Life After Molestation: The Wounds You Can’t See

Life After Molestation: The Wounds You Can’t See

About the Life After Series
If you’re new here, Life After is a blog series featuring 15 women, 15 battles, and one powerful truth: there is life after. Through heartbreak, healing, and hard-won hope, Coach Jaleesa’s Happy Wife Happy Life is honored to help share their stories with the world.

Foreword by Coach Jaleesa: The following blog was submitted by one of my Happy Life, Happy Wife readers. Her story is still being written but I am so grateful that she had the courage to share her journey. I hope this blog, like all the others, helps someone who is going through the same thing. If you, or someone you know, is going through sexual abuse please contact help. One of the biggest tricks of the enemy is to make you believe that you are alone and that simply isn't true. Read with caution; not appropriate for children.

Sexual Abuse Hotline: 1-800-656-4673

When Innocence Is Stolen

When I was a young child, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ home. My parents were still on the party (drug) scene; the sibling closest to my age was nearly 10 years older and didn’t want a little sister tagging along. It was fine because I loved spending time with my grandma. Three of my older cousins lived at my grandparent’s house with their mother and I spent a lot of time with them, particularly the youngest of the three siblings. I wanted to be like her, she was talented; she could sing and she was athletic.

I knew nothing about sex, let alone what was considered “right or wrong”, so when she began coaxing me to perform oral sex on her, I didn’t know that it was wrong or how to decline. Oh, of course, my observations and understanding of marriage or relationships were based upon a heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman, but I didn’t know that “this” was wrong. I wanted her to like me and play games with me; so whenever I visited she would pull me aside for me to pleasure her sexually. It eventually stopped when I told my older sister what had been happening. She questioned our cousin — who denied it right in front of my face. Over the years, I think that my sister forgot or had enough of her own sorrows to carry around with her to remember mine.

The Aftermath of Silence

I only ever spoke of it to one other person (until now) and was met with a barrage of questions concerning my sexual preference, as if same-sex molestation automatically meant that I was a lesbian. I was promiscuous but never considered myself to be what is typically characterized as being a whore, because I engaged in secret sexual relationships that only my closest friends knew about. Over the course of getting to know me better, I saw how my molestation had set the tone for so many hurts that were inflicted by others and me. The molestation eroded many internal mechanisms within my life, such as how I love, who I love, and what I love.

The most chaotic and one-sided relationships developed out of my molestation as I tried to hold on to someone to love me. I loved with the simplicity of a child and all of my relationships were disastrous because I accepted sub-standard treatment. I often allowed myself to be the other woman or “side chick” in a lot of my relationships because I didn’t want to lose what I thought was love. When I was the girlfriend, I knowingly accepted unfaithful mates because I thought that my love and monogamy would be enough to change those that betrayed me. I have only been in a few serious relationships and all of them ended the same way; infidelity (by my boyfriend), financial irresponsibility (by my boyfriend), and me on the brink of a deep depression. I am single right now and I still have hope for a healthy relationship.

As I look back on my past relationships I see how I attracted broken spirits just like me. In most of my relationships, I was needed or used for something that I possessed. I “mothered” most of the men in which I had a relationship. I brought home the bacon, fried it up, and served it with a smile. I played all of the roles (cook, maid, freak, mother, banker…). I did all of these things in order to prove my worth, demonstrate that I was worth keeping around, worth loving. None of them matched my efforts and all of them took pieces of me to try to fill the voids that existed within them.

In a heated argument during my last relationship, I called him “pitiful and pathetic” and he responded with a laugh saying, “No, that’s you”. My partners’ deficiencies were a reflection of my own. I attracted needy men because it gave me a sense of power and fulfilled my need to be wanted.

Love, Loss, and Broken Reflections

One of the most challenging aspects of my molestation is addiction; in my case food. After my molestation, food became one of my biggest coping mechanisms. If I am upset, hurt, scared, or bored, I turn to food for comfort. This began after my molestation and continued into adulthood. I have periods of time when there is clarity and I am able to control my addiction, but over the course of the last few years and after a stressful breakup, I find myself back on my unhealthy food binges yet again. I am ashamed of the way that I binge eat; I hide it from my family and friends.

I have a child; I try to set good examples so that I don’t pass on my bad association with food. I often hear how addiction is hereditary and I don’t want my child to pick up on any of my negative behaviors.

Still Healing, Still Hoping

One of the worst things to come out of my molestation is the way that I see myself and how I feel about myself sometimes. Accepting who I am has been one of the most difficult things to accomplish and it continues to be an uphill battle. I have been hurt a lot and I have hurt others as well. I have a rough exterior, but I’m soft as a marshmallow inside. I smile when people comment about my toughness and my brash attitude because I have successfully hidden the pain that I carry inside. I want everyone to be safe, to never hurt, that is that childlike simplicity that remains a part of who I am and it keeps my humanity intact.