TRIGGER WARNING: sexual abuse, rape, sexual assault

This should be the title of a new memoir of mine.  Maybe it will be.  No, not the trigger warning.  The title of the post.  

But anyways, my cat is in heat.  Vet appointments now are hard to come by, so they can't get her in until May, which super sucks.  My cat is so very annoying, and I wish we could have made our last appointment, but alas, we both had migraines and could not get up that early to go that day.

But now, my mother is obsessed with talking about it, the cat and her wild ways of yowling at everything with her butt hiked in the air.  Which makes me cringe to high heaven.  To the point, I actually get angry.  My son says "Who cares?  Just ignore it."  But I try to explain to him, something from my childhood has always made me physically sick to hear her talk about sex or periods or anything to do with vaginas or penises or anything of the sort (she once took a spread-eagle picture of my son after I was changing his diaper, which emphasized his genitalia and I am surprised they didn't call the police on us after developing it--I found that pic and burned it and all the copies of it, too, because WTF?).  I've always felt this way and I do not know why.  It makes me feel the same sort of sick when I can sense a man has ill intentions towards me sexually.  I just want to crawl out of my skin and it gives me a stomachache.  

The body does not forget.  

What does it not forget, in this instance?  I have no clue.  I mean, many things, but with my mother, I can't place it exactly.  A little, but not exactly.  But my body has a physical reaction to her when she talks about all things sexual.  Once, last summer, she tried to tell me all about her BFF's sexual exploits and I got really angry with her.  I said "That's really disgusting!  Why would I want to know that?  Sick!!" And went back into the house.  She was angry at me all day for that.  But it made me want to hurl hearing her talk like that.  

I am not a prude.  I openly talk about sexual things all the time with my family, as do they.  The kids (adult kids) joke around about girls and porn, and I educate them on sex addiction, which can come from watching too much porn--though that's porn addiction, technically.  And it's a consensual conversation, one which they brought up yesterday.  If me talking about sexual stuff bothered them, I'd never bring it up again.  Because I respect people's needs and wishes, unlike my mother.  But we all talk openly about that kind of stuff, we always have.  But I didn't grow up that way.  My father was severely addicted to porn, and my parents treated sex as though it was for perverts and my mother always said that my father was the biggest pervert of them all.  And I was a whore for having sex with my boyfriend of two years as a teenager.  That's what they told me.  And that's what my mother will still say to this day, that I was a whore back then, even though what I did with my body is nobody's business but mine.

But even before all that, I could not physically or emotionally stand hearing my mother talk about vaginas or periods or anything sexual at all.  It made me sick.  I also never wanted her to touch me.  Kids grow up without hugs from their mother and say "Oh wow, I wish my mother would have hugged me."  Not me.  I could have hugged my father all day every day and I wouldn't care, but if my mother got near me, I'd cringe and be physically repulsed.  I do not know why.  I know I wasn't always like that.  I don't remember her ever touching me but I have seen pictures of her holding me as a little kid and stuff like that.  But at a certain age, it seemed to have stopped.  I don't know why.  I don't know if it was me pushing her away or she just never wanted to touch me.  Hugging her makes me want to puke, it always has.  And it physcially hurts my body.

The thing is: I honestly think my father molested me as a child (or at least did some inappropriate things).  Because I remember some really shady shit he did to me.  But at the same time, my mother did some shady shit to me, too.  And my uncle (my mother's sister's husband), who literally being in the same room as him physically repulsed me.  I could be around my mother, and even really close, without feeling bad.  It was just hugs from her that made me cringe.  But then there's my grandfather, who became obsessed with the little girl we babysat for, who then started treating me like total shit after she came around.  And another girl we babysat for said that he (my grandfather) showed her his penis.  And my mother slapped me for sleeping next to my kids when I lived with her, as though I would molest them because we aren't the same sex (she's fucking insane, I'm telling you), which leads to wonder if her father molested her or her sister and she knew about it (my therapist at the time wondered that, too).  And then we have my other uncle who could never keep his hands off any child.  Not in a perverted way, but deep down, do we really know?  An obsession with children usually means something sinister and strange (Lewis Carroll--I mean Charles Dodgson, anyone?).  

