The comfort factor of sex

I had heard of a man I wanted to meet. He had operated in the world in which I was trafficked and abused as a young child, as an adult man. Aspiring to be one of the big shots, he reached a point at which people died because of his actions. When he had climbed high enough, he was confronted with the darkness of child ritual abuse of this world. Unprepared for this reality, unable to stomach the abuse of children, he started to back out, not an easy task to accomplish.

I had heard of this man through someone who had wanted to interview me for a while, who had also interviewed him. I never met anyone who has come back from this world. These are the people who are the most far gone, completely absorbed in this secret addiction to power that has the entire world in its grasp.

I was raped by many men, all indoctrinated into the fellowship of silence that exists at the top levels of the power structure. I was given to some two hundred adult men over the course of five years. They were men from different backgrounds, from different countries, but they all had this in common: They were all white, and they all would do anything to get to the top. Many were "beginners" and didn't realize we were being photographed for blackmail. They all feigned discomfort. I expected, every time, that this man would refuse to go any further, as I was between six and eleven years old and did not look a day older. There was no way any of these men, no matter how high or drunk, could pretend I was old enough. Not a single one of these many men, ever stopped himself.

Hearing about this rare person who would have been that man, who would have broken down when faced with the child I was, who would have stopped himself and did stop, was important, and a meeting seemed in order.

It was not easy to travel to the place where the interview was to take place, as I was trafficked there as a child. My memories of that episode are vague, and I feared that I would hit upon vistas or objects that might trigger me into flashbacks and emotional overwhelm. Instead, I found myself reconnected to long-forgotten little comforts from childhood.

Sitting at a kitchen table of a small farm, the stage was set for the interview. We started without him there. He was to join us somewhere in the middle. It was one of the heaviest interviews I have ever done. The interviewer was triggered. Her tears and pain ripped open my defenses, and the child who had experienced these horrors came out. For an hour, in this safe setting, I could be vulnerable, crying for things that had been hard to cry about, and connecting to grief buried for over forty years. Just as we took a break, he arrived. 

As I met him outside on the lawn, I was shaking, freezing. He said I must have expended a lot of energy, took off his wool coat, and put it over my shoulders. He was wearing a suit jacket, and mentioned that he realized it might be triggering for me to see him in a business suit. I assured him it was not. 

As we walked back to the house, he began talking, mixing heavy stories about other survivors he had met, with information about the elite system, with his own story of childhood abuse, with sexual jokes. Emotionally open and vulnerable, I dissociated. My physical shell remained present with him, one part dissociated, and my adult self took note. 

He was also clearly emotionally affected by our meeting, and seemed to want badly to give me something. Behind his impulsive oversharing I could see that his own young boy had been activated, and without connection to an adult self fostered by self-esteem, it would be near-impossible to control these parts-escapades.

His presence affected the interview in ways I could never have imagined. I was too open, and spoke directly into his projections. The interview was unusable.

Afterwards, we went out for dinner overlooking a lake. I found myself staring with some fascination at grebes, crested ducks playing on the water, aware of my unmet need to be cared for after intensely exposing my younger self. As the man/boy claimed the attention of the interviewer, I felt abandoned, too open to bring my own adult back entirely. When he turned to address me, he asked what I had learned from him. 

The child in me who had been revived, did what she knew how to do, and that was to avoid confrontation, give in, and please the man. I answered in this vein.

Minutes later, he again turned to me and said: "I'm not sure why I'm saying this, but it seems to me that you could try to think more universally when you speak." 

I could not believe that he was criticizing me. I couldn't believe it. I could barely hear what followed next but realized he was referring to my mention of my Unconditional Model during the interview, for everyone to look at their own inner power dynamics - ironically, as he was trying to dominate me. I knew that he was off, but I was not well, and, stuck in a young part that would just get hurt, I left.

That night, I returned to the farm where I sat at the same kitchen table, talking into the night with my host, whom I had met earlier that day. Practicing celibacy for several years, I am rarely attracted to anyone, but I did find myself drawn in, and moreover found in our conversation all the validation and respect that had been missing earlier. 

The girl inside of me was still present, and she was still seeking comfort. Our conversation got personal, and he shared some things about his private life that revealed, among other things, that he was single. It seemed easy, and possible, to spend the last night in Amsterdam in the bed of my host instead of mine. In his arms, I would find the love and comfort that the little girl had been seeking all the years she had been abused. The arms of her abusers was the very place where she had found something akin to love. Skin on skin, replicating the nurturing warmth of motherly love, it was tempting to find that love-substitute once again. All the stars were aligned.

However, my adult self, however impaired, was still alert. I went to my own bed. 

Arriving back home the next day, I got sick. Nauseous, I convulsed. For six hours, the nausea and dry retching welled up in waves. In between, the events of the previous day played through my mind, and started to feel angry that the man who had been the one who did not go along with the network, the man who cared too much about the children, had not been more of the savior I had hoped for.

Through my anger, and through much support from others, the child inside of me was vindicated. She received the love and respect in the right way, through my own deep acknowledgment of her needs and her courage. That man is not my hero, but that little girl is and was always heroic. 

Every time I expect a man to emotionally make something right for a young part, I find that I have allowed my little girl to believe his little boy. My healing is my responsibility. And I pray that this man will find the way to his own healing.

In this age, we don't need another male hero, but female strength. Women need only to realize their power has nothing to do with macho-posturing or tough-talking, but is grounded in endurance, patience, and the motherly art of seeing the child in everyone.