The Secret to a Better World and a Better You in Two Easy Steps

I saw a lot of things that made me put on my "rant face" and I was totally going to do my entire post on those.  But then I saw something else entirely and had to write about it instead.

I had a job a while back that required me to remain very impartial with very passionate people who all had very diverse, very convicted opinions.  I'd like to think I did it well.  No, I know I did it well.  The ad revenue and online traffic reports don't lie.  When I was in charge, it prospered better than before I took the reins and after my contract ended.  I took it very seriously and did it very well.

A lot of the time, people asked me how it was that I was able to remain level headed and see both sides of every story and reassure both parties on opposite sides of opinion that I felt where they were coming from, appreciated their thoughts, and valued their contributions.  Besides the fact that I had close friends to vent to when the stress of it overwhelmed me, I had two very concrete ingredients in my life to handle it.  After I saw a conversation on Facebook today, it reminded me how those ingredients have made me a better person and therefore, I feel I positively effect the world.

The background that you will need to understand this conversation, is that it is from a status update of my brother.  He is a Christian Youth Pastor, a fully ordained Minister of the Evangelical Free Church, and a Chaplain in the United States Air Force.  Some of the respondents are his friends and/or parishioners, and one respondent is our mutual friend; a fabulous gay man in his 30's that my brother and I went to high school with.  Here's the dialogue with minor changes not affecting content for length and names for privacy: 

Brother: Laughing at the Atheists who are offended at "Pray for Oklahoma."  Talk about "easily offended" and "shoving your religion down people's throats." Lol

Fabulous: I don't get it.  As a proud atheist, I am annoyed by people who do that.  We should be standing as one to support these victims of these tragedies in every way possible.  Supporting each other in times of need is what we, as human beings, should be doing instead of bickering over small things. If this is how Christians want to present unity and solidarity, then we should support them.  Tell your cranky atheist friends to chill out and think of the victims, and the bigger picture. AND that you don't have to be Christian to love and respect people.

Friend1: You know, it's just people that want to complain and make a stink about stuff.  I'm a Christian and have friends that are Atheist or Agnostic and when I say "I'll pray for you" they just say "thank you."

Friend2:  Thank you, Fabulous.  I have an Atheist friend who constantly criticizes Christians praying.  I need to learn to laugh like Brother because it just irritates me. Friend1, thank you.  This person always accuses Christians of shoving religion down his throat but that's exactly what he's doing.

Friend3: I don't personally pray, but I send warm thoughts or well wishes and I feel that those who do pray are doing so with the best of intentions and love in their hearts.  Nothing wrong there.  Let's get some perspective, people.

Me: I don't understand why a person of religion or nonreligion would get offended by saying something nice.  It doesn't bother me to hear Happy Holidays OR Merry Christmas OR Happy Chanukah or Kwanzaa or all of the above at the seasonal time.  (I agree with Fabulous, as per usual. lol)

Brother: Obviously I'm a Christian.  When I pray for someone, I am of the opinion that this is one of the kindest things that I can do for them.  So when I read a news article about the (subset of) Atheists all up in arms about this, I think to myself "So now they DON'T want me to be nice?" If a Muslim offers to pray for me, I'm not offended.  When an Atheist sends warm/positive vibes my way, I don't mock them.  I assume they are operating within what is meaningful given their metaphysical understanding and I appreciate the gesture (my personal estimations of the efficacy of such gestures being completely irrelevant). My faith/positions are strong enough that I don't need everyone to agree with me. I am not threatened by the diversity of opinion on prayer.  I chuckle, because I have to ask, are their positions so unstable that they can't handle diversity or deep down, do they really believe in prayer so much that it frightens them? And Fabulous, if more atheists had your spirit, I would have much more enlightening conversations and we might actually achieve some REAL diversity in this country....instead of the superficial "no one offend anyone but we don't have any real understanding/appreciation of each other either" that passes for tolerance these days.

Fabulous:  I got rid of the whole "most Christians hate gays" attitude a long time ago.  I don't think it is healthy to hang onto anger.  Most Christians are about love-that is something I can support and appreciate.  I'm not going to let a bunch of crazy fundamentalists make a whole group of people look bad.  It would make me just as bad as them.  I wish more people would let go and just love and be kind.

