When I was 3, a teenage boy that was living in my uncle's house pulled down my underwear and ejaculated on me (though in my memory I remember it as him peeing on me, I think that's because at 3 that's the only liquid I thought came from there). At that moment I was a victim.
When I was 10, my cousin sexually molested me, causing me to perform oral sex on him, having him penetrate me anally, and finishing off with ejaculating in my mouth (which caused me to run out of the room, into the bathroom and vomiting). At that moment I was a victim.
Throughout my life, many people have mistreated me, sexually, physically, and emotionally. For the longest time I could not bring myself to look up, I did not thing I had value to look into other peoples' eyes.
The ramifications of abuse are far reaching. It is what cause me to live a life where I rarely venture out from my home, where I have no close personal friends, where I assume the motives of others are for their benefit and my detriment. The slightest form of rejection causes catastrophic paranoia. When Erin got upset at me a few weeks ago because of one of my blogs I was almost certain that it was an end of one of my few friendships. When the abandoned house three doors down got set on fire I assumed it was a message to me to move out of the neighborhood. When my boss doesn't have time to talk to me or answers shortly, I assume that I am about to be fired.
The problem, I think, is that I fail to realize that though I was victimized in the past, doesn't mean I have to live the life of a victim. Society doesn't help at times. I am tired of hearing how horrible it was that I was sexually abused. BULLSHIT!!! It is an event that happened, much like when I wrecked my car or had a gun pulled on me. It wasn't pleasant, but do I really have to hear how it is the worst possible thing in the world. Do I have to hear Law and Order:SVU say that crime was "especially heinous." I'm not saying I am happy it happened, but I think perspective must be maintained.
I am tired of allowing the past taint how I view life. I was a victim in the past, I am not a victim now. I have to live my life and I have to view things in the proper light or I am just wasting space.
Recently people robbed over 2500 dollars from me (1700 from my bank account, the rest from running up my credit card bills). They stole electronics, furniture, and even went as far as stealing salad dressing (which sort of peeves me the most for some reason). They took advantage of me and in due time I will recoup the money (the bank is fighting me tooth and nail, even going as far as insinuating that I was lying and that there's more to the story than I am letting on. They also claim I should've known better and been more careful with my debit card.)
Though it was a setback and I don't have a safety net financially for the time being, I am not doing all that bad. See, when you condition yourself to always be the victim you just assume calamity will strike at any moment. Then I look around and see what I have. I own my own home, isn't that something. And I mean own, I have no mortgage, it is mine. I have 2 cars (they are both from 1993 but they are mine). I have two needy cats (maybe not needy, but God forbid if they didn't have this little annoying habit of sleeping on me when I try to sleep or sitting on the arm of the couch and having to keep a paw or two on me).
So my life isn't that bad and if it needs improvement its because of things I am not doing, not from things people did to me in the past. I am being more active in being in public, though not as much as I would like. I started going to tg support group that meets once a month and is close by. I went to an art show not too long ago. I am moving forward. The thing is, I got to get my mind back on track in thinking the right way though. I use to be a champion wrestler in college. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed competing but I also enjoyed talking to people, teammates and opponents alike. I got along with most everyone (unless they went to Gardner Webb, bunch of putzes).
Somewhere along the line I lost sight of what I was in the moment and started living in the past. I think it happened my sophomore year in college when I had a flashback of abuse. Then all of a sudden I was no longer who I was in the moment, but an abused child in a frightening world. It is time to end that now. My life, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let another persons sick action dictate how I am going to live.
K.T. Leone
ex-victim
Comments
Agreed...
Good for you. I understand all too well. Until now I've never told anyone outside my immediate family, but I was sexually molested as a child. It's a difficult thing to get past and sometimes I feel as if it's effects on my life are far reaching, but then I remember I am my own person and I will not let the actions of a single individual keep me from having a life.
