Why the Bear?

I was 4 or 5 when my mom had a boyfriend move in with us who also had a little girl. She was only a few years older, maybe, but I remember thinking she was so much older during this time. We were living in a house I have barely any memories of, except for a step up in the living room that we used to put our christmas tree on each year. The little girl and I shared a room, but had separate beds. One night I was in her bed with her and she showed me what her Father did to her. I remember laying there and feeling uncomfortable, but I had no context for what I was feeling. I had lived without a Father my whole life, and thought this must be a normal thing. I laid there for what felt like all night, and I have no idea how long it actually lasted. I remember my mom barging into the room, as a Mother now, I attribute this to some sort of intuition that something was wrong, that energy had shifted - she comes barging into the room and ripped me out of the bed. She went like a tornado through the house and told him he needed to get his shit and leave. Him and his daughter left that night, and I never seen them again. He must of come to get his stuff the following day when I was at school. We never spoke about it. 

I was in the 4th grade when my mom and Step Dad had let two friends of his live with us when they first moved down to Florida from Wisconsin. We all got along, they were two guys with no kids or family moving to a different state. They worked with my Step Dad while they were trying to find their way. One night after I had gone to bed, I heard one of them walk down my hallway, they shouldn’t of had a reason to do that, and I jumped off my bed to hide on the other side on the floor. I heard my door open, and one of them whisper my name. I didn’t move or respond. So he walked in and around the side of my bed in my view. He showed me a donut stick in his hand and told me my parents were asleep so I could come out and watch tv with them. I followed him outside of my room, through the hallway, through my bathroom that led out to the back porch and the other guy was already sitting out there. They had already set up a third chair for me to sit in between them. I sat down, and they turned the tv to a Nick at Night show, and I opened the donut stick to eat it. Within minutes the guy that had led me outside had his hand on my thigh, and I could feel his body weight leaning into mine. The other guy did not move, but where he sat he blocked the view through our glass doors from the living room. I watched his other hand reach in front of him as my heart sank through my stomach and I was racing with thoughts of where to run. My mother opened up the glass doors with a vengeance and screamed at me to get back to my room. There was a lot of screaming, yelling, crying, furniture throwing, and finally front doors slamming telling them to never show their fucking faces around. Two months later I was out of school and working with my Step Dad, and he brings me to the job site where they are working and I’m stuck at a new construction site with them all day. I didn’t tell my mom. We never spoke about any of it. That night, the next day, years from then, nothing. 

In high school I fell in love with my first love. We both met each other inexperienced with sexual relations, and did what I feel like every teenager does. We started off slow with things, slowly experimented with oral things, and discussed what it would be like to go “all the way”. I woke up one morning after having a dream that he had sex with a mutual friend, and I texted him about it. His response was telling me that it did actually happen, and that “I’m really sorry.” I remember feeling sick and throwing up, I remember feeling unsafe with him, and feeling left behind. I felt like it was something we were going to do together for the first time, and that now I had been left alone and unwanted. We continued to date on and off, even moved in together after high school. We never had sex. I couldn’t feel safe with him. We eventually split up, and I ended up having sex with him years later as some weird checklist thing. 

I was 18 and living alone in an apartment in Woodstock, GA. It was an apartment complex that used to be hotel rooms and it was a weird set up. I was the youngest person living there, and you can tell it wasn’t welcomed by the neighbors. There was a guy who lived in the apartments behind my unit who was probably mid-twenties. He would come into my work and was always outside while I was walking my dog, very much making himself visible for communication. I bit and ended up swapping numbers with him, we hung out outside of our apartments a few times, so when he asked if I wanted to come inside and watch a mutually enjoyable show I said yes. I walk into a very dark apartment, he closes and locks the door behind me instantly and my heart sank. I felt like my entire body was pins and needles. He led me into his room and he laid down on the bed, I sat on the edge, and asked what season he was on with the show. He seemed agitated and reached for the remote to put the show on. I looked at the tv trying to figure out the best excuse to get out of the apartment without causing confrontation. I realistically knew nothing about this guy and was now locked inside his apartment with no one knowing I was there. He wasn’t happy that I was sitting up and took his arms on both of mine to bring my body down to a weird slouched position in the bed, he was trying to force my body to cuddle with his and I was resisting enough to show there was resistance. He seemed to of taken the hint for the moment and my body did relax slightly. I thought maybe he got the wrong idea but now he surely knows that it’s not my intention to go any further. We get about 15 minutes into the show, and his hand begins rubbing my arm, which lasts merely a minute before rubbing my leg. I re-situated myself to get just a little bit further away, and I say that I should probably leave at the end of this episode to get back to my dog. He said “If that’s what you want”, and I said “yes, I want to go home”. I sit up and as I’m making my way to the side of the bed, he grabs both of my shoulders and throws me back to the bed, now I’m in a laying down position. He turns the TV off and clicks off the lamp within reach, leaving just a hallway light on but barely making light of anything in the room. I tell him I should really get going, that I wasn’t expecting any of this tonight. He puts his hand over my mouth and says “it’ll be quick, and we can do more tomorrow”. I try to push my head away from his hand, but he’s holding it down with so much force. I start crying and he tells me “it’ll be okay.” The next 25 minutes had me frozen in fear, tears rolling down my face and just trying to picture myself anywhere but where I was at. While everything that was happening to me was extremely uncomfortable and sickening, the idea of fighting made me feel as though he would of physically hurt me. I left that apartment and attempted to call my mom with no answer. That night I was laying down with my eyes wide open and I couldn’t get my brain to shut off. Every sound that I heard startled me, and before I knew it, it was 4am and time for me to get up to go to work. I didn’t answer his texts or calls throughout the day and he showed up in the lobby of my job. Again out of fear for my safety, I played nice and said what I needed to him to make him leave. I stayed in a hotel for the next two days, and within the week I moved out of the apartment.