Protecting Myself from Sexualization
Creating layers to hide
It’s been a week of mixed emotions, as I’ve been discovering some of the darker parts of my family’s past.
I recently found out my paternal grandfather was a sexual abuser.
It makes me angry, sick, sad, depressed and deeply empathetic towards his victim(s). He’s dead, so I can’t confront him, nor do I have to choose to have any sort of relationship with him.
But it has really made me think about how it affected my own dad’s family dynamic and help me figure out things I may have done instinctually to make myself feel ‘safe’.
Dad recently had a heart incident that left us not knowing if he’d pull through. Once he was out of the woods, I had a video call with him. He decided to focus on how beautiful he thought ALL of the nurses were and then proceeded to tell me how beautiful I am and that I have never looked so beautiful. He didn’t ask me any other questions, and this was the focus of our conversation. Oh, and that he had had an afterlife experience, but that I would never know about it, because I don’t walk with the lord.
The conversation made me queasy and it felt very uncomfortable and gross.
Then I started to think about other times in my younger life, when my dad had made me feel uncomfortable with his comments.
One incident I have always remembered was when I was around 12 or 13 and we were visiting my Grandma Stafford, my mom’s mom. We’d been out shopping and Mom had bought me a new shirt. She had me come down to the kitchen where my dad and other family members were, to show off the new shirt.
My dad made a big joke about it and said loud for everyone to hear, “Do the bumps come with the shirt?” and he let out a big laugh. He was of course referring to my prepubescent blossoming breasts. I felt immediately embarrassed and ashamed.
My weight has fluctuated wildly throughout my life, including as a young girl. At one point, my mom bought me a book I’m sure she thought was helpful called “The Woman Doctor’s Diet for Teenaged Girls”.
There were summers where I road my bike everywhere and my body was lean and my legs strong, and there were other years where I remember walking to the store and routinely buying a Dairy Milk thick chocolate bar and a bag taco flavoured chips (the ones that made your finger tips orange), scarfing them down, feeling sick after but compulsively eating them over and over.
When I was a teenager, I had to move between the home of my mom and her verbally abusive boyfriend (later her husband) my dad’s house with his wife (and their strict religious beliefs).
One of those moves was prompted by a string of events that had my brother in the hospital, my mom at work and my mom’s husband asking me to go with him to the drive-in. This guy was verbally abusive to everyone but his own biological kids, so I didn’t think I had a choice. I was in my mid teens. When my mom found out, she accused me of having an affair with him, which prompted me to leave their house. There was no credence to the accusation and it didn’t feel like a safe place to be anyway.
This week, these memories came back up again. I can see now the reasons where I would have wanted to ensure I wasn’t ‘attractive’ to men.
I didn’t want my dad to publicly sexualize me as a normal, growing teenager.
I didn’t want anyone to accuse me of having an affair with someone when I wasn’t.
I also remember as a young person, not speaking with/to or even LOOKING at boys or men. I honestly had no idea why I did this, but of course, it felt much safer not to engage.
No one taught me how to communicate with men, in a natural way, certainly not my dad. At one point, when a boyfriend had broken up with me, my mom asked me, “Couldn’t you be a little more needy?” I was angry at this, as I’d seen how that turned out for her.
It makes sense that I had two failed marriages. I didn’t learn how to have a reciprocal and respectful relationship with men and it also made sense that I struggled with my weight, and keeping it off when I lost it.
The message I got as a young pre-teen was that you are a woman and your worth relates to your body and how it’s viewed by men. Men can shame you with their opinion of your body.
The message I got as a teenager was, your relationships with men are sexual, therefore if you are alone with a man, it will be assumed that you are seducing him in some way.
It makes me sick to write it and to think about how I viewed myself.
But it’s a realization I can work with to heal.
It’s another layer I can pull back, on the road to becoming my authentic self, under the armour.
I don’t need to be afraid to be seen and viewed as a woman. No one’s opinion of how I look or act matters, except my own. I can show up however I want, be seen with confidence, knowing I have my own boundaries. My heart knows when it’s safe and I can listen to my own intuition.
This has been a big revelation and break through for me this week.