Women are not Objects!

Once again I have not written anything in a while on this blog.  I am writing now because of recent events that are boiling in me and bubbling up and over to the point I am having an emotional hangover.

What I am about to write about makes me very emotional, and it can cause a lot of anger and upsetting emotions in others, but I am doing it anyways because I feel the need to let others know they are not alone.

1 in 3 American women will be sexually abused during their lifetime. (George Mason University, Worldwide Sexual Assault Statistics, 2005)

One in four college women report surviving rape (15 percent) or attempted rape (12 percent) since their fourteenth birthday. (Warsaw, R. I Never Called it Rape. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994)

In the year 2000, 246,000 women survived rape and sexual assault. This computes to 28 women every hour. (Rennison, C. M. "National Crime Victimization Survey, Criminal Victimization 2001: Changes from 2000-2001 with Trends 1993-2001," Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 187007, 2002.)

 8% of men admit committing acts that meet the legal definition of rape or attempted rape. Of these men who committed rape, 84% said that what they did was definitely not rape. 
(Warsaw, R. I Never Called it Rape. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994)

35% of men report at least some degree of likelihood of raping if they could be assured they wouldn't be caught or punished.
 (Malamuth, N. M. "Rape Proclivity Among Males." Journal of Social Issues 37 (1981): 138-57.)

Now that I have shown you some statistics I am going to go forward with my own stories.

I have recently been trying to work through my own demons, and why I have such trouble with relationships.  I have felt like I will always be alone.  So I started writing down (due to a suggestion from a professional) all the bad experiences I have had with men including rape, domestic violence or the threatening of either.  I am going to share some of that with you now.

When I was a sophomore in high school one of my acquaintances and I were asked by a teacher to reorganize a small room in the school where a lot of supplies belonging to the school were kept.  The Acquaintance was a young man that was pretty well liked by my peers. We went and were a bit overwhelmed by the job at hand. So we started to just talk and kind of do nothing we were supposed to do.  Eventually he told me he liked me. I was a bit surprised and told him I did not feel the same way. He became upset and cornered me against the wall. He put his hand between my legs, and told me I liked it. I was completely frozen.  A math teacher walked in on this, and accused me of being a slut. I tried to explain, but he would not listen, and only sent me to the Vice Principals office.  I was lucky enough that the Vice Principal really liked me, and thought I had potential ans he put it.  He believed me and the boy got into a bit of trouble (not nearly enough in my opinion now), and I was assigned a new math teacher.  sadly most of my friends did not believe he did that to me.  This was my first experience with an assault from a male.  Also my first experience with peers not wanting to believe in a sexual assault which is a whole different subject I will write about at a different time. 

My second experience was with a bad boyfriend who had a cocaine problem, and also was very abusive. There are so many experiences with this one man I could write a whole essay on him.  I however have one experience that stands out more than any other. This is something that I usually do not tell very many people until they are very close to me. I am going to tell it now because I think it is one of the hardest experiences of my life and it still gives me nightmares, and I know there are woman out there with similar experiences and if it helps just one other person than it is a good thing.  MY boyfriend at the time had such a bad coke problem that he ran out of money one day. Which happened rarely, but on occasion. So he said he had worked something out with his dealer, and we had to go to his house.  When we got there they talked for a few minutes, and than my boyfriend said he would be back in a few hours, and I was to stay put.  His dealer insisted I sit on the sofa with him, and than tried to put the moves on me. I resisted him for a bit, but than he pushed me down into the sofa and ripped the shirt i was wearing after that I froze. I cried through the whole thing while he raped me.  A friend found out what was going on and came to get me. They were too late to stop what was happening, but they did get me out of there, and explained that my boyfriend had sold me off for a few hours so he could get some coke.  I was sold for a little bag of white powder, and that man claimed to love me.

The next experience I will tell you about was on my 21st birthday. I was homeless at the time, and these two guys I knew said they were going to buy me some vodka and we would hang out.  We went to an abandoned building that was a popular hang out for the homeless I knew in that area. We all drank the vodka and laughed and talked, and than one of them started to kiss me at first i kissed him back because I kind of liked him.   I than told him to stop, and from there it went from bad to worse. The other man hanging out with us took off when I started saying No.  I was raped on my 21st birthday. 

After this I was with a lot of abusive boyfriends who did not sexually assault me but they beat me.  I even was beaten one night while i was pregnant with my daughter. 

