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I'd Give Anything to Be Able to Trust Someone.

masongator

Entry posted by masongator in Processing ·

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TW: Assault and coercion will be mentioned, but not detailed. More context can be found in my thread in Sharing Your Story if you'd like to read it.

One of the biggest things I've struggled with is realizing how much I was betrayed after I started remembering my assault. Not only that, but how deeply it colored my willingness to trust others without me even realizing it. For the majority of my life that I can remember, I've worried about getting close to people for fear that they will immediately pick up on my ineptitudes and use them for their own ends. I've told my mom that this is why I'm scared of romantic relationships and why I hadn't ever and still hadn't been in one, and somehow she saw this view of trust as completely normal. She found it perfectly okay that I didn't even trust her as far as I could throw her. I wonder why she never thought to even question that? But maybe I know. She barely trusted me, even when I was barely 8 and still vulnerable. 

I don't know what triggered that feeling in her and I probably never will. But I always had vivid memories of her blaming me for things I didn't even do, and when she found out that I had no part in them, she'd never apologize.  Then memories came flooding back of me telling her about my assaulter, telling her how he made me uncomfortable and not knowing how to describe the comments he made about wanting to things to my body. Immediately I was blamed as being a rude brat. I was going to spend time with him whether I liked it or not. No comment he made was that bad, and if it was he probably didn't mean it anyway. Why do you not trust your own child when they're telling you that something very clearly wrong is happening and wanting to get away from it? Why do you trust the person they're telling you is scaring them and making them more uncomfortable every time they come around more than them? I wished so badly for a mother I could actually turn to and have hear me out. Someone who was actually an advocate for me. But now I'm here, processing the aftermath of an assault she could have prevented had she had any faith in her own child. And the great irony of it is that now, I can't trust her with the details of my assault. I can't risk her not believing me again. I can't risk her blaming me the way she always has.

I also learned very quickly not to trust friends from my assault. The child who assaulted me, before he took advantage of me, I genuinely thought he wanted to be my friend. I wondered who I could tell after he did it, and at only 8 I knew my mom would punish me for being "stupid" enough to fall for his coercion. But then I had to realize what few friends I had would bully me and spread my assault around as funny. I would have been relentlessly mocked. They already made fun of each others' personal lives, but I couldn't even process that I was assaulted and yet I knew my life would be hell by people I once thought were my friends, and I blamed myself for it. Hell I still blame myself for letting it happen. I couldn't turn to my family and now my friends felt like one step away from turning their backs on me. I am still piecing together memories of standing with friends wondering what they'd do if they knew what happened. I wondered too if they'd figure it out and then try to hurt me themselves. If I was so malleable and quick to fold to my assaulter's pressuring, what would other people who I also thought were my friends do with that knowledge? Suddenly I felt a single slip of the tongue away from being unsafe, only at eight years old.

I don't even trust myself anymore. How could I let this happen to me? How did I allow myself to be violated at such a young age? How do I come clean? How do I know I won't have someone who can physically or mentally overpower me, considering I am autistic and physically fairly weak? I don't know that I can have faith in myself not to give in again if someone finds my weaknesses. I want to be able to love someone again, have friends again, to trust someone with my body for the first time. I just don't have the strength for it. I wish there was a happier note to end this on but I don't have one. It's just one excruciating step at a time.

 

 

Edited by masongator

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masongator

@PlumSundae Thank you Plum, you're so sweet. It really does warm my heart when I'm reminded it's not my fault, but there's still a part of me that doesn't have the ability to accept that yet. It helps my brain start to process my innocence to hear other people affirm that I was not at fault for being a hurting child. Thanks for being with me.

 

Edited by masongator
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