Some Traumatic Experiences That Fueled The Anger
Rejection was not enough to fuel the anger I experienced – not even the rejection I experienced from my mother. Most of the time, rejection just left me saddened and longing for acceptance, but I was never grievously angry about it to the point I would rage. Only the feeling of helplessness and powerlessness left me feeling angry. Those feelings occurred during traumatic experiences that have been forever etched into my memory. One such experience left me in such a fit of anger that I barely comprehended what to do with it. Years ago, I discovered this traumatic event was the root issue to volatile anger that plagued me. It was the root of much of the bitterness and unforgiveness that had settled deep within my being.
***Trigger Warning: This portion contains potentially distressing material pertaining to sexual assault.
The Day My Heart Disappeared
I was nine years-old when I was followed into the back courtyard area of some apartment buildings by two teenaged youth. They could not have been more than 16, but they were definitely much older than me. I had just split off from walking with a group of girls whom I was in the company of just before reaching the building where I would enter into to wait for my aunt to return home from school.
It was a daily routine that I was accustomed to, and my aunt believed that I was both mature and independent enough to handle the responsibility of waiting for her for approximately an hour or two for her arrival. Yet, just in case, there were three tenants who resided in the same building as my aunt who also kept an eye out for me as well as a neighbor across the street. I am sure it never dawned on my aunt or her neighboring friends that danger lurked just beyond their buildings’ borders.
I never saw the attack coming. Nor did I sense any danger until it was too late for me to get a head start at running. Without the speed to react fast enough and sheer thought that I could see just beyond my view the back of the apartment building that was my destination, I was stunned speechless when I was hit on the back of the head. I was hit with such great force that I fell to the ground while holding my head in shock. Standing above me were two teenagers yelling obscenities at me and making all kinds of devaluing remarks about me and my body. Although I tried to get up, I was cornered and block from moving. One of the boys held me down while the other one began pulling on my clothing.
I fought like a crazed animal kicking and attempting to scream, but as hard as I tried to fend the boys off, I was met with consistent blows all about my face and body. I thought surely they had the wrong person because I had never seen these boys in my life, and I knew for certain that they could not have known me. I was stunned into disbelief at what was occurring, and although I could no longer audibly cry, I could feel an ocean of tears over take my body. Their physical assaults upon me became unbearable because I was powerless to stop them. Somewhere deep within me, I instinctively knew what they were trying to do even though I did not have the wherewithal to completely understand it. I was desperately fighting to keep the inevitable of their evil against me from happening.
I made it a point to look at both of the attackers in their eyes. I had a need to search for the humanity within them. I figured that if they looked at me, they might connect and realize they were making a mistake. The one holding me down by my arms seemed to have remorse regarding his actions. At least I believed I saw a remorseful look in his eyes, but maybe he was also ashamed because he knew that I knew what he was doing was wrong. He could not even look me in my eyes. I could tell he was not the one in control, though, and was clearly following the orders of the other one. Despite what seemed like remorse, I was never able to gain his help to stop the attack. I knew that he was the last resort for help between the two of them.
The other one looked right through me. He had the eyes of evil. His eyes were so deeply dark and sinister that I was aware that a dark and demonic entity was present within him. This attacker’s eyes were so dark, they appeared unmoving and unblinking but completely familiar. I was suddenly aware that I had seen the look of these eyes before. They were the same types of eyes I had encountered with my mother when she seemed set against me. This attacker’s eyes were the eyes of hate that I knew my kindness would not reach. Upon seeing this attacker’s eyes, I resigned and settled within myself to accept my fate and defeat, and I rested my eyes ahead and locked them on staring into the abyss of daylight while fixating on the bright blue sky. At some point, I felt myself drifting and floating away until my heart disappeared.
During and after the attack, I seesawed in and out of dissociation long enough to forget some of the horrific details of the attack, but what I physically forgot with my mind, my body definitely recorded, remembered, and kept the score. The attack itself was brutal, and although I have no idea how long it lasted, I felt like it was for an eternity. Yet, at some point, it was all interrupted, and the last thing I remember was taking an acute blow to the top of my head with a brick before the most heavenly voice came out of nowhere screaming and shooing the boys away. The heavenly voice was attached to a woman who later told me that she just happened to look out of her window to see what was taking place. She came in the nick of time because I surely thought I was going to die … that these boys were going to kill me.
