farewell, so long

saturday june 12, 2004 i was raped.

me: braces, black tank top, jean shorts, curly unruly hair. virgin. 17.
him: grey t-shirt, khaki shorts, skinny. predator. 26.

his parents threw a baby shower for me in july of 1986. he's in the videos. his parents and mine were close friends. he attended acu (the university where my dad is a professor), and graduated in may of 2004. for those years he was in school, my mother and i would bake cookies every midterm and finals week then hand deliver them to a select few on campus, him being our last stop. his visits always took the longest. he was funny, sweet, full of stories, and i may have had a small 'big brother' crush on him. my parents invited him to sunday lunch after church a few times a semester. i always looked forward to it, because he would come in and play our piano with a talent i'd never seen. he bought me the brand new avril lavigne cd that was coming out because he saw all the posters of her i had in my room. plus, he had the funniest stories of life i'd ever heard. he had girlfriends off and on and was engaged for a year or so of his school time.

at his graduation in may, i dressed as cute as possible for the party at spaghetti warehouse in the mall of abilene later that day. i went to his table and gave him a hug and he slipped me a receipt with his number and email address on it, telling me to stay in touch. i emailed him a few days later, just asking how life in dallas was and how he was doing. we emailed back and forth a few times, and he told me he was coming to abilene to see friends in june and that i should come see him. i happily agreed.

june 12th. i took my SATs that day at the acu campus. once i was done, i was headed to my best friend's house for the weekend. i asked her to drop me by his room at the comfort inn, (where my wedding guests would later stay) and that i would call her when i needed to be picked up. with me i took a photo album of my best friends and my yearbook. i wanted to show him my friends and world. i was excited to see him, the cute older brother i'd never had, but had been in my life since i knew it.

little did i know, he'd made other plans. he had brought with him lingerie, a condom on a lollipop stick, tealight candles for the tub, and a few 'toys'. when he brought out the lingerie suggesting i put it on, my heart flipped. i knew this was wrong. i knew i had to leave. but i couldn't. he didn't use any weapons, but made it clear i could not leave. it took years of therapy to accept the fact that i did all i could. because i could have fought harder, but couldn't. just because i couldn't. because he told me i couldn't go. so i didn't. i called my friend to tell her he'd take me home that night, no big deal.

he raped me at 4:17pm. he ordered pizza for us around 6. forced me into a bath with him around 8. took me home the next morning, dropped me off in the alley behind my house while my parents were at church, around 9am. 17 hours of absolute disgrace and violation.

i told no one, besides my thankfully ex-husband, until 2007. that's when i started seeking counseling for it. i so wanted to tell my parents. it took months of prep for me to tell them. and i regret it. they did the absolute opposite of what i expected. they came to his defense. my dad met him, his father, and an elder in a dallas starbucks one sunday afternoon. i never got to hear what was said, except the fact that he said it was consensual. they never spoke of it again. my mother, months later, even told me about a run in they had with his family and how changed he was.

i promise you if any one of these 5 kids comes to me with a story like that, the motherfucker better be hiding in a ditch because that is not tolerable in any form, and i will protect them at all costs. i will bear my teeth and throw myself over them any day. it was almost as painful as the rape itself, as to how my parents responded to it. it reopened so many wounds and hurts, i felt so abandoned.

i took a bath last december for the first time since then. 7 and a half years later. i did it alone, because it was something i needed to conquer on my own. mark was at work. i filled my wine glass, filled the tub, and stepped in. i felt nauseous and couldn't even force myself to sit in it. i drained it, sucked down my wine, cried, and tried again. so determined to not let him control me anymore. i filled my glass again, filled my tub again, got in, and eventually ended up laying down in there for an hour. i took pictures to celebrate my victory and felt absolutely liberated.

if that bastard ever sets foot in my sights again, i swear to you i'll knee him in his tiny little balls so hard he'll never walk right again. but if he doesn't, i'm going on. happy. not letting that experience hamper my sexual or intimate relationship with mark ever again. i'll go on, knowing i did nothing wrong, knowing i can sleep at night, and hoping he can't. and i will forever hold up my middle finger to him, hoping he goes and fucks himself. because he's the one who took my innocence from me. i never gave it to him, he took it. but i'm stronger for it. i'm free of it.

finally.

attacked

these past few weeks have brought me back to feeling a need to be overwhelming self-preserving. i've felt this way before, of course. throwing up walls and shit.

once, when i was 17 and raped by a close family friend who was 26, but was too scared to tell anyone except my (then boyfriend, later husband, gratefully most recently) ex-husband, a mere 6 months later when i found out i was pregnant january of my senior year at a christian school by my (then boyfriend, later husband, gratefully most recently) ex-husband.

then, when i planned to abort my fetus (now, my sunshine)

then when i was forced by a christian adoption agency and my parents to adopt him out. how irresponsible it would be, for an 18 year old, to become a mother.

then by my family, claiming i was on my own should i choose motherhood at 18.

then by the christian adoption agency, the adoptive family, my family, and basically everyone in my life except for a precious handful, when i chose motherhood 10 days before the birth of my sunshine, aidan.

then again, when i conceived my second (which was "legitimate"...so it confused me a bit)...i believe my mother's exact words were, "oh i'm so sorry hilary, what are you going to do?!" and my dad said "...congratulations" in the most depressing way ever.

