When all I remember is talking is cheap and your lies were expensive

Lately I’ve had too much time to think. I start work again 05/12, I’m going to a concert with my daughter tomorrow and my birthday is this week as well. So many things to look forward to, yet I feel hopeless and isolated. I’ve isolated myself of course, that’s just what I do when the depression sets in.

Of course, that leaves all this time to really evaluate my life and who I have become. I have hit a wall and I feel like I somehow lost myself again. I don’t know who I am or even what the goal is anymore. Nothing feels real and I’m desperate to crash out and make life changing decisions. Move away, start a new life, find fulfillment somehow. At the very least drastically change my hair…again. It’s long and blonde right now (typically my preference) I spent a long time getting back to platinum after the last time I dyed it dark in a moment of uncertainty. Every major break up or life change is marked by a dramatic change to my hair. I’ve done it all, short of shaving my head. At the moment black seems like the move, or perhaps some trauma bangs?  I haven’t given into the temptation, my favorite stylist (my best friend) would kill me after all the work we did to get back here. Maybe I’ll buy a wig.

Typically, I stay really busy so I never have time to think about all the things that led to life as it is right now. I read a book recently that focused on two timelines, one set while a girl was at boarding school basically being groomed by a teacher and the relationship they carry on and the second timeline 10 years later during the “me too,” movement where the teacher is under investigation for doing the same things to another girl and the fallout. This is dangerous territory for me.

When I was 15, I was groomed by a 25 year old man. The relationship carried on for 4 years (on and off) and resulted in my first child, whom I had when I was 16. He wasn’t the first man much older than me or the last, it look me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I was the perfect target for these kind of men.

I grew up with a single father with addiction struggles, mainly drinking when I was young, but it got much darker as I got older. My mother abandoned me when I was 4. I spent a lot of time fantasizing about who she was and weirdly idolizing a version of her that I entirely made up. She was just a voice on the other end of the phone sometimes or the sender of packages full of cool and trendy gifts. I wanted her to love me so badly. She did come back in to my life later, I went to live with her when I was in the 8th grade. I couldn’t live with my dad anymore, truth be told, by that time I wasn’t so sure about her anymore. She was inconsistently trying to have a relationship with me but to call her neglectful is an understatement. At my dads house, even if he wasn’t stable, he had a whole support system in our family. My grandmothers house was a safe haven and she often took on the responsibilities of a mother.

When I went to live with my mother, there was no support system, no family and often I was left to my own devices. There was always something or someone more important than me. I felt like a burden and quickly learned that I could do whatever I wanted, as long as it didn’t inconvenience her in any way. Her forms of punishment were “the silent treatment” or emotional warfare. Sometimes she would go literal months without speaking to me and withhold my basic necessities to express her displeasure. Later this would include my birth control, even though she knew I was sexually active and had taken me to the doctor for the prescription. We haven’t spoken in years, her choice, but this time, I’m not waiting or wanting her to come back anymore. Being no contact has shown me that I feel much more at peace when I’m not bending over backwards to make her love me.

So no, he wasn’t the first man to tell me that I was “so mature for my age” or to compliment my “beautiful eyes.” He wasn’t the first one, who’s gaze lingered or who gaged my reaction to slightly toeing the line on appropriate. A touch to the shoulder, that lasted a little too long. Slowly introducing sexual innuendos and always watching for my reactions. I still wonder if I have stopped blaming myself. Back then, I thought it was my fault because it happened more than once, so maybe it was me.

When I had my daughter, a police officer knocked on my front door, 3 days after I went home. I didn’t lie on the birth certificate, even though he wanted me to, he grudgingly signed when I pleaded with him. The hospital of course reported it because I was 16 and he was 26. The cop wanted to press charges against him. I was the one to answer the door and calmly respond that we were not interested in pressing charges. After all, there was now a baby involved and what good would he be as a father if he were in jail. Of course, I was a minor so he asked to speak with my mother. She came to the door but this was an inconvenience to her and thus she was angry with me. She asked him to come back after we had time to speak about it. She initially vowed she was going to press charges, but it was very easy to change her mind. Ultimately, when the officer came back she advised we would not be moving forward with pressing charges. I think this was mostly because it would have been an embarrassment to her if anyone had found out. At the time, I felt like she blamed me and thought it was my fault and that was why. I felt like she wanted to protect him for me. Anytime that I got in trouble with my friends, my mom was always quick to accuse me of being the ring leader even if I hadn’t been. I’ll never forget the sad look on that mans face. I can only imagine what he was thinking, he handed me his card and defeatedly told me that I could change my mind at any point before I turned 21 and he left. I never did because at 21, I still felt accountable. On my 21st birthday, I received a birthday card from my ex, gloating that I could no longer press charges for what he had done to me.

Looking back, if that had been my 16 year old daughter, the police wouldn’t have had to come to me, I would have been down at the police station demanding that the man be put in jail long before it got to that point. I cannot imagine as a mother, making the choice to not only allow a pedophile to assault my own daughter but to leave him to carry on with new victims as well. The decision not to press charges haunts me. I was young and it shouldn’t have been for me to decide. I know that now but, I didn’t think about him doing it to someone else…back then.  How it would feel now knowing that if he did, I could have helped her and I didn’t.

His mother and father were enablers to say the least. I did not look mature at 15, it was quite obvious that I was a child. He didn’t hide me from them, I met them many times and often spent the night at their house. While this is true when my mother abandoned me again at 16, they took me in and became like my family. The dynamic was complicated and messy, but I loved them and they loved me until they both passed. His mother echoed all things I had been told by abusers, “you were always so mature for your age,” I think it was her way of coming to terms with it. I was not her sons first victim, but as far as I know, I was the last. I sincerely hope that is true. I think about it everyday.