My Reflection – Years Later
Reopening this chapter of my life was very necessary, but it still hurt to look back upon a story that I have never been able to share with anyone. Those that I would want to tell are the very ones who stood against me. So, I chose to make it a part of my blog, even though for years it has been a part of my journal to dissect and understand for the purpose of healing.
Blogging this situation has certainly added a different perspective for me. I cannot necessarily explain that perspective in words except to say that my heartbreak from that time feels exposed, and that means that I need to continue to deal with the hurt and heal. It is a devastating hurt, and for the time that I had it put out of my mind, I lived like the pain of it did not exist. I buried the pain. I buried that part of my past. I dissociated from it. I lived in a very detached way from it.
It is unfortunate that all of the adults involved in this situation behaved quite poorly towards me regarding the situation. I felt like my plight and the trauma I suffered because of it did not matter to anyone. I walked the path of that traumatic situation alone. I was talked about, ridiculed, mocked, slandered, and ostracized all over the truth I told about the behavior of a predator against me. Yet, if I had to do it all over again, I would still do the same thing. I would still speak out against it. I know it was the right thing for me to do.
I look back at the time frame in which this abuse against me occurred, and I see how perpetrators in these types of situations were always vilified, preferred, revered, spared, and protected over the victim. The victim was always pursued as a liar, enemy, troublemaker, harlot, and evil seductress. It never mattered that the victim might have been too young to voice an opinion or objection of the situation either.
In this case, no one cared that the perpetrator preyed on me from the start. No one seemed to care that the perpetrator was an adult male who should have known better. I was given the impression by all around me that the instructor’s behavior against me should have been excused as something that just happened or that I should have been okay with instead. It did not matter what I did not do; it only seemed to matter what I did do. I spoke out against what the instructor did to me, and that opened up the floodgates to my own destruction.
No one was on my side – not even my parents. The proverbial “snitches get stitches” was somewhat true in my case. I had to have my heart metaphorically stitched up from all the heartbreak I suffered because no one stood up for me. It is sad that my parents did not stand up for me. That actually hurt me the most – even more than the sexual abuse itself. My parents were supposed to have been my refuge, but a refuge is never found in a narcissistic environment. This I learned the hard way on numerous occasions.
Although my mother’s reaction was expected based on her track record when it came to me suffering trauma, I still had expectations that both my parents would stand for me and with me. So, it really did break my heart that my father behaved so cowardly in this regard as my protector. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of how he seemed to cower in the face of public opinion about me. It seemed to matter to him more about what people thought. In fact, my parents were the same way. They did not want to bear any shame, and they, like every other adult in the situation, scapegoated me and projected the instructor’s behaviors onto me as if I was the perpetrator.
Even if my father might have believed that another man violated me (his daughter), he did not appear to move hard enough to fight for me on my behalf. Instead, he allowed himself to be trampled upon by a woman wielding her cancer status, her family entitlement, and her belief that she had rights against someone she viewed as an emotionally unstable teenager. That someone who was viewed as emotionally unstable was me. Yet, would not a child sexually groomed and molested be emotionally unstable in some way? I look back and have to wonder truly what was wrong with these adults.
Narcissistic Family Systems
Many professionals and people who lack an understanding of the depths of personality disorders simply may not have a true understanding of the dynamics within a family system where narcissism has full reign. Wherever there is a narcissist within the family, then there will be a dysfunctional family system. Clearly, this has more to do with spiritual darkness within the midst than it has to do with the personality disorder itself. That is how narcissistic personality disorder is able to function and thrive.
Spiritual darkness as it pertains to narcissistic personality disorder is not something I am going to argue with anyone. It just is, and I have experienced the combination of the two far too long and far too extensively that I know that it exists as an entity of spiritual destruction. The instructor was a predator. If it were not me he had eyes set upon to destroy, it would have been someone else, and it very may well have been someone else. He was so smooth in the way he groomed me, I have no doubt that I was not his first victim, and sense he never suffered any consequences, I was probably not his last victim either.
The fact that the instructor’s wife, siblings, family members, church community, and the small knit community that he was a part of, not only supported him, but covered and protected him, only speaks of the magnitude of that spiritual darkness as it applies to narcissism. The instructor’s family was a narcissistic family system that existed within a microcosm and extended into a macrocosmic level. I had seen it too many times before. I even created a chart of it to understand the parts that each family member I knew played within the system.
I had learned to create a similar type of chart to understand my own family first, and then learned to do this for each narcissist that I have ever encountered to understand the narcissist as a whole, individual person. For the most part, narcissistic personalities work together to protect each other in the same way worker ants work to protect the queen. Worker ants will do anything necessary to protect the queen. They will even go as far as to step over the queen to clean and protect her. This is pretty much what was done for the instructor even though he was in jail at the time awaiting trial for a drug charge.
