Master of Metaphysics Essay by Rev. Nannette
As you read on, you might get a sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach, if might even make you feel sorry for me, I just ask you not to feel sorry for me. I, nor anyone else can change what happened to me. I just hope that maybe it can help some else who has gone through it to know that they are not alone.
Setting spiritual, emotional and physical goals at first seemed really easy. I looked at it and said, "No problem, I can do it." Well, I was wrong, it was not that easy for me. There was one thing that seems to stop me right in my tracks, "FORGIVENESS".
I am a very semi person, but with certain things I am very private. What you are about to read is not easy for me to tell people. In the end people needs to hear my story and maybe it can help others.
Forgiveness was a very hard thing for me to do. There has been certain things in my life that have happened to me that were very bad have affected my life in many different ways. Because of it, I have found it very hard to forgive certain people.
Here is my story: (just the basic of it);
As a young child we went to church at least 2 to 3 times a week for church activities during the week and than Sunday School on Sunday mornings followed by worship service in the after noon and than praise meeting in the evening. For the praise meetings my mother would drop my sister and I off at church and than go and pick up a few of the men from the men social (which is part of our church). After some period of time my mother started inviting one of the men over to our house for dinner and what ever else, soon after that they started dating. That is where it all started, he would tell me that he loved me and that I was like a daughter to him. When I was in bed he would come in to say good night to me, and ask me if I wanted to play a game, I said sure (especially if it got me to stay up a little longer), he said that it was a special game between him and me, and not to tell anyone. He started to touch me over my under pants, as days, weeks and even months went by he would come in my room at night and said that we were going to play our special game but a little different, during the game he took my under wear off and did more than just touching. As time went by and things started to change my mother married him and then our little game changed as well. The so called game was also done while I was taking a bath, and in his bed, as time went on the rules of the game changed to where I had to touch him also. When I started to develop his game changed again, this time he told me that if I told anyone then he would hurt me really bad and that I had to play his game just how he wanted it because when you love some one that is what you do. He started to force himself on me everyday, sometimes more than once a day, as I got a little older and told him that I didn't want to play the game anymore he would beat me with his belt and force me to play the game anyways. I can't tell you how many times I cried myself to sleep, and how bad I wanted to tell some one, but I was to afraid that he would hurt me worse then what he was already doing, or was hoping that some one would figure out that something was wrong, but no one did. I found out later in my adult life and after my grand father death that my grand parents figured it out but said nothing because they thought that my mother allowed it. During 90% of it my mother was at home while he was doing all of this to me, and it went on for several years.
The day that I turned 19 I was walking home from my mothers house I was attacked and the guy forced me to sleep with him, I was still in school due to graduate that June, I told one of my foster mothers what happened and she told my other foster mother and foster father (no I wasn't in a foster home, these people helped me with my school work when I had a problem, they were there when I had no one to turn to), they said that it was wrong and it was called rape, so some how I got the courage and told them about what my than ex-step father had been doing to me. I had to break the silence. My foster father told my mother, she said that it never happened and took his side of it. Things got to the point that I even tried to take my own life twice.
It affected my life so bad and in so many different ways;
I became afraid of men
I didn't trust anyone
I couldn't stand to be touched, not even a hug or a hand shake
He took my youth away from me
I couldn't have a real relationship with a man
I had bad dreams and night terrors and relived it all in my dreams to the point that I reverted to sucking my thumb in my sleep and didn't even know that I was doing it
I was afraid that he was going to hurt me worse because I told and he was already at that time looking for us and trying to get back with my mother.
When I was around 20 years old I ran into an old friend, he was looking for my brother. I knew at that moment that I was going to marry him, but there was a little problem, I was afraid of men, I didn't trust anymore and I couldn't stand to be touched, so how was I going to be able to have a relationship with him let alone marry him. As it turned out he knew at that moment that he was going to marry me also. Just from talking with him he new something was wrong. One day everything started to change, I was jumped at my brothers house by a group of people, and had to go to the hospital. When I got back to my brothers house I hid in a corner and didn't want to come out, I was afraid that the people were going to come back, I had no idea as to who they were. My brother went and got Jon and told him what happened, he came to my brothers house to get me and to make sure that I was ok, he said that he would protect me. I started to trust him and I told him what my ex-step father did to me. He was mad, he knew my ex-step father and he understood why I was afraid even of him.
