

Was it that I want to be seen as myself and not my daughter’s mother, my mother’s daughter, my brothers’ sister…? 

I don’t know where the beginning is, I don’t know in which order I will… in which order I am able to tell all of this. 

One thing is sure, memory is a damn fleeting thing. 

I often compare my memory to a swamp. Not because it’s dirty, no. Because there’s a lot of fog, some water and vegetation… and a lot going on under the surface with sometimes things bubbling up to the surface. And more importantly there are preys and predators. How many times have I fallen prey to my own mind? Wrapped in the ideas that have been forced upon me since childhood?