As time seem to have abandoned me to the care of my older two siblings, I towed the line. I would avoid the basement if I could, it had been a good place to be during the parental episodes, but the disturbance of what had happened was showing. There always seemed to be so many people in the house these days. With my mother starting the church, there were new congregants with children, all which were older than me. I would stay to myself, I was not the friendly type due to the battles I had with my older brother, sister, father, mother and anyone else I happened to know. I did do well with complete strangers though, a bit odd and proved to bother them immensely.
There latest hooray for my brother and sister and the entertainment of their money making scheme left them having to join forces. They wanted to make money for themselves, just like my mother was trying to do at the same time. Anything was a plan, regardless of the damage that it created. So with the infinite wisdom that they had for ideas and my obvious brothers care along with my sisters delight of torturing me, they decided to sell me out to the neighborhood boys. This was a daunting task because they had to corral me down into the basement again. If I stayed upstairs and around the adults I could run away to my room and with them chasing me they would get yelled at for causing the embarrassment of unruly children to my mothers new friends and potential hits. What a con, everyone should grow-up in a house like mine. Because I was so small and I was cute, I could get away with walking into any room without being noticed by my parental authorities. They never paid any attention to the fact I even existed, let alone walked right in front them to see. I would walk straight up to a stranger, it had to be a man. At this point, I really hated women. I would climb right up into there lap and hold very still. It proved to be embarrassing for my mother but no one would say anything because it was supposedly so cute. As soon as I had reached a strangers lap for safety, I would look to see where my sibling were in reference to me. I had to make sure I was not close enough to any doors where they could say, "That's O.K. she is my sister, Ill take her." These were the standing orders for my repeated disobedience in the matter of sitting on strange men's laps. I didn't really ever care that this was what they were meant to do, I did what I wanted to do, supposedly I was to young to know that it was wrong to do. It is so stupid, like I couldn't here them when they would speak about me in front of me. I guess they thought I was incapable of understanding. It ended up being the safest place I ever took up residence. It is odd in a strange kind of manner, that even today I will look at men sitting around someplace and think to myself, "I want to go sit on his lap." Old habits die hard. I think at my age it might not be considered as cute as it once was back then. For those of you that do not know, I am 46 years old, lol.
At this point, or is it that point, in my life I think I spent more time on the outside of myself, than I did on the inside of myself. Almost as I if I was walking along side of myself with an invisible shadow of me. It was the more conscience me, the one that felt the pain more readily in my mind and not my body. I had stopped feeling the pain in my body as much as I once had but I believe this happened for the lack of being in it, so to speak. It is a little difficult to explain to you but if you can imagine every time a traumatic event was about to happen, abandoning yourself for a safer distance from the actual trauma that would be the best way to imagine it. I didn't want to be present for the assault anymore and this abandonment had started to become second nature to what was happening in my life. Up to this point that I am beginning to tell you of, I had stayed fairly close in proximity to the actual abuse. What I mean to say is I stayed in the same room up to now. But I began to get further and further from myself, that being my real body. I started to back further away, leaving me more in the corners of the room up closer to the ceilings.
At first I would worry about jumping back into myself. I thought that I had to be quick about it because I had had such an issue trying to breath. But as time passed and the abuse or the assaults changed in there make-up I found I was not having a breathing issue. I would wait and eventually decided that it didn't matter anymore if I forgot to go home (jump back in my body.) I had decided that I would catch up to myself when I fell asleep at night. That just naturally I would get tired and close my eyes and I would join up again with my lost self. It worked well in fact, as strange as that seems to be. By the time morning came I was always back together in a whole form of Me! Yea! I thought it was great. The shock of being thrown all around, being stripped of your underwear and then consequently the fucking that always seemed to come next didn't bother me as much. It all became something that I couldn't touch or feel as much and in essence neither could whomever was doing it to me, so I thought. I wrote this poem and it explains that I did this to myself but as the years rolled by and I began to age, I began to abandon myself for longer and longer periods of time. I don't have a total recollection of things when I am not together with myself. That actually just seems to be happening now, for reasons I can't really understand other than its time to put me all back together again. Reminding of Humpty Dumty. My memory tends to linger on the journeys that I made in other dimensions of time and space. I guess you would say that I learned to do this in my mind, but I beg to differ with you at this time and as my story will tell, it will leave you wondering about what your thinking that I did right now. But I think this is a good place to have you read my poem. It is kind of sad, not that my story isn't sad, but as reality begins to sink into your mind, the sadness may grow into despair. So just prepare yourself for the worse and you'll be fine.
