You Can Call Me Satan the Devil

Years passed.I hid the sexual abuse in my mind more and more until I had totally forgotten about them. I remember them only through my dreams and nightmares. In some of my dreams, I’ll dream that I am running for my dear life. The devil is chasing me. He was trying to get me. The devil appears as a pack of dogs with monsters heads. Each head is barking and drooling heavily showing their big long teeth. The monster dogs are very fast. Even though I am dreaming, I feel as if I am having a heart attack. I wake up sometimes breathing hard, sweaty, and ready to run. I kept my shoes near my bed so when I needed to run in the middle of the night, I can slip them on and go.

Sometimes the devil disguises himself as cats. He appears as cats trying to scratch me. I don’t know why I always try to climb a building or some glass object to escape these killer cats. In those cat dreams I am always trying to reach the sky. Maybe, I was trying to get to God.

In other dreams, the devil would chase me down a dark wooded street. I vision myself climbing up something trying to escape the evil, vicious demons. They couldn't catch me. The whole drama is over whenever I remember to stop and scream,

"Stop in the name of Jesus!” “Get behind me Satan! In the name of Jesus!”

I wake up and I would be safe. Jesus is my big brother and he is the one who has protected me through this whole ordeal. The belief in Jesus had saved me throughout my life and in my dreams.

Jesus not only protected me in my dreams but in life too. Even today I greatly depend on Jesus whenever I am scared. I knew that he something better in store for me. He gave me the most vital thing to my existence. Jesus gives me hope. A hope that my life someday will get better and I will be an adult someday. As an adult I can protect myself from these vicious children predators. That is what I am-a child. I know that I should have been protected from these men, not thrown to them. I knew this as a child because I had a lot of time to think in my room.

Knowing this and believing this are two different things. I mean, what is the use of knowing that you should be protected when you are not? The very people that I looked for this protection tell me that I am nothing and everything that is done wrong to me is my fault. I have done something to cause my own misery.

Aunt Pat told me, “Shay it would’ve been better if you were never born.” She first told me this when I was about seven. Maybe she is right. Soon my grandfather began telling me the same thing.

Whenever I saw Leon or heard Leon‘s name, a stream of fear rushes to my heart. I would go into a panic attack and my hands will begin to sweat. Overtime I had forgotten about what Leon had done to me. Then I will see him and bits of memories would come back to my mind. Usually I do not have mental memories but bodily memories. My body goes into a fight or flight mode and I don't know why. My body reacts to a dangerous situation even when my conscious mind is not aware of it.

Whenever I am around males I feel scare. One day I am walking down the road going home. I have just left the store picking up some cooking grease. I look up and there was a man walking on the other side of the road. My heart felt like it was going to fall out and die. I was so scared. He is going to hurt me! He is going to hurt me! I said to myself. I began walking very fast almost running. I didn’t want him to get me. Tears began to roll down my face. I finally made it home. My granddaddy gives me ‘What wrong now’ look. I hurry into the house to my room. I lock the door. Every sound and every creak made me think that the man had followed me home to hurt me. I felt safer in my room in my corner or under the bed.

Aunt Pat didn't make my situation any better. The monsters in my dream were different from the real monster that I had to face everyday.

Not only do I have to hide and worry about my own brother and men who watches me on the streets, I have to worry about the monsters that were coming into my bedroom.

Yes, my bedroom. At night after I have bathe, brush my teeth and prayed, monsters will come into my bedroom. I mean real monsters. Not the pretend kind or the kind that are on television.

These monsters grab me and hurt me. My room becomes dark and there is no sound. I get scared. I tried sleeping with my grandpa and brothers, but my grandpa told me that I was too old to sleep with them. My grandpa and brothers all slept in the same queen size bed.

I was so scared that I made sure that my grandpa didn’t go to sleep until I did. About this time in my life I have stopped calling my grandpa “grandpa” and started calling him daddy.

“Daddy! Are you sleep?” I screamed from my room across the hallway.

“No, Shay!” Daddy screams back.

I’ll wait a few minutes and asked again.

“Daddy! Are you sleep?”

“No, Shay!”

This will go on every night until I finally fall asleep. My daddy loved me, even though he didn’t show all of the time. He never got angry with me for calling his name or asking him if he was asleep ten times a night. Hearing his voice made me feel safe.

After I have fallen asleep, I felt someone touching me. At first I thought that I was dreaming. I opened my eyes. My God! Someone is on top of me. I heard the bedroom door close as I struggled with the monster on top of me. I felt overpowered and scared. The monster pulled all of the cover off of me.

I felt a hand going into my panties. I froze. This is familiar to me. Every time something like this happens, the person doing it will touch or lick me and then leaves. So, I laid there hoping that the monster will do its thing and leave. I just didn’t want to die. As long as the monster doesn’t kill me, I am okay.

My mind left me. I am back to my happy place, back to my beautiful world of Little House on the Prairie. Laura and I are running in the fields again. Both of us are laughing and playing without a care in the world.

“Laura, I have something to tell you.” I say to Laura.

“What Shay?” Laura says back in her usual caring way.

We are lying on the floor of a barn on a stack of hay.

“Monsters are real.” I whisper to her.

Suddenly the monster and Laura disappear into nothing. I felt like I haven’t taken a breathe in a long time. I grappled to get my breath back.

It’s gone. Like that, the terror is gone. I turned on my side and fall to sleep. I hurt in between my legs, but that’s okay. It is like nothing had happen. That the whole thing was my imagination, except that I was hurting in between my legs. After the monster leaves, sometimes I will bleed a little. Besides that it is just like nothing had happen.