“ONCE UPON A TIME I WAS JUST A LITTLE GIRL”
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Daily Prompt: Those Dishes Won’t Do Themselves (Unfortunately)

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Young, Little and Innocent. Doing everyday things little girls seem to do. Play hopscotch, dress-up, play with Barbie and Ken, and loved my “easy bake oven.” But then one day that all changed….
All I ever wanted was  “Unconditional Love” from my parents. I spent a lot of years just wanting their “Approval,” and just to hear, “Catherine, we are proud of you”…It took to many years to count….

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“ONCE UPON A TIME WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL”
I remember the first time awful things happened to me as a little girl. It started as a game while playing with my little best friend at her house up the street. Her parents were working, and her high school brother was home babysitting her. The afternoon started with “Ice Cream, Candy, and Games” as they say abusers “Groom” their victims. Then we played a game of hide n seek, and somehow I ended up in a bedroom closet with HIM, all alone in the dark.

In that dark black closet, things happened to me that no little girl need EVER go through. I felt scared, alone, and confused when he touched me. He told me if I told anyone he would hurt me, and my parents would know I was a liar, and wouldn’t believe me. They would punish me. Sadly, I believed him…
This happened many times. Times when my friend and I had sleep overs at her house, or just playing during the day. He would always somehow get me alone. This went on for a few years until one day,……he died.

I then began to think it was all my fault that he died. You see, every night when I was in bed alone, I would say my nightly prayers to god, and I always ended with a “plea” to have god make HIM not touch me ever again in that hurtful way. I prayed to god if he would just let him die or go away so he could not hurt me again.

Our family was told by his parents that he had the flu real bad,  he must have got up during the night in his room and he fell and hit his temple of his head on the night stand. He fell face down and was bleeding from the nose & mouth and suffocated. His parents were devastated, and my parents couldn’t believe the loss of a child. I remember his mom crying uncontrollable. My parents helped my best friends parents get through it by helping with making funeral arrangements. So of this I learned when I got older, as our parents stayed friends for many years to come.

I still began to slowly withdraw into myself. I felt dirty. I could not process why, but it’s how I felt. I knew what he was doing was wrong, and I felt helpless to say no or stop it. Even they way I acted around others when he was around my family didn’t even wave any red flags. People thought I was being shy, when inside my head I was screaming!! And now he has died! I felt it was all my fault. More hurtful baggage I’d carry into adulthood. I also could not understand my best friends feelings. She had no reaction to her brother’s death. No tears, didn’t talk, nothing,…..kind of like me. Of course later in life that made me feel that he had to have been hurting her to.

I know it sounds cold, but I felt a sense of relief that he would not touch again. But sadly, it only lasted a year or so. As another man became my next monster. A man who was a friend of my fathers. And my nightmare began all over again…..WHY ME?
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“ONCE UPON A TIME I WAS JUST A LITTLE GIRL”….
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