Have you ever been forced to be in the same room with a rape victim? It’s a deeply uncomfortable experience. They’re quiet — too quiet; or they can’t seem to stop crying for longer than every 5 or 10 minutes. You don’t know what to say, or do, because nothing helps. And you just wish they were gone. That you didn’t have to deal with it.

I once was myself, before I grabbed and threw her into the nearby closet. But it was too dark, and I could still hear her. She wouldn’t stop screaming, and now she was crying almost constantly. I couldn’t concentrate; got nothing done while she was there. So, finally, I beat her just long enough until she was quiet, so that I could transport her to our basement. While I knew it would no doubt attract some attention, I was out of other options. I knew there, underneath the floor, where her muffled cries would only be heard in the dead of night while we were sleeping, was where I would bury her alive.

She was seven.

I’m not a monster. I do what I do to survive.

You don’t understand unless you’ve been there. Unless you’ve been given no other choice; nothing else works. It becomes your last resort — and an acceptable one. The ultimate objective is to leave everyone else undisturbed.

Moving her was hard enough. She fought; she begged, and pleaded. Didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why she had to go away. She was still hurting. Still scared. She didn’t want to experience the dark, or any of the things she was afraid might be lurking inside of it. She didn’t understand much of anything anymore. I tried to quell these fears, which, at the time, were too much for me to deal with, by explaining that there was nothing to be afraid of in the dark, and she would be safer there anyway. I lied to her; I said that I would keep her warm, visit and keep her company from time to time, and make sure that she had everything necessary to live a relatively basic life. And she believed me. Even though, I knew that day, if I was lucky, I’d never see or hear from her again.

That was over two decades ago. We still hear her occasionally. She’ll have managed to save her strength enough to shake the house. The table upon which we ate dinner. Managing to move the salt shaker half an inch off of its surface, but our mother remains unfazed as she sprinkles a bit of it over her meal, her eyes unmoving from her reflection in the chrome. Really, it was her decision, and I just went along with it. I could have killed the girl that night, like I had been tempted to many times before. Since she came to our house. Changing our lives forever. Especially mine. Instead, I left it to fate. In the end, I was the one most surprised by her capability to endure. The means by which she’d suffered through and improvised, disappearing for long periods of time, only to re-emerge stronger, with an even more powerful will to survive. To be honest, now, she scares me. My reasons for allowing her to stay there have changed; but the reality remains the same.

Each time, her attempt to be noticed would be fueled by a stronger emotion. At first, it was fear. Terror. The desperate need for companionship and consolation. Fear of a terrible loneliness of which its end was unknown. It was later replaced by pure desperation for liberation; to be free to experience what she had been denied. What others have enjoyed, and what she still had a present, though lesser, desire to have for herself. Her life was vanishing before her eyes, controlled and outside of her grasp. Helplessly. When that gained her nothing, she went away again; this time for much longer than she had before. I had become so attuned to those moments she’d make her discarded presence known, that I could tell the reason she was gone was that she was near death, having sacrificed long enough, to no avail, and was coming to accept that she would never have the love or acceptance that others did. That, despite all of her seeming to the contrary, she still craved so deeply.

And for the first time since I’d locked her away, I felt helpless myself. Guilty. Why had I gone along with this? And for so long? What could she have been? What sort of life might she have had? Was I too late?

… What had I done?

The key practically burned in my fist. I knocked on the door.

Family meetings carried more weight and awkwardness than perhaps they should have. I was often filled with a mixture of dread and challenge when Mother called it. Before now, perhaps never so much. And there was something else there, too. Conviction.

She opened proceedings by explaining that the matter had already been discussed, which I fully expected. My father remained quiet in the corner; aware, watching, but never daring to do much outside of agree. Whatever it was. Even if he didn’t. However, when it came to this particular subject, he’d always been more uncomfortable than usual. Though everyone know he couldn’t be blamed for her arriving here, she had asked me many times why ignored her, too. I used to have to explain, often with some annoyance, that he had no other choice, and he secretly beat himself up about it everyday. He would have liked to let her go, and even sort out why she’d even come here, but he never could. Something paralysed him before he even got close. Every time.

