As a child I did not fear the monsters under the bed or those that lurked in the closet. I feared the monsters that disguised themselves as humans, especially those that claimed to love me.
That which does not kill you, only makes you stronger they say. Well if that be the case, my experiences have given me the strength to carry the burden of the mountain that I was born under.
The memories to this day remain fresh within my mind as if I could transport myself back to those times that have caused me great suffering. The memories that I wish I could scrub from my subconscious mind with steel wool and a bit of bleach to cleanse the dirtiness away. My destiny upon entering this world would lead me down paths of darkness that at one time I believed that no light could penetrate. A great abyss of pain, sorrow, and suffering that followed me throughout my childhood, that to this day still lingers into my adult life like a stench of rotten, decaying flesh that permeates itself into the very fibers of my being.
I have survived torture, mental, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of those whom are supposed to protect a child from these very evils. The kind of evil that festers of puss and vial, from an open wound.
My very own mother whom birthed me as it turns out was not a nurturing, caring, giver of love but one of those monsters I had described earlier. O to this day she will profess unto the saints that she was, but she herself was at the very epicenter of pain inflicted upon my person.
I was a very hyper child full of energy and life. Curious about the world to which I now reside. Many would describe my energy as that of the Tasmanian Devil, a whirlwind that would blow into a room and leave just as quickly as I appeared. I would literally climb the walls. In order to harness that energy my mother would use clothesline of rope to tie me to chairs, that which was witnessed by my own father. She would use rope to tie me into bed like a feral animal waiting to be put down. The psychological effects of this torture to this day still remains. It manifests itself into phantom pains of burning sensations upon my skin, and will manifest itself as smells to which there is never none to be found. The very last time she ever tied me up in bed, I was tied up crucifixion style like that of Christ upon a cross. That night a warm breeze was blowing through the window as the tears of fear and hurt streamed from my eyes. That night was the night that my very innocence was locked away deep within my subconscious mind like that of great riches secured in a vault.
Not long after that at the hands of her brothers, I would be forced to perform oral sex on them. I was but a child of 5 performing acts that I never consented too, and continued till around the age of 14. These acts gave me a false sense of what Love was which inadvertently carried on into my adult life thinking that love was sex, no matter what form it took. I became extremely sexually active by the age of 12 that being the first time I was exposed to anal sex. All of this under the guise of love. Giving me a false understanding that that was the only type that could be expressed. Only later in life realizing that true love came from the heart and that the physical aspect was but a mere part to it.
My mother when I was a young child found a man for her life. He was a huge slob of a man of over 6 foot and was as wide as he was tall. He had hands like that of giant that to this day would still equal five of my hands put together. He would become a person whom I had developed a great hatred for and I hate no one. He was extremely verbally and physically abusive. I was always a piece of shit that would never amount to anything. I experienced beatings from this man that would make any mother see red with anger. He would use his huge hands and pick me up by my throat and shake me like a rag doll. He would punish me by isolation. I would have to sit and stare at the walls or remain kept in my bedroom. Most of my childhood could be summed up by being a prisoner in my own room. Kept there like some dirty secret that the outside world could never view. I would find ways to amuse myself during these times of isolation by using my imagination to play, read, and learn about the outside world through books magazines, anything with text that I could get my hands on. This treatment caused me to be socially awkward and usually the target of bullying and beatings from my peers in school. I felt as if I was an outcast underserving to be accepted even by those my age. I had to teach myself how to socialize in ways to connect with others to infiltrate myself with some normalcy within the culture of society that I had lived.
There have been many times in my adult life that I wish I had it all to do again. Yet I know through these experiences that they have shaped me into the man I become. I was eager to help others, to serve in ways that were useful and not destructive to myself or others. I had to learn a great deal in short time to adjust myself to a world that was as dark as the times that I had grown up in. I believe that to this day it was my destiny to experience all of those horrible trials and treatments at such an early age so that when I did grow up I would not become the very evil that I was exposed to as a child. I had to take all those bad things and seal them away in mind. Bottle them up and put them on shelf like artifacts in a museum.
Three years ago I was working for a company, a grocery chain in the community that I had lived. I was thirty six years of age and had become a very well adjusted adult, making friends easily, expressing compassion, empathy, kindness to others and in no way treating others the way I was treated. Then my world once again shattered. All of those memories that I had stored away were ripped from the very shelves that I had placed them upon, and my life was again parallel to that of which my childhood was made of. A male employee that I worked with began touching my butt when he would walk by and on a few occasions he would brush his hand against my genitals. This caused a great storm of psychological torment, causing the memories of a time once forgotten to flood back and destroy the walls that I had built up to protect myself. I found myself yet again isolated, tortured within my own mind as I had once been before. Other employees would harass me and sabotage my work. I could not take no more.
I had ingested an entire bottle of meds Ativan. 60 tablets and mixed it with Seroquel. The lethal combination of the drugs sent me into cardiac arrest. I died in the arms of my partner whom I was seeing at that time. I was dead for close to fifteen minutes. I miraculously survived that attempt, but the event caused me to suffer greatly once again. I developed PTSD and lived with survivors guilt. At the time I knew I was gone when I died. I begged the powers to be to just let me be at peace, but that was not to be and so here I am today. The journey of my life has not been an easy one. Yet to this day I have been able to exercise the demons of tragedy from my life. For 17 years now I have worked as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). I have bore witness to the misfortunes and tragedies of others. Why? Because I know what it is like to survive the darkness, so I had to become the light to help others find their way out of the shadows that enveloped their lives. I know longer fear the darkness of myself or others. The only difference now is that when I run into the abyss I light the way for others to escape their own darkness and in turn keeping my own at bay.
So to those that are struggling to find your way to the light. Do not fear, do not lose hope because all it takes is a spark of faith, to illuminate the world never before seen, that has been overshadowed by the dark that has fallen upon you. You are not alone in your circumstance, or situation. For there is always a hand to grasp to pull you from the depths of despair that you feel. Even if it is your own.
