Question 10 of 10 (Therapy Assignment)

Question Submitted by M.M. 

Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years.

A: I am going to break this question up it three ways.

1) Where do I want to be in 10 years?

a: I think I want the same thing most people want, I want a good education, and well on my way to a good career. I want to be comfortable enough in my own skin to be in a romantic relationship. I want to see a possibility of children by the time I am 26 and have 1 by age 30 and maybe 1 more by age 34. I choose those ages because I want to still be in my lower 50s when I see my kids become their own adults.

I want a husband that is strong willed, intelligent, and nurturing to our children and me. He needs to realize that happiness and individuality is important, and that a big house and fancy car are just life's perks and not life's goals. He must be willing to understand what me and other survivors has gone through so that he can not only be supportive, but a cornerstone that an unbreakable foundation can be built upon.

2) Where do I think I will be in 10 years?

a: I think I will be sort of in the same position as I am currently in, too scared to face life, too scared to face strangers, and too scared to consider any type of intimacy. I think I am going to be jumping at every sound that I hear behind me and still running to a safe place just because I see a similar van or someone who looks similar to that guy. I think I will try and fail at a career and end up working at some type of position that an automaton could do so that I won't have to think. I can see myself so stressed out that I am forced to enter in a mental health facility so that the courts believe that I will be safe from myself. A part of me longs for an existence in a hospital where I am virtually catatonic and kept in a semi conscious zombie like state with some really strong drugs. I'm not sure that is a fix, well I am reasonably sure it isn't a fix, but I think it would be better than feeling a constant gnawing pain that makes me want to kill myself.

3) Where do I think I am now?

I think I am going through the motions in a foolish attempt to trick myself into thinking that healing is possible. I think I am in hell trying to swim to shore but each sluggish attempt to swim only pushes me further into the burning lava where is can burn my heart and eyes. I think I am pessimistic instead of optimistic and I am at a loss as to how to fix it.

Comforting Darkness

Falling silently into the depths of tearful despair,

feeling so alone, broken, and hidden from joy.

My heart solemnly cries out a yearning plea,

but my voice so mute scampers away to darkness.

I hide within my pain safely surrounded in sorrow,

just a cowardly soul trembling, too afraid to escape.

Broken spirited I sadly rest upon bruised knees,

kept bound inside a never ending nightmare.

Held captive by my own sense of failing worth,

my resolve to heal is becoming withered and torn.

My shattered fingernails both bloodied and tired,

walls surrounding me are scratched, deeply stained.

Curling into a ball I face the solitude of the corner,

my back facing the a world that has been left behind.

I hear distant voices whispering a melody of peace,

but all I know is the comfort of this darkness.

-Jaime

Part 5 Of What Happened To Me

I'm not sure how long it took for him to finish this particular act of rape/sodomy. I do know it often felt like I wasn't really there. I felt him physically but it felt like it was happening in the background. That probably doesn't make sense. I can only assume I was disassociating from what was happening. In some ways it felt like my brain was recording what was happening but not processing it. I mean I remember the things that were happening to me but it's like they weren't being understood and processed. I have a lot of trouble remembering the events of what happened to me in nonlinear terms. Meaning that skipping from the beginning to the end or to anywhere in between are difficult for me. Maybe a better description of what I mean would be this. With a CD you can push the skip button to play the next track but if you are listening to an audio cassette tape you have to fast forward because there's no skip button. My memory of the time I spent in that van is like one long 23 hour track. If I am going to write about something that happened in the middle, I first need to write about all the things that led up to the middle. This is what makes me think my brain simply recorded the events but didn't process them. This is the number one reason why I'm telling my story in order, because it's the only way I know how.

After he finished this particular act of sodomy he finally uncuff my wrists from over my head. He held me by my wrists with my hands against his chest. He kept telling me to look him in the eyes, but I didn't want to look at him. I just wanted to close my eyes and hope that when I opened them I would be home in bed and that all of this was a horrible nightmare. He said to me, "I told you I was going to make you more comfortable".