Jon and I did get married, and we have 3 children that lived, we lost 5 children (some were twins), because of the several tears of being rape and sexually abuse, my children had to be born by c-section. I was not able to have a baby the natural way. My mother asked the doctor if it was because of being sexually abuse and they told her yes, that because of it my insides are messed up. At that point my mother knew that I didn't make it up, but at the same time she didn't even say that she was sorry for not believing me.
Thru the years my husband has been there for me and has helped me through the bad dreams and the night terrors. There were times that I would wake up screaming yelling for him to leave me alone thinking that it was my ex-step father touching me, when it was just Jon putting his arm around me. It was a long process that I had to go through to get to where I am today.
I could not forgive my mother for a while but as time went on I was able to forgive her, as for my ex-step father I could not completely forgive him, he also took away my feelings, my freedom.
The most reminder that I had was that I couldn't be completely intimate with my husband. To me there is a difference between having sex and making love. Thru the years I always said we don't have sex, we make love to each other, but in fact it was just sex. I couldn't even make love to the man that I love with all of my heart, and that made me mad to the point that I could not forgive my ex-step father for what he did to me. My hubby and I just had our 23rd. Wedding annv., we have been together for almost 24 years, and we have known each other for almost 43 years.
Through a friend, a man that my husband works with told him about a friend of his that is a minister (plays the same on-line game that we all play), whose group was having a Thanksgiving Outreach. My husband told me about it, our one daughter met me there, I really enjoyed it to the point that I have continued to go on Fridays. The minister is a very awesome man, I have at many times went to him and talked about different things that was happening in my family, like the surgery that my husband had, and some of the others that he has to have later on. I also talk with him in the game that we all play. I asked him a simple question: how can someone really truly forgive someone who could rape and continue to rape a child almost everyday for several years. His answer was simple: if you are a true Christian, you than can forgive him.
I had to think about what he said to me for several days, yes it took me several days to go over in my mind back to the day when my hubby and I started to date until now. I had to take a long hard look at how my life was affected by what happened to me and how it has affected the sexual part of our relationship. I didn't really have any feelings or emotions while we were intimate with each other. Sometimes when I don't know things do change, I am happy to say that I am able to make love to and with my hubby and to have him make love to me. I am not afraid to let a male shake my hand, or even to give me a hug.
The most important thing is that because I am able to feel again, that I am not afraid anymore of males or even my ex-step father (I don't trust him, and I don't ever want him around my children or grand children) and I can truly know what it is like to love again and to be loved no matter if it just a love between friends, a love between wife and husband, or even a love that we share while being intimate with each other. I also have my freedom, to say no when I don't want to be intimate and don't have to worry about getting beat and than being forced to do it anyways. From this somehow I was able to forgive and didn't even know that I had. I would not have known it, if wasn't for my minister, my friend to open my eyes, my heart and to make me take a good hard look at it to make me realized that I did forgive my ex-step father. I know that one day he will have to answer to God for what he did to me.
What makes a person do sick things like that to anyone but especially to a child is beyond me. I know now that it was not my fault, and that I didn't do anything wrong to deserve what he did to me.
I thank God for bringing Jim, the guy from my husband work into our lives, because through him God brought Tony, at first I knew him as Rahammer (his toon in the on-line game that we all play) into our lives, into my life, other wise I would not have known that I did forgive him. Seeing that I forgave him, I can forgive myself for not breaking the silence when I was a child. Now I know that I can forgive anyone that did or might in the future do wrong to me.
As you could just tell forgiveness was a really huge problem for me and I just ask that you understand how hard it was for me. I believe that God knew it was a problem, and for some reason only he knows why it took me this long to realize that I did and can forgive. I don't know if what has happened to me was in Gods plans, but I believe that God did have in his plans for me to meet Jim, Tony and his wife Joy and others in his group. To say the least somewhere in mine and my hubby life our paths had already crossed, don't know where, and don't know when but they have.
It was and is hard at times for me to tell my story, therefore I thank you for reading my story, I know it is long, and I am not sorry for it being long. My story has to be told, it might just help someone else who has gone through something like it themselves. I know that I am still healing from it, and I know that it does not run my life. The most important thing is that I can trust others and I can trust God. I can feel and have emotions again and I can FORGIVE.
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