secrets well kept

The funny thing about growing up is that the sudden change kind of sneaks up on you with stealth and precision and somehow it ends up dawning on you how much so much has changed right before your eyes and that your somehow no longer the same person you were a few years back which sounds so strange to even say or admit but i am acknowledging my growth no matter how little or too much it may be.

The woman i am is still learning and growing into herself i don't think there's necessarily a certain way to do it everyone has their individual experience with change and growth but in my case there are a number of areas that i feel need healing and naturing things like struggling with shame and grief has had a tremendous effect on me and has somehow altered my personality or maybe i am just discovering a few things that haven't yet unlocked in my personality or rather someone helped me unlock.

I have a bit of a history with growing up in a household that didn't really rely heavily on affection or showing affection i could go as far as to say the person who raised me did that out of family obligations and not because they absolutely chose to have me as a daughter which i still appreciate, part of who i am is because of the woman who raised me that is one thing i will honor and appreciate but there are things that happened in my childhood that broke my innocence by this i mean to say emotional neglect and verbal, as well as physical abuse are things that i experienced and as formidable as i am today those things i mentioned are hurdles and things i find myself still having to deal with they sometimes show up in patterns and the people i attract.

I can almost bet you that most girls share a common story when it comes to being exposed to indecent exposures like a man imposing his will upon you whether it's you being cat called as a young girl wearing school uniform while walking back home by a grown adult or it's some guy who refuses to take a hint and simply won't leave you alone. I have experienced my fair share of these kinds of encounters maybe more than others if i am being honest and they all have been uncomfortable and absolutely dreadful to even go through let alone have to experience as a young adult but that shapes you in a fucked up and unfortunate way but after Havin' gone through such an experience you learn to have your guard up and can somehow preempt someone's behavior just by observing queues making it easier for you to just simply remove yourself from the situation presented in front of you.

I have always been someone who surrounded herself with a lot of people in a way to draw closeness or fulfill something empty within me by keeping myself in groups and somewhat crowds of people and somehow still felt deeply alone. I have since outgrown that habit and the feelings attached to them in my journey of growth and self-discovery i find that in my growing i am someone else entirely and the idea of being okay with this would have normally scared me shitless but new me does not mind this, in fact i welcome it.

There's a clear idea crafted in my mind in whom and how i view myself to be and that is not someone i happen to be in my waking reality and i battle with this which forces me to conceal a side to myself i also never knew even existed until i found myself in uncharted waters as someone who has zero to little experience with pushing personal boundaries let alone someone else's personal boundary and yet that happens to be the exact thing that has happened to me.

The cultural trend of not being emotionally unavailable and being casual when approaching the subject of dating and intimacy is something i later got accustomed to but not by my own choosing but rather unconsciously falling for my own delusions and the idea of who this person could be in my perfect little story at the risk of sounding naive and juvenile i had high hopes in this experience being a long and lasting one at first, i genuinely wanted something to materialize here but if you were to ask me on a much deeper level i would say that things unfolded exactly how they were supposed too but there are consequences to meeting him and i am still unfolding whether if that is a good or bad thing?

Everything i have been through or encountered in my 28 years of living i have not experienced what i am currently going through the unnerving thing about all this is that deep down within me there is a voice telling and reminding me that i know better and that this is something i ought to flee from i feel this strongly because everything surrounding the story of us suggests the same and that's the paradox of it all is that i am actively abandoning the voice that knows best which reinforces the entire notion of the inner knowing that nothing good can come out of this and yet i want this for the exact reason that i shouldn't.

I toil at the idea of being chosen and seen but being truly fucking seen not on a surface level type of way but in a way that is soul devoting and soul fucking crushing view me in the lens in which i view myself which is an impossible desire to fulfil in itself it's even crazier wanting that from another person and yet it's craving that will not leave me. These are the patterns i was referring to things from my childhood that have a tendency of creeping back up this is something that needs a professional evaluation with a clinical psychologist but isn't something i am necessarily ready for at this time the opportune time for that will presents itself as of now i am owning the parts of me that enjoys to indulge in chaos just for personal development which is utter nonsense honestly just an excuse I've given myself to be further ingulfed in this foolishness.