I was married for a time, and there was a lot of mental abuse there although they will never admit or apologize for any of it.  There was the lies and deceit and they also deny all of that as well no matter how I caught them in it. 

Years later while I was separated and dating someone else who was not exactly the best guy either.  I went to go see a movie by myself because I needed some alone time. On the walk home i took a small short cut that I had taken many times.  A man stopped and asked me if I had a dollar, and I sad no. He than grabbed me, ripped my jacket off, and threw me too the ground. He told me to stay there, and he told me if I did not let him fuck me he would stab me with his knife.  When he was finished with me he grabbed my jacket and left with it. I ran home and I think either my roommate or my ex husband (who lived beneath me called the police). The police were so awful to me that i did not tell them about the rape and simply told them about the assault and that my jacket was stolen and it had my wallet in it. When they had me speak to a detective I had pretty much clammed up altogether.  The officers who had come kept asking me if I was sure he was white. They asked me that question at least 4 times. They also took me back to the scene of the crime, and were laughing about my description while i was in the back of the police car. I became afraid to even speak at all. There was no female officer, and no one who treated me like I was important at all.  These police officers treated me like i was trash. 

The last incident i am going to tell you about was with a man I had been with longer than any other.  The first few years were really great. We had our arguments but he showed me love and affection. He bragged about me. He stood up for me. I was completely in love with him. He however had some mental illness, and a serious addiction problem.  Just before we moved to Vermont I started to wonder if our relationship was worth it because he was starting to fall off the wagon. He dropped out of school, and was seriously depressed. I wanted to move and had wanted too for some time. We were living in Albany, NY and i did not like it there or felt safe there.  So we moved to Vermont. I told him I wanted to move and it was his choice to come with me or not. He chose to come with me (surprisingly), and we made the move.  He got a job pretty quickly and it first it seemed he was feeling better and doing better, but eventually he lost the job and started drinking on and off. He became abusive both mentally and physically. I tried to help him. and at one time we even went to counseling together. I still to this day feel like we made a mistake in the counselor we chose as he seemed tocoddle my boyfriend, and I constantly was made ot feel like I was the bad guy in all of it. My boyfriend would lie to him and when i called him out on it the counselor would say things like "Well we all perceive things differently".   Well after a situation where he ended up in the hospital claiming he was going to kill himself (one of his tactics to get me to do what he wanted) I broke it off with him. I told him he could live in the extra bedroom until he could find a place of his own.  A few months later he walked around my house with a knife talking gibberish. The police were called, and when they came in my boyfriend assaulted them, and even hit one of the officers with a metal table.  It took 6 police officers to carry him out of the house. I went and got a restraining order the next day.  I ended up with some PTSD, and my therapist at the time tried EMDR treatment which did not work that well for me. In fact i got really manic for some time, and things only became worse when he got out of jail.  He came to the house I think a week after he got out and begged to come in. I felt bad for him it was winter and it was cold out and he looked awful.  At first he seemed fine and normal and he came back for a few days and we talked about how we could not be together and he said he was getting a place with some people he had met etc...  He started to act weird though and claimed I was his girlfriend again. He did not want me to go anywhere, and I knew things were not good. I however was convinced by another person who knew he was there to just tell him to go away for a few days because we were having a party. Which did work for those few days.  When he came back he was much worse and I could no longer handle the situation. He refused to let me leave the house. he even tied my hands for some time, and he raped me several times.  I finally told someone else besides the first person, and they called the police.  They came and got him. They took a lot of stuff from the house, and I was taken to the hospital. We never went to trial because his lawyers kept putting it off, and eventually someone I was not friends with anymore changed their story, and my lawyers felt that they could no longer trust the jury as it would be my word against hers. So instead we made a deal and the only way to make a deal with a rapist in Vermont is to drop the rape charges.  So he only got assault, and for breaking a restraining order. He was given 3 1/2 years. His time is almost up now.

This is why I am scared to death, and this is why I do not trust men.  The past few days I have read so many incidents of women being sexually assaulted, threatened, or abused by men in one way or another. We have been telling our stories on the Internet. No one seems to be listening to us.  

I saw something yesterday and again today about how if you had a plate of cookies and you were told that some of them were poisoned but you did not know which ones why would you eat any of them?  That is what it is like more and more for women.  We know some of you are good, but we cannot tell usually until it is too late. So now we are afraid of all of you. 

