A Cup of Coffee
When I was 7 years old I was sodomized for at least the
second time by my maternal grandfather, actually he was my mother’s step
father, but we knew him as grandpa. It did not catch me by surprise this time.
At least not like when I was 4. But it again it did because, I was sneaked up on.
I was in bed spending the night at my grandparents. My sister
was also there, but she got to sleep on the couch that night. I think we vied for the couch. That was the
safe place, the couch. I was in to sleep in grandma Honey’s room. She was gone. Grandma Honey
was my great grandmother. She was grandma Ruth’s mom. She hadn't passed away
yet. There was a time in the year or so prior to her death the next year at 86
that she was visiting other family members spread out throughout the country.
So I was able to sleep in her room.
I remember the room and the bed was a queen size. It was
larger than a double, and much larger than my bed at home. The spread was a kind
of not lacy but linen with the little nubs or thick threads that stuck up from
it. These were always associated with grandparents’ stuff their house.
Their house was different from ours; it was nicer materially, but it was just
as dangerous as our own house on Buckingham way. It was cleaner and a bigger
bed then I was used to. It was also a cleaner and bigger house than I was used.
What a luxury it was or was it. Was it for me. Well going to grandma’s house
had the illusion of being different of being better because of these nicer
material things and it was quieter more orderly. So, yes it had the illusion of
escape, but it was not it was the same old incest house just nicer. It was a
nicer lear for evil.
As I write scents and textures are coming up. I liked being
tightly tucked in. I think that gave me another illusion of safety.
He came again at night with the Jurgen’s lotion.I can kind
of remember the scent of jurgen’s lotio, but not quite. When remembering these
incest experiences there is a natural repression that starts when the memories
come up. This is somewhat like the reflex reaction that occurs when vomit is
coming up from the stomach to the mouth. Somewhere in the throat there is a reflex
reaction that occurs to send the vomit back down to the stomach. There is a
similar reaction when retrieving amnesiaed memories. Sometimes again like vomit
they the memories just sit there in the conscious memory partially associated
or connected to constructs but not fully available to the conscious mind, like vomit
that stays in the throat or goes up and down the esophagus and never gets
expelled. This can go on for years until the memory is fully remembered with
all its details. And the memory is spoken verbalized. Speaking and sitting and writing.
As with vomiting the natural instinct to expel the contaminant is in competition
with the natural instinct to not expel. The idea of having vomit in your mouth
is less repulsive than the idea of remembering a molestation event.
Me, well I was asleep
and then awakened, as I lie on my stomach with him on top and in me. I could
feel him pressed against me with my pajamas on. They had a raised rough texture
as well similar to the spread the bed spread I liked to be tightly tucked because
this felt safe, but I was not. In the night the spread, blankets and sheets
were pulled down, and I am immediately outside of myself. As I remember the
details I am out of body above the experience looking down on it. Simultenously
I feel his insertion wet and slick with jurgens lotion. Awakening again to this
pain mixed with the tactil pleasure of a 7 year old being violently intruded on
in the middle of the night while asleep in
a way that he does not want, and cannot choose.
I wonder if god gives us this gift of dissociation during
these times when the body is objectified. The meanness the cruelly the
roughness the sexual violation all the violence and I am above it all looking
down, feeling but not feeling, as I remember the feelings tactile and emotional
for this is the therapy. Remembering, speaking, and writing, as I clench my fists
and jaw and grunt and groan and shorten my breath, and … write. The textures
the sense of being exposed. My ‘jama bottoms down. The texture of the bed, the
spread I described above and my pajamas. The jergens lotion. Looking down from
above as I am exposed and violated. Half asleep half awake. Close to death
really. I now remember or my body memories are remembering, as I am molested at
7, when I was molested at 4 and then suffocated. And so when the sensations
again come they are different. Tactily not unpleasurable, but equally as
confusing as when I was 4 years old. At this age a different kind of shame is
added to the mix of emotions, the shame of being somehow responsible for what I
am not responsible for. For what is being done to me. The fear, the terror, the
confusion and being pinned and then leaving my body immediately. Remember I am
asleep and awakened as if dreaming but it is real. He is in me again and I cannot
feel it I am looking down with disgust and confusion with my angel with God. We
are all three Angel God and me watching the evil being done to me. We are
witnesses to the evil. There is an element of sadness here, as God comforts me
with the sadness of the whole seen, as the perpetrator attempts to steal my
soul, and loses his in the bargain. But it is not me it is my body, objectified.
