...Than Have To Remember This

April 30, 2004
I made the mistake of talking to Jesse tonight. Dad found out and started screaming at me. Then he shoved me out of my room and started pushing my against the wall really hard. He was slamming me into the corner and then he shoved me into the living room which is down two steps, and then shoved me into the couch and towards the door. He slammed me against the door a few times and then shoved me across the room. I was screaming the whole time because I was so scared. Then Katie ran in and basically told him to get away from me and out of the house. Then her and I talked. Now they're outside taking a walk and talking. Katie said she won't let him come near me tonight. I hope not because I was scared that he was going to kill me, and I still am. I don't want to go to sleep because I'm afraid he'll hurt me. I've never been this scared. I know that my relationship with him will never be the same. I'm so, so, so scared. I wish I could stop talking to Jesse, but I have no one else that I can talk to. No one else understands. If I had someone I wouldn't need him. If I had someone here to talk to then I wouldn't be so alone. Or scared. I want to go home but mom, dad and Katie have all been drinking.

That was four years ago, but when I read it and think about it, it seems like it was yesterday. It feels so raw, like a wound that will never close. My father is supposed to be the one man that I can completely trust and feel safe with. Knowing that he is capable of hurting me like that changes everything. I don't look at him the same way, I can't have the kind of easy, carefree conversations that my sister has with him. Every interaction, every word, every hug is under a shadow. A week after that happened I started cutting myself, and I still have the scars. Eight little white lines, fairly evenly spaced up my left forearm, each one reminding me exactly why I feel like this, why I'm not good enough. Why I shouldn't really be here. The pain from what happened (emotional, not physical. I managed to walk away with a few bruised bones, nothing else) was so intense and overwhelming. It wasn't a wound I could look at, something I could watch slowly healing day by day. So I made that kind of pain. I cut open my arm eight times, hoping that as the pain from those cuts faded, so would the rest. It hasn't though. Maybe because it has never been talked about. My dad has never said he was sorry, or he shouldn't of done it. No matter what I was doing, (which by the way, wasn't all that bad in the grand scheme of things. Talking to a guy. He was 7 years older than me, but still. I could have been out having sex with random guys, doing drugs, getting drunk. I wasn't.) Anyways, no matter what I was doing, his reaction was not justified. There is nothing I could have done that gives him permission to get physical with me. He has never said that he did the wrong thing and that kills me.

I Would Rather Sleep Forever...Than Have To Remember This