*** Trigger Warning – mentions sexual assault and precocious puberty as it pertains to the menstrual cycle which some readers may find graphic in detail
Aftermath
Once my mother drove us home from the doctor’s visit, the madness began. My grandmother had come home with us because she had a plan of attack. It was a similar plan as before. She wanted me punished for my outburst at the office. She wanted my mother to spank me for embarrassing her with my tears, shrieks, and screams all over a gynecological exam that no one had prepared me for ahead of time. Just let that sink in …
My grandmother wanted me punished because she did not comprehend that I was a survivor of sexual assault and most likely recalling the trauma through a gynecological exam. Instead, she was concerned about how to explain my behavior to the few patients that were in the waiting room should they have asked her my issue. She only cared about her status in the community and that nothing ever happened that flawed it. So she entitled herself to telling my mother that if my mother did not punish me, then she would do it herself.
I could not believe it when my mother called me to her. She had a belt in her hand, but my grandmother told one of my siblings to go get her a switch. Neither of my siblings moved, however, because they did not understand what was happening. Both my siblings looked at me with sorrow in their eyes and then tilted their heads downward and attempted to leave the room. “Go get me a switch dammit! Go now!” my grandmother yelled, but neither of my siblings moved an inch. “I will use this belt,” my mother said. But my grandmother was adamant, and she walked out of the house mumbling that she would get a switch herself.
I was confused about what was going on but feeling a rush of anger inside of me. “Why am I being punished? That doctor was hurting me!” I pleaded. “You saw what was happening, and you didn’t do anything about it, and here you are again letting another adult tell you what to do about me. Why are you punishing me?” I was beyond upset, but my mother was unmoved. “I am your mother, and you are sassy. Don’t sass-mouth me or your grandmother. Just do as you’re told. This has been a long-time coming. You’ve needed this for a while. You are a bad little girl … what you allowed those boys to do to you. You are a dirty little girl, and you need to be punished,” my mother said. I was confused.
The normal blanket of shame arose out of nowhere to cover me, but it only lasted for a split second before the emotions that finally settled upon me were consistent with the feelings of anger and rage. I did not feel defensive; I felt justified. I went to the doctor’s in the hopes of receiving relief, and now it was being flipped around on me like I had done something wrong based on my reaction to an examination. I was 11!!!!!!!! I scream this as I think about it. I was 11 and already dissociated from the previous trauma of sexual assault that I was still unable to handle. How was I supposed to respond to an unexpected exam that no one told me about?
When I heard the front door reopen, I swiftly ran into the kitchen. I heard my mother tell my grandmother that I was in the kitchen. My grandmother came in with a long switch … very skinny on the end which meant that the lashes that she would inflict would be designed to sting me. I had only been spanked with a switch in my lifetime one other time that I recalled, and I did not like it. It hurt. My dad considered the switch to be barbaric and abusive. I actually would have preferred a belt.
My grandmother was a very short woman – not even above five feet tall. So she could clearly see me under the table. “Come to me,” she said while attempting to grab me. I recoiled but held on tightly to the table leg. The table was an old antique and very sturdy. When I was younger, the table was my fortress. I expected it to protect me at that moment, but there was not much it could do to prevent me from avoiding the lashes my grandmother wished to inflict upon me.
My grandmother yelled for my mother to make me obey. My mother, with a smirk on her face but fear in her eyes, called me to come from underneath the table. I refused. “No! I did not do anything wrong,” I said. I was defiant but tried not to be disrespectful in tone. It did not matter though. My refusal to succumb to both my mother and grandmother’s wishes was disrespectful enough in their eyes.
My grandmother flicked the switch onto the table leg where my hands held tightly. Each flick of the switch lashed against my hands causing me to shrink back to keep from being hit in the face. Yet, I held on even tighter refusing to loosen my grip, and I screamed out in anguish. My mother did nothing, and my siblings looked on in terror. My grandmother was unrelenting, and she attempted to grab my arm. I yelled out “No! Stop hitting me, please!”
At some point, I simply shrank down and collapsed underneath the table in a squatting position with all my weight, and I screamed out. “Why are you hitting me? I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything!” But my grandmother was determined to lash me. She yelled at my mother to grabbed me, but even my mother seemed hesitant. “Stop mama! Please stop! I think that’s enough,” my mother said. Surprised, my grandmother turned to her and said, “You need to bring her under control. She needs to be brought under control!” My mother fell silent.
I was not particularly sure why I needed to be controlled, but the mere thoughts of being subdued and punished for something I did not understand was baffling to me. Yet, on the flip side, I was even more baffled by my mother and grandmother’s interactions with each other. There seemed to be a lot left unspoken but more or less what the two of them understood. My grandmother was displeased with my mother, and my mother seemed to be silently attempting to make her understand something that my grandmother was not seeing clearly. I did not know what that was in that moment.
Innocence Lost
While my grandmother went back and forth with my mother, I positioned myself even further back underneath the table and held onto the beams underneath the table to balance myself. I refused to budge. My plan was to hold out until my dad came home from work which I knew was not going to be long. My mother and grandmother were so into their discussion, I do not believe that they even reasoned about this. Somewhere within my mind, though, I knew that my dad represented my safety net, but they were not finished with me.
Both my grandmother and mother knelt down to get a better view of me underneath the table. What happened next was a bit harrowing for me to the point that I remember flashes of light inside of my head. Both of them began uttering words of condemnation about “the boys” and other disrespectful things that were designed to inflict emotional pain upon me. I remember feeling confused but feeling an overwhelming conscious panic arise within me. In retrospect, I had a major trigger although I have never been able to figure out the light flashes going off inside my head even with research.
I do not even remember specifically what my mother and grandmother said to me, but it was enough to send me into a panic attack. I screamed and cried over and over for moments at a time, I felt as if I had gone blind. I could see nothing but pure red. The anger inside of me was nauseating, and the heartbreak that I felt was so tangible I thought I might break in half. Whatever they said or did had such a profound effect upon me that I could not stop even when I tried to stop myself.
There had been only two other times in my life that I recall seeing red and feeling anger, and this was one of those times. At some point, I felt like I was in a tunnel, and it even appeared as if I were in a distant tunnel. I could see my grandmother and mother reaching out to me as if to grab me, but I was long gone. I was someplace far from them. Even with their reach, I could not be touched. I remember this so vividly, and I remember hearing them as if their voices were muffled. My terrified screams of agony sent my siblings into a panic as well. I could see my mother motioning to them to leave the kitchen.
I was now outside of myself watching myself. I was kicking and screaming and nearly pushing myself to a standing position which was impossible to do since I was underneath the table. I was screaming and crying gut-wrenching screams of horror. My grandmother could not take the noise anymore even though whatever it was that they were saying like taunting chants were the cause of it. She told my mother to make me be quiet, and as hard as my mother attempted to do so, I became louder and louder. My shrill screams were deafening but also hollow. I floated outside of myself and rested in the corner of the room.
Then a door slammed shut. It was the front door. My dad was home from work. I watched from the high corner near the ceiling as my grandmother shrank back away from me where I was crouched underneath the table. I watched as my mother’s eyes radiated a look of fear. It was too late to silence me. Was the secret now out? Was that house of secrets now tumbling down? Would my dad find out the truth?
Find out in the next post.
My Voice Unchained 