It occurred to me recently that I’ve done enough mind-expanding drugs, talk therapy and transcendental meditation to figure out why I dislike being alone.
Writing this is terrifying. Writing about the wrong-doings of men is terrifying. I’ve written this and sat on it for a long time. A friend said, “Even if you stop protecting them, society will. So, strangely, maybe you protected all of them to feel like you had some agency in this world.”
Before I had my first boyfriend, I was molested by two doctors, a classmate and a man on the #47 bus.
A pause.
Okay.
After I started dating, the only people who touched me without asking were my boyfriends while I slept.
I kept these things to myself at the time, because people don’t want to hear these things.
People want to protect the man. Women want to protect their man.
Not only did I instinctively and fearfully keep my mouth shut, but I turned every single episode into my own problem. Society had told me my whole life that I must have done something to deserve it.
When the doctor pulled fourteen-year-old me out of his exam room, into his office and put his face to my breasts?
I found a new doctor.
When my drama partner in the 9th grade stuck his fingers in my vagina while I was just sitting at my desk?
I found a new partner. I did tell some kids, two boys asked me if I was okay, one girl told me I was lucky.
When the guy on the city bus rubbed his erection on my ass and stuck his hand down my pants?
I stopped taking the bus until I got taller.
Now, I feel like a harpy and a shrew for saying anything negative to a man who hurts me, because they all negate my feelings, and then society negates my feelings.
People are often very surprised to hear that I chose to be a stay-at-home mother at the age of twenty-two, but I always felt it was a natural thing because I craved home so badly. I wanted control, matriarchy. I wanted the security of a man who would murder someone who dared to touch me.
I wanted to write and have a home, to cook, clean and raise children. And after dating my ex-husband for two years, we decided to do all of this together.
We entered a relationship in our early twenties when neither of us had figured ourselves out or learned how to communicate properly. My ex-husband and I would argue viciously because we were so good with words. It almost became a competition. We felt like siblings arguing. We were coping with the regular stresses of having young children and getting little sleep, but more than that, I spent most of my life unmedicated for anxiety, ADD and OCD. When we were married, I was raw dogging the world. My reeling brain would clash with his temper and we would not be empathetic and we would just escalate.
Eleven years into our relationship, my writing career took off. A writing career was never a goal of mine. It was a pure dream. I wrote and published online. I wrote screenplays and turned them in to agents who were able to sell my work.
And so, after years of only truly spending time in Calgary, Canada, with my ex-husband and three children, I gained some autonomy and moved closer to my like-minded and creative friends when we moved to Los Angeles. The older the kids became, the more hiding the arguing behind closed doors failed to work. I began to avoid spending time with him in public, the yelling had become so second nature. We tried therapy. His resentment towards me grew. He wanted me to go back to Canada with him, be financially safe, and give up my autonomy. I refused. The wheels came off.
I believe, on my end, my unmedicated anxiety, ADD and OCD were at the root of my failed marriage. I couldn’t set boundaries, I wasn’t taught boundaries, boundaries made no sense to me at the time. I could have stayed married forever to a partner who had supported my work and my goals. I’m loyal to a fucking fault. I’m sure I could love even an abuser forever if he made me feel safe. Based on my past, I could just keep getting into a string of these long-term relationships, so long as they offered protection.
Ironically, the doctor who molested me in his office died just days after my ex-husband moved out of my house.
I wanted to post his picture here, and debated it with my editor. But there’s risk, there could be legal implications. The conversation left us both feeling sick. Even protecting me means protection for him. And that’s just fucked up. Well, I could never have proved he’d molested me to begin with. There was no fighting, no marks, no semen. An extremely prominent Canadian doctor’s word against mine. And now I have to live with his molester face in my head forever. Yes, he had a molester face.
I have carried all of this with me for thirty years. I’ve talked about this a lot in therapy, but I’m still haunted that I can’t tell on a man without great fear of retaliation. Retaliation from him, from his supporters, from strangers. I don’t think I’m capable of handling that well. Being told my feelings don’t count for so many years by multiple men, I’m just never going to protect you motherfuckers again.
Retaliation, for me speaking about my pain? Fuck off.
Rage? I’m working on it.
I still feel fear when I’m alone.
My medications work. I can protect myself. I don’t feel I need a protector anymore.
But, it might be nice to have one.
This came out of nowhere and bitchslapped me this morning.
I'm a 53 year old white male. I'm 6ft 3in and 240lbs and no one would ever see me as a victim, but as an assaulter if anything.
However, I was sexually assaulted as a teenager. It's a deep well of pain and panic I repress and have never told anyone about. It came to the front when I read this.
You're brilliant and talented and should never had to suffer these things.
Your youngest is the same age as my only child. I live in Calgary. I’ve been with you for awhile. I’m sorry all these shitty things happened to you. I’m sorry we live in a world that has made it possible for men and boys to help their fucking selves to whatever the fuck they want with no regard for the damage they cause. Fuck that shit. Carry on, Rage. Carry. On.