In my brief summary about my childhood i didn't mention a father? that was purposeful my father is not dead he very much alive and well however to me he is similar to a shadow, a figment something there sometimes but never really permanent. This does not bother me in the slightest it is not something that i lived with perhaps maybe when i was younger i yearned for him to be a part of my life i wanted the same for both my parents since both of them found themselves free and exempt from the responsibility of being parents to me perhaps then i wished for them needed them yearned to be loved by both of them and for us to be a family but i quickly learned that life had other plans. I don't fault my mother as much as i do my father because unlike my dad i have memories of mom trying, truly trying until she was successful in her attempts at being a mother to me.

My father's absence went unnoticed for the longest time i was doing fine knowing of his existence and baring no expectations when it came to him this something that has not changed even now it still remains the same although my father's absence had consequences of their own i am still just a girl who grew up not knowing what it is like to have a dad or even know what having a genuine connection with your father feels like something like that breaks a little girl even if it's not in a way that is physical, the psychological ramifications are real and long lasting the have plenty of ways in which they show up like random insecurities from watching those around you and then the realization ends up setting in, in a way that is subtle if you are someone who was raised in my type of environment there are rules against comparing yourself to others or even having envy for things that others may have possessed so naturally something like not having a father and seeing others have what i am lacking wasn't something i paid much attention to because that would absolutely be going against the rules set for me jealousy or even self-compering was not something permitted in my household so naturally i cared little to nothing about having my father around .

When i was younger maybe 7 or 8 years old i discovered a VRC in our guest bedroom that was similarly used as a storage room to keep mom's old things books, gym equipment, old clothes stored in box's with an old tv still functional but nobody occupies it and a bed attached to a brown headboard the bed had yellow bedding with worn out pillows one on each side, fair to say i enjoyed coming into this room mostly for the tapes my mom had plenty of movies stored in this huge box so many movies to choose from all age appropriate basically romcoms i watched every single one of those tapes in that box discovering the room with the tapes was one of my best highlights of childhood but other memories are simply not there which isn't that typically bothers me but i find myself wondering about from time to time.

I had all this time spent watching romantic comedy's as a child so i had a pretty good idea on how grownups meet and eventually end up falling in love so the ground work on the idea of love was fully laid thick and as i got older i fell in love with cinema all things media related music videos , movies, interviews, cartoons all of it became a part of me i am a proud cinephile but i am also able to say i walk around with unrealistic expectations on how i expect love to show in my life and i can confidently say my set expectations are yet to be met or even considered which is unfortunate but a girl can hope can't she? she probably can.

The thing about abuse is that it sticks, it not only sticks in your mind forever etched in the folds and corners of your brain, but it doesn't stop there it goes further embedding itself in your DNA forever there, forever changed. His pursuit of me began friendly but i paid it no mind simply because when his pursuit of me began i was already tethered to another so there was no space for me to pay attention to his advances. His pursuit of me lasted for years until i finally took note real note i decided i am going to meet him a decision that ultimately changed my life.

There was brief mention on patterns and how they have a tendency of physically manifesting in my life i would like to believe that the same patterns mentioned are slowly gaining consciousness right before my eyes i have seen enough movies to familiarize myself with patterns that align with toxicity and have heard stories growing up about people who have experienced the same within their own relationships these are things that are talked about besides pattern recognition became something i am pro at so i know for certainty that a relationship that exhibits any characteristics rooted in any toxicity i walk , i walk away and go ghost that is something that was and is a deal breaker to me not that i even had to put that up there or even have a conversation about i should hope that is the decency that you as an individual have to carry into the relationship.

