Day 127: Response to Lacerating my Labia
Well, first off, I want to THANK YOU for providing me with quite a bit of laughter, not for your injury, but how well you explained it with humor. With all that has happened in these past few days, and my first day of not crying, maybe my laughter was somewhat hysterical, but it was good to know that I could remove myself from this sad part of life, even if for just a moment.
My house is set up to control cats with closed doors in certain rooms, so I understand that you had to put a blockade up for the dog. I had a dog, too, until last year when we had to put him down, and my biggest concern about him was him tripping me as he tried to beat me down the stairs.
When I was around 10–12, there was this garage at a neighbor’s that they only used to store useless shit in. But, I liked to play in places like that because I like to see what people kept for whatever reason. I never had great shoes because we didn’t have much money in my family, and it seemed that the bottoms of shoes were made with a mixture of plastic and something else I can’t name. Anyway, they were slippery because of no traction, which didn’t matter much, unless you were walking on something slippery. Also, that was coupled with they were sandals, so they never stayed tight on my feet. Part of that reason was because I never liked to take the time to unbuckle them before putting them on, and with the cheap materials, they usually got stretched out. They were not stable shoes for me to be climbing in and around junk thrown in a small garage — more of a shed, really.
I was standing on top of an old white stove that was tilted, and because of the tilt, I was trying to over reach my step and I did a similar thing as you. The stretch was too far for me to secure my step, and I had nothing to hold on to and ended up doing the splits with — you guessed it — slamming my crotch on the corner edge of the stove. The shock that went through me in that split second, I thought for sure someone had stabbed me there. Then, the searing pain bolted me up and I FLEW out of there and ran home, which was two houses away. I had been alone in the shed so no one knew that had happened to me, and I probably was not supposed to be in there, trespassing, anyhow.
I ran into the bathroom, bypassing my mom whom I didn’t want to tell because I did not want ANYONE looking at my private areas. I was just too shy about that. I grabbed a mirror to check myself, and I was not bleeding. But, the pain was INTENSE. The bruising that showed up, though, spread the entire area, making it swollen. That lasted quite awhile, but I still told no one. Thank God I didn’t have to go to a doctor for any reason down there, or wear a bathing suit that may have shown the bruising. I mean, I would have told the truth about what happened, but what adult outside of the family would have believed I hadn’t been abused?
I did try and tell a girlfriend but was trying to do so, cryptically, in a note. We used to write each other notes even though we lived a block away, but we had phone curfews so note writing allowed us to ‘talk’ to each other, or read what they might be saying to us when we received a note back the next day. I guess this was our form of texting, back then. I was still embarrassed to tell her right out. I’m not sure if it was because of my private area and in case she ask to see it, or if it was my embarrassment of being foolish, or stupid. All I know is that I never want to go through that again. Even an episiotomy wasn’t that painful, though, child birth definitely was.
