First Grade

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“Don’t cry,” my mother tells me. I am in first grade, with a pretty knapsack and a lunch she packed me, and first grade always made me cry. “But I want to stay with you.” It was, to my five-year-old self, the most dramatic thing that I had to spend the whole day away from her, and I didn’t understand it. “You’ll be home soon.” -- “Don’t cry,” my mother tells me. It’s a habit that, as a twenty-something year old woman, I pretend I had grown out of. I’m sitting on her couch writing poetry – a piece from San Francisco that would one day become a friend’s housewarming present – and airplanes always made me cry. “I’ll just miss you, that’s all.” “You’ll be home in a few months.” None of us could have predicted a fucking pandemic that had probably already started, or known the next time I’d come back would be almost two years later. -- “I told you not to cry,” but I know she is also crying. She has stage four colorectal cancer, and we both wrote a piece with the exact sam...
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Insert Reason Here

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This is the post I’ve been hovering over writing. Finishing, editing, returning to for days on end. The one I tell myself most needs to be said, the one I tell myself that I can’t say.

A few month ago I was molested by the husband of a very close friend.
I’m writing these posts for those of you that have been there. I’m writing for anyone who needs a safe space, who needs someone else to just come forward and say it first. I’m writing for the ones who still need to know that you can take something hideous and turn it into something productive, even something empowering.
Some of these posts will be empowering. And some will simply be raw, vulnerable and not the least bit sugarcoated, because sometimes that’s the way that life is, too.

I feel like when I tell people, kick to the knees, strike the eyes, we’re all picturing some variation of a ninja with a ski mask lurking in the alley. (The truth is, I did meet someone once who carried metal throwing stars in the lining of his jacket as he walked through the alley, and if I only ever meet him once I will be quite content…) Now you’ve probably heard this, but I’ll say it again. In the majority of cases, when a woman is raped or sexually assaulted (and this is so much more common than most people think) the attacker is actually someone that she knew beforehand. Even someone she knew well.
The first time I learned that, it was a black and white statistic on a page. “Sixty-two percent of women who experience assault," etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth. I felt like we were all picturing that seedy uncle everyone has that nobody talks about… The truth is, we suspect the ninja with the throwing stars inside his jacket. We suspect the gangs, we suspect seedy uncle. We’re careful around these people. What we don’t suspect, is the religious leader. The teacher. The mentor. The old friend. That person who, while he’s not the seedy uncle, might be someone you consider to be a real uncle, because of how long he’s been like part of your family. The people we trust, the people we let get close enough to hurt us. That’s why that statistic works. We think they deserve our trust (and maybe they did once) and so we rationalize, this situation cannot truly be what I think it is, because “he would never hurt me,” “she’s like part of the family” “I’ve known him so long.” Insert Reason Here. A lot of people do.
Why am I telling you this? Because the instant a situation starts to stop feeling right, it’s wrong. The instant we start having our doubts, that little voice in the back of our heads too foolish to listen to, that’s when we most need to listen to that voice. Our instincts are our innate, ingrained survival tactics. Our premonitions are our body’s natural reaction to stimuli that our minds just haven’t processed consciously yet. These things are more trustworthy than the person standing before us and betraying our trust.

They’re wrong, by the way. If they try to make you feel like it’s your fault, they’re wrong.

Comments

  1. UkeladyDecember 10, 2018 at 3:33 PM

    What do you do if ninja skills don't kick in (which they don't)? How is it that we know exactly what to tell others to do but act the opposite when it happens to us? How does one change their response?

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    1. Abrielle Sarah FuerstDecember 12, 2018 at 9:55 AM

      Ukelady, thank you for posting this.

      We know what to tell others because we have the leisure of safety and distance. A rational perspective. The truth is, a lot of the time, we know what to tell ourselves too. (I knew from the moment he started talking to me. It was just too hard to believe, and harder to accept. The truth is it took me months to accept; there wasn't space in that one confused moment, and I feel like this is true for a lot of people. You aren't alone.)

      It's not always changing your response. It's paying more attention to your natural response. Just like ninja skills, learning to trust yourself (being aware of yourself) can take practice.

      If you'd like, think about this: if you could have a conversation right now with yourself as you were right then, what would you say? (I get things like: You were right, kiddo, something really was off. Or: Don't ever feel like you have to compromise yourself to spare someone's feelings just because of who they are. Or even things like: You're strong and you've got this.)

      You're strong and you've got this.

      Delete

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