Secrets

Originally posted November 12, 2007

I am sure that everyone has secrets. Some we may share with a few people, others we don't tell anyone at all. Sometimes secrets are good, like when you are a kid and you share secrets with your best friend. These are usually silly things like who you have a crush on, or guess who kissed me. Then there are bad secrets. Secrets that you hold inside because you don't know how to verbalize them. Things that you think will make everyone look at you differently, with pity or disgust. Things that happened that left a huge scar on your soul. A scar that is so ugly that you are afraid if anyone sees it they will only see the ugliness and not who you are. You hide the scar, so no one will see it, but it is still there and it just gets uglier.

I hid my secret behind walls. By the time I was done I had a fortress of walls surrounding me. Each wall had a name, my walls were strength, independence, indifference, hatred, anger, mistrust, suspicion. I isolated myself behind these walls, but the secret never went away and the scar never healed. Over the years I let a few people in, but never all the way in. I was alone in the inner sanctum. I did not want anyone to see my disfigurement. Instead of the walls becoming my protection, I began protecting the walls. I could not cry, I knew that tears would erode the walls and leave me vulnerable. I knew that if people saw what makes you cry, they would know what your weaknesses were. People exploit weakness. It even became my motto; Crying is a sign of weakness, never let them see you cry. I became really good at living as this persona, I tried to forget who I used to be. Sometimes she tried to surface, that girl I used to be, but I never let her. I was mad at her, she was weak, she let it happen. I would have never let it happen, I wouldn't have been that weak or stupid. I was wrong though, she wasn't as weak as I thought and I wasn't as strong as I pretended to be.

I became weary of my isolation, I was tired of being alone. I began to explore the possibilities. I found it was safe to meet and talk to people online, I could be anonymous, I could be in control, I could play the game. I saw Him on a vanilla site, I sent a short superficial message. He was a few hours away, enough distance to serve as a buffer, a safety net, we didn't even ever have to meet. He messaged back, we had a lot in common, politics, theatre, he had a dog, an interest in D/s. I read the message several times, He really did bring D/s and sex up in the first message. I had made a cryptic reference to D/s in my profile, my site test results had revealed a bit more, had I made a nebulous invitation to this response? He was intelligent, funny, and despite His direct D/s reference, seemed non-threatening. I was intrigued, I sent another message. Communications continued, our messages were balanced between vanilla topics and BDSM, He recognized my submissiveness, He took the lead. I am not sure why I was compelled to trust Him, but he seems to be able to have that effect on me. I needed to trust, I needed to submit, He met those needs. A little at a time I revealed my secrets, I breached the walls. I let Him in, more than anyone else. I felt safe, He allowed me to expose myself, He was not disgusted or judgmental. There was no pity, only acceptance. He addressed my need to heal, my need to cry.

Crying was a major issue for me, I had suppressed the tears for so long I did not know if I could allow them to come. I knew with the tears would come memories, emotions, all the ugliness that I had locked away. It frightened me, I wasn't sure that I could stand face to face with my former self and not be crushed by the collapsing walls. We talked about the crying issue, He told me we would face it together. I did not think that I could just allow myself to cry, I wrote a post, I imagined a scenario. I would only be able to cry if I was forced to. He disagreed, He told me; "To be honest, I would much rather sit across from you, fully clothed, and talk about your fear of crying and appearance of weakness. To remind you that you're safe with me, regardless of what you expose. To simply talk you into your release... then to comfort and protect you as the walls begin to come down." Not surprisingly, He was correct. We were talking, He was asking me questions about myself, who I was, how I defined myself. That was enough, as I thought about who I was, I knew that my past was part of who I was, that if I was honest, I could not run from it any longer. Unplanned, that simple, I just began to cry. It was that simple, but not that easy. He was there for me, He encouraged me, He comforted me, I cried for over an hour. When it was done, I remembered her, who she was, I remembered it was not her fault. I feel free now, free from my anger towards myself and towards my abuser. I do not forgive him, but I do not have to waste my emotions on him. I am worth more than that. I have basically outlined my abuse in a previous post, but here is my secret:

When I met him, I was recently divorced, he was my neighbor. He was attentive to me and to my son. I was vulnerable, I felt rejected, he made me feel attractive and desirable. There were many red flags, things that should have alerted me to his true nature, but my confidence was shaken, I did not trust my own intuition. He always had an explanation and an excuse. Soon things became very sexual in nature, sex was rough, but I liked it that way. There were several times that I broke things off, but he always talked his way back in, he said he needed me. Despite my better judgement, we ended up getting married, I began to feel trapped. He isolated me from my friends and my family, I felt that all I had was him. Rough sex eventually became rougher, he only seemed to be satisfied when he actually hurt me. He pushed me to engage in rape scenarios during sex, but then the rape became real. It was no longer consensual. He would force me, holding a knife to my throat or just holding my throat and choking me. He began to rape me anally, he ignored my crying and my pleas to stop. I remember when he tore my rectum and I bled for days, he didn't care, he told me that I had liked it. I would have to hide the bruises on my throat, where he had choked me. He degraded me, it excited him. He would hold me down in the tub and urinate on me, in my face and my mouth. He told me I was worthless, that I made him do this to me. He told me I was ugly, what was happening made me feel ugly. The whole situation was ugly. He accused me of wanting other men, he became more controlling, he hurt me more, he would laugh when I begged him to stop. I believed him when he told me that no one cared about me, that there was no where I could go. I was depressed, I was numb, I was helpless.He told me if I left, he would come after me. He told me he would kill himself and it would be my fault. I did not get out until he began abusing my son.

After he was gone, I hated myself for what had happened. I hated him. I wanted to kill him, I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to be sorry. He never even acknowledged what he had done. I was angry, I was determined that I would never be used or abused again. I decided that I would never need anyone but myself again. That was 17 years ago. It took me this long to know that I did need other people, I needed to heal and to trust. The tears released me, they dissolved the shame and the guilt. They let me tell my story.

"Any real progress takes time and patience and effort. You are making real strides. Don't curse yourself because you're not yet where you want to be; praise yourself that you are on the right track."
~ Adam Rifkin