I do remember looking up to hear the woman screaming the boys’ names, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the names. I forgot their names and the graphic part of the attack almost instantly. I remember hearing the woman tell the boys that she would be notifying both their parents. I know I heard her tell the one I perceived to be the remorseful one that his parents would be very disappointed in him because of their expectations. I remember this kind woman behaving in a matter of fact way, but when she approached me, she was almost angelic-like. She had the calmest voice I had ever heard, and I immediately knew that I was safe.
The Aftermath
Despite the realization that I was safe, my mind went completely blank, and I experienced a faraway feeling of depersonalization. I felt that everything slowed down and that I was not completely present. Things seemed to progress in slow motion. As the kind woman helped me up from the ground, I surveyed my surroundings. I remember noticing that I was very close to my aunt’s apartment – just on the peripheral – near the window of the kitchen. I remember feeling my lips quiver as if I wanted to cry because I had been so close to “home” but had not made it. Yet, once the urge to cry came, the urge immediately left me as I tried to process the fact that my clothing were ripped, my lips were swollen, and my body was completely battered with bruises.
I remember the woman making a remark about how bruised up I was, but I could tell that she was carefully choosing her words and that her calm voice actually hid an edge of shakiness and concern. When I realized that she was not walking to my aunt’s apartment, I pled with her that I wanted to go home because I was expected to be there. The woman assured me that I need not worry. She told me that she and my aunt were good friends and that it was better for me not to be alone. Since this woman had literally saved my life, I reasoned with myself that she was safe, and I walked along side her as she helped me to her apartment.
When we reached the inside of her apartment, a woman was there. The woman was sitting at her table. I remember her saying that the police were on their way. I sat down at a kitchen table, and the woman got up and told the kind woman who assisted me that she would return later. My aunt was at school or work, but when the kind woman was unable to reach my aunt through any the phone numbers, she called the police. Since I had never had to contact my aunt before, the woman assured me that it was most likely that my aunt was on her way home.
So as we waited for either my aunt to or the police to arrive, the woman kindly offered me a snack and something to drink. She made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I remember vividly thinking that I did not like grape jelly, but because I did not want to be rude, I forced myself to take a bite. The concoction was like mush in my mouth. So I drank the grape soda – a Fanta, and I vividly recall thinking that I had never tasted anything like it. (Years later, without remembering the connection, I would always buy a Fanta grape drink during a work break, but I would never eat a snack with it. I only recalled the reason for this as memories of this day came flooding back to me. My body had remembered what my mind could not.)
Although I wanted to be gracious as this woman extended her generosity to me, I was unable to eat the rest of the sandwich. I was unable to move. My mind was blank but at the same time very aware, and for the first time, I had an inner longing for the presence of the familiar. It was a strange feeling, but I was overwhelmed by it. I wanted to go home. As mean as I thought my mother was to me, I longed for her. I longed for both my parents. I longed to be around my siblings. I ached for them.
Despite my family’s dysfunctional environment, I needed the familiarity of them close to me. I needed to feel safe in my surroundings. Even though this woman had saved me, I felt uneasy. I did not feel safe. I was in an environment where I had been viciously attacked and violated in an incomprehensible manner that I was unable to completely process. Although this kind woman that saved me was so loving, motherly, and nice to me, the more she talked to me in her calming and soothing voice, the more frantic I began to feel.
The police had arrived to this woman’s apartment before my aunt had, and although I do not recall what triggered me about the police’s presence, I found myself submerged into a full blown panic attack which propelled me into a fit of overpowering sobs. Once I began crying, I was unable to stop. I cried so hysterically that I do not even remember what the woman said to the police, whether the police asked me questions, or whether my aunt finally showed up to get me at the woman’s apartment or if the woman took me to the hospital herself. The next thing I recall was me sitting in the waiting room of a busy hospital.
Stay tuned for the next post.
My Voice Unchained 