Yearning for Protection

So the depression has been real the last week or so. I don’t know what knocked me down, but it certainly did, and I was going through old memories. I wish that wasn’t the case for me. It appears protection is what I yearn for in life. Just someone who will protect me.

Why do I seek this, and why can’t I find it? I probably understand the answer to the first question. I’ve never been protected. No one in my life has ever prioritized my safety and needs. This dates back to childhood, where I protected my mother from violence by physically fighting her husbands when they attacked her. I got my shoulder broken trying to protect her when I was 14, and when I told her it was me or him, she told me she would pick him. By 16, I ended up having to stab him. She ran away and left me to fight him. I was pregnant.

So the complete lack of protection from anyone my entire fucking life is almost baffling to me. Like, why didn’t anyone step in when I was a kid? Or when Brian 1 publicly hit me? Or when Brian 2 was isolating me? Or when {D} was raping me in front of my own friends? Why hasn’t anyone ever protected me?

Hell, even the police didn’t try to protect me. They didn’t care. Prosecutors don’t care. No one who is actually, literally paid to protect people will even protect me.

Is that a me problem? Like, what exactly is it about me that makes me not someone people intuitively want to protect? Am I that harsh and prickly? No one likes me—I know that to be the case. I’m not a likable person, and I live with that shit every day. I don’t know exactly what it is about me that makes me disposable to everyone.

I don’t know. Fuck it. I should be used to not being protected or heard or soothed by now. I am never going to find anyone in the world who really would care about me.

I remember the first time a man stood up for me. We were at a casino. It was this guy I was dating in LA while I was there, and we tried to do a long-distance thing. It didn’t work, of course. But he would come to Vegas for the weekend sometimes. So we’re at the casino, and this guy randomly grabs my boob. I simply had a very no response of, “That’s my boob.” I just said it matter-of-factly. And the guy I was with said, “Hey, don’t touch her,” and got between him and me.

I had never been— I don’t know what the word actually is—but I had a rush of brain chemicals that made me feel safe. I had never experienced that before, and I can’t say I have since.

I’m just not that girl people feel the need to protect. It’s a nice feeling, though—safety. It’s a great feeling. Not something I’m used to. Hell, I’ve been living for the last couple years in the feeling that I’m not safe. Every day, every moment, the perceived threat is there for me. Do you know how good it would feel to have someone protect and comfort me?

I’ve been working on the book. I’m currently going through the first part on neurobiology and how these chemicals work—how the brain engages different parts and pathways. Some of these I wish I could experience. The calming of oxytocin from a perceived protector, making the constant reptilian brain response to threat—functioning simply on an evolutionary desire to remain alive—ease.

The threat is constant. My brain and my body are just overwhelmed and searching for some sort of protection that will never come.

I have to protect others. That’s what I have given myself as a purpose for existence. Just protect others. Don’t let anyone else feel like this. Don’t let anyone else get hurt the same way.

That is what this book is about. I’m never going to win this. He’s never going to jail. I’m not sure why I’m bothering with the lawsuit, as it is just going to further sever any semblance of me mattering. I don’t matter. The louder I scream, the crazier they think I am, and I can’t keep screaming. I’ve been screaming for help and protection for two fucking years. It’s not coming for me.

But if I can explain this right to prosecutors, someone else might not have to go through it. I can’t let anyone else go through it. It’s not just the rape—it’s the system that doesn’t protect. I honestly don’t know which was more harmful to me: the loss of my autonomy and right to my body, or the complete disregard for the law when it’s so fucking clearly written. But hey, they can prosecute men who rape prostitutes—but I stayed with him.

The sad thing is, the reality is that I thought he would be a protector. My first real protector. Instead, he just intimidated and threatened me—never anyone who was harming me. I’m the one {D} would threaten to punch.

I don’t know what it feels like to be protected, not really. I know flashes of it, memories of what it might be like, and a body that has never stopped searching for it. I’ve learned that the search itself is not weakness—it’s biology, it’s conditioning, it’s survival. If I can translate that into language the legal system understands, then maybe someone else won’t spend decades asking the same unanswered question. I couldn’t save myself. But I can make damn sure the truth doesn’t disappear with me