Daddy Issues

Perhaps it's convenient to blame my dad for being victimized. My mother's brother (2 yrs older than me) and his friend both groped me (I was 13) in my swimming pool; and the following year, a cousin of my mother's (7 yrs older than me) did that, plus I believe digitally raped me.

I remember being at my mother's other brother's home and blurting out about the former groping me, which was met with me being slut shamed and called a trouble making slut, while others present sat there, slack jawed and silent.  I remember this event with crystalline detail. My uncle's youngest daughter was born (after an ectopic pregnancy). My aunt served her trademark "deep dish biscuit pie." It was hazy, humid, and July or August. 

I remember this was the last time we visited my uncle's home in Scotch Plains.

I remember how it seemed even my brother, who was ten at the time, seemed to know about the degree I was violated, yet nothing was done about it, and dad didn't seem all too concerned until my brother antagonized the cousin and the cousin brandished a hunting knife, and that was the last summer we all went to my great-aunt Millie's beach house during the summer.

I remember how at the age of 16 after being slut shamed and still being a virgin, I went out and intentionally lost my virginity, since I was being accused of it, I might as well be DOING IT. (Lame argument, but fuck, I was 15 going on 16).

I remember vividly how neither of my parents bothered talking to me about sex or how to protect myself (whether from pregnancy or rape); yet, I remember how disappointed my dad was to learn of this, and went out in the backyard and started beating the piss out of his maroon Duster--then later going out there with a plunger to plunge out the dents.  And of course, dad knew about this, because my mother couldn't keep her yapper shut.

I remember how my mother, I suppose attempting to project responsibility onto someone else, in this case the mother of the boy with whom I had sex, his mother was an RN and worked full time, and she wasn't home, so yes, easy to vilify a woman who isn't on the scene--unlike a clueless, out of touch, self-absorbed stay at home mother (like MY mother).

I remember how only a few years ago (upon learning of the death of this boy's mother), I reminded my mother of how she embarrassed me by calling that boy's mother, trying to pin the blame on the boy or his mother for what happened, and again, I was slut shamed by the boy's mother. "Did I really do THAT? Why would I do that?" This was met with my reply, "I don't have a fucking clue."

I remember how the year after losing giving away disposing my virginity, I started seeing a man who was 7 years older than me. I recall how utterly shitty my relationship with my mom was, and how both my parents acquiesced and let me cross state lines into PA for a weekend, so we could attend a wedding (and bone in this guy's grandmother's house). Only recently has my mother been told by someone who knew what was going on back then, that was child neglect, by her doing nothing at all to prevent it, she was complicit in it (statutory rape). (Why did this someone keep their yapper shut all those years ago? I don't have a clue. IMHO, they are just as complicit as my parents.)

I remember in 2003? being someplace I suppose I  shouldn't have been, dropping off food for a friend, as they were not well, and as I pulled off my pull-over windbreaker, it was still over my head (like a bag of sorts), he assaulted me. I was too disoriented and in shock to do anything about it.  It's only NOW (thirteen years later) that I am able to process this as what it was, and what it was, was not consented.

My father SHOULD have been my protector, and yet, failed. Obviously, failed. In the case of my uncle and my cousin, he did nothing, whether beat the piss out of either of them or file charges against that cousin. He did nothing. I don't know to what degree he knew of everything at the time, and I held back a good lot of what was going on at the time, primarily because my mother was at her height of control and abuse, and because I knew nothing would be done. My mother no doubt would have said "I asked for it," and her mother was the one who called me a trouble making slut. 

I remember how when my first marriage imploded, all my father had for me were tears.

I remember also how when I was going to get married to the Maharajah and travel the world, my dad told me that if I ever got kidnapped (while traveling, I guess?), there's nothing he can do.

Come October, my father will be gone eight years. I need him. But what I really need is the person he should have been or could have been, but was either unwilling or outright unable to be.

And I think of the Maharajah, and how in so many ways he encompasses good qualities my dad had. He's a good provider and partner, and I think of things like him doing my delicates/brassieres or him going out on a snowy day to clear off the car, these are little things that dad would do--but I feel so guilty or selfish that I want more. I want to feel protected. I want to feel like the Maharajah would be the man I needed my dad to be. I need him to be a dragon slayer, if I need him to be.