Have a delightfully devious day,
Right ON
Way to go KT you be you and the rest of this world can kiss your sweet butt. Being a past victim of parental abuse it took a while for me to realize that none of it means a pile of horse crap .... You are what you choose to be & it is no one elses business ... you go little sister ....Papa
You are a survive not a
You are a survive not a victim. Congratulations on breaking the cycle all of us here will pull for you. If there is anything I can help with PM me and as soon as I get it I will respond.
Love
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Survivors...
...I have many friends and folks here whom I consider family. Most are tg, but not all. But many of them are also survivors, as am I and as Katie is also.
I offer this as a way of encouraging you all that if you are a survivor, you are not only not alone, but you also have some very notable company as well. A sad commonality in one way since I suppose we'd all love that we didn't share this issue with them. But it is a very good thing, because you'll recognize some very familiar names and faces, and hopefully understand that nothing but the evil inflicted upon us is responsible for the hurt we endured. No amount of money or fame or power or influence is entirely certain or sure to protect a child from a determined predator
http://tree-climbers.org/gallery/survivor-wall-2/
I am asking anyone who read this reply to send me a pm if you are a survivor and feel safe enough to share that; no specifics are sought, if that's okay with you? And if you do view the Wall of Survivors, consider hitting the Home link and look at the Tree Climbers site, won't you please?
Love, Andrea Lena
Survivor
I've heard the term survivor before, even went into a few chat rooms that were designed for survivors before it was the name of a reality tv show and made a lot of people confused.
I don't know if I like the word. It conjures up images of natural disasters or people paddling away in little row boats as the titanic sinks. I don't think I survived sexual abuse, my life wasn't in peril. I am more apt to believe I was a survivor of being held up at gun point and really people view that as less damaging than being molested. But, I can tell you, being held up by gun point had more immediate affect on my sense of mortality then when people took advantage of me sexually. No, I didn't survive sexual abuse. I had a few instances in life where some people took advantage of my youth and me being naive. Saying I was a survivor gives those events more credence than they deserve.
As my initial blog states, it's about perspective. For a long, long time, those events didn't have a hold of me. Why? Because I was too busy with the now. Then, for whatever reason, I had a dream. The dream was kind of silly and would probably have made great reading on the site. I had a dream that I was 8 (I was 19 when I had this dream) and my step father put me in a pink party dress and made me go to toys-r-us. Was this dream a flashback? I don't know. I don't generally put stock in recovered repressed memories. But that dream unlocked the rest of the past. I remembered all the past abuses (even though I never forgot them, just tucked them away as little life events such as birthdays or being teased at school). That was when I stopped living in the now and tried to make sense of the past. That's when I accepted the roll of being a victim and started living that way.
I learned, through athletics, that mindset is everything. If you believe you are a victim, then you are. If you believe you are a survivor, then you are. If you are those things, then you expect certain things out of life. In evaluating my life, I don't want to live that way. I want to live the way I did before the dream. I want to be confident, in control of myself, have a clearly defined path in life and the wherewithall to follow it.
In 2000 I almost had that back. I was actually living life on my terms. I lost the weight (I was 238 and a size 36 hips, I don't know my waist because, DAMN IT, I don't know where my waist is and no one explained it to me so I always measured around the largest area which were my hips and now it's my love handles.) I didn't even own a tv or computer and that was by choice. I was taking flying lessons (little cesnas are fun when you can fit in them). I was even trying to join the marines (I missed by 2 pounds are 3/8ths of an inch in height). Then one day I crashed my firebird by being really stupid and I slipped back into that woe is me, i am destined for evil things to happen to me kind of thinking.
Kind of a shame really. Because of the one instance of crashing my car, i went back to the old mindset and started ruminating on being abused as a child. Quite bullshitish if you ask me.
So with that, and my alarm telling me it's time to get ready for work. I rather not think of myself as a survivor, but just someone who experienced a few times of unpleasantness, just like everyone else.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
I'm very proud of you hon.
