Pants, pants, PANTS!

As mentioned in the post below, the following is part of the Blog Share. I did not write this post. My anonymous post is elsewhere on the internet. A list of the participating blogs can be found at the bottom of this post.

My story is a long one. I hope you can stay with me until the end. I promise it is not a boring story.

I cannot believe I am about to disclose this secret to all of you. I decided to share it for several reasons:

1. It is about something caused by someone else so it wasn’t my fault. Therefore, I should not be ashamed of it.

2. I made the right decision for me at the time, and helped someone else in the process. Therefore, I should not be ashamed of it.

3. I have never regretted how I chose to handle the situation. Therefore, I should not be ashamed of it.

4. I am not the only person on this earth who has been through this type of situation. Therefore, I should not be ashamed of it.

So why can’t I disclose this secret on my own blog? Because, while I should not be ashamed of it, I do feel ashamed. Because my parents have made me feel ashamed about it since it happened. I’ve been feeling ashamed for a very long time and I keep this secret deep within me. I’ve shared this secret with only a handful of people. I was raped. But that’s not the whole story. If that was the entire story, I would not feel ashamed.

It is true that I should not have been at that party at that guy’s house that night. I told my parents I was going to a movie with some of my friends. Just because I was somewhere I should not have been is not an excuse or reason for a guy to rape me though. My parents believed otherwise.

I did not go home that night and share what happened with my parents. I did not share what had happened with anyone. I did not report what happened to the police. I did not go to a hospital for an exam. I did not share it with any other family members. I did not share it with my pastor. I did not share it with my very best friends. I did not share it with my boyfriend. I felt sickened just thinking about telling anyone about what that awful guy had done to me that night at that party.

It soon became apparent that the story had not ended when I left that party and made the decision not to tell anyone. I missed my next period. I started feeling sick every morning. One day I broke down in tears and told my best friend about the guy, about what happened, and that I feared I was pregnant. She hugged me and she held my hand as we walked through the door of the place I was going to be tested a few days later. My worst fears were confirmed. I was pregnant by that wretched piece of shit.

Rather than facing up to reality, I buried my head in the sand for the next few months. I suppose the entire situation had screwed with my head so much that I believed I could ignore it and somehow everything would work itself out and this baby would simply disappear so that I would not have to deal with it or tell anyone about what had happened. I had gone back to college about 2 hours away from home without ever telling anyone other than my best friend. My parents came to visit me one weekend and I was beginning to show. They confronted me and I finally told them everything. At that point, I was almost six months pregnant. They were furious with me for not telling them. My mom was even more furious when I confessed to them that my best friend knew everything. They drove me back to my dorm, told me to pack up my things, and then they withdrew me from school and we returned to my hometown.

I was screamed at during the entire drive back home. I was unpacking my stuff from the car after we got back home when my best friend happened to be driving into the neighborhood (she lived in the same neighborhood we lived in) and she pulled in the driveway. As soon as she got out of her car, my mom began screaming at her. She began crying, got back in her car and left. That was the beginning of the end of our friendship. She could never get past the things my mom yelled at her in the driveway that afternoon and it created a deep crack in our relationship. I don’t blame her for that at all. I felt horrible because it was not my friend’s fault that I chose her to share my story with and chose not to share it with my parents.

I was instructed by my parents to stay inside at all times. I was not allowed to open the blinds in the house because they didn’t want any of the neighbors to be able to look in and see me. I was instructed not to walk down the driveway to the mailbox so no one would see me. They told my siblings that I was pregnant. They didn’t tell them I was raped. Because, as I would soon discover, they didn’t believe me. I did not find out until years later that my siblings did not know the whole story. They were shocked when I told them. They were shocked that my parents would have withheld such information.

My father spoke with our family doctor without my knowledge and made arrangements for me to be sent to a group home approximately six hours away. They let me choose whether or not I wanted to share with my boyfriend what was going on before I left. I decided to tell him because I felt like he deserved an explanation since things had been so chaotic. He told me he loved me very much. He then offered to marry me, adopt the baby, and raise the baby as his own. This was my chance to stand up against my parents and make a different choice about how I was going to handle the situation than the one they were steering me towards. I declined his offer. I knew we were too young. I did not feel that I was capable of being a good mother and despite the fact that this baby was conceived under terrible circumstances, I knew it was not the baby’s fault and that this baby deserved much more than I was able to offer. If I am being completely honest, I also wondered if I would ever look at that baby and not think about what that guy had done to me. My baby did not deserve that. I ended my relationship with my boyfriend because he was kind and he did not deserve to deal with my situation either.

