Me Too, Part 3

I’ve gotten a couple of comments, thus far that I want to address before I move forward:

1. I appreciate those of you who tell me that you’re sorry these things happened to me.  I just want to make it clear that I am sharing these things so that others might relate to them.  I have written about these things for a long time, as well as having gone to therapy, and I have peace with my life.
2. None of the events that I have or will describe were ever reported to the authorities.  If you read the rest of this entry, you’ll understand why.  I suspect that these abusers went on to abuse, and I do live with that guilt.

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Of all the #metoo related stories I will share, there are two men for whom I have not yet been able to find forgiveness.  One happened when I was an adult, and I will tell that story in the future.  The other was a man named Bill.

By the time my family had moved back to California, my mom and her first husband had pretty much run out of time for each other.  He moved to Germany as was his military order.  She became involved with a man she had known years before, and we moved in with him.

This man, whom I will call Mike was the cousin of Teri, my mom’s best friend from high school.  Teri’s “husband” was named Bill.  Teri and Bill and Mike and my Mom used to gather at our house to party.  Drinking was an absolute, and eventually, it escalated to the use of meth (called crank in my neighborhood).

I dreaded the days that Teri and Bill would come over.  If my parents drank enough, things could escalate to violence.  As the oldest of four children, I felt it was my responsibility to protect my siblings from danger.  When my mom and Mike would get violent, I would wrangle them out to my room, and try to keep them calm until the stupidity stopped.  These brawls only happened a handful of times, but they have left me with a perpetual fear of alcohol.  When someone drinks to the point that there is a noticeable change in their behavior, I get nervous.  They are unpredictable.

While the brawls were very hard to take in the moment, the unwanted attention I attracted from Bill was far worse.  He could not let me walk past him without making some lurid comment about my body.  My butt and my breasts were regular topics for him.  If my mom asked me to help with dinner, I’d stand at the counter, slicing vegetables.  Bill would stand right behind me, his body pressed against mine, telling me how I was doing it wrong.  I used to wear a bra to bed and come into the house (my bedroom was an addition to the garage) to use the bathroom.  “Your titties are never going to grow if you don’t let them breathe!” he’d shout.  I got to where I kept a bucket in my closet and peed in it, so I didn’t have to go into the house where he was.

One night, I was standing to the side of the room, talking to my mom while she cooked dinner.  Bill walked up and acted as if he was going to put his arm around me.  But instead of putting his arm around me, he grabbed the spot in my bra where it fastened and deftly unhooked it – in front of everyone who was there.  “I just wanted to see if I still had the touch,” he laughed, triumphantly.

I stormed out of the house into the garage, slamming the door as hard as I could.  My mom came out right behind me and asked me what the hell my problem was.  I told her what bill had done, and that he’s always doing and saying things that make me uncomfortable.  She told me that I was just being a bitch and didn’t want her to have friends.

This kind of harassment lasted from the time I was 11 years old until I got married at the age of 18.  Once I got married, that was the last time ever spoke to that man.  He died a few years ago, and no one told me about his funeral.  I was pissed because I wanted not going to his funeral to be my choice, and not just because of an oversight.

Between Bill, my great-grandpa, Grandpa Bear, and the father of my biological father, I grew up with a wariness for men.  I had teachers who made inappropriate comments to me, thinking it flattering, but it just added to the distrust.  It affected my relationships, on which I will elaborate in future entries.  It also made me a strong advocate for young women.