Never Should Have Happened
I've written about this before, so it is no secret. Aside from being bullied and abused by my classmates in grammar school, I suffered abuse of a different kind at the hands of someone else.
I was not raped, not in the way we think of males being raped. But it was definitely sexual in nature and it was most definitely unwelcome.
It happened more than once, by the same person and the same person only. I never told anyone about it until I was in recovery from the night my life crashed down, about two and a half years ago.
When it happened, I felt what most boys feel when they suffer through this. I felt shame. I felt an immense sense of guilt. I felt alone. I know now that I could have told my parents and they would have done everything in their power to relieve me of my shame and guilt. But I didn't tell them. What kids do?
I'm thirty-six now. It's been about twenty-five years or so since it happened to me. I am no longer ashamed of it or feel guilty about it. It was not my fault. I did nothing wrong. But that is now. For years it was, as the song says, "another brick in the wall". It was one of so many things that had happened in my childhood that never should have happened, but did and added to the self-hatred and rage that had already begun to grow inside of me.
By the time I was thirteen years old, I wasn't just another scared little kid. I was terrified. I trusted no one. I was headed into the eighth grade without any hope of defending myself against the world.
And the world had proven itself to be an enemy.
I was not raped, not in the way we think of males being raped. But it was definitely sexual in nature and it was most definitely unwelcome.
It happened more than once, by the same person and the same person only. I never told anyone about it until I was in recovery from the night my life crashed down, about two and a half years ago.
When it happened, I felt what most boys feel when they suffer through this. I felt shame. I felt an immense sense of guilt. I felt alone. I know now that I could have told my parents and they would have done everything in their power to relieve me of my shame and guilt. But I didn't tell them. What kids do?
I'm thirty-six now. It's been about twenty-five years or so since it happened to me. I am no longer ashamed of it or feel guilty about it. It was not my fault. I did nothing wrong. But that is now. For years it was, as the song says, "another brick in the wall". It was one of so many things that had happened in my childhood that never should have happened, but did and added to the self-hatred and rage that had already begun to grow inside of me.
By the time I was thirteen years old, I wasn't just another scared little kid. I was terrified. I trusted no one. I was headed into the eighth grade without any hope of defending myself against the world.
And the world had proven itself to be an enemy.
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