Rag-Doll
Seeing if There’s More.
I know I just posted… I asked God what I should share, what I should write. That’s what He gave me. Now I’m asking Him if there’s any more. I feel the weight of words, details.
So a decade ago, I was pregnant with Ella. All of everything is mixed up together – me, her, our story together, where it came out of, and so on.
I grew up only knowing I had no value. If I had had value, I would not have been mistreated as I was. I had no sense of self-worth. No self-esteem. No self-confidence. But the thing of no sense of self-worth; that was the real Mally-killer. I couldn’t see a purpose to my existence. Big words, and I’m trying to describe how it felt to be little me. But you’re gonna have to bear with me, because some of this stuff is only comprehendable -what’s the word I want?- now, as an adult, where I have the mental faculty, reason, and SPACE to be able to tackle and uncover this stuff.
I thought I was worthless. The abuses rendered me pliable and floppy inwardly, like a rag-doll. I can’t think of another picture for it. A floppy, mute, ever smiling -though never truly- rag-doll. Much worn and battered, but not from love. From rough use. From abuse. Sexual. Physical. Verbal. Mental. Emotional. Spiritual. Ravages against my soul, that roughened and toughened the core of my vulnerable heart. Little rag-doll says nothing.
And so, I grew up. The little tiny filthy rag-doll grew bigger, older. Outgrew her worn clothes. Outgrew her worn body. Aged beyond her years, before her time. Knew things and pains she should not have known. Did not value herself. But hurt so desperately, because there must have been a small part that knew it was made for love. Actual love; not push and thrust and hurt and rough. Actual love- calm, quiet words. Gentleness. Time to speak.
How to say? Before it, I was a happy little child. Then suddenly, terribly shy at home. A chatterbox at school – trouble and sitting working alone at the grey tables for talking too much. Why did my teachers never notice? Mrs. M. noticed the violent Spiderman book I’d got in my tray when I was off sick with chickenpox at six years old. She replaced it with Maurice Gee’s The World Around the Corner. (Excellent, just bought it and started reading it to Ella.) She commented on my choice, and sent home a book she thought better suited to my character and reading ability. I had the Spiderman book because it had graphic pictures that showed some of the hurt I was experiencing but could not express. Why did she not question the picture I drew which still makes me cry now- of a yellow paper, orange-haired monkey face, crying sharp blue tears with no mouth? Mute, but crying in pain. And on the back of it, my name. My full Christian name. I still have it. There are many incidents, conversations, mementoes, photographs from my childhood, which to me as an adult scream ABUSE! …but I know I am attuned to it.
It’s all too easy for people to say, “Tell a trusted adult. Tell your parents or your teacher.” But what do you do when your dad knows? When your mum has been told by your dad -albeit it with strange language, but wouldn’t you ASK what do you mean?-? When neither one has done ANYTHING about it, which has served as a licence or a permit for your brother to practise all his evil on you? When you don’t dare tell your teacher because you are afraid they will not believe you, especially as your dad is an upstanding member of society? When people look to your dad for direction, guidance, purpose, protection, truth…? When people wouldn’t believe you cos they are convinced your dad would protect you if he knew, being the vicar, and therefore you must be lying?
Think again, people. Don’t revictimise voiceless children who have grown into voiceless adults. You have no idea of the pain. We could not speak. Still feel stifled and suffocated now. Speaking terrifies us. Freedom, even, terrifies us, because we have not known it. Help the voiceless speak. Give a megaphone to the whisper. A voice to the rag-doll. A mouth to the mute monkey face.