I don’t believe you..

It has been a long two weeks and I’m exhausted.

Okay, okay, okay, let me start at the beginning: it began with therapy homework. I’ve been utilizing online therapy, which is a post for another time, but my therapist gave me homework this week which was to talk with my aunt. I had talked to my therapist about my feeling responsible for my Dad’s mental illness and she expressed that talking to my aunt might give me a new perspective. My therapist was then off for two weeks for a training- I wasn’t too worried as I had my own training and likely wouldn’t have been able to get a session in anyways.

I texted my aunt after therapy and asked if I could talk to her about this at some point in the next week. I was a little nervous just because I usually talk to my aunt about this stuff in person and the phone call would be new. Anxiety is wonderful, isn’t it? Anyway, the call went really well and my aunt did help so much. I learned so much about the fire that I didn’t know before, the conversation reinforced things I had heard, and I got to hear my aunt’s perspective. The conversation with my aunt was extremely healing. It was good to talk to her. She has known me and my family for a long time, she’s always honest, and she loves me.

I got off the phone and I was in tears. I learned something that had shaken me to my core: someone in my bio family had told my extended family that I had lied about the abuse. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, partially because of who it was and partially because survivors have been telling us this for years: that people say they’re lying. I even suspected that this might be the case but it hurt like hell. I haven’t experienced emotional pain like this in a while, pain that made me stumble as much as this did. When I was a kid, I told an adult about the abuse, about what was happening and that adult told me “I never should have said anything”. I took this to heart and didn’t tell anyone else about what happened until I was 17. The abuse continued and I had been told by Alex and this trusted adult that I should keep my mouth shut- so I did. That adult that I told and who told me not to say anything is the same person who has been telling my extended family I lied.

I wish I could’ve just let it not affect me, brushed it off as someone who didn’t want to face reality, who didn’t want to look bad and so in response, they lied. But I didn’t. I internalized the lie. I doubted myself: should I really be sharing what happened to me? My blog is too public- I should just keep this to close friends and family. I should let this go, not talk about it, who else doesn’t believe me? What if my created family doesn’t believe me? I went through several days of these thoughts consuming every waking moment.

I did reach out for help eventually- I reached out to two of my amazing friends and basically said: I need you. They dropped everything. They spent almost a full day with me. I told them I wasn’t sure what I needed, a distraction I was sure wouldn’t work, but I didn’t have much more of an idea than that. It did work, they distracted me, and it was amazing. Just a few hours where I could not think about it helped. They also offered to talk with me about my sadness, my anger, their anger, anything really and we did some of that, too.

I stopped working on my blog for a bit. I was scared to write again; to share the truth. During this time away from my blog two women who I admire very much happened to look through my blog again and sent me encouraging messages. They didn’t know what had happened and that reminded me why I write. I eventually got the courage to tell others about how I was feeling and the thing that ended up centering me was hearing ‘I believe you’ from everyone I reached out to. Many had already told me this or assumed I already knew, but hearing it again gave me strength.

During this time, my created family reassured me and stood behind me, angry and frustrated with another injustice they encouraged me to fight: they are my rock. I am thankful that I continue to choose not to be silenced. This is my first post since this happened, I am scared still, but I did it. I’m proud of myself.

It has been a long two weeks and I am exhausted, but I am still here, speaking my truth in spite of you.

taylorahmed

March 4, 2020

Aftermath

4 responses to “I don’t believe you..”

Gary Krehan jr

March 5, 2020 at 6:18 am

Victims can’t lie , it was true and I believe you. God was the witness.

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Samantha Kinnaman

March 5, 2020 at 7:52 am

First – I LOVE YOU, I BELIEVE YOU AND YOU HAVE SURVIVED!!!!!
People in our lives are only as powerful as long as we give them power to matter in our lives. (I hope that make sense)
Most people don’t speak out about their abuse because they are afraid of the
” I don’t believe you!” or
“He or she is lying” or
“They just want attention”
then our own issues with coming out:
“what if they don’t believe me?”
“did I encourage the abuse”
“was it really abuse when I didn’t fight to not have it happen?”

If they don’t believe you then they don’t deserve a place at your table. If they don’t believe you then they don’t deserve a spot in your heart, and last if they don’t believe you then fuck them!!! Who are they to think you would lie about this shit… do they know you? Do they matter? Are they worth the effort?

More times then not the answer to all this shit lies in anxiety wrapped stress triggered emotional baggage and anger of a blanket.

How do victims live when they always feel ashamed? WITH THERE HEAD HELD HIGH AND ON A MORAL STAMPING GROUND. Back to my main point, if they doubt you, don’t believe you, or think you are doing/saying this shit for attention FUCK THEM. You don’t need this and they don’t deserve a place at your table.
Stop letting them dictate if your a victim or not. The only thing you need to remember is, is that your a survivor.
To many times we let what others think matter more then we should. The only people you need to be concerned with are people that build you up and help you soar.

As for your Biofam….. I have met the parental figures and jesus…. all of you kids should be a basket case. The fact that you all have come out of that mess as kind hearted individuals is a miraculous feat.

Lastly…. and this part is the most important thing I will ever tell you and is the most important thing your soul needs:
I believe you, you are a survivor, your truth matters, and people who don’t believe, support, aid and build you up by understanding all of that are NOT worth a SEAT at your table or any other seat in your life. They arent worth the space anywhere in your house/temple.

Love you

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Sunny Matthews

March 5, 2020 at 10:22 am

I believe you, I believe you need to be public about the abuse to help yourself and others. And I no longer know what believe of what other members of your family had told me at the time.

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CGB

February 22, 2021 at 11:10 am

From my own experience, it’s important to seek help from somebody close to your own age . I’ve tried talking to people who are older than I am about my own abuse, and they come from generations that viewed parent-child and teacher-child relationships very differently than people my age do (I’m 51). For example, when I was born, it was still considered a parent or teacher’s right to hit a child. Today 27 States have laws against corporal punishment in schools, and we know about the horrors of physical child abuse. But older people remember when it was an authority figure’s “right” to hit kids, and dismiss our claims of abuse on those grounds. And sometimes our siblings buy into the myth that if your parents did questionable things to you, it was their “right”, which leads to denial on their part.
Well, if they want to look at your claims this way, they need to bear in mind that 100 years ago, it was considered a man’s right to hit his wife. I happen to be married to a woman who was beaten by a former partner, and she spent time in both physical and psychiatric hospitals because of it. It’s real, it happens, and people who have not experienced it often don’t understand it. If we’ve never been in combat, we don’t have the right to tell a veteran that he or she shouldn’t have PTSD. So why do we think we can pass judgement on the abused?

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