So men when you hear other men say nasty things about women or talk about them as objects instead of as people. Stop them and tell them they are wrong, and not to talk about women that way no matter how we are dressed, or how much we drink, or any other reason they come up with for doing it.

Women please no no matter what you do it is not your fault! These things are never your fault. We have the right to say NO! We have the right to be human beings and to give our bodies when we want to and not when someone else wants us too. 

WOMEN ARE NOT OBJECTS!

A Great Love that became a Great Tragedy

So many people do not understand what I have been through with my great love. They just make assumptions and judgements etc.....  What i went through is not the classic or even normal domestic violence situation there was a little more to it than the classic manipulation and brainwashing.  I have been through that when I was much younger and I know how it is, and i do my best to help other women who have been through domestic violence, rape, etc...  Anyways here is the story of my Great Love.

I met him at a Halloween party which I was supposed to go to with another guy.  We will call him Satan. Anyways Satan got called into work , and I asked my friend T for a ride. He said no problem he just had to pick up some other people first. Now T and his bf had been trying to set me up with a guy for a while and I was ignoring their efforts, because after all I was dating other people and enjoying myself being single.  So anyways T picked me up and I got in the back of the car and sat next to GL (my great love), and from than on he followed me around at the party the whole night.

I found him to be pretty sexy despite him being on the short side. He had big blue eyes with long eyelashes, shaved head, tattoos all over, and yet he was so eager like a puppy dog.  I found him sweet. He never left my side the whole night, and we slept next to each other that night on my friends pull out sofa.

The next morning he asked if I would come to his place and meet his cat. Since we both loved animals and cats especially. I agreed and after going home and showering, and wearing normal clothes I went to his place. He lived in a boarding house and had a small room near the kitchen and bathroom. He had a small fridge as well in his room along with a bed and sofa. His cat by the way disliked me. We watched a movie together on the couch and soon were busy doing other things. We had a great time, and after he walked me home.

Now i thought this was going to be a fling, but GL had other plans. He immediately started calling me his girlfriend and at first I was a bit creeped out, but he was not coming off creepy as much as just happy to oblige me. So after he talked about all the things we would do I thought this might not be so bad. This was our beginning , and for years we dated and were very happy with of course the usual amount of arguments in a relationship. Sometimes they were rough but that is the way it goes. Never was he abusive or cruel, or did I ever think he would hurt me.

Now that was so many years ago. It has been 2 years since I broke things off with him because of his constant drinking, too many prescription medications, and somewhat abusive behavior.  Things had become bad and I needed a break from all of it. I told him he needed to get himself together, and take care of himself on his own. He was extremely unhappy with our break up and became very introverted to the point he hardly ever left his room. I was so busy trying to get my own personal self together I did not notice how bad it had become until the day he had a Psychotic break.

That is when I was truly for the first time afraid of him. He walked around the house with a knife and kept saying I broke his things. When nothing of his was broken. He carried on like this even after my daughter came home. So this time the police had to be called and I hid in the closet as they took him out of our home. It took 6 police officers to carry him out , and the whole time he was screaming.  I was traumatized, and went into a total manic mode. I was like this for a long time, and was not quite sure what i was even doing with myself. I did get a restraining order, and suddenly I was going out and doing more than I had in years. The problem it was not really the things i needed to be doing.

When he got out he eventually came to me and well I am not going to go in to a lot of detail on this but at first he seemed alright but than I ended up finding out he was worse than before. He did not even seem to remember us breaking up at all.  He did not seem to understand that he was hurting me. He was incredibly confused and it was just a big mess .Soon the police were called again and this time the charges were more severe.

This was my Great love. I had spent years very happy with him, but due to Doctors who kept giving more and more medications and not paying attention to how he was reacting to them, and drinking along with it. He just became someone else completely. The fact of the matter is I am still in love with the guy from before all that.. The one who was always eager to please me and would rub my feet and treat me like a Goddess. The guy who loved his cat to the point of spoilage. The guy who thought i was the best cook in the world and ate what I made with appreciation. The one who just loved kissing me over and over. This is not to say he did not have flaws before as well. We all do. I will miss that guy probably til the day I die. He is not there anymore. His body is there but someone else resides in it. I would like to think that the justice system would help him get proper care, but so far I have just seen them throw him in jail and forget about him.  I wonder how many people are in jail that really just need mental health.

