You are strong and brave

Growing up I remember mostly being alone. I can remember playing in the mud making mud pies or sitting outside in the grass, but mostly I was alone. I don't remember playing with other kids on the playground or even with my sisters, my memories are just me and me. I don't know when that started to happen, but I do know that I wasn't able to remember most of my childhood. I really couldn't remember much of my life until I was around 43. Before that it was nothing but abuse which makes sense with the memory loss and just being alone. I left my ex husband of 25 years in 2022 and once I left I suppose I wasn't in the chaos anymore and my body started to recognize this and it started healing on it's own. I quit my job, sat outside most of the day and went to the lake and cried on and off mostly especially at night. I had cashed out my ESOP and traveled and while I was traveling driving through Indiana my eyes started twitching which was weird but during this flashes would come feelings I hadn't felt before would rise but I had no idea what was going on. I later learned about EMDR and it seems I was naturally doing this on my own with no clue of what it was. From this point on I started to remember what all had happened to me. Before all this to me it was just normal and the abuse wasn't really abuse. It took me until September 2023 to realize what had happened to me was not ok. I was watching the movie Safe Haven and I had seen it before and thought that was terrible nothing like that had ever happened to me except it had. I also didn't realize that most of my marriage consisted of marital rape, I thought we were married and when I would say no he would get on top of me anyway and that it was ok cause we were married and I just wanted him to hurry up and get off of me. He would be drunk and I would say no but he would get on top of me anyways and I would just be like hurry up then and stare at the ceiling and pretend so he would hurry up and get off of me. I can remember his hands felt like sandpaper. I met him when I was 14 and he was 19. My mom introduced us, she was always pushing men onto me taking me with her to meet men letting men touch me, and it was a relief that she was trying to get me to go out with me because at least he wasn't in his 20's or 30's sometimes they were older. She would take me dances just about anything, I'd have to watch her be with me in the front seat of the car while me and my sisters where in the back. So I guess relief is a good word. He liked me and showed me attention and bought me things and didn't ask to do anything sexual so I thought ok he must like but he was so jealous something I thought was cute like he really liked me. But before all this all I had known was hands hitting me and men touching me and my mom just watching it all as if it was ok. The first time we were together it was in the front seat of his tracker I was 16 and he was 21 by then I thought it was cool that older men liked me. It's taken me a long time to see that wasn't ok either. I was just a kid and didn't get to do kid things. But I didn't like it the first time it happened, he got mad at me but I can't remember what he said. It felt disgusting and it just hurt. I didn't ever want to do it again but we did. He would take me to the woods or somewhere quiet. It had really started when I was 14 but not being in me just using his hands. It felt so intense but I still didn't like it I just didn't understand what I was feeling. My mom would be in the bed next to us. We got married when I was 17 my dad signed the papers. Social workers (I was also in foster care as a teenager) would encourage me to be with him saying he was a better influence for me he was not. They didn't know because I just never told anyone. He was like that guy off that movie Fear I think is the name of it. I used to watch that movie and think oh I have that guy isn't that cool. I have suffered alot in my life too much to write about in one story, but I didn't realize until maybe a month ago that it felt disgusting to me the first time we did it (my ex) because when I was 11 my mom let a mom touch me down there and she was in the car his hand felt so heavy inside of me I couldn't move it, my two sisters were right beside me with my mom in the front seat and ask her for him to stop and she laughed at me and told I hope you never get a boyfriend. So somewhere in my mind I thought when I get a boyfriend I had to let him do whatever he wanted to which also led to the entire time I was with my ex. Prior to that there are many men that she would bring home from the dances, one guy I hid from all night in between my sisters in their bed I was between 11 and almost 12. She had brought him home, but I had danced with a cute boy that night but she wouldn't let me talk to him. The cute boy had told the man so the man said that I was easy (the man from the car) and that seemed to initiate him touching me. The cute boy who was also 19 when I was 13, came to visit me one day and I remember having the conversation but not sure what was said I think he told me he didn't say that come to find out it was his uncle. He died this August (the man from the car) and I won't lie I was glad he was gone I finally felt safe in some ways and was able to open up about it in therapy. The boy that had visited is in prison for a long time. During his visit he wanted to have sex but I don't remember what happened I just know he never came back after that. When I was a little girl there was a man that worked with my granny at her Flower Shop and this man glasses nice normal person he also hurt me and those memories are starting to surface now through EMDR. In my last session I can remember all these horrible things he said to me. I have seen him a few times but his name is plastered all over the town I live in. I was between 4 and 6 when all this happened. There is a flash of me when I was a flower girl and his hand under my dress. Some days I just want to runaway far far away and live in cave away from the world. Right now I am not working because it seems every job I try and get becomes to stressful for me but it's hard because I can't take care of myself financially and I had to move back in with my ex. I don't have family or friends to go to been isolated most of my life and my mom is still alive but I don't have anything to do with her. I stay to myself away from him (my ex) and we are not together, but I did try talking to him about all the things he has done to me he was also very physically and emotionally and financially abusive towards me and he told it's in the past nothing to do about it now. So I stopped trying to get him to see what he did was wrong, I am honestly not sure he understands it was wrong not that makes it excused. I did try and stay at a DV shelter last year and that place triggered me so much I had to leave. I have also called other shelters and found that so many of them don't have funds or enough room for people and they aren't trained well if at all in helping people with abuse. They merely seem to be a babysitter. I've been homeless, slept in my car, couch hopped you name and it's all too much for me so I came back to a place I was familiar with so I could keep healing and maybe cause he is too old to bother me anymore idk but he doesn't bother me anymore my ex and I have set strict boundaries for him. I have my own space, but I am healing through all of this well after all of this and my story isn't ideal but it's mine and for now I am doing the best I can with what I have. I'm currently working on my Masters in Mental Health Counseling and want to be a child therapist when I'm done. If anything I can take all these painful experiences and help children with their trauma.