then again when i told my family of my rape and ....nothing.... was done. well, a discreet meeting with elders and prayer groups happened...but that didn't benefit me in the slightest. i was hoping for a castration. instead i got prayers and doubt.

then, when i realized my (gratefully) ex-husband was scared of my disease, of my depression and bipolarism, and ran away from me dropping me in a ditch to fend for myself in the dark. with an infant on my tit and a 2 year old on my hip.

then, when i was at the point of taking the babies in the car with me on drives at night for the sole reason i wouldn't run my car off the highway into a tree and would keep them safe, even if i couldn't/didn't want to keep myself safe.

then, when i stood up to everyone. and i mean everyone. and left my life in texas to start a new (and unplanned! oh the horror!) life in tennessee.

i had no consistent supporter, no one who stood by me all that time, no fairy in the sky who held my hand, nothing. but myself. and my own strength. and my will to survive. it wasn't graceful, or pretty, or easy. it was gut wrenching, excruciating, and raw. it was nasty, and at my lowest point i was barely holding my head up, slumped in the corner of the bathroom wishing for death with a razor blade in my hand.

but here i am. here WE are. because that free spirit in me that my family has always cursed, came out when nothing else would. because i'm stronger than all that. because life is for living. because i'm not a coward, i'm not willing to live a half-ass life and be miserable. god doesn't inspire me anymore. my children do. the sun does. my wonderful partnership with the most amazing man i've ever heard of does. colors do. stolen giggles behind closed doors do. this is life. this is MY life.

well now that we're current...back to the past few weeks. the first incident...well the information i can tell you is very limited pending a man twice my age growing a ball or two. i should lend him one of mine. if he ever does, i'll explain in detail. it'll be comical at that point. right now it makes my ears burn and my heart explode in anger. anyway, in once sentence, he works with the same fire department mark works at, and his wife went off her fucking rocker and came to my house, attacked me and threatened my family over about 10 text messages and a few exchanges of (accused, NOT EVER proven) googly eyes. so far, he has yet to sprout even the slightest hint of a silver chest hair and deal with this situation.

second incident. my puppy, my boy, my joey, attacked me. in a more literal sense. here's what i typed up for animal control:

February 15, 2012


I was sitting in the living room on the floor painting my nails. Joey (our 90 pound, 10 month old Great Dane) kept sticking his nose in everything and wouldn't lay on the couch, so I said “Joey, let's go outside.” He started bounding in circles from the kitchen to the living room. He has done this before but always stops after one or two circles and sits in his corner because he knows he's wrong. He continued to go in circles despite my verbal commands. I caught him and grabbed his collar and told him he was going outside, and he turned and latched on to my left forearm. I was startled and let him go. I then knew he wasn't playing and I knew I had to get the kids back. I had all 5 of my children at home, one at the kitchen table doing homework (age 6), one outside (age 5), two in their room (ages 11 and 9), and one upstairs (age 4). The one doing homework at the table got up to try and help me and I told him to sit and not get up. Joey lunged at me and was jumping up at me with all of his teeth bared. I caught him again by his collar, and pulled it off because it's loose. He continued lunging at me. At this point I was crying, shaking, and very scared. I grabbed him by the back of the neck, and attempted to drag him upstairs to where his kennel is. He turned and bit my left leg and tore a hole in my pants. I knew I couldn't get him upstairs, so I tried to drag him to the back door. He got away from me, and I was trying to catch him, and he came up behind me and jumped on my back, pushing my shoulders with his front paws and I fell down. He then grabbed my pony tail and pulled it. My adrenaline kicked in, and I somehow flipped him on his back and basically body slammed him to the ground and he knocked into a shelf and knocked a bunch of things over. I had him pinned to the ground and nearly strangled him. I then held onto his neck as hard as I could and tried to drag him to the front door, desperate to get him out of the house. He got away from me, and I called the 9 year old to stand in the doorway to help me catch him. He lunged at her and I caught him from behind. I grabbed his neck and he bit down on my left forearm and held on tight, gnawing at it. I just let him hold on and got him out the back door. I yelled at the child outside to come in and held onto Joey until he did. I then let him go and shut the door. He tried to follow me back in but moved his head just in time. I called my husband, who was at work, in a panic. He came home immediately and put Joey in his kennel. We let him out only to eat and go potty. I have never been so terrified in my life. I felt like I was fighting for my life, and for my children. I know if he wanted to he could have easily killed me. This act of aggression is inexcusable, and for the safety of myself and my children, my husband and I have decided he needs to be put down.

and he was put down on saturday the 18th. we had a behaviorist come to our home on friday after the attack. she has 25 years experience and travels to train k9 units for police departments, and specializes in aggressive dogs. she said joey is the third scariest dog she's ever encountered. she got a total creeper vibe from him the second she walked into the house. which really disturbed me...we knew nothing. but we're looking into another great dane. we just love the breed. he was mentally ill, and needed to go. but one bad one doesn't mean the whole breed is bad. he was such a sweetheart before all this, and exactly what we wanted out of a dog. the kids took it better than mark or i did. resilient.

so all this word vomit to say....i'm strong. you're strong. when you're at the bottom of your world, you're strong. not because you choose it. not because you roll up your sleeves and fight. because you survive. which is all it takes. just survive. life is good. love is good. everything changes.