Brother: Agreed.  Some of the best things for my faith have been rational dialogue with people who don't share my positions.  We don't have to agree to be friends and love each other.  And I can love people that I disagree with and hopefully, they can love me.  Superficial acceptance leads to superficial love.  Honest and loving (which is usually messy and difficult) dialogue leads to real and authentic love between people.  Isn't that the REAL goal of diversity?  Not that we all agree, but we all agree people have value even when we disagree with them?

and then the comments dissolved into many saying that Brother and Fabulous should take their show on the road and sell out concert halls to "The Atheist and The Christian: Showing the Right Way to Love and Live with Each Other" and then Fabulous wondering what he would wear to such events and Brother saying that the better question would be would Fabulous help HIM decide what to wear and basically me and the other Friends sharing the genuine statement of how much we loved them and each other.

THIS.  This is why I am the way that I am.  I've always had Brother.  And even though he hasn't always been a Christian, he has always been smart, and kind, and thoughtful, and compassionate.  I found friendship in Fabulous.  Who wasn't always loving.  He was spiteful and full of anger and confused and bullied.  But he was kind to me because I accepted him.  I was curious about him as a 14 year old girl because he was, well...freaking Fabulous.  He taught me about himself and showed me that he was no different than any other teenager in the world.

So the secrets of having a better world and a better you?

Number one: It starts before you.  It starts with your home culture.  If you are raised by tolerant, loving people, it is more likely that you will be tolerant and loving.  If your home culture sucked, make the difference starting with you and pass it on to your offspring.  Hatred isn't born, it is taught.  Plain and simple.

Number two:  Surround yourself with kind people who are different than you or think differently than you.  Open your mind to their world and let them into yours.  Learn from them and teach them.  Engage in something larger than "superficial acceptance."

That's it.

I can't even tell you how proud I am to belong to a family and network of friends who are loving of each other not only in spite of our differences, but because of them.  It's a nice feeling this love and this pride.  Please pass it on.

Who is different from you that you will choose to love today?

I is for Innocence

This will be done in installments over the course of the week.  I hope to write one every day, but we'll see.  This is the story of how I came to devote my time and resources to my passion.  It's the story of me.  And since it is my story to tell and mine alone, and to protect those who may not be at the point of readiness, some of this will be vague and for that I apologize.  But everyone has their own path to healing and disclosure and it's not my place to make that decision for them. Some material may be triggering. Please read at your own discretion.

A line from the movie Patch Adams:

"Men have been attracted to me my entire life...my entire life.  When I was a little girl, I would look out my bedroom window at the caterpillars.  I envied them so much.  No matter what they were before, no matter what happened to them, they could just hide away and turn into these beautiful creatures that could fly away completely untouched."

I used to find it completely saddening that the first memory that I have in my entire life is that of abuse.  It doesn't sadden me anymore.  It's just the way it is.  Every story has to have a beginning and that just happens to be mine.  I no longer weep for that little girl, running events over in my brain, wondering how things could have been different.  I've come to accept that there was nothing that I could have done.  There is nothing that can be expected of a 3 year old in any arena, much less in that kind of circus.  I still feel sad sometimes, but not for reasons that one might expect. That may be hard to understand now, but I hope I can change your mind about that; about a lot of things.  My goal is to show you what's under the proverbial rug.  

You're not supposed to talk about it.  Sure, you may have gotten the spiel about strangers "touching" you.  You might have even gotten an entire course in "Stranger Danger."  When you're a child, you know from parental instruction that you should always tell.  You're supposed to tell if someone does that to you.  But when you speak to your own children about sexual abuse, do you always tell them that it will be a stranger?  Do you always tell them that it will be a grown up?  Do you say that adults are not supposed to touch you or make you do things that cause you to feel shameful or uncomfortable?  So many do.  I'm sad because that's not the whole story.  That warning isn't good enough.

I'm sad about the parts that get omitted.  It's not my parents' fault.  Especially almost 30 years ago, no one really knew the statistics of how things really happen.  They were all terrified of the milk cartons.  Precious faces on white half-gallon cartons that smiled out at you, begging to be found.  They warned of those things.  But in warning specifically about strangers, they were failing to inform that monsters come in all shapes, sizes, genders, and ages.  You know that monsters don't live under your bed, but that doesn't mean they can't be in your home.

If you tell your children to always tell you if someone asks them do something that feels wrong or if someone forces them to do something, then I am disheartened.  Children have no real understanding of that kind of right and wrong. Introducing the concept of "force" further complicates things.  There is a reason why we have an age of consent.  Because a child can be manipulated into thinking that this is something that they actually want to do.  Whether to please someone, to get a reward, or because they just don't know any better.  Thankfully, legally a child can't make that choice for themselves.  Thankfully, it still makes it wrong.

