I’ve been told a lot that you can’t hold onto the past.
Maybe that’s true for a lot of people, but those people aren’t me. My life….it boils down to one point in time. I am thoroughly convinced that if this one thing hadn’t happened to me, then maybe things would’ve turned out differently.
The rape…..yes, you all know that’s what I was talking about. Somehow I don’t think it’s fair to blame all my problems on the rape, but I know for a fact that my depression started there, after the first time.
I haven’t talked about this much because it’s not something I like to talk about, but I know that if I want to ever get better, I need to revisit these memories, the ones I’ve kept hidden in the deepest, darkest, most obscure corner of my mind; the ones that never went away.
Funny thing…. My dad still knows the guy. He doesnt talk to him or anything like that, but he still has his cell phone number tucked away into the contacts of his phone, which is why I chose to do something incredibly stupid.
I called him.
“Hello?”
I couldn’t believe after all these years I still recognized his voice. I’d heard it over and over in my head, in my dreams, in my nightmares, but I never thought I’d have to hear it out loud again.
“Is this Teddy?” I tried to steady my breathing but my heart was thundering inside my chest.
“Violet?”
I gasped, dropping the phone. He remembered me, he remembered the way I sounded, had I really not changed enough for him to not recognize me? I guess I wished that he’d ask who it was so I could explain myself without stuttering or crying, but now I just wanted to cry… and cry… and cry.
“Hello, anyone there?” the voice was loud enough for me to hear even though it wasn’t on speaker.
I stooped down and swiped the phone up, letting it shake in my hand.
“I’m here”.
“Violet Blake, well if that name doesn’t bring back memories”, he said, his voice full of…sweetness.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight, not willing enough to let the tears fall. Which memories did my name bring back?
“I need to talk to you”, I stammered, licking my salted lips.
“How have you been? I don’t think I’ve seen you in ages, I’m actually surprised to hear from you, I figured you and your father kind of drifted apart after he moved”.
My mouth dropped open in awe, his voice sounded so sincere, so kind, not the evil, consumed-with-power voice I remembered.
Then I got it: He didn’t remember.
“Um, I’ve been fine you could say” I lied straight through my teeth.
“That’s fantastic news! You wouldn’t believe everything thats happened since I last saw you, I’m a lawyer now!”
I almost dropped the phone again, OH…MY…GOD. A lawyer??? How the hell did an abusive rapeist turn into a lawyer, someone who seeks justice where it’s due, did the legal system have no eyes?! He was right, I wouldn’t believe it.
“That’s great Teddy, I’m…happy for you”, I strained on the word happy, it was the last thing I felt towards him.
“Hey Vi, I’ve got to get going, my lunch break is almost over, but feel free to call me anytime, okay hun?”
“yeah, sure thing Ted, bye”.
I flipped the phone shut and ran into my room, flinging myself onto the bed and slamming my fist into the mattress, feeling even more helpless then I’d ever had in my entire life.
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, that I’d just call him up and confront him? Tell him to beg for my forgiveness, to take it back? You can’t take what you’ve already said or done back, as much as may want too you just can’t, there’s no do-over’s or retakes, you take what you got and go with it.
I thought if I heard his voice all my anger would come crawling back to me, the anger I felt at him for stripping me of everything that I’d once held dear and allowing me to fall into this state of depression where I just feel like the most awful thing that ever walked on the face of the earth. But it didn’t. I wasn’t angry, not in the least. This is going to sound crazy but I was….jealous. He had turned his life around, became something that he could be proud of, and I hadn’t done that! I wanted to be something like a lawyer or a doctor, invest all my time in something that would make me the person I wanted to be, a good person, but I hadn’t been trying. He had done the right thing and changed who he was for the better, why the hell was I incapable of something like that?
It makes no sense to me that a RAPEIST can totally transform himself into this good person who helps others while an unhealthy sixteen year old can’t even seem to do that. What the hell is wrong with me? Shouldn’t the odds of a depressed seixteen year old girl getting better over a serial rapeist be in my favor?
I guess the odds have changed.
 I should be trying to get better. I’ve always thought that there was no way that I could get over what happened to me, that instead I was going to just let it be there and let it consume me because I didn’t have any other choice, I had always felt like I was out of options with my life.
I know I’m not out of options, but after that phone call I feel like I’m even worse off then I’d originally thought.
My rapeist has forgotten all about the little girl he broke like a porcelain doll, so I guess now I have to find a different way to put myself back together.
