The Secret Years

It all started in 1979 as far as I can remember. My whole life turned into a soap opera ride and I was stuck on it for the duration. Summer 1979 my grandmother allowed a friends daughter to live with us. She was 16. I was 9. We shared a room. She was my first sexual encounter. I didn't know it was sexual, I didn't even know what sex was. I didn't know it was wrong and she didn't cause me physical pain so I never said anything. Why would I? I hadn't been taught anything about being touched.

This was also the summer I learned why you don't play with matches when I accidentally caught the upstairs on fire. We lost alot but most of it was from smoke and water then from the fire itself. I felt so guilty especially when the fireman said it was started by faulty wiring and I knew it hadn't but i was afraid to say anything. I told my mom a couple of years later and she said she knew already. that's moms for you.

Also that fall my uncle was arrested and put in jail for murder. There was always a question as to whether he had done it or my other uncle had done it. I was 9 I didn't understand much of it. but I can remember him coming to the house with a garbage bag of bloody clothes and hiding them in the woods. And I remember the fight that I saw out my mothers bedroom window when my uncle cold cocked her and knocked her out and she hit the ground. I remember screaming. I remember crying. I was so upset that I couldn't breath and I had chest pains so bad I almost passed out. I think that is when the first signs of my bipolar began to surface. It was just all too much for someone that age to begin to understand. He spent 10 years in jail. During that time I was dragged every weekend to see him. When I reached 13 I asked if I could stop going because I didn't like how the other inmates looked at me. I was young but I wasn't totally ignorant by the time I hit 13. Men had been trying to pick me up from the age of 10 though the funny thing is I had no real idea what they wanted except it had to do with my breasts.

Winter 1979 Dec 10th to be exact puberty hit and hard. by Jan 15th of 1980 my grandmother was so worried they took me to an OBGYN. He was an old man. His hair pure white and he wore glasses and to a 10 year old He was awful tall and awful big. He made my parents leave the room. He then proceeded to do a gynecological exam with a speculum that was meant for an adult. It was cold. His hands were cold. the table was cold. I was more terrified then I had ever been in my entire life. The pain was excruciating as he inserted the speculum. I remember laying on that table and crying so hard and yelling for my parents and promising with all my heart that I would be good from now on and that I was sorry for what ever it was that I did to be taken here. So on top of everything else I had lost my virginity to an old man with a cold piece of metal. I had no clue that I had lost my virginity as I didn't even know what it was. It would 6 years or so before I would figure that out. And that was 1979 and one month of 1980

Between 10 and 13(1980-1983) I muddled my way threw school. Trying very hard to hide the fact that I had my period. But puberty was hard to hide when you go from a flat chest to a 36C in just a few months. Well I can't say I was totally flat. I was called Dancing Dolly when I in second grade so by the time I got to 4th and I was a C it really wasn't a surprise. I was 5'3 then as well so I didn't really look much like 10 -13 year old. After the Dr's appointment I finally got "the talk" but it was mostly old wives tales. Things like tampons were for married women or bad women as mom put it. Bad women being defined as those who had sex out of wedlock. She was trying to make sure I didn't start running around. There were a lot of other things but I am not going to bore you anymore then I already am.

At 13 the brother to the girl that had molested me when I was 9 was 17 and mom let him live at the house. He held me down on the living couch with my father in his chair(he couldn't see the couch from there) and my mother in the kitchen with some friends (again she couldn't see ether) and he proceeded to have sex with me. Only problem...I didn't know it was sex. I still hadn't learned what intercourse was by that time. Despite the molestation and abuse I lived a fairly sheltered life. I thought what I was living was normal. But the main reason I didn't think it was sex was because it didn't really hurt and i didn't bleed. The two signs of lost virginity. of course I had no clue it had already been lost. A while later I told my mom and all she did was make him call me and apologize. and told me not to tell anyone because it would make me look bad. and what did I expect if I went around in a bathing suit when I looked the way I did ( again i hadn't a damn clue what she was talking about)

Things calmed down and from then till I was 15(1985) things were "normal". I would scavenge for food. Hide food in my purse and bring it home from school so i would have something for supper. Sometimes I didn't eat lunch at all and brought it all home. I had this big black purse i carried my books in around school. Kids picked on me alot but it would hold the food and that's all that mattered. I also hid my bottle of wine in that bag. At 13 I had started to drink Wild Irish Rose. For those that don't know that is one of the worst rot gut wines and is mainly drank by winos and drunks, and I was a drunk. I kept a bottle in my bag, a bottle in my room and a bottle under the couch and one more "emergency" bottle hidden in the tank of the toilet at home. No one really noticed it seemed because when I drank I was calm and ppl were just grateful to have me calm and never really tried to figure out why. I was an active drunk till I was 24. then when i lost my cousin who was also one of my best friends to a drunk driver i stopped being a drunk a became a recovering alcoholic. Besides going hungry and scavenging food where I could find it there was alot of neglect during that time as well. I was hit alot but then I wasn't a good girl so i deserved it. God what we will believe when we are kids. I had hit junior high which was in the high school by 1982 i was 12 almost 13 then. And that started a whole new bubble of problems.

Any way this post is way to long and I will pick up with age 15 (1985) when the mood to write strikes me again.