New Webcomic Pages. (Oh and I’ll be blogging once a week again pretty soon.)

Well the good news is that after a week of being too sick to sit and draw Acidgirl is back with a double day.

http://acidgirl.thecomicseries.com/comics/15/

The better news is that I will be back to updating this blog regularly pretty soon after my birthday in the beginning of March. It’ll only be once a week, but I’ll be putting up one decent length article per week, and I guess that’s something.

Being an Abuser Survivor – They’re both dead.

I found out last Wednesday that the last of my abusers had died.

I found out when my mother rang my Partner in Crime to let her know. She rang my PiC because my mom doesn’t really know me anymore, and wanted to know whether to tell me or not.

That thought actually showed a lot of good sense from my mom. Even though it’s almost 20 years since the last time my abusers touched me, they still have an immense impact on my day-to-day life. For twenty years I’ve sort of peeked around each corner to make sure they weren’t coming the other way. Where ever I am I do my best to make sure that not only do I sit where I can see the whole room, but also that my back is to a corner. I truly believe in fighting or fleeing from a highly defensive position, because of them.

What they did to me echoes in so much of what I do every day.

The first died about a decade ago of AIDS. You can not begin to imagine how many HIV tests I’ve had in the past 20 years. Even though I know I’m clear when I think about it I feel the almost overwhelming need to have myself tested again, just to make sure. But anyway, the first one died long ago, and when he did I felt nothing but relief. One less threat to me in the world, I even got to enjoy the compensation that his death was probably rather hard. Though probably not nearly hard enough.

The second? He died in his sleep. Bastard.

So you’d think I would feel relief. And I do, a lot of relief. I feel like I can breathe properly for the first time in my adult life. But, unfortunately, that’s not where what I feel ends. Not even close.

Being the victim of child sex abuse is a life sentence, with short of an early death, no chance of parole. And learning that they’ve both died has just reopened every single wound. All of them. They’ve never healed, it’s probable they never will. They just scab over a little, and I can sort of pretend they’re not there for a little while, until something new reopens them. Well this has not so much reopened them as ripped them apart. And when those wounds are open the memories come pouring out. And those are not the soft, vague memories of every day life. No, they’re the “Oh my Gods it’s being done to me again.” memories of the abuse victim. The memories that come with the complete set of sights, smells, sounds, and physical feelings. They come with other things too.

I’m having nightmares I haven’t had in years. Nightmares I’d hoped never to have to cope with again

I’m scared to leave my home again. I, 34-year-old Amanda, know they’re both gone, but try telling that to the 8-year-old version of me who’s hiding in her wardrobe.

I don’t feel like eating, drinking, sleeping, exercising, reading, or really anything else.

I’m forcing myself through the motions because I know if I do it for long enough I’ll come back out the other side. The only reason I know this will work for me is because I’ve done it before, many, many times before.

But I will get through this.However, contrary to what most people seem to believe, I will never get over it. It doesn’t work that way. You never get over it. You just fight through to the other side, and survive. Because that’s what even living well post-abuse is, survival, and survival is an ongoing day-to-day struggle. And in that unending struggle I do have one big advantage. I really, truly hate to lose. And I will not let those two creatures win.

And if there is an afterlife, you two fuckers better prepare yourselves. Cause sooner or later, I’m coming for ye. And I will be smiling when I do.