I honestly cannot rule out almost anyone in my family for having done bad things to me (I even had memories of a boy cousin touching me, though I can't be sure what exactly happened).  I do know that growing up I have been grabbed, manhandled, sexually assaulted and raped, all repeatedly, all by different boys/men.  People who were molested as young children make prime targets for getting sexually assaulted later in life.  We get primed for that shit as kids and end up not seeing the red flags until it's too late.  We learn not to tell, or that "this is how men just are".  So we say nothing.  And it never stops happening.

Also, we eventually become dysregulated and make crazy choices as we get older, which gets us into bad situations that can hurt us.  They call it "acting out", but in reality, we're just trying to deal with brains that have ZERO idea of how to deal with continued abuse and the chaoticness of life, due to the abuse we've both received and can still be receiving.  So our brains get angry, and act a little manic sometimes.  Some of us cut ourselves, some of us drink or do drugs to quiet that dysregulation down, and others act out sexually or become completely shut off to sexual things as a whole.  It's not our fault our brains are like this.  We are doing our best to make sense of a dysregulated brain that is all over the place.  

So, because of this, as we get older, we can get ourselves into situations that can hurt us.  I mean why not?  Our parents put us in positions to hurt us all the time.  So why should we care?  This is the mantra of the abused teenager (and sometimes as adults, too).  We were told we were worthless, so how can we have any worth?  I learned early on as a child that my worth as a girl and a woman was what was between my legs.  And everything since has been proving that fact over and over and over again.

"Raped?" she said with a roll of her eyes, while sipping her hot coffee.  "Shay was sleeping with everyone back then, so who knows?"  This is what my mother said in 2013 (I think that's the right year) when I confronted her in a letter about how she ignored me when I told her I was raped when I was fourteen.  FOURTEEN.  I was not sleeping around at FOURTEEN.  I was a fucking virgin whose 19-year-old boyfriend (a boy they allowed me to go with, even though I wasn't comfortable being alone with him) trapped her in his bedroom and refused to let her leave.  I was a girl who knew he had homemade machetes and knives everywhere.  So I just laid down and did as I was told.  But that's not what my mother heard when I told her about it a few years prior to 2013, when I was on my way to a rape counselor (who was kind of bad at her job, by the way).  I asked my mother if she ever wondered why I was seeing a therapist and what kind of therapist it was.  And so I blurted it out it was a rape counselor and I was raped at fourteen, and she ignored me and changed the subject.  But bascially telling everyone I was a whore was what mother said to her BFF Christmas, when she had Christmas read my letter OUT LOUD to the other two women in their gang who were sitting at the table with them: Valentine's (who I used to call BM on this blog) and Easter.  All four sat at their table, after I had my HUGE blowout with my mother, in which she lied to my face and told me my father never hit us and blah blah blah and how my entire childhood was made up (the abuse and whatnot).  That's when I found out she was a narcissist.  But still, I was in my 30's and she was STILL saying I was a whore for having lots of boyfriends when I was a teenager.  Then my mother came out with the fact she was raped at age fourteen (and never brought up the fact I was), and now she denies ever saying that to Christmas about my letter, that I was "sleeping with everyone back then", which is something she can do because both Valentine's and Easter are now dead, so they can't back up Christmas.  So now, all she has to do is say Christmas is a liar, which is what she did.  Last year she screamed when I brought it up "I NEVER SAID THAT!! I WOULD NEVER!  I WAS RAPED, TOO!!"  Liar.  I mean, I have no idea if she was raped, but she definitely said that about me.  I wonder if she ever thinks I believe her?

I don't.  Because, duh.  

So yeah, my mother has a horrible track record for all things sexual.  Especially with raising me.  When I got into my dad's porn collection (and it was a COLLECTION, let me tell you) when I was around twelve, she called me all sorts of names.  She said "So, you like this shit just like your father?" she'd spit at me, as though the words made her mouth taste like vomit.  "You're nasty!!  That's so disgusting!"  Also, as a child, if she caught me masturbating, she'd slap my hands and tell me I'd never have children when I was old and said I was gross and nasty and disgusting.  I mean, why would I ever be okay with her talking about sexual things around me now with all of that?  But it goes beyond shame.  Because sex for her was 100% about shame.  So she tried to shame me, too.  But the feeling I get is sickness, and putridity, not shame.  Like I want to crawl out of my skin or barf or do both.   

