I Tried To Kill My Dad

A couple of weeks before Halloween my sister and dad went out to do some shopping. Meanwhile I stayed home because I didn't feel like going out and I had homework so I used homework as an excuse to keep to myself. Soon after they left I did my homework that didn't take long to finish and I fixed me a big bowl of ice cream and sat down and watched some TV. As usual there was nothing good on, and being that it was October many of the movies were horror movies. While flipping through the channels I came across a movie that I think was one of the many Texas Chainsaw Massacres. The small segment I saw had girl who looked to be 19 or 20 years old who was being chased by a guy wearing a human flesh mask made from her boyfriends own flesh. Needless to say I changed the channel rather quickly. After flipping through the channels a few more times I gave up on the TV and decided to go ahead and take a shower and settle in for the evening.

Part 6 Of What Happened To Me

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My Statement To The Court (Revised) 17 Days Till Sentencing

In just under seventeen days the monster who hurt me will be sentenced for his crimes. As a survivor I am given the right to address the court during his sentencing. The following text will be my statement to the court. To read the original version go here.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak.

Every two minutes in the United States someone is sexually assaulted. That adds up to 213,000 sexual assaults each year. Almost 94,000 of those sexual assaults involve people younger than age 18. A staggering 128,000 sexual assaults each year are never reported to the police. This translates to a sad fact that 15 out of 16 individuals who commit an act of sexual assault never see a day in jail for their crime. I as a survivor of rape want answers. I want to know why the statistics favor the assailants so much more that the victim.

I never thought I would be a victim of rape. I don't think anyone thinks they'll be a victim of rape. When something as awful as rape happens and we hear about it, we often have this voice in the back of our mind that tells us that it will never happen to me. I had that voice. It's a harsh reality to accept, but I was raped, sodomized, and beaten repeatedly by the defendant.

The defendant held me captive in his van for nearly twenty three hours. During this twenty three hour nightmare I was naked and not allowed to cover up. I was raped vaginally eleven times, raped by means of sodomy three times, raped orally five times, and molested in so many ways I can't even count. During these assaults I was made helpless and unable to defend myself by his use of handcuffs, rope, and shreds of my own clothes that he cut off of me with his pocket knife. This was the same knife that he held against my throat as he joked around about killing me. The same knife he held against other parts of my body promising to mutilate me in order to force me into compliance with his twisted desires.

Several hours into this nightmare I gave up trying to fight. I simply allowed him to be my puppet master. I accepted that I would eventually be murdered. He then used the threats of even more vile forms of torture to sway me into performing sexual acts for him. These threats included tools like hammers, nails, blow torches, knives, and chemicals such as Drano, lighter fluid, and paint thinner. He also threatened to break my bones one at a time if I didn't look him in the eyes while he abused me. All of these threats but one he spared me of.

The defendant eventually let me go. He drove his van in front of my home, opened the side door to his van, and pushed me out onto the pavement. I never will forget the last words he said to me just before he drove away. "Thank you bitch, I had a great time."

I struggled to run into the safety of my home where I could cover myself. My dad drove me to the hospital. I was treated for dehydration, cuts, bruises, and a broken arm. I received a total of thirty seven stitches in the emergency room. Then I spent several humiliating hours being subjected to evidence collection to make sure the defendant's guilt would be proven. Sixteen days later I found out that I needed surgery to fix a perforated bowel. I also found out that I was pregnant and since I have never been with a man, the defendant was the sperm donor. One month later while in school I miscarried and lost this baby whom my dad and I were in the process of finding a suitable family for adoption.

I didn't only receive a broken arm, cuts, bruises, tears, and internal damage that required surgery to repair, but I also have emotional injuries that I will continue to heal from long after my body's injuries have healed. This is something that will affect me for the rest of my life. The defendant took something from me during those twenty three hours where he raped and beat me at his leisure. It's more then my virginity or my body. It's my peace of mind, comfort, and sense of security. It's a first sexual experience that I always hoped would be tender and beautiful. No longer will I have hope that my first sexual experience will be a beautiful sharing between two lovers. I will always have the memory of me being raped and the chance of the emotional pain resurfacing during a future relationship.

I have spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to deal with the emotional damage this assault has caused me. In all honesty I have had a difficult time calling what he did to me rape. I have said he hurt me, assaulted me, and other terms to describe what he did to me. The reason why is because rape is such a horrible thing. In many ways I guess I was afraid of the word rape nearly as much as I was afraid to be in his van. I want the court to know that I'm not afraid, but mostly I want the defendant to know that I am not afraid of the word rape anymore; nor am I afraid of him.