Everyone played a part in the system – flying monkeys, enablers, and bystanders. Relatives and friends associated with the instructor’s family all came against me, and these were mainly adults. I was not safe anywhere from their ridicule and shame of me. I actually ceased going anywhere publicly for a long time with my parents. For a time, I shrank from existence all while my sister and brother continued to play with and associate with the instructor’s sister, nephews and younger cousins. It was no wonder I battled depression and suicidal ideation. I had absolutely no one.
I was so thankful to have a brain that knew how to split into other dissociative selves under the circumstances. The splitting was a part of the post-trauma effects I suffered, but welcomed, because I could get away from the struggle of having to deal with what was going on around me. I had three selves, and the self that I needed at school was a strong character. Somehow, that self managed to dissociate to the point that I was able to tune out the voices of the naysayers and live in a peaceful realm where the events surrounding my life did not even exist.
In fact, during my senior year, the instructor’s sister became a part of the school body as a freshman. I remember an occasion at lunch where she joined a group of some of the friends I associated with, sat down, and began talking about the “trauma” I had put her family through by making what she called “baseless accusations against her brother”. She based the fact that she was present during all the martial arts classes, and she reasoned that because she never saw her brother once do anything to me that was inappropriate, I was a liar. She also reasoned that I had to have been imagining things.
Needless to say, the instructor’s sister was extremely embittered against me. She tainted nearly all of my social relationships with other classmates. Yet, somehow, my dissociated self tuned it all out. I even recall once hearing her talk about me while I was present during another lunch moment, but I recall her words feeling so foreign to me that I did could not make the connection that she was even referring to me. It was as if what she talked about did not even coincide with me at all.
Then, after continuous negative vibes from the instructor’s sister, even the social group that I was a part of, which she had so intrusively invaded, grew tired of her rants against me. Nevertheless, I never said a word to her in response at all. She was immature and insignificant to me. I did not look at her with aloofness as if I were higher than her; I was detached from her. Any time she was present around me, something in my brained turned her off. It was as if she remained as a peripheral figure not clearly in my main view. I saw her, but I did not see her. She was near, but her presence never completely registered to me.
Interestingly, when I first realized that she would be attending high school that year as a freshman, I was extremely anxious. There had been discussions amongst other girls that she was planning a physical attack against me along with some other girls who did not like me over another situation of lies against me that occurred when I was a sixth grader. At the time, the plan of attack against me was a major deal, but it never panned out.
One of my cousins who was friends with some of the girls who wanted to attack me, actually stood with me, and because she was viewed as popular and the girl that all the girls aspired to be at the time, I was saved from being attacked by a pack of mean girls. Yet, I know that God had to have been looking out for me on various occasions, too, because I prayed my heart out for protection everyday. Things could have been far worse.
Eventually, however, I began to live my existence within another plane. Although the instructor’s sister existed in the realm of my life at school, she no longer existed to me. My heart and mind were closed off from her. I soon forgot her and proceeded to live my life without ever considering her relevance to my life. This, I must say, is the power of dissociation because I recall it being the same way that I was able to progress and live my life beyond the attackers who had sexually assaulted me when I was nine. They simply ceased to exist to me. They were irrelevant non-factors to the success (or lack thereof) of my life. I simply moved on.
As time moved on, all of the people associated with the instructor were no longer in the realm of my life. I somehow mastered, through dissociation, the ability to forget about them and what they actually represented in my life. They became nothing to me. I do not know how it was even remotely possible for me to forget, but I did, and although I did not have to deal with those people daily or even consistently, I encountered them from time to time and never reacted to them in the way they chose to respond to me.
If the instructor’s supporters brought things up with me in roundabout ways, it was as if my mind was totally blank, and I countered them without having an idea of what they might have even been talking about. My mind totally dismissed them. I did not even care. I moved forward and lived my life. I guess in some way, my mind chose to forgive before my heart could finally catch up because when I went through a period of time in which I began to recall the gritty details of this past, I felt extremely angry. In fact, I felt livid with rage.
Death Closes The Door On Some Things
Some years afterwards when I was an adult living my life, I learned from a visit with my father that one of the instructor’s sisters died from a battle with cancer, and not long after, the instructor’s mother died from her long battle with cancer as well. Although no feelings within me registered to the surface, I remembered the past. It was a distant but faint memory. I felt nothing.
Although I did not react instructor’s mother’s passing, I did have the thought that the instructor’s mother died holding onto the belief that her son was innocent, and I was the guilty party. I could not help but wonder where the justice was in that, but then I wondered how much the instructor’s mother actually did suffer because of her son. Of course, I will never know, and it does not matter, but my life was wrecked in so many ways because the instructor’s mother, family, associates and much of the community, chose to believe that I was a liar. Many believed that I had falsely accused the instructor of sexual grooming and molestation. Still, others believed that if something did happen, it was most likely warranted based on my behavior towards the instructor.
Nevertheless, the instructor’s family hated me, and as far as I know, I am still hated today. In fact, for the longest time, I had no idea how wide the instructor’s mother’s influence spread over the hometown in which I grew up in until I encountered people I only vaguely knew who did not particularly like me. These people would give me grimaces when they would see me, or even go as far as to shun me in public social media spaces even though they might extend private commentary with me through chats and messages.
