Chapter Seventeen
Out Of The Revolving Door
I had to break free.
I was "used". The ones who used me owned me. I had no choice, no rights, no control.
That's why, after the first one, it was so easy for the next one to use me, and the next one, and the next... They knew the walls were broken down. They knew I
couldn't / wouldn't fight back. I didn't know how. I didn't think I could.
After years of going through the revolving door of predators, I stopped it. Now no one touched my body without my permission. No one used my body for their own sick needs.
But no one prepared me for nonsexual predators.
I didn't know then that sexual abuse of a child is just the extreme end of adults who were selfcentered, power addicted and needed to control someone smaller, someone weaker and vulnerable to make them feel strong and good about themselves. In control.
I didn't know then that a relationship doesn't have to be sexually abusive to be destructive.
I didn't know that the most important walls were still broken down in me the ones that could draw boundaries, that could say no, those that required respect and sensitivity and consideration and shared giving.
One day I realized that most of my friendships were demeaning, demanding, oneway, contingent on my performance, my compliance, my backseat position, my weakness and my unimportance compared to the "important" needs of the other.
And I realized that every one of these friends were either predator in nature, vampiristic or unhealed (and unwilling to heal) molestation victims themselves.
So I stopped dancing. And one by one, they whined, they attacked, and then they let go, as if I had never mattered to them at all. Because I didn't in their world, people only existed as stage props to make them look good or to serve their own needs and pleasures. They got back into the revolving door, looking for a new prop in human form. Names optional; compliance and passivity a must.
And there they are still
Dancing mostly alone,
And I, out of the door, was embraced by those who never learned to dance.