I didn't know any of that.  I didn't know any of that at all.  The saddest part to me of the whole ordeal, is that it took me until I was 21 years old to recognize that it was a big deal.  To recognize that it was wrong.

My innocence was gone at the age of 3. I still have a hard time using the word "abuser" in this instance, for he was a child, too.  And for this instance, I do not blame him.  He was only acting out the things that he was allowed to witness in his own home.  It wasn't until an adult family member asked what was going on and a lie was quickly spewed from his lips that I recognized it was shameful.  Why else would there be a need for a lie?  And I said nothing.  I didn't speak up.  I didn't tell the next day.  I swept it under the rug like most of America does.  No one says the words "sex" or "incest" or "molestation."  Those are dirty words.  You turn the channel in front of your kids when stories are covered on the nightly news.  You perpetuate the myth that atrocities are committed by "the stranger in the parking garage."  If you do, stop. 

I have several wonderful and joyous memories after that of my childhood. Riding bikes around the neighborhood, playing with dolls, singing in my bedroom to my favorite songs... But even those are tainted by the experience beforehand.  I would never be normal.  I would never again be innocent.  And it would happen again. 

To be continued....

J is for Just Me, Interrupted.

This is the second installment in a series covering the issue nearest to my heart.  I still hope to have one every day, but we'll have to see how that goes.  I want to share how I came to the passion that I spend much of my time and resources on.  Since this story is mine and mine alone to tell, there will be portions that are vague and I apologize in advance.  The road to healing is a personal one and it's not my place to tell the story for someone who may not be ready to have their part of it told.  Some material may be triggering.  Please read at your own discretion.

To read from the beginning, find part one here.


"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."   ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't think that I was consciously angry.  In fact, I don't remember dwelling on things a whole lot during my childhood.  I think I might have pushed most of it away in order to deal with it.  In order to keep living.  After the incident when I was 3, the same event happened again when I was 8.  Same children, same story.  Starting out as a game of "Truth or Dare."  8 year olds don't really grasp that you'll be pressured to always pick dare and that the dares are usually things that you shouldn't do.  I had a Hero during both of these incidents.  Yet somewhere in the quagmire of the line that shouldn't have been crossed, this Hero lost their angel wings.  Weapons were missing.  Voice silenced.  The Hero fell for it, too.  The Hero got sucked up into the twisted game masterminded by the abuser and became a victim, too. And truth be told, somewhat of a perpetrator.  My Hero didn't save me.  And I didn't know that I was angry.  I spent years not knowing that I was angry.  I spent years not understanding that my heart was broken.

It wasn't long after that the panic attacks began.  I can't even remember what the first one was like.  All I can remember is that every day for almost 2 weeks, my mother dragged me to the emergency room; screaming that I was dying.  I remember having feelings that my body was going to "forget" how to breathe.  That my tongue was "tired" and wouldn't stay where it was supposed to be; it was going to slide down my throat and choke me to death.  My heart was going to either explode or just stop beating completely.  My brain was telling me that death was imminent.  I went through test after test.  Allergy meds, inhalers, sleep studies.... Finally someone suggested that my mom take me to a psychiatrist.

His name was Dr. Wright.  But almost everything was wrong.  I still have a hard time going to the beach and enjoying myself.  His office was a beach front condo on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.  I was over 11 years old and he was having me draw pictures.  Staring at lights flitting around on a giant rectangular Lite Brite Machine in the hopes to hypnotize me.  It didn't work. It didn't work because I lied.  I kept The Secret.  I said anything else that came to mind.  Anything.  Just not The Secret.  He deduced that my panic was caused by being traumatized during a surgical procedure.  Although yes, that was traumatizing and too off topic for this series, that wasn't my problem. He put me on Prozac.  A LOT of Prozac.  For an 11 year old, 76 lb girl, 80 mgs of Prozac a day is a little much.  I became a zombie.  I hated everyone and everything.  Except for Hero.  But even Hero was different.

A year or so passed.  I was at a late night function with several adults.  All drinking.  All annoyed by "The Kid."  I guess in order to make me more tolerable or whatever, I was given copious amounts of Peach Schnapps.  I don't think it made me any more tolerable.  I think it made me disappear.  I think that's why no one noticed when the 19 year old boy who said sweet things to me that I had longed to hear from reading young adult romance novels, took me in his truck.  I'm sorry.  Man.  19 year old...man.  I hadn't ever been kissed, even though all of my friends had.  I was hoping this was going to be that magical moment.  It wasn't.

