Childhood Grief
(please forgive me if this is bad. I'm high. Everything sounds like a good idea right now.)
I want to be a good person. I try to be a good person. I worry about writing that down somewhere other people can see it. I worry that someone will read that and think "who does he think he is?" I worry that I'm secretly a bad person. Humility is confusing. AA first introduced me to the concept, in a way that I think is actually at odds with the real definition. In AA, humility is doing good things and never telling anyone (which I think is congruent) but it is also never acknowledging when you do something good. It is never acknowledging progress, or at least never taking credit for your own work. God is the reason anything positive happens and you are the reason anything bad happens. But also God did have a role in it. God is punishing you for your actions. If you're a good person, bad things won't happen to you. I was a good person. I got raped when I lost my virginity. I snuck out, does that mean it was my fault?
I think I talked about this in the last post. I pretty much identify as asexual now. I think I've wanted it about 3/30 times in my life. I have trauma from nights that I consistently reaffirmed my "yes" because I really didn't want it to be happening. I don't want sex. I want to receive love in the way I understand it (pain, being spanked or choked or hit,) I want to feel needed/useful ("that was the best head I've ever received,") I want to feel powerless (laying there and taking it from a man that is way stronger than me.) I use sex to feel the comfort of childhood.
I was sexually abused as a kid by someone close to me. She took pictures of my naked child body. She laid her hands on that same body. Is it wrong of me to find the innocence of childhood in these adult acts? I crave autonomy and independence, but in my weakest moments I yearn for the feeling of utter powerlessness in the face of my abuser and her camera. I wanted to find the hard drives a few years ago. I know where they're probably kept, under the bed where it all happened. What would I do with them? Not take them to the police. The consequences would be too severe. It wouldn't help me to see what I looked like. There are benign photos from that period of time, I've seen the look in my toddler eyes.
It used to feel like a curse, that I could never go back to the way I was before the trauma. I would fantasize about what I would do different if I knew what I know now. But how could I do anything different? I don't miss who I was before the trauma, I miss who I could have been without it. What would have happened if my teachers saw the signs and did something about it? Would I be a worse person? Fundamental, core aspects of my personality are due to how I grew up. I'm almost 21. I feel like I should be over it. The worst parts stopped when I was like 10 or 11.
The "God sized hole in my chest" feels more like a parent sized hole. God cannot reassure me through action that I am loved. I hate being touched but I need it. I used to pray and ask God to send me a hug. I can only receive touch reliably when I'm intoxicated. My coworker gave me a hug on Monday and it was great, until I had to push him off of me when I started to feel the burning sensation on my skin that happens every time. He's a great guy. I feel like he's the type of guy I would have had a homoerotic friendship with in high school. I often find that the wanting is better than the having. I've known I was aromantic for years. I accepted it after I broke up with my last girlfriend. I've suspected asexuality since I lost my virginity. I accepted it 2 days ago when I told my coworker as the punchline to a joke.
I don't know where to go from here. The sun is coming up. I'm left with a feeling of grief. I'm reminded of a great quote from a stupid source material.
"Who would I be without you?"
"Yourself."