Giveaway!

Hush by Eishes Chayil was the first book on sexual abuse that I had ever read.
It was recommended to me by a dear friend who at the time did not know about my past.
I read it in one sitting and cried through the whole book. It hit home for me and really changed something in the way I dealt with my pain. That was when I decided to get help for the trauma I had undergone as a little girl.

It is a powerful book that should be read by every single person.

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Child's Play

Most children played
I destroyed

They played house
And pretended to be mommies

 

I took the dolls
And ripped them apart

 

They played school
And pretended to be teachers

 

I went to school
And got into trouble everyday

 

They played doctor
And pretended to check one another

 

He played doctor
And touched and hurt my body

 

They had fun
They laughed and played
Skipped and hopped
Giggling about life

 

I had nightmares
I cried and lived in fear
Running away, trying to hide
Crying and wishing to die

 

While they played
I was played with

 

While they had fun and games
I was tortured and abused

 

Childhood is meant to be fun
And happy
Not scary and sad

 

I lost my childhood
It was stolen from me
In broad daylight
No one stopped the thief
They just watched from the sidelines

 

And now it's too late
For a childhood stolen
Can never be returned

Flashbacks

I lie here crying
My heart is shattered
I am in so much pain

 

The pain won't go away
Its getting stronger and stronger

 

Why did you hurt me?
Why did you molest me?
Why didn't you listen to my pleas to stop?

 

I cried
I begged
I kicked
And screamed

 

I lie here crying
Remembering
The pain is so real
As if its still happening

 

The pain is in my heart
But it was in my body too

 

The pushing
The burning
The roughness

 

Its still there
15 years later
I am crying
I'm in pain

 

I'm drowning
I need to be rescued

But not by you
Go away
Don't touch me
Ever again
Don't you dare come near me
Or mine

 

Leave me alone
Stay out of my life

 

The pain is so sharp
So real
I'm crying
And I cannot stop

 

My home
My safe haven
Is no longer safe

 

My bed
Is no longer a place to rest

 

My body
Is no longer my own

 

My heart and soul
Are no longer whole

 

I'm dead
All I can feel is pain
All I know is hurt

 

I'm crying
I cannot stop
And will never stop

 

Guest Post: This Is My God

Guest Post by Asher Lovy

For the longest time I haven't been able to bring myself to say the name “Hashem”. It feels wrong to me, like I'm forcing myself to utter the name of a being I know to be something entirely false and contrived by people with whom I would never want to associate. Don't worry, this article isn't a renunciation of my religion. No, I believe with all my heart in "Hashem;" I just can't bring myself to utter that word, or even think it without cringing. When I need to refer to my Creator in conversation, I call Him God. That's who I feel my bond with-God. Hashem makes me want to run and hide but God makes me feel safe and loved and protected. I feel God, not Hashem, watching over me. God is who I pray to, not Hashem.

Until this morning I couldn't understand why Hashem is so objectionable to me. I thought about it because it's bothered me for the longest time; I couldn't say the name of my God without feeling dirty; I've really felt guilty about it. I thought about situations in which I would be inclined to discuss Hashem and, for the most part, they're all with people who use Hashem to their own advantage. People discussing the "kids at risk" crisis, or the latest "falsely accused rebbi" or hateful discussions about how gay people are the scum of the earth and intend to destroy us one male sexual encounter at a time.

I realized that any time I have ever been spoken to about Hashem, barring a few exceptions, it's been a discussion I wanted to run away from, with a person I wanted to berate for their ignorance. They were twisting my God into something so horrible that I can't even say His name as it is accepted in my religious circles. Hashem is a disgusting idea to me because the people who claim to worship Him and embrace His law made their idea of Him so reprehensible.  

God, though...God is entirely my own construct. No one refers to God by that name in my community. In fact, most find it a bit uncomfortable when I do. But God is my understanding of my chosen deity and religion. God is someone who loves me, protects me, and gives me a better way to live my life. God is something I want to be closer to. God is something I can work toward. God is the deity of my bible, the savior of my nation, Hashem just makes me cringe.

Someone once asked me an interesting question: Does someone who has an easy life have less of a challenge in faith than someone who has a difficult life? As I was trying to come up with an answer, someone listening in on the conversation interjected and said “It’s two sides of the same challenge.” On the one hand, the person who has a hard life is confronted with so much evil and pain that he may lose sight more easily of God, because the God he knew and loved seems so heartbreakingly absent. On the other hand, The person who has an easy life never has to confront the question of God’s existence because, in a sense, he never really needs God for anything. God is incidental in His life, and, therefore, he may forget that God even exists and is the Master of Creation.

I had a hard life. Have a hard life. I’m only 21. I’m having a hard life. My mother abused me, physically and emotionally, for years. My grandmother tried to hold things together and keep the peace, but eventually she fell into her own depression. Life went to hell. We had money but no way to access it because my grandmother needed to sign the checks and she was, effectively, catatonic. I was a high school kid, suffering through my abuse, not sure how I would pay for food or clothes, never feeling safe because my grandmother could no longer protect me.

