Violence

 A journey from the heart.  It is me, my journey.  I have come a long way in this journey.  The fact that I write openly now, not caring who reads it.  Everything is a piece of me somehow.  The pieces all fit together.  In the same way that the pieces from my past all fit together to form the woman I am today.
I had to fight to survive.  Strange thing though, I didn't know I was fighting.  All I was doing was living.  I was getting through the days and the experiences as best I could.  There was no one for me to talk to.  No one was there to protect me.  I did the best that I could under the circumstances.  I found a way to deal with the confusion.  I found a way to deal with the fear and the anger.   Instead of breaking under it all, I became more stubborn.  Did that happen because I was living two lives?  In one life no one was allowed to harm me or tell me what to do.  In the other life I was brutally sexually assaulted.  My father was present in both of them.
Sex before 8 or it's too late.  I do not know where that phrase comes from.  It rings in my head over and over.  I know what it means and it is not speaking of time.  My body holds the physical scars of what they did to my body.  Those can be seen but no one can see the emotional ones.
I am no longer a victim.  I would fight to my death before allowing anyone to ever assault me again in that way.  I have no fear in facing a gun or a knife.  That I have no fear there is something that scares the hell out of Mickey.  I have seen so much violence, been faced with so much, that I no longer fear it being directed at me.
I don't see myself as bullet proof.  I just don't fear death.  I don't have a healthy respect for danger.  I am the dummy that steps out in traffic.  Sometimes, it is on purpose, just like when I was little and it made me feel powerful.  Mostly though, at least now, it is more from the fact that I don't perceive the danger.  I sometimes have an *I dare you* attitude when it comes to cars coming toward me.
 I have stood as a little girl in the middle of the living room as my father picked up everything he could lift and threw it breaking it apart.  I did not move, cry or make a sound.  He did not throw anything directly at me until the very end.  Everything was thrown around me and I did get hit with pieces that broke off.  Every piece of furniture was broken.  Lamps were shattered.  At the end, he threw the telephone at me.   I don't recall it hitting me.  What I do recall is him yelling at me to get my mother on the phone.  I stood my ground silently.  He got more pissed and left the house.  I heard his car squeal away.  That is when I picked up the phone and called the place my mother was working at.  I told her what had happened and that he was looking for her.  Then, the calm in me shattered and I started hyperventilating.  I have no clue what happened after that.  I don't know how old I was, just that I was under 12.  I had already become accustomed to standing up to him when he was drunk.  I was the only one that could.
His wife was terrified of him when he was drunk.  Most people were actually.  If she met him at the door as he came home drunk, she would be back handed across the room.  If I met him at the door, his hand would fall and he would see his little darling.  How sick is that?  My mother learned quickly that if she encouraged me to stay awake I usually could prevent him from beating the living hell out of her.  She would beg me to not let him hurt her.
Violence was just a part of my life.  I wish that it hadn't been.  I accept that it was my normal.  Today, I fear it much less than some folks.  I have some triggers that seem to transport me back in time.  When it happens, I feel fear sometimes.  I feel a child's terror.  While it was happening in childhood, I am not sure I really felt any of those things.  They got pushed aside so quickly, apparently so I could survive.