Flashback Friday: Two of a Kind (Trigger Warning)

A word of explanation and warning. Since I first disclosed my status as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the end of March of this year, I have spent many sleepless nights and many waking hours consumed by a tsunami of flashbacks to specific incidents of the abuse that have left me feeling like I was drowning. With each successive flashback they feel as if they have been piling up in my mind, heart, and soul in a way that is threatening to consume me. When the flashbacks hit it is not me remembering the abuse, it is me reliving the abuse. All of my senses are transported back to that time. I am not a thirty-six year old man; I am a three year old toddler, a six year old little boy, or whatever age I was from the ages of three to twelve during which the abuse occurred. I need to get these flashbacks out in order to be able to detach and see these events through my adult eyes so that I can begin to heal. The only way I know how to do that is to tell the stories. If you are a fellow survivor, these Flashback Friday posts are likely to be triggers. If you are a supporter, please know that what you read on Fridays will likely be extremely disturbing. If for either reason you choose not to continue reading, I understand. If you choose to continue reading beyond the image below, thank you for validating my experience by listening to my truth.

Most of my flashbacks have not been hitting me in any kind of chronological order, but the one I want to share this week I believe happened only a matter of months after my stepfather sexually abused me for the first time. This is also the first flashback where the memory of being abused by someone else in addition to my stepfather came up.

I was still three years old. The house I lived in was my mother, her boyfriend (later my stepfather), me, my little brother, my stepfather's friend "P" and his son "K". My mom was getting ready to take my little brother to a doctor's appointment and I was supposed to go. "K" and I were playing. He was a couple of years older than me, but he was always nice and played with me. I begged my mom to let me stay so I could keep playing. She asked my stepfather and "P" if if was okay and they shot each other a look and said okay.

The instant my mom's car pulled away, my stepfather shot me a look that scared me enough to run out into the front yard hoping to catch her but she was gone. I thought I would be safe with "P" in the house. I thought my stepfather couldn't possibly do what he did to me again with another adult in the house. I was wrong. He yelled at me to get in the house and as soon as the door was closed he picked me up and carried me toward his bedroom. "P" was already there stripping out of his clothes with his son "K" already naked on the bed crying. My stepfather ripped my clothes off of my three year old body and threw me onto the bed across from "K". I felt his hands around my ankles as he pulled me backwards so that I was draped face down across the side of the bed as "P" did the same to his son. The instant I saw "P" force himself into his son, I felt my stepfather once more tear his way into my small behind. My eyes locked with "K" and we just stared blankly into each others' eyes as our fathers raped us like we were sex toys and not their sons. Suddenly my stepfather yanked his adult member from me as "P" did from his son. Then they switched sides and suddenly I was watching my stepfather rape "K" while "P" forced his even larger adult member into my small three year old anus. All I could do was scream. My stepfather just started laughing and "P" clamped his hand across my mouth and started thrusting harder. I'm pretty sure I blacked out because the flashback ends with me waking up in my bed and my mom asking if I had tired myself out having a good time while she was gone.

My stepfather and his friend "P" it turned out were two of a kind. I learned very quickly to do whatever I could to go with my mom whenever she left the house. Not that that did much to protect me for the next ten years...