At first I cursed Hashem. I cursed Him for the life I had been promised by all my rabbis and teachers, and the life He had given me; I cursed Him for letting my abuser go on unchecked, as she pleased, while my grandmother and I suffered; I cursed Him for the things I had to do in order to live day to day; I cursed Him for not just taking my life and making it all end. Then I prayed. Every day, with tears in my eyes, I prayed, begged Hashem to help me. I stopped going out very much because I didn't want people to see me crying.

I begged my family to help; some of them knew what was going on, but for one reason or another, always had more pity for my mother than for me. My grades plummeted, and I started skipping school and staying home, online, where my real friends were. My family told me that I had to go to yeshiva and gave me plenty of rebuke for my "sins”. They seemed to think that if only I would be the perfect yeshiva boy they had envisioned, my life would somehow perfect itself.

All I saw were people who knew, but did nothing-who would judge only me, and focus on my spiritual shortcomings, rather than help end my abuse and help me heal. Hashem wasn't there for me, and those who worship in His name only used Him to make me feel worthless and guilty. Regardless of what I needed to do to survive, it always seemed contrary to what they believed Hashem wanted. If I skipped school in order to earn money so I could pay for things like food and clothing, things that most teenagers have provided for them, I was sinning. I was expected to conform to everyone else’s norms even though my life was falling to pieces. All this in the name of Hashem. This wasn't the life I had been promised; this wasn't the Hashem I had been told about. I stopped believing in that deity.

For a while I had no god. I tried finding proof for the existence of the one I'd abandoned, proof that he had never existed, or proof of some other truth entirely. The more I searched the more I realized I would never find proof: it always came down to faith. I examined my life and the course it had taken, and I couldn't deny the hand of some intervening being. Hashem and His worshippers had never helped me, but there were those who did, and situations which somehow managed to work in my favour that I couldn't explain logically. I had to finally admit that something was intervening, some sort of deity, but which one?

I started learning more about this deity I had once known as Hashem but now he seemed different, he seemed more like the God I could connect to rather than the Hashem which I felt so removed from. I began to understand His law, His will, the way in which he governs our world, His mercy, His judgement, His anger and kindness. I still wasn't seeing His plan as ultimately good, but at least I could begin to understand the rules-the method to His madness.

This deity I was getting to know needed a name. He was the god of the Judaism that I had accepted, but the feel of Him, and of my understanding of Him, was so radically different from the way I felt and understood Hashem that I couldn't refer to Him by that name any longer. Hashem to me was synonymous with unfettered, blind, zeal, to the point where it superseded His actual will. I named Him God. I still can't say Hashem without cringing, but I am an Orthodox Jew and I love God, because he is the God I chose, instead of being forced to accept. His law is the law I embraced, not the laws that had previously been imposed on me. He is, in every sense, my God.

A Survivor's Prayer

There was a time in my life

Not too long ago

When I protected you

And before that 

For so very long

I thought I must admire  you

That you were deserving of my respect

They said you were golden

So I must have been to blame

We are a family

Families stick together

But they neglected to mention

Families don't abuse

Families don't rape

Families don't destroy

Families don't threaten

But you did

You hurt me

You are hurting me

You act so haughty

As if you have never done wrong

You wear the garb

As if its a shield

You surround yourself with deniers

So you will never be exposed

You seem to have forgotten

That there is a God

A God who knows

A God who never forgets

You don't seem to care or be bothered

By the burden on your soul

Of the abuse you inflicted on me

You live a carefree existence

While I twist and turn in pain

Every single day

My soul will never be pure

My heart will never be whole

My nights will never be restful

My days will never be peaceful

I have learned to live a half a life

To make do with what's left of me

Will the day ever come

When the tables will be turned

When you will fear me

When you will beg for my forgiveness

I long for that day

Yet I dread that time

What will I say

What will I do

How will I feel

Only time will tell

All I can do is pray

And hope

And dream

That I am filled with peace

And acceptance

And love

Please God.

Voices

There's voices in my head

Voices in my heart

Speaking back and forth

Telling me to stop

Don't even attempt to try

Success is not for you

You're a mess

A loser

A failure

You'll never make it work

You never could make it work

They speak to me constantly

At all hours of the day

They make themselves available

Morning and night

But stop and listen quietly

You'll hear the voices

They're the voices of my abusers

Trying to shut me down

Not giving me a chance

To spread my wings and fly

To be free of their control

To feel the freedom

And get stronger and louder

I need to learn

To be aware

That the sound of the voices

The origin of the voices

Is unhealthy

Its paralyzing

Not just stunting my growth

But shrinking me

Making me less of a person

But I can quiet these voices

I'm a survivor

I hear louder, stronger voices

Encouraging me

Pushing me

Elevating me

To reach new levels

Achieve greater goals

And strengthen my very being

After all, I'm a survivor

A fighter

A warrior

You can never bring me down

For I am incredible

Take Away The Pain

Take away the pain

With the slash of a knife

Take away the pain

With a shot of booze

Take away the pain

With a swipe of a credit card

Take away the pain

With a puff of weed

Take away the pain

With sharp pangs of hunger

Take away the pain

With a handful of pills

Take away the pain

One stormy night, on a slippery road

Please, just take away the pain!

I need to feel better

I need to forget

And be free once again

To a time when life was good

Life was sweet

I controlled my own

Now I am trying to return to those days

Soothe my troubled soul

And take away the pain once and for all