“Betrayal is like being given an ice cream sundae by someone I like and trust. The big person is nice and seems to like me and enjoy me in ways that others do not. I feel special when he offers me ice cream. He encourages me to try a topping and whipped cream. I enjoy the time we spend together and keep hanging around him. My parents are okay with him, but they do not know he is giving me ice cream before dinner. What I did not know is that the person has been reading yucky books and is in bondage to the stuff he reads. In his pain, he has made some decisions of which I am not aware. One day as he fixes my ice cream sundae he sprinkles a powder over it and then he pours chocolate syrup over the powder. We begin eating the ice cream and it tastes like it did before. The ice cream and topping is sweet and cool at first, but then it becomes a little bitter and then my esophagus begins to burn. I do not know the word for esophagus so I tell him that my throat burns. He says that is crazy, the ice cream is cool. I do not know how to process what I am feeling versus what the big person is telling me. The pain grows worse, but no one can see anything in my throat and all the adults I know tell me I am okay. What they do not see is that there are bleeding ulcers in my esophagus that hurt. Since the grownups tell me I am okay, I begin to believe that I do not really hurt, only that I am defective for feeling something that is not there. There is something about the man that bothers me and makes me think he did something wrong to me, but it is so vague I do not know what to really think about him. I do not trust him or anyone else after that, but I feel guilty for it. Being around him stirs up some vague, but scary feelings that I do not know what to do with. Sometimes they grow to extreme terror and I do not know why. Scabs and scar tissue have grown over the internal wounds. I still struggle with each meal and do not enjoy food like other people do, because I never know when the food will simply go down or when it will rip off a scab and the pain will start up again. There is some sick feeling inside of me, that the person enjoyed hurting me and no matter how I tried to hide the enjoyment of the ice cream and the pain, that he still knew and to this day enjoys knowing he hurt me.”
–Wendy