self esteem: II

self-esteem (noun) -  confidence in one’s own worth or abilities; self-respect.

this is something I’ve never spoken about with anyone before, because just simply thinking about it is too overwhelming most of the time. but I’m going to try my best to properly articulate all of these stray thoughts that have been building for 2 decades.

it’s also humiliating. how am I supposed to tell my friends and family that I completely and utterly despise everything that I am? without sounding like a petty whiny cry-baby? 

the vile things my grandfather did to me repeatedly when I was the ages of 5 to 11 haunt me. I have purposefully tried to forget most instances, but….there were a few “sessions” - as he liked to call them - that were so horrific, and painful, and terrifying, that I will unfortunately never be able to burn and bleach them from my memory. 

it has been 14 years since he last touched me, but I can still feel his hands on me. destroying me, hurting me, reminding me that all I am is an object, filling me with absolute revulsion and disgust. thinking about his hands still makes my skin crawl, I start to hyperventilate and my vision gets spotty.

I hate my body. I hate how I look. I hate how I feel. 

I can’t even look at myself in the mirror most of the time. the feelings of disgust and shame and humiliation that have been building since the first time that monster molested me have completely altered how I view myself. or maybe I just never learned how to view myself at all, since he stole everything from me before I even knew what was happening.

it’s almost like I don’t see a person when I look at myself, I just see what was done to me. 

and I’m disgusted by it. 

why did this happen to me? what did I do wrong to deserve this? I was only 5 years old, what could I have possibly done to warrant being sexually abused? is it my fault? is it not my fault? 

my abuser blamed me. my mother and her family blamed me.  

shame. humiliation. hatred. vile. ugly.

disgusting.

telling people about my childhood is terrifying. what happened to me was so gross. I feel gross about it. 

my mother and her side of the family made sure to treat me as if I was the criminal, and that everything that I had to endure was my fault. I was the 5 year old whore that tempted their “good christian” patriarch to sin. I was the problem. I was the one they were ashamed of. I was the one they cast aside. my mother, her sisters, and my grandmother all took the side of my abuser. instead of protecting me, a terrified 11 year old that had to endure 6 years of repeated molestation and torture - they chose to protect the boogeyman that would sneak into my bed at night and steal my humanity away. 

the pain I feel from that betrayal is excruciating.   

the fear that my friends will abandon me like that after I tell them is there, but it isn’t the most pressing fear I have. 

my biggest fear is that when I tell someone about the sexual abuse I had to suffer through for the entirety of my childhood, they’ll start to see me how I see myself.