I WISH MY HEAD WOULD EXPLODE

I WISH MY HEAD WOULD EXPLODE

 

by Kathleen Hoy Foley

 

She stepped out of the shadows, this sweet, lovely girl.  That's how I see her, a girl.  But she's not a girl any longer; she's a woman heading into middle age.  I've know her since she was born.  I babysat her.  She is a sweet, sweet heart.  Now, she's revealed that as a young woman she was raped.  Impregnated.  Both Phil and I are heartsick at her revelation, over what she was forced to endure and the pain she continues to suffer. 

In an appalling twist of coincidence, when she was still toddling about in diapers, her father told me that "girls who are raped don't get pregnant."  He was convinced that God provides females with some sort of biological mechanism that prevents such conception. 

And when this kind and sensitive girl was expecting, one of her uncles chastised her for being pregnant out of wedlock.  I wish my head would explode.

This site is ugly.  It angers people, including this lovely woman who did nothing to deserve what happened to her.  I hate this site.  I hate what I write.  Every time I write an article, I choke down fury.  When rage overtakes me, I stomp away and try not to stuff myself with every piece of candy I can find.  Then I come back to the keyboard and write what I do not want to say, what I resent having to say.  I want to stay hidden in the dark.  It's where I grew up, it's where I'm comfortable.  I want to write children's books and make life rosy.  I want to make nice.

But making nice is what destroyed me.  Making nice gave a free pass to all those around me whose betrayal supported the rapist by dismissing the possibility that I was not to blame for what befell me.  Making nice, being too scared to stand up for myself and  quietly accepting the blame and their condemnation, I enabled those around me, including my mother, to avoid looking, avoid being made uncomfortable; assisted them in evading their obligation to extend even simple human compassion.  Their blame and betrayals forced me to carry filth that did not belong to me, that kept me frozen in time, a terrified fifteen year old incapable of soaring into her future.

"I wish I could have been there to protect you," Phil said to me.

Never once did Phil look away from the details of the degradation I endured, not even when I woke him in the middle of the night hysterical with flashbacks, convinced by the voices screaming in my head that it was I who was the monster.  Not once in all the times I called him at work, crumbling with shame and fear that my secret had been made public, and worse, delivered as lies.

He stood right beside me in the fire, right there in the gutter, holding my hand, often times holding me, steering me always toward the light.  It was only when I whispered the horrible details of the filth that was smeared on me and he still called me beautiful, that I was able to begin the long process of  becoming un-ugly in my own eyes, of bringing that abandoned fifteen year old into the light where she always belonged. 

When I take the reader into the explicit horror of rape, into the smells and sounds, into the raw physical and emotional pain it inflicts on the victim, it is me holding that sweet, beautiful girl in my arms, the way Phil held me.  It is my way of assuring her that what happened to her does not define who she is or who she can become.  It is my promise that I will not avert my eyes, no matter what was done to her.  I will not abandon her.  Nothing that happened to her was her fault; she carries no shame for the abuse she suffered.  I am telling her that what she endured in the dark does not diminish her sweetness or her beauty or her potential for a whole and wonderful life.  I am offering to her what Phil so lovingly gave me.  I am offering what saved my life.

In order to rebuild, the rape victim must come to understand that the rapist--scary stranger or cute acquaintance--had her in his sites long before she was aware of it.  He chose her.  It did not matter what she was wearing, what she was drinking, what she was smoking, where she was standing, what door she walked through.  Unless an intervention took place, nothing was going to stop the predator circling her, watching and waiting for the right time and place.        

Every person I point my finger at, every person and institution that creates anguish for the rape victim or perpetuates it, has within them the capacity for courage, the strength to stand up and make amends.  They hold within themselves the power to foster healing.

Instead?  Most cling to their excuses, justify their actions and we as victims defend them.  We make nice.  We protect them; we keep our secrets and continue blaming ourselves, and self-destruct in terrible ways.  And the cycle of sexual abuse and its mutilating consequences continues to engulf generation after generation of sweet, lovely girls.

I wish my head would explode.