***Trigger Warning – contains potentially distressing material pertaining to sexual assault
On Guard
My father had arrived home from work. “Hey!” he called as soon as he heard the commotion. “What’s going on in here?” He saw my grandmother and cordially spoke to her. I am certain that this particular homecoming was unexpected for him. Although he respected my grandmother, he did not particularly enjoy her company around our house. He viewed her as a troublemaker [and for good reason too]. My grandmother could certainly be a troublemaker, but in this moment, she stood on guard.
My father walked into the kitchen and was astonished by the piercing screams and cries he heard. They were my piercing screams and cries. I watched myself underneath the kitchen table while I floated above in the far corner nearest the kitchen door. My mother stood still like stone and nervously responded to my father’s inquiries about the matter. “What’s going on?” he asked my mother with a look of concern. My mother simply responded that we had a doctor visit, and I was upset over the examination.
It was a half-truth. I had been originally upset by the examination because it felt like an unexpected violation. Yet, the real truth of the matter was that my grandmother had wanted and intended to inflict punishment against me for what she perceived as a narcissistic injury against her regarding her status. She was embarrassed that my shrieking, screams, and cries had made her the laughingstock of the town even though I doubted that the town cared that much about my doctor’s visit. The most anyone could do was talk, and there were only at least four other patients in the waiting room that I recall during the visit. The receptionists, the nurses and the doctor might talk, but I also doubted that they cared either.
Nevertheless, my father had walked in on a scene of me bawling my eyes out. He knelt down to look underneath the table at me. He saw my distress. This was one of the few times that I looked into his eyes and could see his hurt for me. There was something in his eyes that seemed to attempt to reach me. My cries were not normal cries, and even I could feel this someplace deep while I watched myself. I had dissociated from myself because the horror was just too much. There was something within me that recognized a familiar occurrence via a trigger, and I could not face reliving the moment.
My dad reached towards me, and I cried even harder. For some reason, I felt complete shame when he attempted to touch me. It was as if what had occurred could not be undone as if related to the examination. Yet, my cries had to have been more than about the doctor’s visit. My mind was some place else, and in those moments for the first time, I felt a loss of innocence that I did not understand and that I had not been able to articulate for two years since the sexual assault against me. My dad even spoke these words … that I had experienced a loss of innocence. Yet, his words were in reference to the gynecological exam. He had no idea about a sexual assault two years prior, and my brain had closed the memory of the assault off to me as well.
Both my mind and heart knew that my dad tried to console me, but I could not be consoled by him even though I could see the pain in his eyes. I was on guard, and I was in a state of emotional shock. I had dissociated long before my dad had even arrived home from work. I was suspended in the air waiting for whatever was happening to pass. All the while, however, my body was positioned underneath the kitchen table in a squatting posture unable to move, unable to stop crying, and unable to verbally express what was wrong.
I listened to my father explain the fact that I was no longer a little girl anymore … that I was becoming a woman. He went on and on in the calmest voice possible in his attempts to explain that the doctor needed to make sure that I was okay and that the examination was a normal part of a woman’s checkup. My dad tried everything while my mother and grandmother both stood by silently watching my every move. My siblings were in another room. I can only imagine their thoughts about the situation. Even now, neither of them have ever mentioned this episode in my life to me. Perhaps all is forgotten. I do not know.
A Call For Help
My father exhibited all the signs of a person who did not know what to do. He did not know how to help me. I was unreachable even to him. Interestingly, my grandmother suggested calling “Mother”, the woman who was my aunt’s best friend and had escorted me part way back home from my summer visiting my aunt. However, my father ignored my grandmother’s suggestion and instead opted to call one of his aunts. I reasoned that my father did this so that my grandmother would not have the upper hand in his home.
