"Doll" Dungeon

Adults do creepy shit to kids all the time. It's a horrible, heartbreaking, damaging reality. I have lived through some of it.

That's right, I come to you now as an adult who carries a very traumatized little kid inside. But then again, by now you have probably already guessed this Crazytown 'n down action ain't coming from a well-adjusted place.

Like any other trauma survivor, often times different things will spark flashbacks of my original horror. These snippets of the past are rough my friends. They strike almost as much dread in my heart as the time I dreamt that aliens stole all of the planet's dougnuts. Yeah, that scary.

And you never know when they are going to strike, these flashbacks. One got me out of the blue just a couple of days ago.

I was checking out this design blog, when I unwittingly scrolled down into a picture that took me right back to a dark place in my childhood.I was five all over again. Lying as still as I could in my narrow little metal framed twin bed. Trying not to twitch and call their attention to me. All of them there surrounding the perimeter of the room. Surrounding me. So many eyes fixed upon me in that dark room. Always watching. Never blinking. Waiting. Always.

My maternal grandmother was my torturer. Unlike the picture shown here where the little freaks are nailed to the wall, she had her miniature porcelain minions in eight foot tall glass cases around the room. It was at her hand I was forced to endure the night with them.

Would they break the glass and stab me in the neck with a spork stolen from the kitchen junk drawer? If I accidentally fell asleep, was I going to wake to their little cold dead hands wrapped around my neck? Or maybe they were just going to start whispering horrible things to me like, "You will never get a chance to ride Papa's go-kart" or "You are too retarded to use an etch-a-sketch" until I went insane?

Night after night, I would focus on my survival. Each dawn bringing another chance to get out of this nightmare alive. Just needed to make it through one more night.

Eventually I was able to escape that hell, and after decades of therapy as an adult, I became strong enough to confront my g-ma. I did this on the one condition that they stayed in the other room. She claims that she had no idea that the "Doll Room" (nice syrupy sweet name right? They always try to sugar coat their shit.) as she called it, would be scary for me to sleep in.

Of course this was an outright lie. How could she not know? After all, she had been the one to hand pick all of them. You could tell they were chosen specifically for their powers of fear and intimidation. And she was the one to line them up into battalion formation in their glass barracks once they enlisted with her. Oh, she knew.

I didn't really expect her to own up to the abuse anyway. In fact, she had the nerve to laugh off my confrontation. In the end, all she would say is that she loved me and that she thought I considered it a real treat to spend the night in the Doll Room. When I mentioned other victims such as my brother and other cousins close in age, she just dismissed me again, stating that she was sure they had enjoyed staying in her Dungeon Room as well (I call it like it is people.) as I was the only one complaining about it.

I wasn't complaining anyway - I was speaking out. If finding my voice about this issue helps even one other child out there, then all of my work to get better has not been in vain.

This is some sick shit people! If you know of an adult who is making a poor defenseless child sleep with tiny replicas of dead babies, or "dolls" as the abuser will often call them -- speak out!

We can't just stand by and allow this to keep happening. The next generation is depending on us.