She married him. Twice.

A lot of people in my family thought (think?) that my wicked step-father "messed with me" or "had something to do" with me. He didn't. Other than punching me, stabbing at me with a pocket knife and shaking me like a busted candy machine, he never laid a hand (or anything else)on me.

He did get drunk a lot and hit on my friends, though. That was fun. Once, he slipped and fell on the ice outside of our house trying to get one of my friends to not drive home. We DIED! Watching his pathetic ass fly up in the air and crack on the solid ground, our eyes meeting over his splayed form. She got in the car and I ran to the room, both of us knowing that if either of us got caught laughing at him, I'd be screwed.

He was a beast and he scared me so much. He threw chairs at my brother and told me how great it was having sex with my mother. He wore shiny, cordovan leather boots and always, always had his shirt tucked into his slacks with a coordinating belt. Always. I mean, unless he was sitting around in his underwear, his boxers billowing around his hips and me hoping, praying the tiny mouth of penis-hole fabric stayed shut and I wouldn't see it.

When he punched me in the face (I don't know the season, time of day... when I think back on it, what the memory feels like is that I was on a soundstage in the middle of nothing. I was in a paneled room with shitty carpeting and an encroaching roof. There is no time, no time frame for me to reference. It just happened) I couldn't believe it. He fucking hit me! HE HIT ME! HARD! And then, I was in more trouble because I made him do it and I made my mother upset because I made him do it.

It was the longest punch in the universe. It lasted the entire 16th, 17th & 18th years of my life (until another, different prick decided it was OK to hit me)

That same insane few days was when he pulled a small jack-knife out of his pocket and jabbed it at my hands as I sat at the kitchen table. He got me a few times. My mother did nothing to stop any of this. I am a small person, I was even smaller then. I needed help. What I got was hell.

Intertwined with these memories are the memories of the boy I was in love with when all this was happening. He was why all this was happening... He was handsome and funny and smart and he had an older girlfriend for like 4 years so by the time I came around, he was pretty clear on what to do for the ladies. We never had sex back then but that summer he would sneak in my bedroom window at 4 in the morning and make me feel like the only girl in the world. He'd tell me I was beautiful while he kissed and held and touched me. He was good and what we were doing was perfect until it wasn't. Until I was given front row seats to the madness of that man.

Untangling my glorious sexual beginnings from insane physical & emotional abuse has been... difficult.

When the beast found out I had a boyfriend (and that he had me; in the palm of his hand) he went wild. WILD. He drank and stalked and left his job and lost his fucking mind.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I have this really terrible relationship with anger. Everything I know about it I learned from very damaged people. I learned that pleasure and shame share very small spaces with one another. I learned that anger means IT'S YOUR FAULT and when it surfaces it's my job to mop it up... with my guts.

I am asking for help again. And I'm getting it (in does I'm able choke down). Please tell me it gets easier to feel good.