I spent a whole year after all of this being extremely angry myself and thinking he deserved the worst, but now I wonder if maybe that was my own mental instability talking after all that trauma. He needs help, and I hope someday he gets the help he really needs.  I myself will keep grieving for that man I met at a Halloween party that followed me around with his big blue eyes.

Control

Tonight I am going to write about some things that have happened that just brought back old cobwebs in my head, or the things I thought should be covered in them by now.

I went to take a shower and scrubbed my body over and over.  I wanted to get rid of something I did. Like I could scrub it off my body, and than everything would be all-better. Memories are not dirt though you cannot scrub them away, and I have tried. PTSD can be triggered by a memory, and suddenly you feel like you’re out of your mind. You feel like running, and running until you meet water and jump in. You just want it to go away and never come back.

This winter I was able to go pick up some things from the police station. I only picked up my camera. The officer had a list and I had to initial on each item that I did not want it. Some of the things were not even mine. Some of those things belonged to him.  I still remember all the little paper bags lined up in my hallway each one numbered just like they were on that list. They numbered my trauma and categorized it like they were library books or a CD collection. I remember the plastic light blue gloves on the Police officer as he lined up those paper bags, and made his list on his clipboard.

I was asked if I wanted my sheets back.  Seriously? I would never sleep soundly on those sheets again. I could barely sleep on that old thin mattress for a while. Obviously my insomnia problems are still with me. How do you sleep when each memory triggers another of a different time, and a different place where something happened that never should? I could of burned those sheets, but I signed off on them staying there. I suppose they would throw them out.

 I look at the sheets on my bed now. I think I hate these sheets as well. Just a reminder of my own foolish thoughts. Just a reminder of me being too trusting. I wonder when I put myself in someone else’s hands and its a mistake what does that mean? Am I the fool for trusting again, or am I just a strong enough person to not let the past keep me from trusting?  I do not know the answer really. I would like to think I am the strong one. I would like to think a lot of things about myself though.

I have always been different, and I have always been judged and misunderstood. I am good with that. I can live with that. No one wants to face the truth of who I am, because than they would have to face a reality that anyone can be abused, and anyone can be raped.  So much easier to think its my fault and leave me alone with my pain.

Now I am going to change the subject for a bit, and talk about how I am different. I have always been a bit of a kinky girl. When I was a kid I tied up my Barbie’s and made Ken spank them. Nobody seemed to notice that. I always loved tying things up, and when I got breasts well I thought they were awesome! I liked tying them up too. Just in my room when no one was looking cause somehow despite never being given proper talks about sex I knew it was taboo, and I would get in trouble. I did all this stuff anyways. I grew up and eventually would become part of the BDSM scene and often would be considered a Switch. A switch is someone who might like to be the top or the bottom. Later I found I preferred being the bottom. I liked the control of it. Now you might think that strange that even to this day I think you have more control as a bottom, but you really do. When you’re the bottom or the sub (as some might say as well.) you get to choose who you give yourself to and you can make it stop with a word. Your giving that person your trust and letting them take the reins but you can take it away as well. The top just gets to do what you want them to anyways its not real control. Maybe that is why I still like it after all I have been through.

Now back to what I was saying before about memories bringing up more memories. I can go all the ways back to being in high school and these two boys on the bus and myself were the only ones left. They usually just left me alone, but this particular time one of them slid next to me and slid his hand up my skirt, and I froze. The other boy sat on his knees in the seat in front of me and faced me. He just watched. While the other one shoved his grubby hands under my panties. He just watched it happen, and I just looked out the window and tried not to think about it. They were in control. I never said yes, and I suppose they would say I never said no.

One of my first major boyfriends was this bad boy with long dark hair and a coke problem. He said he loved me so much that if I left him he would kill my friends. He would hurt them. He had some issues. Some things happened between him and me I cannot speak of due to my family. Things that link him and I forever and ever. One time when he was tweaking away he asked me to go pick up his stash and said the money had been taken care of so I went to go get it for him. He did not tell me how he paid for it, because I was the payment. I am not going to talk about what happened but the best friend I ever had came and got me when he found out.  The one I let get away.