Mother, on the other hand, had dismissed the severity of her arrival after a similar sort of private bout of shaming withdrawal, for which she never could accept accountability. She claimed, many times, to have pondered freeing the girl herself, but reasoned that she was safer there — out of the way — and too unpredictable to let loose. Surely, she feared the way it might appear, should she come flying out of the house, or, worse, anywhere near any one of us. After all, her presence — and subsequent treatment — had been the subject of great debate among the few who happened to be around when she tried to reveal herself. We should be ashamed of ourselves. How dare we? Was everything about our public image? Was she so disgraceful? She was a child, for chrissake! And we treated her like something to be forgotten; something best destroyed. Unable to accept what she was, and therefore do all we could to deny her existence.

They never understood, Mother would assure me. But sooner or later, I think we all knew the truth, and were silently doubling our efforts for the inevitable: One day, I wouldn’t understand, either. And that would be the day I’d come to them with the key in my hand, as it was my doing, my problem, my responsibility; my demon, my monster. My aching, gaping, ruined thing which I found both terrifying and endearing. Beautiful and horrendous. 

And, really, it was also my key. But it was their basement. Their rules. While they had no real power of it, or over me, I let them. It was easier to hide inside of their abuse. Better to disguise and misdirect that damage which I myself inflicted.

Of course, she advised against it. While she no longer forbade me to free her, she absolved herself of any guilt or responsibility in the matter; saying that if I wished to give her freedom, to let her explore life, and what it could be like, then I would be fully accountable for anything she did. Including all that she had become. I was armed with information, but no less closer to making a real decision. Part of why I’d allowed her to be there for so long was my own cowardice, fear, and inability to take care of her on my own. She had the strength, after all. I was the one who had grown weak.

Some offered to help, but it was not their burden to shoulder. They could advise me periodically, or lend me encouragement or support, but in the end, she would be entirely in my custody and no one else’s. And it had been so long. I wasn’t even sure if she survived. If all of this time, all of my waiting, selfishness and vacillating, was to do nothing more than to free a ghost. Or bury the remains of what could have been. Either way, I wasn’t looking forward to it. It would be a great many more years until I’d even really discover the truth. It didn’t matter if I was ready or not.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I turned the key; but I don’t think it happened. She was in the corner, leaning against the wall. Almost nonchalant. Bedraggled, but beautiful. My heart pounded faster, since I still didn’t know what the years had done to her. A lesser person, like myself, wouldn’t have survived. Her strength was disconcerting. Her smile was ice in my veins. I couldn’t take it.

“Stop,” I demanded, and turned away. She began to laugh. “Just stop it!”

“Oh, relax.” The years were all over her, but she still had the eyes of the frightened, terrified child I’d abandoned to the dark so long ago.

“Relax?” 

“Yes. Relax.” There was a command to her voice, and a wisdom in her demeanor I’d never seen. There was an assurance that she had of which I found myself envious. She was powerful. She was in control. I couldn’t fathom why, or how. “I dreamt about you,” she said suddenly, and while it seemed so non-sequitur, I realised just as quickly that each of her thoughts had meaning and purpose; they were components of a larger, less evident strategy.

She remained casually diffident; waiting for my reaction. It seemed she already knew what it was, but it was all lost on me, and I now desperately wanted to be a part. “Okay.” It was all I could say.

“You never forgot about me. Not really. You always felt sad, and guilty, but you were never responsible. It was never your guilt to be had.”

I listened, finding myself hanging on her every word. “It … wasn’t?”

She laughed; a calming, soothing, freeing sort of laugh. “No, dear one. It never was.”

This wasn’t how it was meant to be; this wasn’t what I had envisioned. I had locked away a child — a frightened, helpless child — and somehow, I had expected to rescue the same. Instead, I found myself looking up to a calm, confident, wise woman, who despite her circumstances and surroundings, was almost radiant. It went against everything I had learned. All that I knew. She had been cut off from everything, and yet she had continued to grow and learn far beyond what I had, foolishly believing I’d had the world at my fingertips. After all, it was what they’d told me. I’d pitied her all of these years. And, really, I was inexplicably the one who had lost the most.

