There are a couple things pressing down on me, kinda shushing down the brain slopes and gathering momentum toward a blog post.  Today's post is one of those that has finally hit bottom and needs written.  It's about the doings at Penn State.  Yeah - I know lots of people have written about their outrage, their confusion, and their disappointment (join the club).  The thing is, most of those people don't know anyone who has lived through childhood sexual abuse (well they DO, they just don't know it).

I could give a big rat's ass about Joe Paterno, about Penn State football, about the careers or lives of the players and coaches, or about the disappointed student body.  My heart reaches out to those 10 little boys.  It knows how this may affect their lives forever.  I'm disappointed that 6 "good" men did nothing but stand and watch and so it continued.  I think of the boys that might have been spared that experience if that young coach had called the police instead of his boss.  Obviously he didn't think what he witnessed was a crime worthy of it and that makes me want to slap the ever lovin shit out of him.

It's taken me a week to be sane enough to write to this topic because that case stirred up memories, feelings and a flood of tears around my own abuse.  Survivors may learn to live with it, but we never really leave it behind.  IT NEVER GOES AWAY.  So for those of you reading this, to whom childhood sexual abuse is an abstraction let me make it concrete for you.

My abuse began before I remember.  That means every notion I have of who I am contains that.  I don't know who I am without it.  Just like I will always be white and female, I will also always be a survivor.  It has molded and shaped almost every part of my life over the last 45 years.  And it will continue to do so.  I don't say that in a blamey way - more as a statement of how things are so that people can see that what happened in that locker room that seemed 'not a crime' has more effect than just that one action.

Mostly I am an OK happy go lucky middle aged woman.  Sometimes not.  This week on the heels of the PSU announcement the TV show GLEE had a very beautifully done episode about losing your virginity.  I got so angry, even as I recognized the sensitivity with which it had been done.  Angry because I did not get to choose that experience, instead it was taken from me without a thought about how selfish that action was.  I will never know the angst of losing my virginity nor will I know the possible joy - instead there is often a sense of shame even after all these years and countless hours of 'work' around it.

I wonder if every lover I have can tell.  I worry that it has made me different somehow.  More careful?  Less careful?  Less open?  More freaky?  I do know that not a single one of them has seen me for who I am, not one have I trusted enough for that.  And I wonder if I had not had those experiences if I would still have those doubts.  Maybe they are normal and everyone has them.  Maybe not.  See that's the ugly truth - that everything out of the ordinary in my life may or may not be the result of those experiences.

Did I choose science and academia because I could hide there in logicland and never have to own or face the emotional content of my wrecked childhood?  Would I have perhaps chosen art instead?  Or English?  Or the Peace Corp?   Or would I have done just as I have?  The thing is - I don't know.  And I HATE not knowing.

My mom, when she tells stories about me as a toddler, talks about me as fearless with strangers - the complete extrovert.  My mind just can't grasp that because I am a complete wallflower.  Is that introvertedness related to the abuse?  Perhaps.  I do feel inside like I am one person.  Outside to the world another - a very buttoned down one.

Children who are abused at a very young age fail to develop a sense of self - as in this is me, and that is you and they are not the same.  They fail to learn how to say no to someone.  At age 40, I had to actually learn how to tell someone no.  That STILL plagues me.....in relationships, at work, and with my friends. Even now, knowing I am entitled to say No, I struggle with saying it.  As a consequence sometimes my life becomes overburdened with things I really don't want to do.  I get resentful for having to do them.  WTF - right!?!

For thirty years my sleep was plagued with recurring night terrors and I would often wake myself up screaming - screaming out the NO I couldn't say in my waking world.  Screaming loud enough to wake the entire floor of my dorm, my family, my lover - always explained away with a shrug and an apology.  I was sorry I inconvenienced you and woke you from your wonderful slumber in which you dreamed of being pushed in a swing by your Mom into the sun while dandelions gave up their seeds all around you. I was sorry that my imperfect life had impinged upon your Rockwellian one.

I don't like to be touched in surprise.  I almost broke a friend's nose at a party one night for grabbing me from behind in a bear hug.  Luckily someone intercepted my elbow as I swung it around in self-defense and explained 'we don't do that to her' (How he knew that is a mystery still).  At the same time it is the thing I long for most - to be touched, to be loved, to be seen.

Those are just some of the big patterns set into motion by those events.  There are smaller ones like ripples that spread from these.   Some days are amazingly free from drama around it.  Some not.

So for those people who think that too much was made of this, I would correct you and suggest that whatever price is being demanded, it is nothing compared to what those little boys will pay.

Lastly, I applaud a mother who knew her child well enough to observe changes in his behavior, to question, to listen and to believe him.  We all should be so blessed.