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This week is the 15-year anniversary of... a solution, I guess.
Last summer I asked my dad to get hold of my records from the Children's Services agency in Steubenville, OH, where he worked fifteen years ago. I was 7 in the summer of 1992, and on May 30 I flew from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Steubenville to spend two weeks with my dad. He knew immediately that something was wrong, and after a few days got me to tell him what it was. Yesterday marked the 15-year anniversary of my interview with the police, the transcript of which I read for the first time tonight. There was also a video taken of the interview, but I was told last summer that that had been destroyed a few years ago when the department got new leadership and wanted the space that was previously devoted to storing videos.
I'm not sure why I never got around to reading my records last summer. They came too slowly and there was too much else going on by the time they arrived, I suppose. I had been ready to deal with things, and had started doing background research on the type of person that went through what I did, but by the time my records arrived school was starting and I had other things to spend my emotional energy on.
I'm not sure what prompted me this evening to pick them up. Perhaps it was that I realized there are a lot of unresolved, forgotten things in the back of my mind. Perhaps I sensed that it had been 15 years and was time to do something about it, though I didn't note the date until I finished reading the transcript. Today is also the four-year anniversary of my high school graduation. Perhaps it helps a bit to note that; to note that eleven years after I got myself out of a terrible situation, I graduated from high school near the top of my class, and that four years after that I'm a graduate student at one of the top universities in the world, again near the top of my class. Perhaps it helps to see how far I've come. Maybe I was prompted to read through my records to remind myself just exactly how far I've come, and to remind me of how strong I really am. I don't know.
After I read them I sat and cried (I know it sounds like I cry a lot, but to be honest I think I almost always record it on lj when it happens, so it's not like you're only seeing a small percentage of the cryings; I think lj sees 90% of them, which I think means I actually cry les frequently than normal people). Not for very long, but it was very unexpected, emotional, angry crying.
There were a lot of things in the transcript of the interview that I don't remember happening, or saying, or remembering. It's hard for me to trust this 15-year-old interview more than I trust my own memories, but at the same time I can't disregard the evidence I presented, even if I was only seven years old at the time. I have to believe myself. The hard part about that is believing things I really don't want to believe. Believing them changeseverything a lot of things.
Also, reading the report made me think about and realize just how MESSED UP my family is. At least, my nuclear family. Not just in regard to this post, but in regard to many, many other things throughout my childhood and my family members' lives. And personalities.
I think my extended family is mostly normal, if you average all the members together.
I dunno if I'm really ready to talk about any of this beyond what I've said here, so for now I'm disabling comments and I'm not going to add any tags to this entry. I just kind of wanted to document the fact that I've read through this stuff finally, and am attempting to internalize it and remember things I had no idea I'd forgotten. I could have made this a private or friends-only entry, but I didn't because I want very very badly for the world to know that I have suffered and survived. I know it's difficult to convey that without more details, but I'm leaving the entry unlocked anyway. Maybe people can identify even without knowing the story, and maybe this can lend them strength.
Or maybe it just makes me feel like I'm not alone.
In any case, I think it's time I started really dealing with it all, instead of just pushing it to the back and getting on with my life. There's definitely something to be said for that tactic, and it's served me well for the last fifteen years, but I think it's time now to try something different, and to heal some of the wounds I've been pretending I don't have.
Oh man. Tonight was so much more emotionally draining than I'd anticipated.
Last summer I asked my dad to get hold of my records from the Children's Services agency in Steubenville, OH, where he worked fifteen years ago. I was 7 in the summer of 1992, and on May 30 I flew from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Steubenville to spend two weeks with my dad. He knew immediately that something was wrong, and after a few days got me to tell him what it was. Yesterday marked the 15-year anniversary of my interview with the police, the transcript of which I read for the first time tonight. There was also a video taken of the interview, but I was told last summer that that had been destroyed a few years ago when the department got new leadership and wanted the space that was previously devoted to storing videos.
I'm not sure why I never got around to reading my records last summer. They came too slowly and there was too much else going on by the time they arrived, I suppose. I had been ready to deal with things, and had started doing background research on the type of person that went through what I did, but by the time my records arrived school was starting and I had other things to spend my emotional energy on.
I'm not sure what prompted me this evening to pick them up. Perhaps it was that I realized there are a lot of unresolved, forgotten things in the back of my mind. Perhaps I sensed that it had been 15 years and was time to do something about it, though I didn't note the date until I finished reading the transcript. Today is also the four-year anniversary of my high school graduation. Perhaps it helps a bit to note that; to note that eleven years after I got myself out of a terrible situation, I graduated from high school near the top of my class, and that four years after that I'm a graduate student at one of the top universities in the world, again near the top of my class. Perhaps it helps to see how far I've come. Maybe I was prompted to read through my records to remind myself just exactly how far I've come, and to remind me of how strong I really am. I don't know.
After I read them I sat and cried (I know it sounds like I cry a lot, but to be honest I think I almost always record it on lj when it happens, so it's not like you're only seeing a small percentage of the cryings; I think lj sees 90% of them, which I think means I actually cry les frequently than normal people). Not for very long, but it was very unexpected, emotional, angry crying.
There were a lot of things in the transcript of the interview that I don't remember happening, or saying, or remembering. It's hard for me to trust this 15-year-old interview more than I trust my own memories, but at the same time I can't disregard the evidence I presented, even if I was only seven years old at the time. I have to believe myself. The hard part about that is believing things I really don't want to believe. Believing them changes
Also, reading the report made me think about and realize just how MESSED UP my family is. At least, my nuclear family. Not just in regard to this post, but in regard to many, many other things throughout my childhood and my family members' lives. And personalities.
I think my extended family is mostly normal, if you average all the members together.
I dunno if I'm really ready to talk about any of this beyond what I've said here, so for now I'm disabling comments and I'm not going to add any tags to this entry. I just kind of wanted to document the fact that I've read through this stuff finally, and am attempting to internalize it and remember things I had no idea I'd forgotten. I could have made this a private or friends-only entry, but I didn't because I want very very badly for the world to know that I have suffered and survived. I know it's difficult to convey that without more details, but I'm leaving the entry unlocked anyway. Maybe people can identify even without knowing the story, and maybe this can lend them strength.
Or maybe it just makes me feel like I'm not alone.
In any case, I think it's time I started really dealing with it all, instead of just pushing it to the back and getting on with my life. There's definitely something to be said for that tactic, and it's served me well for the last fifteen years, but I think it's time now to try something different, and to heal some of the wounds I've been pretending I don't have.
Oh man. Tonight was so much more emotionally draining than I'd anticipated.
