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awoke with a start from the most horrifying dream.
Someone is trying to do sexual things with me. Puts his
hands between my legs. Puts his penis between my legs from
behind.
I hear Ann and Gail in the other room talking about him.
They don't want to sleep with him anymore.
I somehow hide from him. Run upstairs to tell my mom.
Usually she sleeps with him. I am going to tell her I am too
old to be sleeping with him.
lam going to tell her he doesn't know what he is doing
she should talk to him.
Before I can say anything, she looks at me like "What now?
I can't handle one more thing."
Slowly, I close her bedroom door.
I hide from the man, hoping he'll go to Ann and Gail's room.
****
****
Still shaking from the dream, I sat up and used the sheets to wipe
the sweat from my body.
When my breathing returned to normal, I called Destiny.
After what seemed like a hundred rings, she answered.
"Kris, is that you?"
"How'd you know it was me?" I lamely attempted humor.
"Are you okay?"
"No." I answered the question honestly for, perhaps, the first
time in my life.
"Did you dream?"
"Yes," I said, my voice shaking, my body still trembling.
"Can you talk to me about it?"
"No," I mumbled.
"Could you try, Kris? It might make it easier," she said in a gentle
voice.
"I can't. I'll cry."
"Crying's okay. Remember? You're the one who helped me
learn to cry again."
Slowly, haltingly, I told her about the dream. Several times she
had to ask me to repeat sentences because my crying made the
words indistinguishable.
"It's okay. It's okay," she repeated soothingly as I struggled to
regain control.
"What am I going to do?" I asked, the pain clear in the timbre of
my voice.
"Do you want me to come over? I could be there in ten minutes,
"Do you want me to come over? I could be there in ten minutes,
fifteen tops. I'll get dressed while we talk on the phone."
"No, that's not what I meant. I'm okay for now, but what am I
going to do tomorrow, Destiny? What am I going to do about
the fact that I have a mother who emotionally abused me and a
father who..." my voice broke again, "... who sexually abused
me?"
"I don't know. I wish there was an answer."
"When, for God's sake, will it ever stop hurting?" I asked angrily.
"When?"
"You know, Kris, it's okay for it to hurt. For years, I blocked
out the pain and blocked out a hell of a lot of other feelings, too.
I tried to protect myself by forgetting everything, but now I see
that actually prevented me from healing. Finally, I'm starting to
allow myself to feel the loss, thanks to you, and as much as it
hurts, and as weird as this sounds, it's great!"
"Then you think this is good that I'm dreaming, as awful as it is,
because it's healing?"
"Exactly. It's another sign of how you ve not pretending
anymore, how you're grieving instead. It's an incredibly big step."
"But it feels so unsettling."
"Of course it does. You've never done it before. You've lived in
your mind and closed down your heart and your body. But
you're changing. If you think about it, calling me maybe one of
the most healing things you've done. When you have these
dreams, don't you usually try to ignore them, and hope they'll go
away?"
"Yes," I agreed tentatively.
"Yes," I agreed tentatively.
"Even though they hurt like hell and scare you to death, don't you
usually pretend they don't?"
"Of course I do! I don't want them to have that kind of power
over me, that suffocating control."
"Of course you don't, but the fact is, Kris, they do have that
power. They do hurt and they do scare you. But tonight, instead
of taking away their power by pretending, you called me up and
talked to me, right?"
"I guess."
"You see then, you're healing!"
"But didn't it bug you that I woke you up?"
"Not at all!"
"Didn't it disgust you to hear about the things I dreamed?"
"What your father did to you disgusts me. What you dreamed
doesn't. I know you feel a lot of shame, but you don't need to.
You were a helpless little kid. You no more caused the incest
than I caused my parents' death, but I know that's hard for you
to believe. To this day, I have trouble believing I was blameless."
"But isn't it horrible that I wanted him to attack Ann and Gail.
How could I be so awful to wish that on anyone?"
"You were trying to survive. The best way a child could."
"God, isn't it frightening?"
"Which part?"
"Parents literally own children. They can treat them any way they
please, and it's all perfectly legal. Unless they scald them to death
in the bathtub or beat them until they have head injuries or rape
them so obviously that no adults can turn their heads, no one
them so obviously that no adults can turn their heads, no one
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