Nothing prepares you for a moment thats ultimately life changing there's no ''door knock '' of a warning when your life is about to change or when you are about to be tested by an outside force that is greater than yourself.

For me human beings are genuinely fascinating in the ways that are so unique and individualistic to ones self, we build communities of friendship and somehow end up cultivating reputations through the communities that we build but sometimes you find that other people aren't authentic to the version that they present on the outside i too am guilty of this and i often wonder what kind of lesson was i supposed to get out of this experience and i haven't found an answer yet

Growing up in the kind of environment that i was raised in sex education was not a topic of discussion it was something never to be talked about and so naturally i knew nothing when it came to the topic until i was a little older and even then, the information i had was limited because of how much shame the topic surrounded.

I eventually grew up and grew into myself started understanding my body and self-educating where i needed to but was never careless about my experiences or body.

When i was younger i used to get beatings for misbehaving or for getting poor grades or even sometimes for things as little as not cleaning a mess on the floor or for not washing the dishes. when that would happen all i wanted to do was to make it right, rush to fix my behavior and work even harder at school in order to receive affection and validation from my mother that is something i still carry with me from childhood the need to people please, the need to make it right even when it's not my fault.

I think in my need to make people like me or have them remaining in a state of happiness i would unknowingly sacrifice myself worth or sometimes happiness to please those around me and sometimes to my detriment. I have abandoned the little girl inside me begging to no longer conform or perform in order to be liked or to be loved

I left home that morning begging the universe for any type of sign that if meeting a stranger from the internet was a mistake and nothing came up until he texted that he was running late i should've taken that as the sign i asking for but didn't. I later learned that the person i was meeting was someone with boundary issues.

The thing about him is that his textbook. he is charming and charismatic he appears to be warm and kind, the type of person who is well liked and family oriented he has all the qualities that a sum up a man you could introduce to your friends and family.

The way i felt moments leading up to this interaction are faint echo's at the back of my mind the harder i try revisiting the feeling the further the feeling seemingly goes away from me. I had obvious expectations going into this but being a girl my main worry was not falling in love with him and contracting some incurable disease all for the sake of needing to feel desired.

On our drive to his apartment we had casual conversation about how we both spent our day leading up to us meeting up, listening to him speak i quickly realized how charmed i was by him maybe i wasn't thinking straight i don't know but what i knew in that moment was that, this person was who i wanted

I was met with a number of surprises the moment i entered his apartment, one was how well kept the place was and two being the switch in his demeanor the minute we weren't in a moving vehicle. we entered the apartment, and he closed and locked the door behind him leading me straight to his lounge area where i found a seat and took it.

I sat down drinking a beverage attempting to make myself comfortable on his couch thinking he that he'd join me, the moment i glanced up he had his hands around my throat and i had to slowly put my beer on the floor beside me. His intensity had me startled and made me uncertain on how i thought we should proceed forward but while being in my head on what i thought would happen next his grip on me tightened leading me to lean in forward in a way that is reaching forward to him to signal i am attempting to give him a kiss to make this tidbit more romantic than how things were currently playing out , my mistake was thinking i could placate him which made things a lot worse placating him meant that he thought i thought i was in control which something i was not going to have while being in his "bedroom space" although this is all taking place in this lounge area within minutes of entering his apartment.

He ordered me to take off my clothes while he watched sitting down on his sofa and i obeyed that was right before he told me to get on my knees and i did for me this was the exact moment that he chose to violate me forget about the choking that was unsolicited but while on my knees he chose to take out his device and proceeded to record me without my consent forever trapping my mind body and soul in that room with no way out no exit. In that exact moment everything inside me lit on fire my mind yelling at me to put my clothes back on and get the fuck out of there but i somehow remained on the same spot "performing" doing what i was told, i think about that a lot whether my true nature is actually cowardice someone who is incapable of speaking out for herself a woman who can't defend herself was that who i was who i am? or did this person just completely fry my nervous system within minutes of physically meeting me? ...