Riseball

I have a story I feel I need to share, it’s personal and I haven’t shared this with maybe one person. I am slowly waking up to the fact that my normal life that I at least thought was normal was really far from that.

I was around 10 years old, my older brother was 2 years older. We were visiting our grandparents at the lake where they had two cabins. There was a sandy point not far that we would go swimming. I always looked forward to this, I was always very energetic. Anyway we were out in the water just me and my brother who I looked up to and we were just playing. We were slowly moving deeper, he would do things like go to the bottom and get some sand and throw it on my back. He was taller but kept wanting to go deeper so I tried because I just wanted to play. Well all of a sudden he jumped up a bit pushing me down from both shoulders from behind and pushed me all the way to the bottom. I thought he was playing around because he would do this sometimes. But this was different, he didn’t just push me under a little, he continued to push me right down to the bottom. The water we were in was up to my chin standing on my tip toes. But it didn’t stop there, he then proceeded to hold me down on the bottom on the lake with his legs, he was pushing me now with both feet and trying to hold me there. At first I still thought he was playing, but when I struggled a bit he kept trying to keep me there. So by now I realized he wasn’t letting me up, and I was getting short on air. I realized in a moment I needed to fight and get loose so I squirmed really hard until I got free and got up for some air. I immediately started crying and made my way back to shore with him trailing behind me. He was waiting to see if I was going to tell on him. I didn’t say anything because it didn’t feel safe.

It took me almost 40 years to feel safe enough to remember that moment. I had suppressed it out of survival. What I’m slowly realizing now too is that my body and nervous system did things like this to protect myself, to help me to survive it.