Here I am in trouble again and you may often find yourself in this type of trouble too. The offender gets out of trouble by blaming the offender. Such as they deserved it. They were so stupid that they deserved to lose to me. Why should they trust people so much? If caught often the punishment does not equal in cost, inconvenience or shame what the offense cost the victim. Often victims have to take on the role of being a damaged person whose repair is difficult, often incomplete and leaves scars.
I am a sexual abuse victim. Even the word victim is personally damaging. I didn’t ask for it but I got it anyway or will get it for sure if I tell anybody like I am doing now. I didn’t realize until the first time I felt a sexual response while making out and it went away. I tried many ways to fix this without any luck and I live with it. Also once a victim, always a victim.
I had a therapist who once called me sexually appealing which made me uncomfortable at the time. At the end of therapy when I was moving out of town he invited me back to let him know how I was doing if ever I was in town. When I came back, I found out that he expected me to have sex with him. I remember nothing that happened after that. Boy was I naive and became a victim again. Now I know why I never felt I was sexually attractive because that was dangerous. It took away from my self-esteem. Now does that mark me as someone to be exploited?
I was considered a behavior problem in grade school. Was I reacting to being sexually abused? I had all men teachers at the time. The best year I had was with my only woman teacher! In those days no one considered the fact that I was a problem because they didn’t know what to do with me. In fact, at graduation, I wasn’t made the valedictorian because of my behavior so I said I wasn’t going to graduation if they didn’t. We compromised, I got the award for the highest grades in the class instead. I think I was one of the first people to threaten to boycott my graduation. Also, I was told I would never make better than a B in high school; however, I graduated high school as my class salutatorian.
I was also bullied in high school on the bus and nobody did nothing about it. I did nothing to deserve it. In fact, I tried to spend my time reading to the little kids on the bus. I ended up not riding the bus. I also was a member of what I called the “out” group the members of which including me all sat in a group in the auditorium. We all there for different reasons, the country kids (but that was not my reason to be there), the less intelligence kids, etc. I was there just because I didn’t make into one of the uppity groups who snubbed us.
In ending, I would like to say that from my point that I became a victim for other people’s enjoyment at my expense. Victims of crimes also seem to get not fully repaid for their losses caused by those who victimize. Victims of break-ins often never feel comfortable in their own homes again.
What are the losses, peace of mind, monetary especially the extra cost of legal fees, medical expenses, the cost of different kinds of therapies needed? Also, the inability to have normal emotional responses again, the ability to trust people, tragic memories or the loss of memories of things that happened, fear of getting in certain situations again. What of these expenses does the offender ever have to pay and does the suffering of being caught and having to pay for these offenses ever catch up with them? Remediation often doesn’t really pay for the offense or it cannot occur for some reason such as the death of the offender or the offense is not considered a crime.