“Where are we going?” She interrupted my thoughts.

“I … I don’t know.” I’d confessed. I hadn’t really thought about it.

“What are we going to be doing?”

“I don’t know that, either.” I was surprised at how quickly I was able to open up to her. How I felt sheltered and somehow easier in her presence. More assured of myself; able to admit to both what I knew and what I didn’t. And I had no idea what I was doing outside of opening that door.

“What’s the scariest thing you can imagine? The thing you’d never, ever do?” She paused suddenly. “Within reason, that is. That which you’ve always wanted to do, but never imagined you could?”

I looked at the key still in my hand, and held it up. “This?”

She nodded in silent agreement. “What’s the next?”

“Being on my own. Far away from everything and everyone I know, even though I know everything here is bad for me. And I could be the next to get locked up.”

Considering my answer, she nodded again slowly to herself and looked up once her decision had been made. “Let’s do it.”

“What?” My terror no doubt showed in my voice.

“Let’s go far, far away, and live!” She threw her hands up in the air. I’d never seen such joy before. Not in my entire life. I’d realised in that moment, I really didn’t know what it was. And I wanted so much more of it.

“Do that again.”

She turned to me, perplexed. “What?” 

“Do that again.”

“Do what again?”

“Smile.” I felt sheepish, but with a knowing grin, she was soon beaming again. The warmth from it was almost tactile. She then began to put things together, almost as if she was packing.

“Leave everything,” I found myself suddenly commanding. She was surprised, but understanding. “So, what … do we do?”

“Anything.” She swung her arm around my neck. “Everything. Let’s go fall in love! Get rich and famous! Let’s do something that everyone will remember us by. Something that will make us immortal, no matter what we do.”

“They’ll never let us go,” I found myself saying, suddenly overwhelmed by the possibility — the joy and terror — of true freedom. “We have nothing.”

“We have each other.” And she smiled. “Life is scary. It just is. But it’s amazing, too. You’ve lived too long in fear. You’ve been too concerned with what I would never do or be to realise that you’d almost lost the chance yourself. We can’t be apart,” she explained. “We can never be apart. What they did was wrong, and what you let them make you do and become was wrong.” I looked down. “But I forgive you. After all, you’re a part of me.” And for the first time, I felt it.

“I’m so sorry,” I found myself finally losing all composure and crumbling to a useless heap upon the floor.

Her voice invaded my muffled cries, and her arms were warm and safe around my back. “We make mistakes. And it’s okay to. It doesn’t mean you are one, or incapable of everything else.” She sighed as I looked up through my matted hair, now firmly sticking to my damp forehead and face. “Oh, honey. You have so much to learn.” She stood first and extended her hand to me soon after. I took it and rose up myself. The first thing she decided to teach me was that I didn’t belong in a heap upon the floor. I was better than that, and I should never forget it. And I haven’t.

We stole away to avoid confrontation, which no doubt followed in the months to come. But we were too far away for them to stop us. In the end, I wasn’t shouldering a burden — rather, I feared I was one. But she’d convince me, with her own assurance and confidence in herself that it was just leftover programming of so many years of not really knowing what truly was. In time, it would fade. She told me that it wouldn’t always be like this, but not to be afraid. She didn’t belong here in my life like this, and had only appeared because something went wrong. We would talk about it sometimes, but it’s hard for both of us. Because she is me, and I am her, and we can never be apart again for the sake of my sanity or happiness. 

Because now, after it’s all been said and done, I’m all that’s left. I hear her, sometimes, as the voice inside my head not borne of misguided attempts of parental love, or familial shame; the unattainable striving for perfection and the sense of failure if it isn’t achieved. She’s something altogether different. Something I rescued that, in the end, ended up rescuing me. And she allowed me to live again. To fall in love. To try and be rich, and famous. To be free. To be myself.

It’s a journey; one that can never be without taking that first step.

So, what’s buried in your basement? Together, let’s find the key.

Tags: Assertiveness Training, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Creative Visualisation, Healing Abuse and Trauma, Obstacles to Self-Love, Psychological Counseling, Self-Actualisation