Hidden Pieces ~ Sexual Abuse ~ Incense

***TRIGGER WARNING*** ***TRIGGER WARNING*** (Graphic Sexual Abuse)

I decided to begin retelling what I wrote to my therapist and I in the Winter/Spring of 2007 after four years of intense flashbacks and repressed memories emerging. [Current commentary is in brackets.] I wrote my seventy page "biography" because I needed to write out what I remembered and what I experienced to make it more "real" rather than a "story." I am ready to take the next step and putting more of it in my blog. This was the original reason for starting my blog and using my journal as a starting point. I am still struggling with believing that the following is the truth of my life:

.....I had new flashes during session and after that I don’t feel safe enough talking about. One is of my step-father's mother grabbing my wrist and forcing me to put it on my step-father's father's  privates and then moving my hand up and down and prompting me to watch because I kept closing my eyes. She was telling me that this is all she could do, but men needed more, so they needed my help. When he ejaculated, it scared me and I felt like I did something wrong.

She also had me touch myself and her privates including insertion of my finger and her's.  She said that this is what men are going to do to me and that I need to do to them.  It was part of "purifying" me of the evil within me.  I also have this flash of a stick of incense being inserted into my vagina and being told that incense keeps the evil spirit and the devil away that is why they had to burn it when I was around. I also physically remember being burned in my privates.  [I now know that she was grooming me and was actually coordinating my abuse in her home.]

My step-father's mother did tarot card readings.  Two cards that my mother kept leaving in my room were the death and devil cards. I don’t think I understood the meaning, but the pictures themselves scared me. My hunch is that she told my mother and I different things about the cards. The death card was that I need to die and the devil card meant that I was evil.

My mother used to light incense after a fight with my step-father and smoke.  Both calmed her down.  I hated the smell and was so afraid it woundn't work and she would come after me...I just stayed quiet in my room...the incense scared me with her. (I had a flash of her holding my left hand and taking it and burning the top of my hand.) When she would light it during neutral times, she would be listening to music or reading or cleaning.  Sometimes, I would purposely burn my fingers. [My first known incident of self-harm and burning would continue to be a difficult area for me.]

I also remember if it was after a fight, I would peek around the corner to make sure my mother was okay and that the incense or cigarette hadn't fallen because I didn't want anything to get burned or for a fire to start...because sometimes she would fall asleep because she had taken something or was drinking either beer or vodka.  I knew not to try to interrupt once she lit the incense because she just went into her own world. The one time that I remember trying to comfort her like I did during other times, she burned my hand, but not to badly because it healed quickly.

This was extremely difficult to rewrite as I don't want to remember and I am projecting that you don't believe me and that I am making it up.  I also feel sick to my stomach and buzzy.