Anyway, the particular aunt my father called was his favorite, and she was one of my favorites too. I will call her Aunt Betts because to bet on her was to bet on a good thing. Aunt Betts was a strong woman. The face she presented was always the face everyone saw. She spoke her mind about everything, and she spoke clearly so that there was never mistaking any of her words. She was a very confident woman with a lot of ambition. She used her confidence and ambition to become a shrewd business woman. She owned and operated her own small business. She was also a fine cook, baker, and seamstress. In fact, she was extremely gifted and could do almost anything. Because of her, I honed my own skills in cooking, baking, and sewing too.
When my father’s aunt, Aunt Betts, arrived to our home, I was very aware of how my grandmother and mother’s behavior had changed towards me and within the environment. They were much quieter in comparison to how they had behaved towards me when no other adults were around. My grandmother actually shrank into the background without saying a word, and my mother was just as quiet but present and mindfully watching me. It was a strange situation that even my father and Betts took note of as well. My siblings should have been accustomed to these changes, but I would not learn until we were all adults that they were at a loss and only became aware of my grandmother’s and mother’s narcissistic ways.
Needless to say, when Aunt Betts came into the kitchen, I was still underneath the table crying and gasping for air. I had been crying for a while. I remember Aunt Betts saying that she believed I was having an emotional breakdown. Perhaps this may have been the case or just the effects of posttraumatic stress. Aunt Betts inquired as to what had made me so upset, and my mother immediately chimed in about the doctor’s examination to find out the issues with the abnormal bleeding I was experiencing with my periods. Aunt Betts turned and said, “Oh my … that could not have been a pleasant experience.” Then she knelt down towards me while I was underneath the table and smiled at me.
No one knew this, of course, but I was dissociated and had left my body to watch what was taking place. So I could not even feel my own emotions, but I could see myself, and I could hear myself. The cries were just ongoing cries that could not be stopped, and I did not particularly know why. By the point that Aunt Betts arrived, it was beyond me, and I could really do nothing. I was suspended in mid-air transfixed on the situation and very observant of what was happening in the environment. I could feel nothing. I could do nothing but watch. Surely, I was in emotional distress … emotional shock.
Aunt Betts did not know what else to do to make my crying stop. So she forcefully grabbed me from underneath the table, and she took me into her arms and cradled me. Then she spoked what seemed to be damning words to my mother and grandmother … words that almost seemed to be prophetic without Aunt Betts’ knowledge. Aunt Betts bellowed and turned towards my mother but spoke loudly enough that my grandmother stood at attention, “This child has suffered something gruesome I tell you! This child has suffered something traumatic! What have they done to this baby? What have they done?” Then she held me even tighter in her arms and spoke to me, “What has happened to you? Can you tell me, honey? What has happened to you?”
I recall being able to semi-feel my way through Aunt Betts’ words, and for a moment, I could feel trickles of myself moving back into myself from a dissociative state. From my dissociative state floating up above in the corner of the kitchen, I watched as Aunt Betts swaddled and cradled me in her arms as she caressed my hair and let me cry. I cried a deep guttural cry that overpowered the room and seemingly shook the house. My father appeared sad, and my mother appeared dissociated herself. My grandmother simply stared as if to stare into a void. Strangely, I felt sorry that my siblings were subjected to this.
Aunt Betts then remarked to my father that nothing she seemed to be doing was getting through to me. So Aunt Betts asked for water. My mother hurriedly got a glass of water for her. Aunt Betts tried to get me to drink it, but I was unresponsive. She said that I seemed to be staring off into the distance as if I was not present. So she told my father that I needed to be placed in bed. What Aunt Betts said next was a little off-putting for me to hear even in my dissociative state. “This child has gone mad!” Then she lifted herself from the floor, had my father pick me up, and turned to my mother and asked, “What really happened at the doctor’s office? What did they do to this child?”
A silence cut through the room that was so thick that it was pulsating into another realm. In my dissociative state, I could actually feel the silence permeate into the realm. I waited. Everyone waited. With a powerful silence and body stance to match, Aunt Betts demanded a response.
Find out what happened by staying tune for the next post.
My Voice Unchained 