Child Abuse Story From Paul K

by Paul K
(Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Religion has been destroyed for me, trusting friends, ANY sense of personal worth and respect had been obliterated. One of my closest friends at the time raped me for years. And before that a priest mentally and physically raped me. For years I blocked it out, till it came crashing back.

I don't live in the best neighborhood. In first grade, I was getting into fights and jumped all the time for being different (white). Then in second grade my parents transferred me to a different school that they felt would be safer for me, no more fighting. The school was a catholic school, and by the end of second grade the priest there convinced me I needed to join the altar service.

My body matured at an extremely fast rate. By seven, I had the body of a fourteen year old boy. I now sometimes wonder if that helped make me a target. Beginning of third grade I signed for altar service. From here on out, life is nothing but a blur. I remember at first the terror was mostly his words, how I needed him to save me, the evil inside of me would destroy me if I did not allow him to cleanse me. I can still hear those words some nights. By the time he first put his hands on me, I couldn't resist him.

I remember the sexual abuse becoming consistent around fourth grade. At least once a week, more or less, oral or anal penetration, groping to hitting, whatever he needed to keep his control over me and to keep me docile. Convincing my parents that I suffered from A.D.H.D. and needed to be medicated to keep me calm and focused on classwork. One time, I remember telling two of my teachers what the priest was doing to me; they basically laughed me out of the room and sent me home.

Middle of fifth grade, my parents could no longer afford to pay for me to go to that school. By the end of fifth grade I had forgotten everything that had happened to that point. To this day, I wonder how much of this I've made up. Some days I feel like it's all nothing but lies, and if it weren't for a few scars I might not have remembered why I am the way I am.

Then another friend I had, two years older than me, took the exact same role the priest had in my life. I can't be sure but I believe they were overlapping. Sexually forcing himself on me, manipulating me, convincing me of how normal and okay it all is. The only difference is my friend also introduced drugs to me—forced on meMdash;to continue to make me docile. Actually, I didn't realize that that's not true either; they both did force drugs on me. This occurred until I graduated eighth grade. Then I broke free of both their physical grips.

For a few years my life was a whirlwind of a different sense, I was full of nothing but hate but I didn't know why. I had blocked out all the school, convinced myself the friend was consensual. I tried to commit suicide several times by seventeen and didn't know why. One night, I took a handful of sleeping pills and washed it down with alcohol. Instead of going to sleep, I remember sitting in the corner and crying, then it was like watching a movie. I knew I was staring at a white wall but I could see myself, kneeling in front of that blue couch, hearing and feeling and breathing everything that happened when I was eight. The vision was so violently shocking it made me throw up (probably saving...or forcing me to continue living). At the time I was up in a relationship with a completely over-bearing, jealous and controlling girlfriend until I was twenty. Dropped out of school to take care of my mother who was sick and dying my whole life but at this point was only half coherent and confined to a wheelchair. She died before I turned nineteen.

Now I'm lost in my own world of depression. Lost in college which I can't settle into anything. Can't sleep at night. Stayed single for two years now because I'm far to terrified to enter into another relationship. The only reason I have not committed suicide already is because I feel I can't abandon my dad. I can't file a report (or rather can't do anything with it) because I am 23 now and limitations ran out. I left out a lot of details obviously, not just about the abuse. But details surrounding the abuse and how it affected my life. I'm terrified of myself. The hate and anger and pain inside of me. Sometimes I feel that putting myself down would be a safer course of action for people. I don't feel I have evil intentions, I just can't control how it feels inside me.

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