No pithy comments or snarky sarcasm. I'm just having a rough time. Yesterday was the anniversary date of my first miscarriage. All of the emotional flashbacks that lead up to it suddenly made sense. I suppose I have to explain a few things about this first miscarriage.
First, I was barely fifteen living with my parents. My boyfriend at the time was 19 and serving in the military. We had gotten together as a couple in the autumn of the year before at the high school home coming dance. He walked up to me and declared that I was going to be his dance partner. I refused and went to go back to my conversation with the guy with the sound system playing for the dance when N- said, "I don't take no for an answer." and proceeded to pick me up and drag me out onto the dance floor.
I struggled, I tried to break out of his grip, I yelled. I was ignored until I was put on my feet in the middle of the crowd and then people stared at me like there was something wrong with me. I tried to stomp on his foot but he just laughed and refused to let me go. This set an early precedent. He introduced himself to my parents when they came to pick me up as my new boyfriend. Then he blew me a kiss and promised to see me at school on Monday.
My parents read me the riot act. My plan was to give it a week and then drop him like a hot rock. That didn't work. Social pressure and love bombing at the same time is a hell of a thing. About a month later, the sexual assaults began. At the same time, I was pressured not to say or do anything because he made threats against me and physically hurt me to "keep me in line". I got good at concealing marks with makeup. I learned to ignore sharp pain in intimate areas. And I got really good at spacing out and just letting my body do whatever it was going to in response to what he did because I wasn't there.
Cue a year and a half later. He's on leave from his first real tour of duty. N- spent most of his time that he was on leave with me. He did his best to impress my parents on his sincerity. At one point, he and my father had the Talk. N- stated that he planned to be a career military man and keep me happy as a stay at home wife. (This was after in the summer, N- promised me that we were going to some day get married. This promise was made after he had grossly assailed me and I was completely spaced out. I remember staring at him in shock as he took the emerald ring that my Grandmother had given me as a gift and slipped it from my right to my left hand. All I was able to think in that moment was, why wasn't he giving me a promise ring that he got if this was what he was going to do. To this day, I have complicated feelings about that emerald ring.)
My parents had begrudgingly come to give their approval of this relationship with no concept of what was going on behind closed doors. (This note comes back to haunt me a solid decade later.) So, N- brings me out to dinner and then to where he is staying while on leave (his grandparents house). He tells me that he has some interesting family heirlooms to show me because he knows I have an interest in such artifacts. At which point I find myself in an old bedroom underneath the stairs and he forces himself on me.
I tried to resist. I told him to stop. I told him no, but N- didn't take no for an answer. That was New Year's eve. I went from being with him all day New Year's eve to going with his father to drop him off for his flight back to Norfolk. Then I was dropped off at my grandparents house for dinner. I was nearly sick at the sight of meat because it reminded me of what happened. I cried off eating, claiming that I had a stomach ache and had already eaten something on the way there from the airport. N-'s father, during the drive, was talking about how I was a proper match for his son because I was so quiet and 'docile'. (The man was divorced, I suspect with good reason.)
About a week later, N- called me and proposed to me over the phone. He told me not to tell my parents. He said that when he was back on leave again, he'd have a ring for me. (Fun fact, N- stole the last gift that my younger brother had given me in good will to get the ring sized, a silver turquoise ring. I am still angry about the theft. N- never gave it back to me. I suppose he kept it as a trophy, I don't know.) A few weeks later, the band trip happened and we marched in a big parade in Florida. All the time, I was keeping a secret from everyone. Not just about the rape but the fact that my period never came.
It was the beginning of February when I had the miscarriage. I remember it clearly. My mother was screaming at me for using too many menstrual pads and wasting so much time in the bathroom. I passed blood, clots, and a small pink curly thing that was the size of a pencil eraser. What I had suspected turned out to be true. I grieved this and yet was relieved. Because I knew that if I stayed with N-, I was going to eventually die. Because I knew, if I had remained pregnant my parents would have named me a slattern and thrown me out of the house at fifteen. So, I kept the miscarriage a secret.
About a week later, I experienced my first suicidal episode. I mentioned this to the school counselor. The school counselor called my parents. My mom picked me up and brought me home, berating me for wanting attention and calling me a liar. Then when we got home, she slapped a butcher's knife down on the table in front of me telling me if I was suicidal then I should do it right in front of her and prove it. My father came home from work. I got read the riot act again for being a 'hypochondriac' and brought up to the hospital in the city for a 24 hour observation with my parents sitting there glaring at me.
I was terrified. I didn't say or do anything. I just slept for the time I was there. I was released with people saying it was all a cry for attention. And that, my friends, is why February is an awful month for me.
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