Scary night (triggers, please be warned)

[ARW]

Been a weird, wobbly day all day. Cell phone died, someone hit my car - I don't know where or when. In the middle of seperating from my wife and the mental state is off the scale.

Watching a movie with my kid tonight. A woman comes to my door. Older, frightened, shakey. Asks me if I know some guy I've never heard of. Something about her is terrifying me and I can't place it. I say no. She says all right, keeps peering into the house, nervously pointing to her car on the street saying, "don't worry, I'm with my husband, my husband is in the car," which he was, I suppose. My son is getting freaked now. I finally ask her what it's regarding. She says (away from my kid of course) that she was raped in the house decades prior, when she was a girl, and is going up against the perp, she filed a report, etc, all this time later. Now this is pretty horrifying (MY HOME!!), yet I almost relax, this is EXACTLY what I've been contemplating seriously for the first time. This woman is a kindred spirit. I know the drill. Even discuss Statewide statute of limitation laws with her, which takes her aback and she relaxes as well. A 57 year old survivor talking to me, a 41 year old survivor. So I let her in, and now she's peering around, trying to place the room where it happened. I feel nauseous to be honest, but I can't turn away a sister. I take her number and tell her I'll do what I can.

Tonight, I put my son to bed and am triggered to the max. My house feels terrifying, violated. Why of all places did we have to move here, and yet something like this has probably ocurred in most of the older houses that exist. But i'm dealing with intensely recurring memories of a high school biology teacher driving me home (I was maybe fourteen, still barely pubescent and tiny for my age) a year or so after the major episode of SA with the perp, and this guy is begging to go to bed with me - my mom was out of town and I was alone. I somehow got him to leave, then bolted all the doors and windows and lay frozen with fear in my bed, awake all night. And that's how I feel tonight. Fucking scared. Bone scared. And my son rests innocently in bed - I made up a credible excuse for the weird and clearly disturbing episode with the woman; "Did something bad happen in our house, daddy?" he asked me. Crushing. Yeah my little man; here, in my home as a boy. And me as a boy; in a little grotty studio apartment inHollywood 28 years ago..."something bad?" you have no fucking idea, my son. I put his mind at ease and put him to bed. And I sit here typing thinking what I would do to any bastard who tried to touch a hair on his head. And this poor woman talking about the 16 year old girl who was, according to her, talking, remember to a total stranger, strangled and forced to have sex upon threat of her life. IN MY HOUSE!

When we first moved in my wife, who is really sensitive to vibes and the like, told me that something bad had happened here, to a little girl, and certain rooms were really terrifying to her. She saged the place and did some other stuff I don't really get, and slowly mellowed out. Of course I felt it too, but given my history I tend to stand in the face of that kind of stuff and tell it to go fuck itself. Which "it" usually does. But now this has materialized in a concrete way. And I'm about to move out, seperating, and my wife and son will be here. Talk about triggers, Jesus. I know so much of this is tied up in the fear of the divorce. I tend to gain self-esteem from being the parent and have an understandably compulsive desire to protect my family. And the idea of being alone calls up so many feelings of abandonment, and not wanting to abandon my family, etc. So I get it. But shit. Sometimes when it rains it truly doth pour.

Al

 

[roadrunner]

Al,

I think you have a pretty good handle on what's happening, and to be honest, I think many people - and not necessarily just survivors - would be badly triggered if a strange woman appeared at their house and declared she had been raped there. Just two comments, if I may.

I do wonder if this woman is genuine. I'm not sure I believe that a rape survivor would walk up to the house where she had been attacked years previously, knock on the door, and talk to the new owner - a total stranger - about what happened to her and even in which room. Sure, it's possible. But I would also wonder if she was checking to see if anyone was at home. I guess the proof of the pudding would appear if you call that number she gave you.

My other comment is that I'm not surprised at all that you have reacted so emotionally to this event. Like I said, I think it would freak anyone out. But perhaps for you it recalls that scary boyhood feeling of living in a world that has suddenly proven itself to be so unsafe. I remember that one. I would lie in my bed with the covers pulled right up around my neck, wondering if hands would come up from under the bed and begin doing things to me. The whole world seemed dangerous.

I think it's good you are talking about this here, but perhaps you could also mention it to safe people you know and trust in your home area. I think as you talk about this the incident will lose a lot of its power to upset you.

Much love,
Larry

 

[ARW]

Larry, I don't believe she was lying. When I hit her with the statute of limitations point she knew the deal in total detail. Seems like a lot of research for a cover story. If it turns out she was casing my house, she went way out of her way. We live in California and our doors are open all day long. She could stroll in anytime.

Tho you're right it rattles me for triggering reasons. In some ways regardless of her and the event itself - it took me back to the world of no safety and the continual threat of violation.

alex

 

[roadrunner]

ARW,

Actually another member PMed me to say she felt I was totally wrong and too suspicious. That may be so.

She also described how helpful it had been to her to revisit the house where she was raped years ago. It made all the difference to see the place as a warm and loving family home, completely different from how she remembered it as a girl.

There is also the fact that while I was frequently abused in the abuser's home, I just don't feel any need or desire to see that house again, much less enter it and tell the new owners how I was raped there more times than I could count. I guess it's just a matter of the differing perspectives of different survivors.

Much love,
Larry