About a week ago, maybe a little bit longer than that my sister told me something important. We were talking on the phone like we do every so often and she tells me- she says that our dad has told her that our uncle is in jail for child molestation.
I didn't feel anything, at first. Or so I thought. It was like suddenly there was this great big nothing pursuing me. It was a strange feeling but I intellectually I knew it was a good one. See, my uncle molested me when a was young. It made me feel so betrayed by my family and so hurt that I couldn't really ever trust them because not only did they let it happen to me but they were the ones who did it. For so long I have been so angry and so scared and so hurt and and so untrusting of everyone I love that it was impossible, really, for me to feel and be close to someone in a healthy way that didn't lead to me running away or ruining it. Because I was so angry, because I was so hurt, because I couldn't trust in people, because I was always afraid. Because I never got justice.
I never wanted revenge. I just wanted justice. I wanted him to know that what he did was wrong and that society wouldn't stand for it. I wanted him to pay for his crimes justly. I wanted it so that it would ever be that much harder to hurt another child again. I wanted there to be people who watched him and knew him for what he was. I wanted him to be punished for his crimes in accordance with the laws of our society.
And now he has.
After about five minutes googling his name and various phrases I found him. He's on the Megan's Law website of California. His address is known and he is known for the evil that he has done. It's a terrible thing that he had to hurt another child to be caught but caught he has been and he is being watched.
But since I've found out I've noticed some strange changes in myself.
I remember feeling this piecing sensation like a knife was being removed when I found his image on the MLoC site. It felt as if an old and cankerous wound had finally had the barb that had been festering in it removed. I didn't feel free. I didn't feel elated. I was momentarily terrified like a patient before an operation but once I looked at it and confirmed it was him and read all of the information they had I felt so much better. It felt like I had just woken up from anesthesia and the doctor was telling me my prognosis was good, that they'd removed most of the black cancerous tumors of hatred, anger, and fear that had been filling my body.
I felt lighter and it was like suddenly those things I feared when I turned off the light or walked up the stairs at night or sat alone at home were mere whispering vapors.
It wasn't so much that I was suddenly free and glad of it because I still feel angry and scared and don't trust easily and I'm still hurt by what my family did to me but it's lessened now. It's like I know I can defeat it now instead of just faking like I can.
It's as if all of those things I feared are no longer these undead things that grip the back of my skull and whisper terrible fears into my ears. They're intangible now. They can't touch me anymore. I can see them and I can laugh at them and walk away and they fall farther and farther behind me, rotting and dropping to the ground like the remnants they are.
Because justice is no longer an abstract thing but a reality, firm in my life as these demons that plagued me were.
I'm not saying they're entirely gone because they're not. I'm still angry. I'm still hurt. I'm still afraid. I'm still untrusting. But it's easier now to deal with it. It's like they've gotten weaker and I've gotten stronger simply because out there was someone who cared enough about a child to say 'hey, this is wrong. This man shouldn't be able to get away with what he's done.' And yeah, it wasn't for me that this was done, and more children had to get hurt for it to happen but it did happen. It's possible for there to be justice where there is evil.
And that is the most comforting and therapeutic thing that could have happened for me.
The man who hurt me is being dealt with. He has been told that what he did was wrong and that he won't get away with it anymore. I am not irrational. I am not alone. I am not unjustified in being angry or hurt or afraid. What happened to me was wrong and the monster who did it is being watched.