He pushed me down on to the air mattress that he had previously aired up and placed on the floor. He then lay down on it behind me and wrapped his arms around me like we just got finished making love. WTF, what kind of sick bastard can punch, rape, sodomize another person and then lay down with them and hold them as gently as he held me? HE PUT HIS ARM UNDER MY HEAD LIKE IT WAS A PILLOW. HE USED HIS OTHER ARM TO REACH AROUND ME AND HOLD MY HAND WHILE HUGGING ME AT THE SAME TIME. HE EVEN KISSED ME ON THE BACK OF MY NECK LIKE WE JUST FINISHED SHARING OURSELVES. For lack of a better description, he cuddled with me like I always hoped the man I would choose to first make love to would cuddle with me afterwards, but we didn't make love, he raped me. He forced himself into me without my consent and then he stole my first comforting cuddle after making love by staining it with his sick and twisted cuddle. I cry thinking about it. As disgusting and as wrong as it was to have him holding me in a twisted lie of intimacy, there was something that he said to me that was far worse. Right before he went to sleep, right before he felt such a sense of contentment that he went to SLEEP, he whispered in my ear, "I love you Jaime".

How do I process what he said? How do I process the gentle feeling and the lie of his arms wrapped around me in a seemingly loving way? I know it was all lies and that his actions were evil and predatory, but for this 30 minute nap/cuddle it felt eerily similar to the ideal physical cuddle feeling after making love. The difference is I was hurting, I was bleeding, and I didn't feel loved, but I did feel hated, used, and empty. I wonder about the future and what will happen if I am ever able to trust enough to get close to someone and make love to them. Will I be able to cuddle with them or will I feel as sick as I felt in the van with his arms around me? Will I hear the words "I LOVE YOU" without it being a constant reminder of what happened to me in his van? I really have no idea. Dad, grandma, my little sister, friends, online friends, and teachers have told me many times since I was raped that they love me. In my heart I know they do, I know they love me but those three words sound like lies. Not only do I have a totally irrational feeling of being undeserving of love, but I also have trouble accepting that the words are true or that they have meaning. I don't know what I'm saying.

During this time when I could feel that he had fallen asleep, I tried to slowly move out from his arms but each time I did his arms tensed up around me and his hand gripped my hand. I had no choice but to lay next to him. I cried and cried in silence as I heard his breaths and felt them on the back of my neck.

I'm trying to put all of this in a timeline of sorts. When I first climbed into his van it was about 10:30 pm September 2nd, 2011. This part of my story took place between 12:30 am - 1:00 am, September 3rd, 2011. I am putting this in a timeline to help me process it. I guess they are sort of like track markers, beginnings and endings of tracks of time as I finally try to process what happened to me in small segments.

10 Phone Calls

Very early Saturday afternoon I started making phone calls to let the 10 adoptive families know how sorry I was for me losing the baby that could potentially have become their baby. It was without a doubt the most difficult news I have ever had to tell someone. Everyone was very supportive to me and none of them gave the impression that they thought I was to blame. Still, there were moments of silence where I knew they felt a huge disappointment and I can't help but feel bad about it. I wasn't able to get in touch with all 10 of them because 2 of them didn't answer the phone and I wasn't going to leave a message on voice mail. Of course they already know about the miscarriage; dad called the adoption agency not long after we got home from the hospital Wednesday and the agency notified them being that they were the final ten.

The majority of the conversations were very clinical in nature where we expressed a sympathy toward one another but didn't invite further conversation. There was one conversation that became very personal and lasted nearly 30 minutes. This woman was very kind and she asked me how I was handling losing the baby. I explained in some detail to her what I was thinking in regards to the miscarriage. Then she asked a question that I wasn't expecting, "What does the babies father think about all of this"? I inadvertently blurted out, "I don't know if he knows and I really don't care".

As you can imagine, this sparked an entirely new conversation. There I was talking to this woman who was wanted to adopt my baby and telling her personal information about how this all came to be. She spent much of the time trying to console me while my brain kept spewing out details I'm sure she had zero desire to know about.

After I got off the phone with that woman, I couldn't help but feel bad for dumping my emotions on her. It was unfair for me to do so. I should have simply told her that the baby's father wasn't a part of my life, but instead I told her stuff that will likely add to her pain. I sort of feel selfish for using her as an emotional release.

I guess I will try and call the other two today.

I'm just trying to hold myself together and not fall apart.