I don't think I even cried.  I know for sure that I never said no.  I never said stop.  I didn't understand that it wasn't supposed to be like this.  This was the first time it concretely hit me that this is how you get boys to like you.  There were many there that could have been heroes.  Hero wasn't there, but any one of them might have stood up for me.  Watched me.  Protected me.  I was alone with a man.  In a truck.  Somewhat intoxicated. Violated.  At 12 years old.

Over the next year or so, my behavior at school and at home began to worsen.  I don't remember much about that year.  I do know that at one point I took a whole bunch of Tylenol.  I don't think I was trying to kill myself.  I think I was trying to get someone to help me.  To notice me.  To stop me from hurting. At one point, I was admitted to an inpatient behavioral unit.  It was mostly bullshit.  We played ping pong, watched movies, had meetings with therapists and social workers.  It was no different than being in middle school.  You want to be popular in the psych hospital just as much as in homeroom.  Popular girls talk about sex and flirt with the boys.  I was released after two weeks, largely because at 13, I was a master manipulator.  I did all my little feelings worksheets and said I was "real, real sorry" for stealing mom's money, sneaking out of the house, etc.  I'd never do it again, Scout's Honor.  It didn't last long.  I was released and upon my first day back at school, I made plans with a girl to skip out on a family event to go to her babysitting job with her.  She said the husband comes home from work before the wife does and sometimes if the kids are asleep, they'd have sex.  Did I want to come and make it three?  Of course I did.  I wanted to her to be my friend and I wanted to see if I could be as "liked" as her.  Thankfully, I never made it out there. My mom watched me like a hawk and never gave an opportunity.  One of the million things that I thank her for.

But I didn't have to go across town to make trouble. I had a friend in our neighborhood.  A little blonde haired girl a few years younger than me.  We stayed out late, flirted with boys, swapped exaggerated stories of rendezvous.  Portraying yourself as fast is how you got boys to like you, why not girls, too?  We camped out in a tent in the field behind our houses one night.  We told two much older boys they could come by.  Things got too far too fast and in the middle of it all, I knew I wasn't ready for this.  I knew it was wrong.  I knew that even though I wanted boys to like me, I didn't want to do this.  I was scared.  I made up excuses and left.  I walked away.  I didn't look back.  I left a little girl in there with monsters. I tried to lie to myself that I didn't know what was happening.  But this is me we're talking about.  I was once that little girl.  I knew full well.

It's taken many years filled with therapy and repentance to not be haunted by her cherubic face.  To not have visions of what may have happened after I left.  To not wake up in the night crying, repetitively sobbing, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry.  I'm sorry" for hours.

I spent so much time subconsciously hating my Hero.  You didn't save me.  You didn't protect me.  I looked hard and deep into that abyss of abandonment. I wrestled with that monster continuously...and became a monster.  I did it to someone just like me. I failed to be a hero. Of course when I saw her next, she said it was totally awesome and I missed out.  But the light in her eyes was gone.  I could tell because so was mine.  Mine had been gone for as long as I could remember.

I ceased to exist to myself.  My life, my sanity, my innocence, myself...was completely interrupted.


To be continued...

K is for Knight's Disguise

This is the third installment in a series covering the issue nearest to my heart.  I still hope to have one every day, but we'll have to see how that goes.  I want to share how I came to the passion that I spend much of my time and resources on.  Since this story is mine and mine alone to tell, there will be portions that are vague and I apologize in advance.  The road to healing is a personal one and it's not my place to tell the story for someone who may not be ready to have their part of it told.  Some material may be triggering.  Please read at your own discretion.

"Hey little girl would you like some candy, your mama says it's okay.  The door is open come on outside, No I can't come out today.  It's not the wind that cracked your shoulder and threw you to the ground.  Who's there that makes you so afraid, you're shaking to the bone?  And I don't understand, you deserve so much more than this."  ~ Sarah McLachlan Good Enough

I drifted through the rest of my teenage years, largely unfeeling.  Behavior was constantly a problem.  I really think that I was trying to claw out of my skin.  To change me.  To do something...I don't know...radical.  I got in trouble for shaving part of my head.  I started smoking.  I experimented with self mutilation.  I think part of me was trying to make myself unattractive.  Part of me was just trying to feel.  Part of me was going for shock value so that someone might pay attention to the slow death occurring inside of me.  I look back and try to remember any emotions that I had at the time.  I know that I can't recall happiness.  I don't really remember a whole lot of anger either.  The two states of being that I remember living in most are confusion and longing.

