I would have been Hetero, part one Triggers -
My earliest memories are from the age of four. Rita (my mother) and I were living with my younger sisters father. This man was cruelty personified and blessedly the year I turned five, Rita left him taking me with her but leaving my sister behind. While we lived with that man my life was a living hell, both because of him and because of my mother. The violence that he subjected Rita to, she took out on me. My sister being a toddler was spared a lot of what I had to endure. This is the age where I acquired the name from Rita that would follow me all of the years that I was under her domination: Stupid little bastard.
In the afternoons when my sister would nap, Rita would lock me out the house so that I wouldnt wake her. I would sit on the front steps and wait. I had NO toys because he said that toys spoil and ruin a boy. Truly, all I had to play with were the stones and twigs that littered the yard. And then one afternoon this teenage boy showed up and started talking to me. Talking nice to me and smiling and everything. No one talked nice to me and certainly no one ever smiled at me. When he asked if I wanted to play a game, I told him that I had no toys but he said that was ok because he knew a game that didnt need toys. All I had to do was go with him into the bushes behind our house and he would show me how to play his game. I remember being awed that this boy wanted to play with me and I followed immediately. I dont recall all of the things that he made do for him over the course of many afternoons; a lot of the sex details are fuzzy. What stands out in my mind is that he was always so nice to me and that he never hurt me. I always felt safe with him and I would look forward to his showing up in the afternoons. He was my friend, he even said so and on top of that, he was my secret friend. I wasnt to tell anybody or it wouldnt be a secret anymore and then he wouldnt be able to come and see me. I didnt want that, did I? So, I never told I kept the secret until I was thirty four years old.
My secret friend made my life bearable. Before bed time every night I would get some form of corporal mistreatment (Ill skip the details) from my sisters father as a warning to me to behave for my mother the next day while he was at work. Then Id go into the furnace room and make up my bed on the floor all while trying not to cry or make any noise so as to not set him off or Id really get it. My days with Rita were not any better. I could do absolutely nothing right and no matter how good I tried to be, nothing ever pleased her. I was always being yelled and slapped at for something. There was just no winning. And then one day she tried to suffocate me. Of the three times over the course of my childhood that I believed I was going to be killed, this was the first.
I remember it this way: Rita was sitting on a kitchen chair and was screaming at me to: Get over here you stupid little bastard, Im going to teach you a lesson youre never going to forget. To this day I dont know what I had done wrong. She grabbed me and forced my head between her legs, pushing my face up against her sex and then squeezed me in place with her legs. She then reached over and pushed my pants down and began beating my bare bottom with a wooden spoon. She kept screaming at me the whole time that it was my fault for making her do this to me and why didnt I behave and so on. I couldnt breathe and I couldnt cry much either because I couldnt draw breath. When I did manage to get a little air the stench from between her legs made me gag. I felt myself getting very light-headed and tingly all over, and then I was suddenly thrown to the floor. The back of my head hit the linoleum and I bit my tongue, drawing blood. She said to me: Dont you dare fucking cry, either; Ive heard enough out of you for one day. Now go play with your sister.
My secret friend made my life bearable. He was the only person who was nice to me, who said nice things to me; he said that I was a special little boy and that he liked being my friend. He would hold me real tight against him and he would give me little kisses in my neck. It tickled something awful and would make me giggle. He liked that. I did too. And then one day he stopped coming to see me. I would wait all afternoon, even after Rita said that I could come in, I still waited outside for him. I dont know how many days I waited, how many times that I stood at the end of our drive and watched up the road from where he would always arrive but, at some point realization dawned that he had abandoned me. And as I type this now, I can feel once again the hurt that pierced my little heart and I remember too the terror that I felt at the thought that now no one would save me and that no one ever again would like me. I remember thinking that I must have done something really wrong for him to not want be my friend anymore. What little importance that I may have felt because of him completely left me and only until very recently (since finding MS) I had been totally incapable of connecting with other people. From that day until I was forty two years old, I carried within me the feelings of being lost and hollow. Its as though I experienced the world from behind a gauzy curtain. I could sort of see and hear but I could never touch, never make physical contact.
One afternoon after another interminable wait for my secret friend, I entered the kitchen to see Rita making ringlets in my sisters hair. They were giggling and playing together and having fun. They did that often. It seemed to me then, in my four year old mind, that it was much better to be a girl than a boy. My mother was a girl and she could do whatever she wanted, she had power. My sister was a girl and no one hardly ever beat her and she had dollies to play with too. I was just a boy that nobody wanted; I had no power, no toys and now no friend either. So as I stood there, I decided that from then on I was going to be a girl too. My psyche abandoned little Jol on the spot and I became someone else. Over the years that someone else would start to call himself Jennifer, and was totally convinced that he had been born in the wrong body.
