Content warning: emotional abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, boundary violations, tickling. I wrote this because I needed to; please don’t read it if it’s going to hurt you.
At first there was a little sigh of pleasure, but as I’d continued to touch her and ask her to stand for me there was a strained rumble and a sharp intake of breath and another uncomfortable rumble, the way a child held and tickled begins giggling and ends crying and pleading to be let go.
– Kim Echlin, Elephant Winter
You know that progressive relaxation technique where you’re supposed to start from your toes and work your way up your body, tightening and relaxing each group of muscles along the way?
Yeah. I can’t do that. Ever.
Just the thought of it makes me feel faint, just as reading that sentence by Kim Echlin makes me feel faint. Just as writing this post makes me feel faint. I thought I could knock this piece out in an evening and post it and be done with it, but it’s not going to be that easy. Not this time.
I was twenty years old when I first discovered I had a problem with progressive relaxation. I was on the psych ward at Ottawa Civic, lying on the floor with a group of other patients, listening to the occupational therapist’s very calm voice and doing my best to follow her instructions. I was fine, I really was, until I got to a particular spot on my back: just below the ribs, I think, on my right side. I can feel the spot tightening with the memory of it.
I don’t remember going from the OT room to my ward room. I remember being back in my bed, blanket pulled up right over my head, clutching my stuffed rabbit to my chest, and crying. Crying like I would never stop. And jerking. My whole body jerking, not little twitches, but big jumps enough to move the bed a little.
And a thought, out of nowhere: What did that bastard do to me?
I will take a moment here to say that I do not believe I have ever been sexually abused. Whatever this post is about, it’s not about that. Whoever that bastard was, whatever that bastard did, it was not that kind of violation.
That bastard, though, my heart told me it was my dad. And my body didn’t want to know about whatever was locked away in that spot on my back. I put it away, forgot about it as best as I could.
But it came up again a few years later, in a relaxation seminar I attended with my teammates. That time, I was in hysterics before I even got up off the floor. Tighten and relax, tighten and relax, boom.
It all goes back to that teal room in my father’s house on Montague Street. That’s where I learned progressive relaxation to begin with. He would guide me through the muscle groups from the toes on up. It should have been helpful: I was often wound up at his place. It wasn’t helpful.
My memories are confusing here. The teal room is also where he tickled me at bedtime. Where he would hold me down, pin me down, make me squirm and wriggle and scream while he laughed at my helplessness. I don’t know whether the relaxation technique came before the tickling, after the tickling, or in a separate set of memories entirely.
I could not get away. There was no No.
I believe there was no sexual abuse. But I do understand now that I was abused nonetheless: mentally, emotionally, physically. He used all his strength to overpower me. He used everything he had to make sure he was the one in control. You go to bed and you try to sleep and you don’t know what’s coming, comfort or torture.
Now, there are certain things that my body doesn’t trust, and I have to have rules:
- Don’t ever walk up behind me if I don’t know you’re there; I will turn around and hit you before I know what’s happened
- Don’t ever stand directly behind me; I will flinch, and it won’t be your fault
- Don’t ever touch my back; I will scream. In fact, don’t even reach towards my back, because I feel the motion behind me and jump, even if I don’t see you do it
- Don’t ever whisper to me if I’m not expecting it; I will yell, and I won’t be able to help it
- Don’t, do not, ever tickle me; see the list of reactions above and imagine them happening all at once
It’s ridiculous, right? These rules don’t seem reasonable to me when I’m reading them on my screen. But once upon a time, my mother touched that spot on my back, and I yelled, “Don’t you know not to touch me there?” In public. She was shocked. I was shocked. Neither of us knew what had just happened.
I still don’t know the truth about the spot on my back. I went to a psychologist about it, and he didn’t believe what I was telling him, that I would flinch if you so much as passed your hand over the spot without touching it, and therefore he could not help me. I went to a reiki specialist, and she told me there was a strong negative male energy emanating from that spot. I went to a massage therapist, and she dug her knuckles right into that spot but could not loosen it up; later she passed her hand over it without telling me and I jumped.
I may never know the truth about that spot, and maybe I don’t want to. What I want is not to feel fear when I focus on it, or when someone stands too close to me. I want not to feel rage when I see a parent coochie-coo their child. I want to drift off to sleep without the fear of finding myself back in that teal room again.
Is that too much to ask?
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