I also get that feeling with men who want to do bad things to me.  I've always been able to tell.  And I was always right.  Always.  It used to be just older men, but one day we had this guy over weekly to play games with us (we play those kinds of board games you get at game stores, not Walmart, so they take hours to play).  And one day, I just couldn't do it anymore.  He started make me feel sick.  Even though it had been a year since we started playing with him.  Though not in our home, we usually played at friend's house, and then we switched to having this one guy over at our house, and only after playing with him twice did I start getting that feeling with him.  He made me sick to be around so I would got hide in our room until he left and eventually, we stopped having him over.

I remember this feeling started when my dad had his sailor friends over to hang out drinking at night, and I'd be in bed, trying to sleep.  But instead, I'd actually be awake, terrified someone was going to come into my room to rape me (how I knew what that was, I do not know).  

Then I got that feeling around my uncle.  

Then I got that feeling around the guy who wanted me to babysit for him.  And he did try.  Eventually.  I was fifteen.

Then I got that feeling around my neighbor who was a priest (I recently wrote to his niece and told her what he did, which I wrote about around Christmastime on here).  And he tried to press his leg up against mine during a holiday meal under the table, and when I pulled away, he did it again.

Throughout the years, growing up, I got that feeling around various boys and/or men, who all tried to sexually assault me or did sexually assault me.  

I have never been wrong about that feeling.  

And I get that feeling when my mother talks about anything of a sexual nature.  

Maybe it's not her.  Maybe it's my body mixing up anger and shame?  But it doesn't do that normally.  Just for her.  And just when she talks about sexual shit.  Every single other person I've had this feeling with (all men), I've been right about.

Maybe one day I'll be able to pinpoint what exactly it is.  Or maybe I won't.  I just know that I don't like it.  When she goes on and on and on about the cat in heat all how all the boy cats want to fuck her (they are all fixed, btw).  And how her other friend, who I used to call "Horny Skeletor" in my memoir (but I changed her name) who's in her 80's and brags about giving blowjobs to her younger boyfriend.  And the next time she talks about any of that shit, I am going to say that's gross and to be quiet about it.  We ALL know the cat is in heat.  We can't not know it.  I wish she were spayed already.  It's kind of sad to see my poor little girl go from a carefree little kitten one day, to a batshit crazy love machine who's tries to get the dogs, the cats, and the kitchen cabinets all to service her the next (though it's almost been a week now she's been in heat).  So I don't need my mother to go on about it.  

Also today, I came home after taking my son with me to go look for living room chairs (we didn't find any) and I found his underwear hanging on my doorknob.  My mother put it there.  For what reason, I do not know.  But she has some kind of strange thing with underwear and doing dumb things with them.  Maybe people don't like that, mother, when you're touching a piece of clothing that touches other people's genitals!  And it's not like she does the laundry, I do.  So it makes me feel icky when she makes a HUGE deal about people's underwear.  Once, right after we moved in here, my underwear got mixed up with her clothes and she pulled them out and made fun of how HUGE they were while throwing them around.  So that makes me so uncomfortable, too.  

For the most part, I just plain hate everything she does.  And this type of shit just is the icing on the disgusting cake.  


I just hate when people are sexually inappropriate.  Especially people who are not "all there" and cannot fathom just how far they are taking it when they are talking about something sexual or fucking around with people's underwear.  

We have a neighbor, D-Man.  He's got autism.  But he also has a shitty little shitzu who bites me and isn't fixed.  But D-Man always devolves the conversation into talk about how his dog humps all of his toys (the dog's toys, not D-Man's...though maybe his toys, too?).  I keep telling him "Get him fixed, he really needs to get fixed." But he won't listen.  And I don't want to talk to D-Man about his dog's sexual antics.  It's gross.  And I am afraid the conversation will turn into something else.  Something wholly inappropriate.  Because men scare me most of the time.  More so, men who talk about sexual things openly and freely with neighbors scare me.  And men who don't understand sex in a normal way scare me.  I've been almost attacked (and I would have been, had my coworker not walked in right as the guy was running at me) by a mentally disabled man who came to my work to hurt me.  I am autistic myself, but I know there are many levels, and lower the level, the less the person understands about how inappropriate things are to say or do with certain people.  But this guy?  Was a mentally disabled predator.  He was coming into my store, thinking I was alone, on purpose, to hurt me. 

