The human mind is an incredible and incredibly flawed piece of bioengineering. When it experiences trauma at a young age, the brain will create ways to protect the psyche. Most of those ways are unhealthy unless processed. This should happen near the time of the event. If left undealt with the brain continues to create ways to deal with the trauma in the best way it knows how. This is typically not healthy ways, and leads to anxiety and other mental illness. But the brain is also a rubbery organ that with proper help can heal itself.
When I was ten, a man in his 40s that worked in a movie theater was raping children. Of course, no one knew this, so they did what people in 1982 did and sent their children off on their own to see a movie. I remember some of that day. It was like any other day. Mom let me go with my friend to the movies to see the Song of the South. I either had change or she gave me some to get a snack, I don’t remember. What I do remember is being at the vending machine. I will write a lot about this vending machine as it becomes a reoccuring theme for the rest of my life. I digress… I was standing there staring at the change, I was ten and I didn’t know how to count change. This is another important detail to the story… but that’s later. So there I was staring at all the great candy not knowing what I could buy. So, I did what now in hindsight seemed like the right thing, I asked an attendant at the theater to help me. Now if you are a connoisseur of stories you’ll probably guess who the attendant was… yes the rapist.
He promised me anything I wanted if I just went with him to his “office,” which turned out to be the restroom at the theater. Trauma leaves certain details embedded in your brain, while others are left vague or erased. The lighting in the room for me is seared into my brain to the point that until intense therapy, it was a constant trigger. In that fluorescent, flickering, dingy restroom he pulled me into a stall and started to pull down my pants. All the while asking me if I cleaned my butt well. Then telling me if I told anyone about this he would kill my family, that he knew where they all lived, where I lived, my mother would die, if I said anything. Then he took out his penis and laid toilet paper over the top and sat me down on it. From here is vague, I just remember him saying if I told they would die. Then it was over and he gave me a bag full of candy. I went back to my seat with my friend and shared all the candy. He asked how I got it. I told him. From here the story takes a turn and get worse. But I think that’s for another post.
Look for the trial and after coming soon.