I was whisked away under the cover of darkness. I pretended to be asleep for the drive so I would not have to listen to my parents and their never ending lecturing about what a disappointment I was to them. I had listened to little else since I was brought home from college. I was taken to a group home with approximately 20 other pregnant girls. I lived there for the following three and a half months. It seemed as though I was there for three and a half years and I saw things I never want to see again. I saw one girl lose her baby when the cord became wrapped around its neck. I learned later that after she got home, her father accidentally shot her in the neck and she was paralyzed. I saw others leave arm in arm with their parents with smiles on their faces as they went back home. I saw others leave who were terrified because they were not sure what awaited them at home or how their families would treat them. I saw new girls arrive with the same frightened look I had on my face the first day. I saw girls as young as 13 and as old as 22. I did volunteer work. I took birthing classes. We all had daily chores. I tried to take the new girls in under my wing and show them the ropes when they arrived. I went to the mall with a group of pregnant teens and felt the stares of judgmental people. I heard their ugly remarks.

I chose the adoptive parents. I never doubted my decision for a minute. I knew my baby was going to have a loving home with a wonderful couple and my baby deserved no less.

My parents had made the decision to only tell a couple of family members on my mom’s side. Not one person on my father’s side of the family knows what happened to me to this day. My grandparents lived a couple of hours from the group home and they were with me throughout my labor. My mom arrived at the hospital several hours after the baby was born. My father did not come.

All of this happened over 20 years ago. I can count on one hand how many times my mom has mentioned it. My father has never acknowledged anything ever happened. Yes, it hurts my feelings quite a bit, but I’ve learned to accept that this is way things have to be.

My parents forced me to get a job the week after the baby was born. I was back in college the next month. My mom made me exercise constantly so that I would lose the weight and no one would know. They would not let me sit still at all. They would not let me bury my head in the sand even for one day. I was so angry, but looking back I think this was what I needed.

At some point (years later), I reached a place where I realized I was extremely proud of the way I handled what happened. I never doubted the decisions I made. It made me a very strong person and the strength I gained helped me through some tough situations I’ve faced since all of this happened. Looking back, I think we all realize things could have been handled better, and I’ve forgiven my parents for making me feel so ashamed. But I have not forgotten. I still feel ashamed in some respects. I doubt that will ever go away entirely. When you’ve been told you are not allowed to walk down the driveway lest you embarrass your entire family, you don’t get over how that makes you feel. Not ever. You forgive but trust me, you never forget. You also do not ever forget that your father was so disappointed in you that he could not find it in himself to be there for you when you needed him the most. I don’t know that I’ve entirely forgiven them for not believing that I was raped, but I’ll keep working on that. Some may wonder why I have not shared my story with others since I realize I should not feel ashamed and since I am proud of the manner in which I handled things. I think it is because I had to endure so much to keep it a secret for so many years that it hardly seems to make sense to freely share it with people now.

That is my story. I was raped. I got pregnant. I gave my baby up for adoption. I survived it all.

And You Know What Else
Andrea Unplugged
Blue Soup
Bright Yellow World
Bwildered
Caity of the Keps
Catheroominations
Citystreams
Daily Tannenbaum
Did I Say That Outloud?
Dispatches From The Failed Mommy Club
Face Down
For The Long Run
Full Of Snark
Heidikins
In Java, Literally
Just Below 63
LizLand
Malfeasance
A New Duck
NonSoccer Mom
The North Is My Snowcone
Not The Daddy
Operation Pink Herring
Pants, Pants, Pants
Red Red Whine
Sassy Buster
Sauntering Soul
Shushing Action
Snarke
Snow-Covered Hills
Swimming With Sharks
Thinking Some More
Trueish Story
Way Way Up
Whiskey Marie