Writing our heart out

BIG Trigger Warning – Cult stuff, child sexual abuse, physical abuse

I see them in my dreams sometimes. Stairs, leading down. Hard corners and sharp edges, such that will really hurt you if you trip and tumble. The unforgiving kind.

I always wonder what I’m doing there. I would never go to a place like this of my own free will. If I remember it’s a dream, I try to fly up and out, but my feet are glued to the floor. I’m helpless, staring at the darkness that surrounds me. 

I’ve tried to piece together the memories of the rooms beneath the stairs. It is especially hard because I was so young, these memories are from until I was seven years old. I don’t know if I’m able to organize them in a coherent way, so I’ll just write them. 

In the first room…it’s drab, hopeless, filled with despair…sometimes we stand in a circle with our clothes on, sometimes off. 

I see my relatives and their children and also other adults and children, whose faces I do not remember. Mindless women and old, sadistic men. Frightened children. 

The adults have books they read strange words from. I’m forced to stand still in the circle and listen, even though I don’t understand a thing. I hate when the time comes to take off one’s clothes – I almost always fight it, but sometimes I’m just too afraid. The worst thing is to be in the middle of the circle. If a child is forced into the middle of the circle, all the adults will sexually abuse it, and the other children will be forced to do sexual things to the child. If an adult walks into the circle, all the children will have to do sexual things to the adult. I refuse to obey, especially if they want me to molest younger children. Then they hold me down on top of the child and when I freeze, they punish me: kick me around, strangle me or molest me violently. Or they leave me on the floor and surround me. The other children are encouraged to scream all the ugly words and insults they can think of at me. Until I feel like I am the words they scream. 

There are variations to this punishment. The onlookers may be forced to hit me, kick me or pinch my skin. But never attack the face or on the head (one of my cousins gets yelled at for kicking me in the head). I guess all marks they leave must be possible to cover with normal clothing. 

I hate when the adults pretend to be demons. I do not believe in demons, but they are perfect actors, having played their roles since they were little children and forced to do so. It is horrible, how they crawl on the floor, how they walk, the way that their voices change and their eyes shine with evil. I wish fervently that they will not choose me, because they always pick a child to abuse. 

I remember a dark room, a white circle on the floor and candles that smell strangely. In this memory I’m quite tipsy and stumbling around the circle. In another memory I stand inside the circle and someone tells me that I am now protected from Jesus, that he cannot enter the circle. I only want my clothes back.

Suddenly we are outdoors again. A soft rain is falling and the ground gleams with little rivulets of water.

I look up at the sky, and the sky looks back as if it has not seen a thing.