What I Deserved

I had a conversation tonight that really brought back some memories for me. I am going to share some of them here in the next few days.

For those who have followed my journey I apologize for the repeat of information, but I have to give it again in order for new readers to understand.

I spent eight years under the care of the Department of Human Services. The first two in foster care and after thirty days in a psychiatric hospital I was shipped to a Residential Child Care Facility. I was, and to this day still am, the youngest “resident” that they ever had. I also spent more time in that facility then any other child before or after me and it has been over twenty years since I first went there.

Just a few weeks before I was sent to the psychiatric hospital I was in a halfway house, a place of transition, and while there, a sixteen year old boy tried to rape me. I never told anyone, I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I was a bad girl and bad girls are not to be believed. When I arrived at Western Academy, much to my horror, he was there as well.

I think that his guilt, and his fear of me telling someone what he did to me, really led to the circumstances of the first few years I spent there. In order to destroy my credibility, should I choose to tell someone, he had to paint me to be a horrible person. He told them that I was a slut, a whore, a liar and an instigator. I never stood a chance.

Kendra was the first roommate that I ever had. She was not mean to me per say, but she delighted in scaring me to death. I was terrified to sleep most of the nights. Before long I was moved into another room with another girl who frankly, I can’t recall her name, a lot of the names are lost to me now as time separates me from the memories. It is much easier to recall incidents.

I woke up cold and tired one early morning and after shuffling over to my locker and dragging out the first change of clothes I came to, I stumbled into the bathroom for a shower. Now, this was not just a simple bathroom, there was four showers (complete with a tiny cloth curtain to cover us) and four bathroom stalls all along one wall opposite of the door, and next to the door was a counter with four sinks and a mirror that ran the length above them (many hours were spent sitting on those counters shaving our legs in later years). Showers were required before we could go down to breakfast and we had to be down by eight in the morning. So I force myself under the water and leaned against the wall with my eyes closed.

I was thinking of my mother, wondering how I came to be in such a place. I felt the hot sting of tears as I wondered why she didn’t love me, why she didn’t want to be my mother anymore and why she didn’t want a daughter like me. I asked myself (as I have many times over the years) what I could have possibly done to make her turn her back on me.

I felt the cool breeze and the cloth curtain sucked in towards me and I pushed it away, it never registered in my mind that the room had grown unnaturally silent, nor did it register that as I pushed the curtain away from me that my hand had connected to something solid.

Before another thought entered my mind I found myself without water. I tried to work it out in my mind how this had happened and once more I felt the icy touch of air lick my wet skin before I felt the first blow connect. It came in hard and fast and my head slammed back against the wall and bounced back. I reached out to brace myself and found myself with my arms pinned to my side and darkness descended on me and I suddenly found I couldn’t couldn't breathe. I was dragged out by more hands then I could count, not that counting them was on my mind as blow after blow rained down on me. I tried to cry out but found myself paralyzed with fear and dizzying pain, reacting with a need for survival as I tried best I could to curl up and cover my face. It didn’t really help. When they finally walked away just as silently as the had come, I continued to lay there and it was probably an hour later when it was time for breakfast and I didn’t show up that someone came to look for me, that I was found and the pillowcase was removed from my face.

I cringed as hands reached for me and some sort of pathetic whimper escaped me as I tried to pull away. Quiet and soothing words came at me but it doesn’t really matter, I don’t want them to touch me. I deserved it, I am a bad girl. I deserve pain, I deserve to hurt, I deserve the darkness, I deserve to loose any and all good things in my life.