Completely objectified and dissociated for protection from the feelings.
Whether one looks at this from purely the psychological experience
or from a Godly perspective, they are the same. God came, my angel came, and I
was spared the full force of the experience but now I can handle it, and so I remember
and write.
When he was finished he left. I was alone again in the bed
terrified, angry, and indignant I now am numb. I am back in my body, no longer simultaneously
in it and outside of it, observing the evil and watching a man lose his soul,
because of his uncontrollable violence done to me. It’s a very sad scene
someone who would think they could hurt me in this way for some sort of
pleasure on their part which I do not understand nor care about, and give away
there eternity in the process. And so this is the sort of forgiveness I give to
my perpetrator. Just a sadness, for in this case forgiveness is not necessary
for ny healing in fact it would be a hindrance. There is only this sadness without
anger or vengeance but a profound sadness as I watch with God and my angel a
profound and eternally sad experience. And yet today I am angry. In the now of
now, I am angry, but I reflect on my sadness at the time of the event.
I remember being terrified and anxious as I lay alone in the
dark. Staying awake. My body lying to me the onslaught on my senses, experiencing
sex and that tactile excitement that is not to be confused with sexual arousal,
for my body is not capable of that. My senses were aroused and it seems as if they betrayed me, but they did not. They
reacted to the experience as a 7 year old boy who was experiencing a tactile not
unpleasurable response – an overload of tactile stimulation and emotions. It is
normal but an onslaught overpowering excitement. That is normal but I was not
built to cope with this. The experience kept me awake, after being awakened,
not wanting to be awakened.
So I stayed awake as the tactile excitement subsided and the
anger set in. Anger at what had been done to me against my will. Just pure raw
anger, and the desire to do something about it. The desire to go to the adults
charged with my care and tell for them to protect me. To invoke justice. To set the matter right. To
confront him. No I wanted nothing to do with him. To be as far away from him as
possible. To be able to speak to someone who understood and who would stand up
for me and ho would punish him my perpetrator. This is what I wanted. This is
the sense of injustice I sought for decades and I fought what was being done to
me. I was becoming something I did not want to become. The tactile excitement
was betraying me. I was becoming a sexually experienced child. And then if I
did not stand up if I did not get help then it would be I who would be gin defining
my worth through these experiences,
First as worthless and then as worthy as I severed their needs. The tactile stimulation
was pleasurable and this was love at 7 years old this kind of tactile
stimulation was not the violence that it
was but love, that is what tactile stimulation is an expression of. This is
betrayal. This is loss. This I fought.
I wanted the adults t stick up for and protect me. Fight for me as they were supposed to do. All the lessons they taught me stay away from
stranger, to tell on them. Well stay away from stingers? Why? They would have been safer than you.
So, I dozed for a minute. Maybe longer. I awoke, came to whatever. I walked out fully
prepared to tell my grandmother again even though she almost killed me when I
was 4 and tell her and call emergency. I think I was actually prepared yes that
was it call the police, a hospital, someone. I remember now, I was gonna get up
early enough get to the phone in that limited amount of time when no one was
out of bed but not yet awake, and it was my job to stay up until that moment. So
I could get to the phone and the yellow pages with no one in between me and the
phone and the yellow pages.. The phone was on the counter next to the dining
table. This process of writing is funny as I go through it more details are remembered.