6 comments
Hi Violet, I’m seventeen and I’m supposedly depressed also, but I don’t know exactly what triggered the start of my mental health problems. I’ve never been raped or been pyshically abused, so you don’t have to listen to word I say, but I’m just writing this comment to let you know that someone is listening to you. In your post it sounds like you are using the rape as an excuse, but that’s ok, because it’s not one, it is in fact a perfectly good reason to be depressed and is probably the root cause of that depression. The reason your rapist can change his life is, because he was the one with all the power in the first place. You’re the victim and quite rightly as you put it he stripped you of all the things you hold dear. By forcing himself on you he managed to take away your free-will and your control over your life which in turn caused you to start loathing yourself and blaming yourself for what he did to you. People who say that you can’t hold on to your past forever are being unfair to you, because they obviously can’t understand the concept of an act of rape being a traumatic experience that can leave a person scarred for life. Ok, so you made a mistake by calling him, but so what, you’re in a really bad place at the moment and so it’s understandable why you did it. What you need to do now is look at the positives in your life like the fact that you have made it this far, which must have taken guts after what happened to you. Another positive is that he’s out of your life, for now, if that’s how you let things stay. I’d be lying if I said you had an easy road ahead of you in your life, but take each day as it comes and stick close to those you love and who love you back. Most of the advice I’ve given you is hypocritical of myself and I haven’t been in your situation, so I can’t really talk and like I said you don’t have to listen. I can, however relate to the fact that you felt like just letting your depression cosume you and then being frustrated with yourself for not trying to get better. I have led myself to believe that I will die by suicide and it’s almost a certainty, because I can’t see a way for me through my own darkness. Unlike you though I don’t feel like I have a good reason to feel this bad. The rape and the rapist are always going to feel like a part of your life, but what hasn’t killed you has made you stronger, just by getting out of bed each morning makes, so hold on to that and believe in yourself when moving forward, because that is the way the you are going to beat the man who did this to you. You can do it, I believe in you! Just make a small change everyday and those baby steps in your life are going to make you that person that is so much better than your sleazy rapist and help you to reclaim all the things that he took.
C x
I’m 38 now. When it happened, I was 8. My teenage cousin (an inbreed) was targeted by a pedophile teacher, because my cousin had some deformities (no eyebrows, half bald), the teacher figured he was weak. he molested my cousin and then my cousin came home and molested me. When I refused to do everything that he asked of me, he turned to my 4 year old sister.
I too, like you, blame everything bad in my life on that period of time, when maybe 5-10 instances of molest took place. I repressed it through my high school years, but with that in my brain clogging everything up, I struggled to even get a 2.0.
My sister never made it above remedial studies. She doesnt remember any of her elemantary school years. 7 years gone from her life.
So reading what you wrote reminded me of how this creepy cousin is now married, with children, owns a house, has a job. On the surface he appears to be happy, he smiles, talks nicley to people. But inside I think he realizes what he did and how it effected us. i think he’s hurting. I can see it in his eyes, he can barely even look at me.
Maybe the rapist is just pretending. if he is a good lawyer than he is probably a good liar. The popular saying is, what comes around goes around. maybe its true. maybe someday he will get his. maybe someday you will get a little bit of happiness. i know that i used to think about the bad stuff of the past a lot. now i go days when i dont think about. dont know if its the meds or i’m just numb to everything. but if you hold on and keep trying to work through it, i know that many people survive and can thrive, you just need help, maybe, i dunno. oh well, good luck.
Hey V.E.B.
I hope you feel better after letting this out. I know it must be very difficult to even think about, let alone write about and share with all of us. I also hope that my last response didn’t seem cold and like I was telling you that you should just let go of the past and move on. That’s not at all what I was trying to express. I know its not that simple, especially with something as heavy as this.
One thing I have to say though is I completely regret trying to defend your Father in my last response. That’s so fucked that your Dad knows about the rape AND knows the dude AND hasn’t put him in a box. I don’t know how he lives with himself.
I had a very close friend who is a girl ( not a gf ) get sexually assaulted by some dude. It made me so mad that I drove eight hours from college in another state to her college just to be with her and make sure she was ok. Coincidentally, the college she attended is in our home state and was also attended by a bunch of our high school friends. So I stayed a three day weekend there with her and to party. She was afraid to talk about it, even tell me his name, it fucked her up so much and made her feel like she did something wrong. She kept having panic attacks and crying. It was awful and sad as this girl is so naturally radiantly beautiful and happy she just lights up rooms.
I was, hmmmmm, I don’t know a word that describes the level of primal rage I felt. I finally got out the name and it turns out that I knew the kid. He graduated a year ahead of us and had run in some of the same circles. Well I got there early Friday morning and she finally stopped having panic attacks and fell asleep sometime Saturday evening. I tucked her in, watched her sleep and cried for a while because I was so upset and frustrated and felt like I was powerless to help her and the situation, locked her in her dorm, and then went out to get wasted with some of my friends because even then that was, and still is, the only way I know how to deal with emotions and problems.
Later that night me and one of my best friends still to this day and some other guys made it to a house party. Walked out back to smoke some weed and who do I see? Oh you know it, son of a ***** angle raping bastard. My friends know what’s up as I had been ranting about it all night and also see what I see. They get nervous as I’m rather intoxicated and notorious for making bad anger filled decisions in such a state.