About this Hell
I was born, then I cried.
Before you new it I was Five.
In between was pain and lies,
lost my Dad and thought I died.
Can't remember most of this,
mostly 'cause I got hit.
Beatings frequent,
this I know, was my Step-Dad,
he was bad.
Right before, when I was Four.
I stopped talking,
this was true, acted out and hated too.
Don't remember Six and Seven.
I woke-up and was Eleven.
Years of pain, I don't know,
couldn't tell you, I was slow.
My brother left, he seemed to be,
Lots of trouble for me to see.
When I was Eight, my body ached,
my step-father beat us three,
Tammy, Eddie and there's me.
This went on everyday,
my parents worried we might tell,
everyone about this Hell.
As you can tell I had sadly learned to leave myself for greater and greater amounts of time. I learned to look at the month and date upon my return so that I would know if I had missed my birthday or Christmas. It is really sort of a tragic occurrence that you are faced with today but then again maybe it is the reality that the word sad doesn't work anymore. But, that was my life and it was not to bad because I still remember my trips or journeys to other places. They were very exciting, full of adventure, strangeness, darkness, interesting things (like people but not) and everyone knew I seemed to be missing. Isn't that strange. I only know this little fact because I came jumping down the stairs one day and my mother said, "Oh look she is back." Weird!
Let me go back up to my story of where the actual real split in my life really did happen. It was very purposeful, it was not by accident, I just could not take the pain or reality of watching myself be abused by anyone anymore. The waiting for them to be done with my body had become to much for me to bare. I needed to get out of there permanently, so I did. I was also very sad whenever I ended up returning to myself, I was always alone in my bed and there was a growing weight on my chest of this horrible pain that I could not explain.
So here we are my older brother and sister were trying to get me down into the basement where there idea of making money off me would work. Nobody could here you scream or call for help. Its not like I ever did, there was always somebody with their hand over my mouth to keep me from being heard. I kind of remember the "come on, Karen I want to show you something cool downstairs." I would fall for it occasionally, thinking that there would be something cool downstairs, but as time would tell, there never was anything but trouble of the most troublesome kind. Once they got me out the house they would force me into the basement and throw me over into the same area that my Dad had done his dirty deed. Immediately I abandoned myself. By this time I no longer stood on the ground, I was up in the corner, looking across the basement at where I had just been man handled. Over on the right the basement door was open with more kids scrambling in just to see. It disgusts me today, so forgive me if I don't finish this story. I will get back to it if I abandon you quickly, but sometimes its a little to much even for me.
I was up in the air, I new that I was not on the ground. I understood that I was not in the same shape if you will as the girl I was looking at, which of course I understood was me. I never remember being grabbed or thrown down at this time. I mostly remember sitting up out of the way of all the kids, just staring at what was happening. There I would be in the basement, on my back, surrounded by a bunch of boys. My brother was off to one side where all the tools were kept. My sister was almost directly underneath me, she was always screaming (I hate her voice even to this day, I hate hearing her) at the top of her lungs. This was the day that I would split, literally. I decided I was not staying around anymore, I couldn't take it. Watching as you are tossed about from your stomach to your back for what ever entry the boys decided that they had payed enough for that day was and had become to much for this girl to take at all. As I backed my way up into the corner of the basement I noticed other beings if you will. It was as if I was being corralled yet again. I was obviously breaking the rules of something, maybe it was the universe and maybe it was of other dimensions, I don't really know for sure, but I know that I definitely was not meant to be out of my body. You could call them spirits or demons, that would be more correct. They were not angels or god. In fact I never in any of my experiences or journeys did run across anything godly. So there I was again, being pushed to get back into myself. The only change was they were more along the lines of what I understood myself to be at the time of my abandonment of myself. These beings seemed more molecular than I was at the time, but they were very much adult in size and all very different from one another. The room filled up so quickly, it was almost difficult to tell who was who with the exception of the very obvious height difference creating the rule for me. I new that they were very concerned that I was trying to escape this room and as a collective they did not want that to happen.
