Confession: The Aftermath

This blog post may just serve as a series of different questions and ideas I have while also being sort of a journal entry instead.

Last week was a difficult week.

First, my dad's death anniversary was Tuesday. That was my birth father, mind you, so I still have my dad but my birth father has been somewhat impactful on my life. He is half of me, I guess, and I don't know anything about him other than that he abused my brothers, he abused his wives, he abused my mother--he would have abused me.

Apparently there were some good sides of him. I didn't get a chance to find out. I was told at eighteen I could reach out to him and see if I wanted to talk to him--he died only a few short months after I turned eighteen and I was still figuring out if I wanted to reach out to him. I lost my opportunity forever in October 2020.

First, I wrote a poem about abuse that has happened to me and what life has been after for a confessional poetry assignment. Then, I ended up seeing a post by my friend on Facebook reminding me that it was DV Awareness month. Then my friend's traumatic story again. Then I wrote an essay exposing many details of what has happened to me and shared it with a room full of friends and strangers and posted it publicly on this blog. All while I faced my mother again recently and this month was also the last month, six years ago, my abuser had spoken with me directly.

It's been heavy.

Each time I talk about it, it becomes a little easier--but each time I talk about it, I always want to retreat into a blanket fort like I did when I was a kid and not have to see the outside world or talk to anybody.

This filled me with questions and doubt.

How can I advocate that talking about abuse will make it normalized in conversation if I, myself, cannot have the conversation with a severe reaction to it? I know these conversations are important, many of them have helped me heal.

But sometimes these conversations bring me back to the unhealed version of myself that is struggling with happiness and moving on.

Sometimes these conversations take me back to the girl I was being screamed at in a locked car or begging for a man to stop doing what he was doing to me that was hurting me.

And I know that really belongs in our hands, those of us who have been affected by abuse, when and how we talk about these things. It needs to be talked about more. The triggers need to be warned about. The power has to be given back to those who were powerless.

But sometimes it's really difficult to talk about.

Maybe that's why it needs to be talked about more.