New Type of Thing

So a couple months back my old church youth group started a series called "Dirty Little Secrets".  Basically it was talking about how keeping secrets from each other prevents us from connecting with others and with God.  Sprung from that was an event called Dirty Little Secrets.  Basically you admit a secret every day for a month, or until you run out of secrets (depending on which comes first).  So I'm going to try it because I missed the official one.  So everyday for the next month I'm going to write a dirty little secret, why I've kept it a secret and other general things about it.  There may be multiple posts in one day, one post being a secret the next being an up-to-date blog like I usually do.  So feel free to dive in a release some of your own secrets.

So diving right in:
Dirty Little Secret #1- I was sexually abused as a child.  I kept this a secret for over 10 years, at first because I was told that if I told anyone, he'd kill me.  After that I kept the secret so that people wouldn't take his side or call me a whore.  It affects my everyday life, and has changed who I might've been.  I was six years old the first time and no longer am the person I was.  The six year old wasn't afraid of anything, the 19 year old is terrified of everything.  I don't trust people, I don't like being in big groups, and I will do everything in my power to not be alone with someone from the opposite gender that I don't know very well.  The idea of marriage terrifies me, the thought of having sex terrifies me, and therefore having children... you guessed it, scares me.  I also have something called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from it.  This means that I'm sort of a whack job.  I have triggers that send me back in a flashback, and things that just plain bother me.  Also, because of what happened, I struggle to control everything I possible can.  For example, the radio volume has to be on an even number or a multiple of five.  This isn't because I'm OCD (I'm not I swear!), but because I am able to control it, and if I can control that I can control other aspects of my life.  Also, if I'm in control then nothing can happen to me again.  At least, that's the theory behind it!  I also have the emotional capacity of a six year old.  Basically, because no one knew, and therefore no one helped me after, no one was able to help me deal with it.  I had all these grown up thoughts and didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with them.  So I shut down the emotions and let logic take over (actually that was a subconscious thing, I didn't do it, it just kind of happened).  Well they never really got turned back on.  Until the memories started coming back and I felt like a six year old all over again.  So now I basically have the emotions of a six year old, I'm happy, or sad, or mad, there's really no other emotions there yet.  They are starting to grow with therapy, but it's kind of a long process.  The damage wasn't done over night, and the healing won't be either.  So in the mean time, I get kicks out of coloring books, I love playing in the mud, and frankly, half the time I still think boys have cooties.