By the age of two I had learned to disassociate. He would come into my room and touch me and almost instantly I was out of my body, floating on the ceiling watching but never feeling. No physical pain, no crying out, no movement. But still he wouldn’t stop. Soon it was so commonplace, I just thought all daddies did this to their little girls. It was part of life to be endured, our lot in life. I soon found out I was wrong, and I learned what shame felt like.
It is a memory I will carry with me forever. I was in the second grade and I was standing at the tetherball post with three other girls. One girl was a Mormon, talking about how she would not be celebrating the upcoming Christmas season. This was confusing to me, but I half listened to her conversation as well as to the conversation the other two girls were having. The blonde, like me, was telling the fourth girl about what her daddy did to her every night and how it made her feel special. Loved by her daddy. This got my full attention, but I kept as quiet as a church mouse, barely breathing. The fourth girl exclaimed “Don’t you know daddies aren’t supposed to touch little girls like that?” The blonde girl covered her face, started crying, and ran off. I stood there like a statue, afraid to breathe, afraid to show any sign that my daddy was doing the same thing. In that instant I felt ashamed and dirty. I thought my daddy loved me. But he didn’t. Not like he should. That changed my life as I knew it. I remember many times after that I would hide in my closet with my face buried in my pillow crying out to “someone” to take me away from my life. But no one ever did.
We moved around a lot. About every eight months or so, so I learned not to make friends. It was easier that way, you didn’t have to say good-bye. Daddy always said it was for another job, but I know now it was because someone got close to his secret. I learned to live with loneliness and solitude, I started writing poetry. I never shared it with anyone of course, but it was an outlet.
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