At that point I made one of the stupidest choices I have ever made. One whose repercussions still effect me almost eight years later. I played it off cool like I wasn’t going to start shit and said I was going to go out front and cool off. I asked for my best friend’s car keys (we drove to the party) as well. I marched straight to the car, unlocked the passenger side door, unlocked the glove box, retrieved my friend’s .45 caliber USP handgun, and stuffed it into the small of my back. I marched straight back into the backyard and straight up to the attacker. I pulled out the gun and smashed the handle into his face so hard that it knocked out two of his teeth and chipped another ( I remember this detail because I had to pay his dentist for these teeth). As he’s on the ground dazed and bleeding, everyone at the party is screaming and freaking out, I was screaming at him that he was an animal and that everyone should know he attacks defenseless women when they pass out. I then put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Thankfully my friend had not chambered a round and I was too wasted to think of it. All that happened was the click of the hammer.
I was so upset about a close girl friend being sexually assaulted that I almost killed a kid Violet. If there had been a bullet in that chamber I would probably be on death row right now. How your Father can live with the fact that someone he knows raped his DAUGHTER and he didn’t do anything about it is beyond me. If someone did that to my sister I would be sure to have a round in the chamber. I just wouldn’t do it in a crowd, I’d wait and catch him slipping all alone one night just the two of us.
I wish I could make you feel better! I feel guilty you helped me and I’m not doing a good job at reciprocating. I wish I had some answers for you and that there was a quick fix. Alas, obviously there isn’t. This rape thing is serious life changing/shaping stuff and all my dumb advice and lame attempts to cheer you up probably don’t mean shit right now so I’m going to stop typing.
Just please don’t hurt yourself anymore than he and the world already has. Try to work on some more of your BRILLIANT AMAZING THIS CAN’T BE A TEENAGER WRITING THIS stories and posts. I totally believe in karma and agree with tedkramer7, that sick bastard knows what he did and he will get his eventually. You just can’t let this destroy you so you can be there to see it and savor his misery!
_,
it’s really nice to learn that you are indeed an upright person, however sadly I’ve also learned that being too upright was also a no-no, was an extreme way of living, that arised me the question “should justice be served”.
A guy borrowed money for years without intention of returning. One day the lender thought of a brilliant idea.
When the craze for computers was hot and booming, there was a popular and unique merchandising plaza.
The lender said he finally got a spot there, and invited this borrower to be a partner.
The greedy borrower later returned with money he gathered and handed over to the lender. And the lender counted out the sum that he owed and returned him the rest, saying there was no actual intention to include him at all.
Later the borrower got help from some gangsters to ask for money back, and the lender turned to his police friend for help.
And this police friend told him that owing money was one thing, and deceiving someone to return money back was another.
And also according to the law, he had to return the money he deceived for.
And the money that he borrowed to, was never heard of returning ever since.
Sometimes, things past are like water that flow before you, if it ever returns through evaproration, clouds and rain, it’ll never be the same. Even the same, you’ll never can tell.
It’s not the pay-back that is important. It’s how to rest the victim’s soul.
Violet,
bringing the lawyer to justice is easy done through taped-wires and video-taped in a meeting face to face.
Of course not on the phone-conversation that can’t trap a sly lawyer.
The question is can that settle your mind ?
OK, straight to the point, your kidneys are weak. Utilize your money to strengthen yourself.
Kidneys related to the lower back weakness. It can radiate to parts down to reproductory system, and to the knees, and up to the shoulders and neck.
Of seeking which medical practice, I’d decline to repeat it again.
Ohh, sweet Violet,
Everyone who has weighed in is amazing! As a mom, I just want to hold you in my arms and rock you and tell you all will be okay and kiss that hurt away…but this will not quiet the voices in your head that tell you that you did something to deserve this (you did not) or that you are not good enough (you are..) or that you had it coming (you did not)..holding on to the past has always been my favorite thing to do. I have always taken out those traumas and used them to cut myself emotionally, much like you do with a razor. What a waste of time…and yet, maybe it serves to tell me I have not yet resolved this and I have not yet grieved that.
Funny thing about animals..they live in the NOW. Horrible things can happen to them and they recover because they go forward. I was in a grief website and saw something called EMDF that is being used to treat people that have been through traumas…google it and see if this might be of help. This is being used to treat veterans and service men as well as people who have found the bodies of their loved ones after suicide. I just found it, so I do not know a lot about it yet…but it looks promising.
Violet
I promised me not to ever read your postings again and I succeded and even this only one I have only read until he says he is a lawyer.
I decided not to read and not to comment because I understand that you do what you can, and whatever comes out, is probably the best you can do.
I told you to do 2 things. Sue that bastard ************ NOW!, you have now the opportunity to ruin his life forever, to bring justice to this sick world, where he will pay for what he did. But you don’t listen, you keep posting and posting instead of grabbing the bull by the horns. Do gather ALL the postings that you have written. Walk to the police, leave your report and send a copy of it the Judge. The other lawyers would eventually try to muffle the story, or they may react by taking actions and protect you. Given the fact you are a minor, they will protect you.
Second thing. Dedicate your talent to write that book.
I won’t be able to read your postings, because it really has made me suffer a lot.
O