Then, I was sexually assaulted by an autistic kid in my apartment building, who was allowed to watch shows with lots of sex in them, which turned him into a raging little crazy hornball psycho.  Once, he knew I was taking a shower and broke into my apartment to hurt me.  He was twelve!!  Luckily I jumped out the shower to barricade the door, as I heard him come in and call my name.

My mother was accosted by a lower-functioning autistic kid in our neighborhood who came into her house and shoved a tabled into her stomach, which ended up shoving her into the cabinets behind her (and still, she was going to allow that kid into her house--though he soon after wrote her an email and asked if he could stick his finger in her dog's butt--he was 20 and lived on his own and had shitty, shitty parents). 

I am not afraid of mentally disabled people, but I do not like being around those who do not get how to act in society and are left to their own devices to work all that on their own.  My ex-husband's uncle was severely mentally and physically disabled and sexually abused my sister-in-law when she was a kid.  So, I am not keen on having our neighbor hang out in our yard bothering me when I am working or sitting out there.  I don't know how far his talking about how his dog takes out his sexual urges on all of the pillows and toys will take him.  Or what that means for me.  I already had the crazy man up the street sexually harass me as I walked past his house (I call him crazy, because he's been on the national news before when he was off his meds and he tried to do horrible things to the entire neighborhood--but this was before we moved in, but he's still here and he's still crazy), and now I don't walk anywhere near his house anymore.  He still stares every time we drive by, which scares the shit out of me.  But then again, he stares at everyone, and records them on his 500 video cameras in his yard.  Yay for living in neighborhoods with neighbors.  Whoo hoo.

Maybe that's why my mother bothers me so much?  She's dumber than a box of rocks and when she talks about sexual stuff, she goes overboard, and I am not sure where she'll take it.  Then again, I am never sure where she'll take anything, these days.  

I don't know.  Well, I've written WAY too much on this subject.  I could write more and most likely will in my memoir ("Diary of a....").  So I'll just leave you with this:  

Being a woman sucks.  But so does being a man.  Men get sexually abused all the time, too.  My husband has had a woman at work fondle him and do things to him that he can't prove was done on purpose, and she continues to do it to this day.  She's very crafty, that one.  He's also been touched (like on the butt) by three different adult women when he was a teen.  Two teachers and a youth director at his old church.  For a man, that seems like a lot of butt touching and fondling.  But maybe it's normal for men to be assaulted regularly too, but they just don't realize it?  But for those of us, like me, if it's countable, it's a pretty low number.  As I cannot count the amount of times I've been sexually assaulted and/or raped.  It sounds crazy to say I can't count the times I've been raped, but if you've been in any kind of abusive relationship, you know what I am talking about.  And I've been in my fair share of those.  I've even been raped in non-abusive relationships, because men are not taught enough about consent, but then again, neither are women, so sometimes we don't realize what's happening to us is wrong, yet it feels so very, very wrong.  But I can't say what my husband has (and is) going through isn't bad.  Of course it is.  Whether your assaults are countable or not, they are all horrible.  We live in a fucked world full of sexual deviants who's goal is to hurt as many people as possible.  And I really hope that one day my husband can go to his job and not only get that bitch fired, but get enough men to come forward and get her put in jail.  But the law does not favor victims of sexual assault.  Neither do workplace laws.  And especially not for men.  I mean, who would take him seriously if he came forward?  

"Oh, this lady touched my hand at work."  "Um, so?" 

 "Oh this lady touched her butt to my butt."  "She said it was an accident, aren't you overreacting?"

Can you imagine it?  But if that were man making a woman uncomfortable, they'd be all over it, fearing of the woman suing.  

Anyways, I'm going to go ignore my cat who's in heat (Oh, did you know?  My cat is in heat...my mother will totally tell you about if you talk to her, and all about how the boy cats all want to "possess" her, which is totally fucking weird) and go play "Sea of Thieves" with my kids, because that game kicks ass.  Oh, and also, in my next post, we'll learn all about the narcissist who runs the sustainability program at my hubby's work who recently fucked him out of a promotion.  Yay.