And now I cant type anymore. My arms feel like lead suddenly. I thought when I started this that I could get through it in one sitting but, I have to stop now. Im trembling all over and I feel nauseous. Ill try and finish this some other time.
In the afternoons when my sister would nap, Rita would lock me out the house so that I wouldnt wake her. I would sit on the front steps and wait. I had NO toys because he said that toys spoil and ruin a boy. Truly, all I had to play with were the stones and twigs that littered the yard. And then one afternoon this teenage boy showed up and started talking to me. Talking nice to me and smiling and everything. No one talked nice to me and certainly no one ever smiled at me. When he asked if I wanted to play a game, I told him that I had no toys but he said that was ok because he knew a game that didnt need toys. All I had to do was go with him into the bushes behind our house and he would show me how to play his game. I remember being awed that this boy wanted to play with me and I followed immediately. I dont recall all of the things that he made do for him over the course of many afternoons; a lot of the sex details are fuzzy. What stands out in my mind is that he was always so nice to me and that he never hurt me. I always felt safe with him and I would look forward to his showing up in the afternoons. He was my friend, he even said so and on top of that, he was my secret friend. I wasnt to tell anybody or it wouldnt be a secret anymore and then he wouldnt be able to come and see me. I didnt want that, did I? So, I never told I kept the secret until I was thirty four years old.
My secret friend made my life bearable. Before bed time every night I would get some form of corporal mistreatment (Ill skip the details) from my sisters father as a warning to me to behave for my mother the next day while he was at work. Then Id go into the furnace room and make up my bed on the floor all while trying not to cry or make any noise so as to not set him off or Id really get it. My days with Rita were not any better. I could do absolutely nothing right and no matter how good I tried to be, nothing ever pleased her. I was always being yelled and slapped at for something. There was just no winning. And then one day she tried to suffocate me. Of the three times over the course of my childhood that I believed I was going to be killed, this was the first.
I remember it this way: Rita was sitting on a kitchen chair and was screaming at me to: Get over here you stupid little bastard, Im going to teach you a lesson youre never going to forget. To this day I dont know what I had done wrong. She grabbed me and forced my head between her legs, pushing my face up against her sex and then squeezed me in place with her legs. She then reached over and pushed my pants down and began beating my bare bottom with a wooden spoon. She kept screaming at me the whole time that it was my fault for making her do this to me and why didnt I behave and so on. I couldnt breathe and I couldnt cry much either because I couldnt draw breath. When I did manage to get a little air the stench from between her legs made me gag. I felt myself getting very light-headed and tingly all over, and then I was suddenly thrown to the floor. The back of my head hit the linoleum and I bit my tongue, drawing blood. She said to me: Dont you dare fucking cry, either; Ive heard enough out of you for one day. Now go play with your sister.
My secret friend made my life bearable. He was the only person who was nice to me, who said nice things to me; he said that I was a special little boy and that he liked being my friend. He would hold me real tight against him and he would give me little kisses in my neck. It tickled something awful and would make me giggle. He liked that. I did too. And then one day he stopped coming to see me. I would wait all afternoon, even after Rita said that I could come in, I still waited outside for him. I dont know how many days I waited, how many times that I stood at the end of our drive and watched up the road from where he would always arrive but, at some point realization dawned that he had abandoned me. And as I type this now, I can feel once again the hurt that pierced my little heart and I remember too the terror that I felt at the thought that now no one would save me and that no one ever again would like me. I remember thinking that I must have done something really wrong for him to not want be my friend anymore. What little importance that I may have felt because of him completely left me and only until very recently (since finding MS) I had been totally incapable of connecting with other people. From that day until I was forty two years old, I carried within me the feelings of being lost and hollow. Its as though I experienced the world from behind a gauzy curtain. I could sort of see and hear but I could never touch, never make physical contact.
One afternoon after another interminable wait for my secret friend, I entered the kitchen to see Rita making ringlets in my sisters hair. They were giggling and playing together and having fun. They did that often. It seemed to me then, in my four year old mind, that it was much better to be a girl than a boy. My mother was a girl and she could do whatever she wanted, she had power. My sister was a girl and no one hardly ever beat her and she had dollies to play with too. I was just a boy that nobody wanted; I had no power, no toys and now no friend either. So as I stood there, I decided that from then on I was going to be a girl too. My psyche abandoned little Jol on the spot and I became someone else. Over the years that someone else would start to call himself Jennifer, and was totally convinced that he had been born in the wrong body.
And now I cant type anymore. My arms feel like lead suddenly. I thought when I started this that I could get through it in one sitting but, I have to stop now. Im trembling all over and I feel nauseous. Ill try and finish this some other time.
