I Didn't Know

 Dissociation has taken a lot of things away from me. I have massive gaps in my memory, both long-term and short-term, seemingly for no reason. But it has also shielded me from a lot of things; things that were too hard for my child brain to comprehend. It's fascinating how you can go for years without knowing a single thing about it, and then one day, the memory is right there, crystal clear in your mind, as if it was planted there. You question it – how is this even possible? – and think you must have just made it up and it was probably nothing. But the memory persists, it will not leave you alone, and every time it comes back to you, there is a pit in your stomach, and you feel it in your bones.

It has to be real.

For the longest time, I didn't even know what it was. For years, I didn't understand why I felt so uncomfortable in the showering areas and the saunas of public swimming pool halls. I couldn't wrap my head around how it was possible that I was scared of something that not only I myself possessed, but also those who I found attractive.

A lot of it was ignorance, a lot of it was due to lack of education. But some of it was also my brain protecting itself from the memories that had hurt me so deeply I couldn't have even recalled them the day they happened. 

kiss.

And then it dawned on me. It was very recently, actually, in my adulthood. I started having these memories coming back to me, and I kept wondering what they were about, why they made me so uncomfortable. But my adult brain is nearing its last stages of development now, and it now knows far more than it did when I was twelve years old.

I was sexually harassed by my abusers.

With disbelief,

ichigonya

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CHAPTER 9: FILTHY – BEGINNING