It was such a painful time back then, and even now I work to process all that occurred back then too. I realize now that I silently grieved back then and for some time after everything all happened even when I did not understand the sadness. I grieved over the loss of family, friends, and time. I grieved over not being able to openly express my trauma to anyone. I also grieved over never truly being able to connect with my parents.
I often wonder now if my father felt guilt and remorse over the depression that he knew that I suffered which is why he sought to get me help. I do not know. Maybe one day I will be bold enough to ask him, but for now l have chosen to let it go … to process it on my own and simply live. I know that narcissistic family systems do not take accountability for their actions of the past.
Although my father has openly apologized and asked for forgiveness of his meanness towards me and my siblings, he never named this specific situation involving the instructor. Situations like this have been buried in the past, and if I do not mention them, I suppose my family assumes it is a dead issue. My mother has never brought this situation up either, but she has never apologized for anything except for “if” she has done anything for the purpose of hoovering me back into her life.
For one thing, it is all so complicated because a part of me would simply like to believe my parents were ignorant of their behaviors and how their behaviors affected me. Yet, other times I had to wonder if they knew what was happening with this instructor but remained silent. I even wondered if my father had sold me out in place of installment payments that he could not always make. That is all conspiracy thinking, of course, but I did wonder.
It was just the sinister way in which this instructor felt that he was entitled to me. But at the same time, I have to believe based on other circumstances that the instructor was able to keep everything so craftily hidden because he had a plan, and my silence was a part of his plan. Plus, everything was seemingly happening in plain sight of everyone, but everyone was clueless.
The Present
To date, my siblings have never mentioned this episode of our lives either, but I know my brother had no regards for the instructor, after the fact, as an adult. My brother also distanced himself from the instructor’s son. I will never know the trauma my brother suffered either since he was physically abused in sparring tournaments (on purpose) by the instructor (in an effort to punish me for not falling in line with his control).
My younger sister, who was enamored with the instructor and stood against me back then, has never mentioned that part of the past either. I am hoping that she was oblivious to what I perceived as the instructor’s overt grooming of her too. I sincerely hope that he did nothing to harm her, but I never knew.
Presently, I have distance with my family. I have no-contact with them for the most part. I have chosen to walk the path of no-contact so that I can clearly see myself and understand myself and deal with and heal from my issues. Frankly, I have chosen to distance myself from the dysfunction. I no longer want to be the scapegoat even though I know I will forever remain the black sheep in their eyes.
I realize now that my family is caught within the web of dysfunction that seems to rule the hometown of my origin. Nearly everyone within my community subscribes to helping the perpetrators instead of the victims. I was not the first story of a victim who withstood gang-stalking type behavior from a community of bullies, and I know I have not been the last. It is generational darkness that has rooted itself within the community and shrouded the town in evil. Even those that manage to get away, still keep this darkness rooted within them until they decide to pierce that darkness and uproot it from their lives themselves.
I escaped because I wanted more. I am sure I am not the only one, but I am reflecting on myself. I chose to get away, pierce the darkness, and uproot the darkness from my life. I survived an enormous and relentless attack, and the aftermath of what the instructor did was not even the worst of it. It was the lack of support that I received as well as the lack of accountability that the instructor was held to because of what he did to me. I cannot hold his feet to the fire, and I do not even care to do that at all. I have left the instructor’s life in God’s hands. I do not seek revenge. I seek nothing but my own continued healing in the matter.
Yet, I will admit that when I came across this instructor’s social media page a while back, because he was linked to so-called friends on my page, I had to take a deep breath. It had been years since I had laid eyes upon him, He still appeared as the same pompous manipulator, maintaining a façade of goodness in mostly all of his pictures. Perhaps he has changed now, but I have to wonder because I once held onto the hope that those (like him and his associates) that have wronged me would seek me out to apologize and offer their regrets, but that is more or less a dream for harmony that does not exist.
On the flip side of reality, I now no longer look for apologies. I have, in fact, learned to live without apologies I will probably never receive from those who have hurt me. I have learned to stop looking for me in other people, and that has been a learning experience. Quite the contrary, however, it may be the same for other people that I have hurt even if unintentionally, but I aim to be accountable, and I aim to consider that my actions, or lack thereof, may cause someone pain, and I do not want to do that.
Needless to say, years later, I am in a better place. Specifically, I have chosen to deactivate my social media accounts that have kept me connected to the past and the people of the past. I am choosing to walk a new path – a different path – a healthier path. I cannot change what happened, but I can change me for the better. I cannot change how others reacted or what others currently even now still believe, but I can change me for the better. That is my choice. That is what I choose to do for me. I want to be a light that shines brightly, a Light as the gift that God gave me. So everyday, I will work on cleaning up my own debris.
Stay tuned for more posts.
My Voice Unchained 