Stressors that Contributed to my Vulnerability
I was abused when I was twelve. As I reflect on that first abuse experience, I realize there was a lot going on in my life at the time.
A little more than a year earlier my sister, who is three years older, was put in a mental hospital. It was very hard on me. I looked up to her. I felt like I lost my sister. She was never the same again. After she came home from the hospital, she scarred me with her rage and frightened me with her disassociation with the world around her.
What was worse, I began wondering when my turn was coming. My father had been hospitalized in a state mental institution when he was 17. I had visited my mother's mother in that same institution when I was 8. My mother's sister was undergoing shock treatments about that time and we went to visit my father's aunt who had had a lobotomy during that time. The prospects for my own future frightened me.
What added to my vulnerability was the death of three of my grandparents when I was 12. I was particularly close to my mother's father. He lived by us and I spent a lot of time with him. I worked with him in his workshop to make my pinewood derby car. He used to pick me up at school. He was the best. Then one day he found out he had a bad heart. He did not want to be bedridden and decided to live what remained of his life to the fullest. He put his finances in order. He waxed his car and then he started digging trenches for a sprinkler system in his front yard. He died digging those trenches. I was shocked. I was devastated. I didn't have a chance to say goodbye. I was so upset that the tears didn't come.
One month after my mother's father died, my youngest brother was born. I was anxious about what would happen to him. I felt that the lack love and real human warmth in our home would suffocate him as it suffocated me. I felt I had to fill in the gap and love him as an older brother in the way my parents had not loved me. I felt burdened and conflicted over this commitment to love him.
On top of these life stressors I was entering puberty and my body was changing. I was anxious about the changes in my body. I was beginning to have pubic hair and I wasn't ready for more changes in my world which was already tumultuous.
It was at this time of vulnerability that an older boy I knew invited me to spend the night with him and abused me. I didn't know what was up or what was down and then he turned my life upside down and shook it. I am sure that I would have responded differently to the abuse if I had not had so many other stressors in my life at time.
Were you particularly vulnerable at the time you were abused?
A little more than a year earlier my sister, who is three years older, was put in a mental hospital. It was very hard on me. I looked up to her. I felt like I lost my sister. She was never the same again. After she came home from the hospital, she scarred me with her rage and frightened me with her disassociation with the world around her.
What was worse, I began wondering when my turn was coming. My father had been hospitalized in a state mental institution when he was 17. I had visited my mother's mother in that same institution when I was 8. My mother's sister was undergoing shock treatments about that time and we went to visit my father's aunt who had had a lobotomy during that time. The prospects for my own future frightened me.
What added to my vulnerability was the death of three of my grandparents when I was 12. I was particularly close to my mother's father. He lived by us and I spent a lot of time with him. I worked with him in his workshop to make my pinewood derby car. He used to pick me up at school. He was the best. Then one day he found out he had a bad heart. He did not want to be bedridden and decided to live what remained of his life to the fullest. He put his finances in order. He waxed his car and then he started digging trenches for a sprinkler system in his front yard. He died digging those trenches. I was shocked. I was devastated. I didn't have a chance to say goodbye. I was so upset that the tears didn't come.
One month after my mother's father died, my youngest brother was born. I was anxious about what would happen to him. I felt that the lack love and real human warmth in our home would suffocate him as it suffocated me. I felt I had to fill in the gap and love him as an older brother in the way my parents had not loved me. I felt burdened and conflicted over this commitment to love him.
On top of these life stressors I was entering puberty and my body was changing. I was anxious about the changes in my body. I was beginning to have pubic hair and I wasn't ready for more changes in my world which was already tumultuous.
It was at this time of vulnerability that an older boy I knew invited me to spend the night with him and abused me. I didn't know what was up or what was down and then he turned my life upside down and shook it. I am sure that I would have responded differently to the abuse if I had not had so many other stressors in my life at time.
Were you particularly vulnerable at the time you were abused?
