Upon Waking

I am an abuse victim. My grandfather abused me over the course of five summers when I was working for him and my grandmother at their cafe. Waitressing at their steak house was a summer job and a way for me to earn money for school clothes—a way for me to escape the crush of seven siblings—and a way for me to be singled out for sexual abuse. You’d think after fifty years, I’d just get over it. I have asked myself why I can’t—just get over it—a hundred times. My grandfather is long dead and most of his children as well. Yet, here I am still hanging on to this baggage.

There are many victims who are survivors and I am one of them, but survival has come with a cost. My parents found out about the abuse because a cousin told. Back in the sixties that was something.  When my parents asked me if he had touched me, I admitted that he had—many times. And that was that. Nothing was ever said again. My pain was not acknowledged. My loss of self was never mentioned, nor admitted to, until years later. We all went about our business like molesting a child was just another part of life and really nothing to moan about.

I did move on, pushing the events into the dark recessed closet of my brain. Years later, in college, a class required me to dig out those memories and examine them. It was an awakening. The years of feeling invisible, the years of not recognizing the reflection in my mirror, of self-loathing had a point of origin. I couldn’t live with the person who remained inside me—the non-teller, the wimp, the scared rabbit. I attempted suicide just before I turned thirty.

Later, after years of therapy, I could hold my head up, but still identified as a survivor, and more often, a victim. It was not my fault is one mantra that sticks with me. I lived for years finding (on a daily basis) a single solid reason to live—my children needed me, my job had an immediate need, my spouse couldn’t raise our girls alone—anything that kept me here on earth, that kept me from attempting suicide again. I imagine what it was like to be one of my children, to have a mother that close to just stepping out and it saddens me. I thank God that my girls are the strong, productive women they are, despite my years of mental illness.

There is something that happens to you when you are abused, especially for a time period like five years. A fear from deep within your gut creates a new image of self as victim. It slices and dices the self into small chunks of not-sure, not-here, never-gonna, and never-mind. But after five summers of trying to escape—of continually failing in that escaping—after feeling the shame and blaming myself for getting caught, my brain changed. I became a person who second-guessed everything I did. I became a wary, scared person who was on edge—ready to flee. I always knew the escape route. I lived on ‘high alert’ well passed the days when I needed to be. High alert became my constant state throughout my young adult life, well into my thirties.

Imagine what it was like to date a person like me. In the years I dated and met my husband, I was in a state of denial, a brittle young woman who was approachable, yet like a deer in the headlights.  But after I faced this part of my life, my poor husband had a wife who was almost untouchable. “Don’t touch me there,” was a common bedroom occurrence. The many times I involuntarily flinched at his touch are too numerous to mention. Yet, we managed to conceive and raise four really wonderful daughters. And I attribute that to my husband’s sensitivity and determination to help me make it work. 

Now, fifty some years later, I am one of two editors and a contributor to a poetry anthology that speaks to this very topic. Upon Waking: 58 voices Speaking Out From the Shadow of Abuse is a book that shares viewpoints from fifty-eight people about sexual and physical abuse. Imagine. Fifty-eight people. I found more than fifty-eight people like me, but we didn’t choose to print all the poems we received. Yet, at least fifty-eight people were willing to share a glimpse of how abuse has affected them. I am eternally grateful to these fifty-eight folks who were courageous enough to speak. Yet, fifty-eight voices is just a drop in the bucket of how many people are sexually abused each year. The statistics state that one-in-four girls and one-in-six boys will be abused before the age of eighteen here in the USA.

In this age of #MeToo, I am also speaking out about abuse and people say I am so courageous, they hold me in awe. I can only shy away from that kind of remark because I am still only looking at myself in the mirror sideways. I haven’t yet been able to see myself face forward and know it is me—the real me.  I’m still searching for her. Even though I get up in front of audiences and tell my story, inside I’m quaking. Inside I’m worrying that I am not accurate, that I am only seeking attention, that I am less than worthy. 

One of the poems in this anthology is from an anonymous poet. I thought putting that one in was especially poignant and proves that some of us are still too unsure to step out into the light. “It is not an easy thing to share one’s poetry with the world. It is even more difficult to share when they are personal tragedies,” says Peter Stein in the book’s forward. I agree, which is why I wanted to give that woman her moment to voice the pain.

We need to change the social norm so victims don’t feel the need to keep silent for fifty years, so perpetrators don’t get off scot-free because we are afraid to tell. We need to teach our children when they are young about how wonderful their body is—using the real names for body parts and about safe touch. We need to accept their “NO” even when it is inconvenient, to listen to our children when they are angry or hurt or confused.  We need to teach our girls to be strong enough to make their “No.” be a real “No.” and to teach our boys to accept that “No.” We need to teach our boys that any gang, group, fraternity, or men’s social club that requires them to prove their worth by fucking a woman—any woman, is not the group for them. We need to teach our children how beautiful the act of love-making is, when both people consent. And, we need to model and teach how to speak up when young folks are being coerced into doing something they do not want to do.

My past abuse has tainted my whole life, it has impacted my ability to make love to my spouse, it has impacted my ability to parent my children and it has impacted my ability to be the real me I was meant to be. Thus, individuals, families, and society are impacted by abuse. Now, multiply that by the many, many individuals who are molested, accosted, raped, beaten and you have a society that is truly hurting. We have to change this norm. We have to hold abusers accountable and create a social norm of telling, a social norm of refraining from abuse in its many forms. We have to make it okay to tell and to make it NOT okay to abuse. That has to start now. 

I think with the current movement of #MeToo and other groups who are speaking out, life will change for those who experience abuse. I hope you think being an innocent bystander is no longer acceptable. I hope you can lend your voice to mine and to others to speak up and speak out when you experience or see abuse happening. 

The book, Upon Waking: 58 Voices Speaking Out From the Shadow of Abuse has a ten question discussion guide that helps people talk about sexual abuse and physical abuse. It has resources for more information and for people who have been victims. I encourage you to have a conversation with one or more people so that abuse is not a topic left in the shadows.

-Annette Gagliardi

Annette is from Minnesota and has poetry published or forthcoming in the Gideon Poetry Review, OWS Ink LLC, Dreamers Creative Writing Online, Down in the Dirt Online Magazine, the Moccasin, vol. LXXXI, the Poetic Bond VIII, ASPS Sandpiper, Dreamers Creative Writing Year One Anthology and two poems just went live at Foliate Oak Literary Magazine online. She has poetry in and is one of two editors for the anthology, Upon Waking: 58 Voices Speaking Out From The Shadow of Abuse. She teaches poetry at a nearby elementary school as a volunteer. She has won two national and four state awards for her poetry.