A Victim No More

My dad died on my tenth birthday. I was devastated. My mother was left with five children, with me as the oldest. We were living in a large city with neighbors of all different colors and ethnicities in the neighborhood.

I remembered little of what happened there for a very long time. One of the things that stuck with me was not pleasant. It was the memory of being sexually assaulted by a male babysitter at age seven. My brother was 5, and I remember him jumping up and down on the top bunk, saying, "I'm telling."

This, while the babysitter had his hands in my underwear. Our cousin also stayed, and she was a couple of years older. She was also abused. I remember her telling me she would never stay at our house again.

When we told on him, I don't remember hearing anything about what happened. He never came back, but I was never sure that he wouldn't, as we were never told that. Our female cousin never came back either. I saw her as an adult, and we never discussed what happened.

After my dad died, we moved up north to the most racist place I have ever lived. At age eleven and twelve, I was constantly called names and touched inappropriately. It was adults doing that. It happened in school too, but the old men were worse.

Other abuses happened over the years, and luckily, I was able to resolve many of those experiences both with therapy and the sexual assault program advocates.

I began my recovery from self-medicating in 1978. That experience with support and a higher power of my understanding made it possible for me to consider myself a survivor of trauma, grief, and loss.

As the years passed, there would be an occasional memory that I would deal with.

Trauma

Oh mama

So much drama

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Not feeling safe ever

Finding heroes was very clever

My hubby provides along with affection

And so I continue to have protection

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Still, it's possible to run into a jerk

Therapy helps, and so does grief work

EMDR - Eye Movement, Desensitization, and Reprocessing

Resolution for several trauma processing

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A victim no more

Yes a survivor

Prefer thriver

Evermore