I was trying to get to the phone to stay up until it was light but before
anyone else was up .It was imperative I get to the phone and the yellow pages. When I would
have a clear path to the phone with no one in between me, the phone, and
the yellow pages . Quietly and quickly get to the yellow pages. That is why I needed
the morning light. I had little time. A
block of time. A window of opportunity to do this, to have enough light to get to
the yellow pages and the phone, so I could call someone who could help. The
police and then a doctor, a hospital, and the fire department and at 7 years
old the army maybe. If I could just get to that phone and the yellow pages when
there was light but no one else was awake, I could save myself and report this
nasty thing that he did to me, that I did not want. I knew I could find someone.
I was smart enough I could read I could read the yellow pages. I could find
someone I could call. I could be quiet and then, who cares if they woke up,
after that because help would be on the way. In bed this was my plan, and it
was a good one. It would work, and I would be safe. I could beat them. I could
save myself. I could be safe.
So I relaxed and fell asleep. When I woke I went out of the
room to the phone, but my path was not clear. I was greeted with grandma at the
table and my sister asking if I wanted some coffee. In her cheery little girl
morning voice, “do you want some coffee?” Grandma had never given us coffee. My
sister was 6 and I was 7. Coffee? NO I don’t
want coffee went through my mind. I want
you to get out of the way, and I know I can make it to the phone. I know I can
look up in the yellow pages. Problem is she will ask me what I am looking up,
before I can dial. If I can dial and tell them what happened I will be safe. If
she asks me before I tell them on the other end of the phone, I’m dead; I’m caught
I will be suffocated again. I can do it. But now this coffee thing. No I don’t want
coffee. I’m on a life or death mission.
And as I walk toward them scanning looking for the path to the phone how do I
get grandma to go outside so I can make the call?
I’m half way to the
phone walking now I … can do it. I can get there. I can do this. Then half way
to the kitchen in that space between the living room and kitchen where they had
remodeled, knocked the wall out, it starts, and I stop with my sister’s voice
in my ear, do you want some coffee?
Like a wave it starts the amnesia mechanism. I try to hold
it back oh no not this. I am forgetting. No not this time I remember. The wave
of images that would later become flashbacks,
of feelings fear betrayal, anger, terror, shame. The images of what they will
do to me if I tell. The memory, the feelings of being helpless and suffocated
when I was 4, the actual experience of
them doing to me what they said they
would do if I talked. All of these all coming up at once, like a wave bigger
than my mind. Rolling. I cannot hold them back. I cannot hold back the wave, as
it washes over my mind, as it washes the memories of the night before clean. Quick think of something. Hold it back. Get
safe. I clench my fists, and I say I will never be like them. I will never
drink coffee. With all my might I hold it back with these two thoughts all that
I can hold onto all that I can save from the tidal wave of images and emotions
that wipe the one memory I want to hold onto clean.
I do not drink coffee until I am 40 years old and start to remember.
Oh how they loved and raved about their coffee. After I had the scent memory,
the one that triggered the other memories. After this and I began to write
about experiences, only then did I pick up a cup of coffee.
copyright2014fredcelio
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Any institution any fellowship that does not support these goals and principles supports Childhood Sexual Abuse and family violence. These sorts of institutions are rampant in our society, they need to be exposed and invited to change, otherwise using every legal means available they should be dismantled. Here is one who supports childhood sexual abuse, the Gov. of California Jerry Brown. By his veto of SB 131 last year he indicated his support for childhood sexual abuse. His veto statement was particularly offensive to me and all survivors of CSA. Bear this in mind should he seek higher office. Hillary Clinton has been a friend to survivors in the past, let us see of she remains so. Childhood Sexual Abuse is as serious an issue as any in any campaign. 
The fact that it is not recognized as such does not speak to the seriousness and prevalence of the issue, but to societies willingness to ignore it. 1 in 3 females and 1 in 6 males are sexually abused as children this is epidemic. Their symptoms weigh on society but most importantly on them, often they never get a chance to heal and many because of dissociation amnesia and the prevalence to misdiagnose and the sanctity of the family. --never even know they were abused, and yet exhibit symptoms and suffer horrendous consequences not the lest of which is blame and being mis labeled. and misdiagnosed. They are swept under the rug so that American society can keep its smugness and pride and sanctity that doesn't deserve as it as it promotes the hidden cesspool of family sexual assault and violence.
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