Apologies, PTSD, Depression and Hypothyroidism
I am sharing from a piece I did over on Medium a few months ago. I participated in a weekly writing prompt. One of the prompts was “Who owes you an apology” This is my story.
The person that owes me an apology is never going to apologize to me ever. Actually there are two people in my life that owe me an apology one is living the other is dead.
The one that is dead never apologized to me for stealing my innocence. Not once. The one person that is living who should apologize to me for making my childhood a painful scar instead of a pleasant memory of the usual rites of passage will never apologize to me unless it fills her narcissistic needs.
The person that stole my innocence is my maternal grandfather. He began molesting me at the age of 10 and it lasted until I was 15 years old. Five hellish years of my life. I will forever have emotional scars from that. PTSD from sexual abuse is a bitch my friend.
To my molester — you owe me an apology. I know I will never get one as you are dead. I would have loved one before you died. Instead you died never being held accountable for your actions against me. Not once did I ever get any acknowledgement from you what you did was wrong.
You made me feel dirty. You made me feel like the only way any man would ever love me is if I put out for him. I grew up not trusting anyone. I still have trust issues.
I don’t hate anyone. I have never hated anyone in my life. I hate you. I hate everything about you and what you did to me. I am glad that you are gone. I cried tears of joy at your funeral. To onlookers at your viewing I looked like the dutiful granddaughter mourning your loss as I touched your cold flesh. Inwardly I was touching your dead body to reassure myself that you were indeed dead.
To the folks in attendance at your funeral service they saw me sobbing thinking I was crying because I was upset you were dead. Inside I was crying tears of relief that you were really gone and would never hurt me again. That was the first time I allowed myself to cry and I let the flood gates open. All of the anger, hurt, disgust and hate I had for you came welling up. Your death was a catharsis I desperately needed. I am still in need of another cathartic purge of the trash that is still in my head from the pain you have cause me my whole life. It will come.
I write in order to help the catharsis emerge. I write for others so they may have their own catharsis. I may never fully heal. I will hold my head high and take ownership of my survivor status. It sucks to have to be strong enough to say I am a survivor of sexual abuse, however I will never be ashamed in my admission. I will continue to rise from the ashes.
I share this with you because my past led to my depression which contributed to my hypothyroidism. I work every day to put the demons behind me. Some days are better than others. As with my hypothyroidism my battle with depression and PTSD will be something that has to be managed for the rest of my life.
As I read the above before deciding to share it with my subscribers here I still feel the same way. I find peace in speaking out and writing about what happened to me.
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