I come here urging this court to pass fair sentence on the defendant. I honestly do not know what would be a fair punishment. I could never be impartial because I am far too vested in his punishment. As a result I will not hint as to what I feel is a fair sentence. I will simply put my faith is the wisdom of this court and expect this court to deliver due justice so that a message is sent to anyone who would choose to do harm to another person in this manner that justice will be served and crimes of the nature will not go unpunished. The cycle of sexual assaults and relaxed judgments against the assailants have to stop. Let this be the beginning of shifting the statistics that favor the assailant to statistics that favor the survivors. Without this shift in societal paradigm we can never hope to end sexual violence.

Thank you again for this opportunity to let my voice be heard.

The Unfair Fight

Most of you have read this already but I haven't posted it into the feed until now.

The Unfair Fight

It was an unfair fight,

a struggle of death and life.
He waged war throughout the night,

I defended him off past the morning light.

No choice was given,

as he to my heart did riven.

Made vulnerable I was for the taken,

why did he choose my soul to be forsaken?

He released the binds,

I into freedom then ran to find.

Although unwillingly I lost to his might,

I had no choice for this war was an unfair fight.

-Jaime

Evaporating Soul

Evaporating Soul

His piercing eyes burned an eerie red

scorching the landscape of my body.

They saw right into my guarded fears 

leaving my spirit shamed and broke.

His breath was soured with evils scent

as his fangs tore through my defenses.

He must have savored my flesh and blood

for he feasted so many hours.

His fists pummeled away my last hope

branding me in shades of red and blue.

Marks of his dominance on display

serving as a trophy for his pleasure. 

His claws shred through my sense of worth

leaving empty destruction to reign.

My soul dripped off his finger tips

I evaporate into nothingness.

-Jaime

Body Memories

Recently I have been introduced to a term called Body Memory. Basically it's a hypothesis that the body it's self can store a memory of sorts. It's theorized in times of high stress, mental stimuli overload, or incapacitation where the mind (brain) is unable to keep up with events and properly process them for storage that a body memory occurs. For example a traumatic event such as a sexual assault may cause the brain to overload and go into protect mode, essentially either not storing the memory's details, or burying a memory into the depths of the subconscious mind. It's in these times that the body is believed by some to store its own memory. (I hope I explained that right).

Most (I think) of the events from the Twenty Three hours I was kept in his van I have a memory of. Still I seem to remember a new detail everyday. Often I have a sensation that brings a memory to the surface. Sometimes it's a hug, most of the time it's when I am trying to sleep, and last night it was when I was in the shower.

I have been very uncomfortable when hugging people ever since all of this happened to me. Which is unfortunate because I have always been a hugging person, so is all of my family, and most of my friends. As the people in my life become aware of what happened to me, their natural instinct is to try and comfort me. That's natural, but when someone hugs me I don't as much feel them hugging me as I feel that guy in the van holding, restraining, and controlling me. My dad has hugged me a few times since it all happened and I have these memories return to me and I suddenly feel trapped and as if I am in danger. Even when my little sister hugs me I often get the same apprehension. As a result I have been very aware of my personal space.

Most nights when I try to sleep the same thing happens, but I don't think it's as much about body sensation as it is body position that triggers these memories. I have been spending a lot of nights sitting in a chair trying to sleep upright. Even pulling the blanket up to my neck triggers some bad memories. Most of the time these memories are memories that I have had before and am clearly aware of. Sometimes the memories are of a detail or a 5, 10, or 20 minute event that I had forgotten or blocked.

Last night right before I went to bed to go to sleep I took a shower. I was washing myself and it triggered a memory of his hands. I keep trying to get that sensation out of my head, but it won't leave. It makes me worry about the next time I shower. What will I remember then? Will it be worse? Will I be able to cope? I honestly don't know and I am a little scared, well a lot scared of how I will react.

People tell me that this is all part of the difficult healing journey I have ahead of me. My therapist has told me and many of the articles I have read tell me that these memories are a necessary means to an end. It's all part of the brain trying to assimilate a horrible event into a manageable memory.

On a side note:

I am beginning to form a theory of my own in regards to body memory. Personally I haven't seen anything or heard of any part of the human body that can store a memory other than the brain. It's because of that I believe there's really no such thing as a body memory in technical terms. I think when something so traumatic is happening to us our brain tries to protect us by skipping the processing of what's happening and goes straight to the storage. As a result the memories of these traumatic events are raw in nature and unorganized. My understanding of the way memory works in the brain is that a memory is organized by input senses. Meaning your memory of a person, place, thing, or event might be categorized by smell, sound, color, sensation, and taste. Further each subsequent event that stems off from the original memory is further organized in much the same way. Sort of like a hierarchy of folders in a computer.

With that in mind it seems practical to me that a body memory is less about an actual memory stored within the body as opposed to the brain, then it is a physical sensory of one of the five human senses that bring to the surface an unprocessed raw memory to finally be processed.

Maybe I am way off in my theory, or it is common knowledge to others. Either way I'm just trying to understand what I am going through.