Innocence Lost

It was a hot summer day around July 4th in 1968. Baby Tina had just turned one year old. She was with her parents at her Uncle Franks upstairs apartment. There were only adults there and Baby Tina didn’t see any other children to play with, so she played with her little red, white, and blue ball.

She was throwing her ball then chasing it. She repeatedly tripped on her long white nightgown that was common for infants to wear back then. She could feel the soft carpet under her bare feet as she threw the ball and chased after it to pick it up and throw it again. She was having a great time playing with that ball on this hot, sweaty day. Tina heard her father say he was going to the store. She perked up because she loved to go bye-bye. She loved riding in the car.

Her father said he was going to bring Tina with him to the store and Tina was delighted. When her father asked her if she wanted to go to the store, she immediately put her arms in the air, reaching up for him to pick her up.

They headed out the door and down to the car. It was hot and humid. Daddy opened the back door to the 1950 something used car. It was a dark color and Tina recognized the car. Daddy laid her down in the back seat and removed her diaper and began to molest her.

Tina began to cry loudly. Screaming from the pain in her little private place that no one should be hurting. After a while, Uncle Frank came down and saw what Daddy was doing to Baby Tina and there were words had but Tina was too little to understand what was being said. Then Uncle Frank took her in his arms and took her upstairs and shoved her in her mother’s arms. He told her mother to take Tina and leave and never bring her back.

Tina being a baby didn’t understand what had just happened. All she understood is that for some reason her daddy did something bad to her that hurt her and it was somehow her fault. She was a bad baby.

As I remember this incident, I’m told that children don’t remember anything before the age of 5 years old unless it’s attached to a traumatic event. When I have flashbacks, I try to push them away or I did for most of my life. I tried not to think about them because I hated experiencing these events over and over. It’s more than simply a memory. I relive it as if it is happening to me right at that very moment.

I’m currently working on this particular flashback as it arises. I’ve heard many stories about how in order to mentally survive these traumatic events the victim will see themselves outside their body. That is how I remember this one. During the molestation, all I remember is being out of my body looking at the situation outside the car behind my father’s head. I remember hearing my screams as I watched my father from behind.

I find it helpful to think of my traumatic experiences in this way. When the trauma happened, a piece of my soul was broken off and had gotten lost. With so many traumatic experiences in the formidable years of my life has shattered my soul leaving pieces of it everywhere needing to be retrieved and pieced back together into a whole soul once again. As whole as can be. I believe that once that soul is shattered, regardless of how many pieces are put back together, even if all the pieces are put back, the individual will be changed forever because of the event. 

The event itself becomes another piece in the soul. It now belongs there in the soul. A piece that is permanently stuck there. It now belongs in the soul and becomes a piece of the soul. It can destroy an individual if left unaddressed. So has it been for me. As I work with my therapist to put all the pieces back together in all it’s correct places, Healing takes place and my understanding of my life events make more sense to me. I’m not only putting these traumatic events in their proper place but I’m learning from it how to manage my Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms with hopes of being able to manage my life.

Although this experience was likely the first of many that taught me that I was bad, since I’ve been in therapy for the last five years, I’ve learned how to define Me as the person I am instead of broken or damaged or bad. That is something I couldn’t do when I first started in therapy. That is a whole story in itself that I may write about at a later time.

Many children who are victims of child abuse or child sexual abuse are ostracized by their peers and their parents and these victim children grow up alone without any type of family support or social support just like I experienced growing up. This is why these events become traumatic. Had my mother and my uncle and the family, taking the steps to end the abuse and to put it in perspective for me as a baby as my father was the one who was bad instead of putting that shame on me, this likely would not be traumatic or as traumatic to the point it caused CPTSD.

What protecting me may have looked like back then when there was no protection for children is this. My uncle could have taken me back to my mother and told her that he was going to report what he saw to the police. Not that the police would have done anything back then but it wouldn’t have been “hidden”. My uncle and my mother’s large and extensive family could have pulled together to place my mother, me and my three siblings in a safe environment even if it meant splitting us up. I wouldn’t have understood it all so well as a child but that would have been the first step in protecting me.

All so often, families that have this going on are embarrassed or ashamed and so they pile that shame onto the child. That’s not right you say. Well, it’s not right and it’s not fair but that is how it is and I learned humans are monsters. It did help shape my worldview that all humans are monsters and that there aren’t any real genuine nice people in this world and that I don’t belong here. I was made to feel different and different is how I feel.

One thing for sure, with the healing process of putting these events in their place and attaching them to the proper responsibility is helping me understand people more. Such things like why people do horrible things. Why people are so mean to others. We can see that in current events. They say hurt people hurt people but monsters hatemonger and bully just because they feel entitled to do so. And they do it by dehumanizing and devaluing their victims.

The thought to take away from this one, abused children should never be ostracized and should be included in fun and games. they need the normalcy the most. Their childhood just got ripped away from them and when they are ostracized, their trauma is intensified. The feelings of not belonging and the world being an unsafe dangerous place to be as a child is developed from being ostracized by adults and their children. The fact that these traumas are allowed to continue actually develops the world view that all humans are monsters to never be trusted. Then, when these children become adults they continue to be ostracized. Sometimes by their own choice. I personally choose to avoid humans as often as possible.

These events teach children a broken view of the world and themselves and the adults who allow the abuse to continue and the caregivers who perpetuate the abuse are responsible for the development of this unavoidable perspective when these children become adults themselves.

Change the message for the child and when the child becomes an adult they will be able to manage stress, anxiety, and adversity with ease. 

Adversity strengthens while Trauma Destroys.

Tina Houston