That's a great attitude hon. Keep it up!
Good!
"I am tired of allowing the past taint how I view life. I was a victim in the past, I am not a victim now. I have to live my life and I have to view things in the proper light or I am just wasting space."
Bravo!
"So my life isn't that bad and if it needs improvement its because of things I am not doing, not from things people did to me in the past. I am being more active in being in public, though not as much as I would like."
Good for you!
"Somewhere along the line I lost sight of what I was in the moment and started living in the past.... I'll be damned if I'm going to let another persons sick action dictate how I am going to live."
Right!
Perhaps this blog of yours is the precursor to more positive posts from other members, and a wake-up call to the woe-is-me crowd. Â Yes, it's good to find sympathy from others for all the negative things that have happened to you, but that is but a stepping stone for you to move forward. I'm so jazzed that you are taking charge now. Â Hopefully others feeling down will find themselves motivated by this.
This is a good start. Â "Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear," as the great African American author Zora Neale Hurston once said. Â It will start you moving forward. Web columnist Joan Chittister said, "anger is not bad. Anger can be a very positive thing, the thing that moves us beyond the acceptance of evil."
But such powerful emotions, if left to grow, may harden your heart, and blind you from seeing the good things, too. Â Once fear and sadness has been driven off, a new emotion, a new outlook must come. Hopefully, when that time comes, you will be ready to change again.
Michael Jackson said, "in a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe."
When the time is right, I hope you will dare to hope, dream and believe again.
But for now, this is good.  English poet, William Shenstone, said, "anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world."
It is a good beginning. No more wallowing in self pity! Â Good for you!
 Â
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Good Katie
You are you.
You are worth while.
Only you can truely hurt yourself.
So happy you have decided to not be a victim a anymore.
Be the best Katie you can be.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Daer Katie,
Like everyone else, I think your attitude is great and going out in public and being with people is very good for you.
>> I remembered all the past abuses (even though I never forgot them, just tucked them away as little life events such as birthdays or being teased at school). <<
I just wanted to say, if things you remember start to bother you again, there is therapy, like what Drea is going thru' and other kinds, that doesn't take away the memories, but disconnects them from the bad emotions that they were wrapped in. There is talk and also talk plus short term medication; like not taking antidepressants for months or years.
Best of luck!
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
are there bad emotions
Honestly, I don't want to be disconnected from the emotions that accompany the events. I use them often in my writing and I think that is one of the things that separates me from a lot of other writers. I seem to have a knack for putting those emotions into words and having readers "feel" those emotions themselves.
Those abusive events are part of my life, but I am deciding not to give them any more or less wait than any other event. I have been down, but I have had some dizzying highs. Basically my life is the real world equivalent to what bi-polar people go through in their head. I was abused, I don't want to say "so fucking what" about it. That would only be bravado and I would only be deluding myself. I think I am at the point of saying "I was abused, it happened, it wasn't the best thing in the world, but lets move on." See, I recognize it, but it doesn't have to have a hold on me. It's the same way about positive events in my life. I was a 2 time nation champion in the heavyweight class in the sport of wrestling. I never say "so fucking what" about it. That would be diminishing how important it was to me personally. I've long been at the point where I've said "I was a champion, it happened, I'm proud of my accomplishment, but lets move on."
See, each is an event out of my life. Each has some significance. But each has no baring on life in the present. I have to draw out of those events things that will edify, or at least push me to be better than I was the day before. If not, then I need to just file them away as events that really have no relevance. I just decided, I am going to live my life, not the past.
BTW, I did the medicine thing. Hated it. Counselor said that taking the anti-depressants was a sign of trust and we wouldn't be able to move forward without me taking them. I was on them a month before I literally tried to strangle myself in the shower with a towel. Kind of an odd way to try to kill one self actually, once I passed out the towel loosened and I was just left on the tile floor soaking wet and feeling stupid.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life