The more I saw, the more determined I became that I could turn through the wall behind me and be in a different place. The looks on there face was complete worry, almost as if they understood my thought. The other way you could tell the difference of who was who in the basement room was that these demons if you will, were all looking at me up in the corner of the room. All the human beings if you will were all looking at me on the ground. As I slowly backed up to the wall of the basement the ones trying to keep me from escaping began to try to get closer to me. They were trying to do this without spooking me further than I had already been spooked by my brother, sister and their friends. Then my back was against the wall, I felt the mass of the timbers that held the house and at that moment I turned quickly to the left. In less than an instant I was free. I was in another place. I looked up slowly and saw the most busy people but not people that I have ever seen. I could feel the mass of the wall behind me still, so I backed up to it to feel the stability that it was offering. I had no intention of turning back into where I had just turned out of, but I was fascinated that I had just gone through the wall of the house and was not outside where I thought I would end up. Rather I was in a cool and very different location.
I loved that I just went through a solid wall. I loved that I was not in that basement anymore. I loved that I was not in our backyard where I thought I would have ended up. I loved that I was looking at the coolest beings I had ever seen. I loved that they seemed to see me. I loved that it was so busy. I loved that they noticed me but left me to my own devices to see what I was going to do next. I sat very still as to not disturb them. I didn't want to go back or get thrown out of my new place. As soon as I quieted myself in my new very comfortable venue of a different dimensional understanding, I decided I am never going back. It was the beginning of a journey that took me out of the disaster and into an adventure that was not life at all, it was entities that called me to them. My attention had been captured by something so incredible I don't know if I could ever explain how absolutely amazingly cool it was for me to have witnessed. Dead or Alive, it did not matter to me anymore, I was about to embark on the journey of my life. I was in between it all and I knew it. I just went slow so that I could take it all in.
This was the beginning of me abandoning this place where my body seemed to live and I was so determined to leave. The journey, the excitement had just begun when I stood up and didn't run. I was somewhere nobody had been before. I was a stranger, I had no friends but that was about to change. It was as real as you and me are today. As you sit and read this and as I sit and write to you, there is a time that elapses in between us that is undeniable yet almost backwards. While you read and think of me writing I am no longer sitting and writing right here and now, no, I off about my day. So really you are thinking about what has already happened. This affords us the opportunity to know that I had time to get away without anyone noticing that I was not at home (in my body) so to speak. I was away and they knew it,(The human beings in my life, my sister, my brother, their friends, my parents, etc.) they were aware of it and there was nothing they could do about it to get me back, I had gone to far. I was on a journey for the first time and certainly not the last time in my life. I was in the dynamics of the begin, mine. I have never told a soul about where I went while I was away from myself. It was to cool, my own world it was not at all. It was a world of wonderment about death and the like, it was where I believe us to go, it was incredible, it was so busy. You would love it! I am compelled to say to you that it brings a heightened reality to your existence, its what movies are made of, its tomorrow, today.
I was gone, I had left and I was fascinated by the unknown becoming known to me. The most amazing creatures were in front of me and I was captivated by life itself for the very first time. It was the world of the most surreal, it was so real, it was what took me for so long and why I never wanted to return. I was me, they were them, it was a mystery that only I could solve, I was off.
Me when I was little!