Years passed I dated some great guys and some really abusive guys. I did a lot of dumb things. I am going to skip over some of the abuse its not that it did not mean anything its just not part of this story.   I got married and it did not work out. I than dated one of my great loves. During that time we had some spats. Once after a really bad fight I went to the movies at night by myself. I walked there, and I remember I was wearing my faux red leather jacket I just bought. I had not any money for a long time, and recently had more and was so happy to get something nice for myself. I saw "Memories of a Geisha" which in a way was ironic I suppose.  I walked home and was raped on the ground. I took a short cut. I barely saw him cause it was dark but he wore a big cowboy hat and I stared at it the whole time. That is what I do. I find something to stare at.  I never saw that jacket again cause he took it, and the police found it and kept it for evidence. I never picked it up.

Now comes the story of that great love of mine. He made me very happy for a few years, and than he started drinking again, and little moments of memory seemed to be slipping his mind, which just made him angry. I was losing him, and in his place was someone else. I broke it off with him after he ended up in the hospital one night claiming to be suicidal.  A good friend of mine had a fight with me in the hallway of Brattleboro Memorial she screamed at the nurse not to let him go home with me. That he would end up killing me if I stayed with him. I was so upset at that argument that I told him to move into the extra room. A few months later he walked around my house with a knife saying all sorts of crazy things. The police came, and I hid in the closet while he fought with them. What happened to the one I loved? Where did he go?

The man he became found me again a few months later and he would not let me leave the house, and it was complicated and the Reformer (the local paper here) got the story all screwed up. He thought we had never broke up. He thought we could play those kinky games and he never saw me cry. He could not see. He never heard me tell him to leave. He could not hear. He needed help.  The police came and they lined up all those little paper bags in my hallway.

I have dated since than and never found anyone much to my fancy. I slept with a few but I did not give them that control. That was for me to give someone. That was my prize to give away. Recently I gave it away. He did not know how actually hard it was for me to do it or how scared I really was to do it. I put my trust in the wrong man and I feel dirty. Not that good kind of dirty, but more of a why did I give it away when it was mine. I could have just had normal sex or just a normal date, but something about him made me trust him. Something said he would never ever abuse that control. I do not think he meant to. That does not change how I feel right now though. It does not make it easier for me to sleep. I want it back. I want to turn back the clock and have never given it away.

I want my control back.

So here we are in 2012, and Bye Bye 2011

2012 here I come! This is the Mantra in my head for the past three days. I am looking forward to a year where my life is in a better place and improvements are made as well as less stress. So I push forward and so far feel like yes something amazing is going to happen this year, but its going to be good things.

Last year was a bad year not just for me but a lot of people in my community and in my life. I started off with a dear friend passing away and going off to the Summerlands. He will be missed.

Than my ex boyfriend who I had been with for 6 years or so got out of prison and I the fool thought I could handle it and I could take care of things. I only ended up in a mess of a situation. Many people will never understand what happened or how I could think that way. No one knows what one will do until the time comes it is a lesson I learned myself. I am a less judgmental person towards those who have been in abusive relationships and been through trauma because of my own situation.

Than not long after that I got myself pregnant with twins to make it even more interesting. I could not just do things the normal way. No of course not! Soon after becoming pregnant realized i really had no feeling for the Father in fact maybe I did but not the kind you usually have. To be honest even though I wanted to have more kids I was miserable in my position and was not doing well health wise either. I already had diabetes and chronic leukemia. The Doctors said it was possible but it really did not work out for me. I soon had a miscarriage and out the door the Father went. Apparently we were never even friends.

I also during all this realized many friends were not as they seemed and some I had simply outgrown and others were just not good people to begin with. I ignored the signs because i want to see the best in people and I ended up paying quite a bit for making such bad choices and judgment.

The next half of the year was dealing with court issues due to my poor decisions, and trying to get an education. I am proud to say I passed my first math class, and now in 2012 have just started the Algebra.

I lost 67 lbs. in 2011 but gained back 7 in December. A lot was coming to a head in December and so I let myself go a little. I had the Holidays some financial issues, and the end of the court situations.

I will say during all of these bad selections and facing the consequences of them I met some wonderful people who have helped me through, and some others also who stuck by me despite what others have said or tried to make them think of me. How lucky I am to have these people in my life. Friends are a precious commodity and should be treated with loyalty and delicately. Never take your friends for granted!

So here we are 2012 I have great plans for you! What are those plans you may ask.... you will see soon enough!