Double reality
Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 11:20AM 
I sit at parties, I listen to people. People talk about things, and I sit and smile and nod politely. I don't tell them what is going on in my head, they don't need to know, it's TMI. They tell me: I just came back from LA, was in a restaurant with a friend, it was so fancy, so expensive, we spent like $250 for the two of us, with this awesome bottle of wine. I listen and think: my cousin's boyfriend drunk through all of her money, sold all the furniture in her apartment, and left her without clothes - he sold everything. I don't show what I think about, I just smile.
They tell me: I'm going to Europe to study, I'm excited, I will meet new people, new friends, I will probably be renting some nice studio nearby my school, it will be great! I think: my aunt and my cousin have been administered to a psychiatric hospital last week and they will spend the next three months there. I smile and continue listening. They tell me: I don't know what I should get for my husband as a present - he already has everything, how about an iPad? That seems to be the rave right now. I think: my mother can't see my pictures because she doesn't have a computer and doesn't even know how to go online, or where to do it - the onluy gadget she has is a cell phone, so at least I can talk to her.
They tell me: my sister is coming to visit me, I am so excited! We haven't seen each other for months! We're planning on going around town, do some shopping, and of course we will do some girl stuff like doing our nails together. I think: my half-sister on my dad's side denounced me and thinks I am crazy (since I've claimed that I remembered how our father raped me); my half-sister on my mom's side doesn't ever pick up the phone because she is most of the time in depression and she is usually afraid that if the person who is calling will put more problems on her head, she wouldn't be able to stand it; I connect with her by chance once in 6 months or so, and I don't know when I will see her again, probably in couple years, when I go back to Moscow again.
They tell me: I am cleaning out my house, it;s like late spring cleaning, there are so many things. I am collecting them all in my garage and then I pack my car and drive to Good Will. I feel so clean now that my garage is in order! I think: my cousin, before she was administered to the hospital, opened up windows of her apartment on the 8th floor and threw down things - all things she could find - furniture, TV, pots, pans - all of it down on the ground. All of it lay broken in front of the building. She threw those things and she screamed. She screamed her pain away.
They tell me: They ask me - did you study design? That is great! What do you think is design all about? I say - design and creativity is all about connecting the dots - finding the pattern, and then assembling the whole out of pieces, out of the dots that you have found. As I say this, I think: I have been finding the dots in my memory and assembling the gruesome truth of my incest past, looking for the patterns and making sense of little things until I was able to see the whole story. I think that I won't be able to ever think of creativity without this connection to my personal pain - my writing as healing, my drawing as the start of panic attacks, my photography as a way to capture painful moods - at the lack of words to express how I feel.
They tell me: I'm planing this romantic getaway with my boyfriend, maybe we will go some place where there is the ocean, and the beach, and a quaint little cottage to cuddle in. Oh, those will be the hot nights, do you know what I mean? I think: my husband is still with me, by some miracle, because we have sex roughly only once a month or so, only if I have no negative feelings and have had a little wine to forget the rape, to forget how my body was used against my will. And I hate little cottages, I hate bedrooms, I hate quiet quaint places - because they are not safe, there are no people around to call for help, the ocean won't hear my cries. I feel out of place, but I still listen and not and smile, and participate politely in the conversation.
They tell me me things, until I make up the courage and answer to one of their questions not with some vague sentence, but with a direct answer. They ask me what I do. I say - I'm an entrepreneur and a writer. I have a company that produces animations, but I am now at another company doing rich media banners. They ask me, why did you switch? I say, it was personal, something happened. They say - what happened? I say, I have lost interest in my company. I fall silent. They look, expectantly. They ask what do you write about? I say, I blog. I still can't pronounce what I blog about, so I give them my iPhone with my blog on it. They rid it, but the type is small. They can't quite see what it is about. They ask again, and I say it finally and simply - I write about my story. I am an incest survivor.
They fall quiet. I feel relieved. Now I don't have to smile politely and nod and participate. Now I can talk about what I carry inside. If they will listen. Most of the times it's TMI. But sometimes they do. Like today they did. I thank them for that: Thank you.
Photo by Sarah-Jane (I Woke Up Today).
Reader Comments (4)
I could relate to this on several points. I have 3 half sisters, and 3 half brothers, only the last three on my fathers end are related to each other as full blood siblings. Conversations are polite if they happen at all, complications are prevalent. I'm the oldest, one is in prison, the other I barely know (we met 2 years ago in December), one is so totally broken (our sis-stories far too relateable), one is sometimes a mess sometimes not, one doesn't speak to me, another doesn't know what to say.
When people ask me about me, or my family, what do you do, where do you write, what do you write....and I am direct, I do answer....I keep mentions of my family closed circuit and about what is my family NOW; what do I do....I write; where? here's my card; what? Surviving Sexual Abuse and Rape Culture. Their eyes go wide, or become down cast. Apologies come forward. Don't apologize, I'm a survivor....that's a good thing....because it could have killed me and damned near did.
They ask questions, a dialog begins, and I'm glad about that because it means we are getting somewhere...we've come a long way since the day I came out at 18 and the world shattered and everyone ran like there was a forest fire.
This is why I write, and in the end, they understand that....probably because I point out things that they've never thought about, I have taken the stories that happened to me that seem to happen only to OTHER people and suddenly they now KNOW someone who had to endure this...it's makes those horrific stories on the news at night REAL, which makes them open their eyes and hopefully...DO something differently and save a child or get involved politically...maybe THIS will be their cause.
The point of this...? You survived for a reason, only you can determine what that reason is...you have nothing to be ashamed about in all this, your scars make you an authority on the subject, which means you are the first line of defense where educating those that know you and love you on the reality of THIS happening to US, NOT THEM. People get complacent about their reality, they think that bad things happen to people they don't know. You are someone they know and love, or like, someone part of their world even if only for a moment. You make this a REAL problem...something that needs to be educated about and dealt with strongly. Children should be cherished....and while it is brutal that you were not, it is also undeniable that far too many have suffered as you or I or anyone in the Survivor Movement can tell you or them. Our numbers are bigger than many advertised diseases that are looking for funding for drugs. Think about all the stomach aliment (a life long side affect of abuse) remedies that might not be sold if we could prevent childhood sexual abuse.
I'm proud of you. Keep talking hon...when the conversation turns to what you do and if you feel you need to speak up...then do it. If the conversation doesn't and you don't feel you need to...then don't. Be yourself....the friends will be there.
*hugs*
The best part of the party is that I got to listen to you. Keep talking..I can relate to some of your past too!
Ksenia,
You are in the power to change the pattern of your thinking and make your pain vanish at some point. You are the only person who can help yourself. Just you alone.
-Yu
Thank you all, these comments mean a lot to me. I will keep writing.