My mother had taken me to a new group of doctors.  My psychologist who did therapy with me was pretty good.  She may have been great had I told The Secret.  But we all know that wasn't going to happen.  The psychiatrist who prescribed my medicine was another story.  Had I been the person then that I am now, I would've had his license.  What kind of monster can tell that there is something obviously vulnerable and victimizing about a patient and exploit that?  If I'm angry at anything anymore, it's that a person who was supposed to help - who took an oath to help- was another abuser.  Thankfully, there wasn't much that could happen in the uncomfortable 15 minute med check sessions, but they felt like hours.  It began with him asking about my cutting.  He would ask increasingly uncomfortable questions under the ruse that it was information he needed as my physician.  The last time I saw him (and refused to go back, although never telling my mother why), it escalated to him putting a hand up my skirt and telling me that no one would believe the crazy girl.

It's somewhat odd that for wanting to make myself unattractive to ward off unwanted advances, I was obsessed with body image.  It's an interesting dichotomy of wanting to avoid advances yet craving attention. I was constantly comparing myself to girls in magazines and on television.  I think I had a love for actresses because they could pretend to be someone else. After all, I had been pretending my whole life.

I know now that it's not uncommon, but it still seems a little out of place for me, that girls with a history of sexual abuse can become over affectionate.  They seek closeness.  They want to find someone who will love them, but because their definition of love and the examples that they've been shown of such are skewed, it leads to unhealthy behaviors.  I had to have a boyfriend.  I didn't want just any guy; there were plenty of very nice boys who asked me out and told me beautiful wonderful things about myself that I cast off as pretty lies. I didn't want those boys.  I needed the bad boys.  The damaged boys.  The unavailable boys.  And those boys treat you like shit.  Which further affirms the belief that you are shit.  Which makes you look for more boys that will treat you like shit.

One of the saving graces that I had at this time, was that as much as I hungered for male attention and picked the ones most likely to give me negative attention, I actually picked really good female friends.  And I was a fiercely loyal friend.  My best friend K, gave me a piece of myself back.  I had never really known what it was like to have someone be there for me unconditionally.  To fight for me.  Her parents didn't really want her hanging with me at first...no one's parent's did.  But she pressed on.  They grew to love me.  They still do.  And so does she.  That's the first part of this madness that leads to happiness.  I still have her.  I think she was the only person in my entire life up to that point to tell me when these boys were treating me like crap: "You don't deserve this."  Four simple words.  She even "forced" me to avoid one boy in particular in the hallways at school.  It was the first time anyone knew that someone was shitty to me and told me that it was wrong.  Unfortunately, being both from military families, we moved away from each other.  I think being without her put me a few giant steps back.  As bad as things were, they were about to get worse.

I don't know how it began that I started dating much older men.  I had an on again off again relationship with a boy the remainder of my high school years, which truth be told, was not that super unhealthy.  Yeah, he treated me like crap.  But only in a high school douchebag kind of way.  Not an abuse kind of way.  And it's still sad to me that I defend that.  I still sometimes have a problem with awarding men with medals for not being complete pieces of shit. 

Anyway, the age of 17 brought all kinds of new drama.  I started using sex as a tool. A tool to feel wanted, to cope with pain, to get what I wanted.  Perversely, I thought it made me powerful. I think in some ways, I wanted to give it away before the prospect of it being taken could even come up.  If I made the decision, then I kept the power.  But I was being driven by my own misconceptions and by the lack of value I had in myself.  Furthermore, I still had the warped belief that sex is what ALL men want.  ALL the time.  A pretty face, a beautiful body, a wonderful soul meant nothing if you weren't spreading for them.  I dated a guy with mental problems who accused me of sleeping with his friend and ran me over with his truck.  I was luckily uninjured.  I wasn't sleeping with his friend.  But he pissed me off.  So then I slept with his friend.  I dated a man who was separated from his wife (so I thought) who encouraged me to skip school to hang out at his place all day and play house.  He was screwing some other chick on the side.  And was not leaving his wife.  They reunited when he moved to Pennsylvania.  I ended up dropping out of high school partially due to all the absences that I had accrued.

And then I met Him.  

He was gorgeous.  Smart, attentive, polite.  Suave and gentle.  He engaged me in real adult conversations.  He was interested in everything I had to say.  It was the first relationship that I had been in where I felt like I mattered.  We discussed everything.  He was constantly asking me if I was comfortable.  I felt safe and saved.  I felt as though I had given him my everything.  He was my Knight in Shining Armor....I gave him my soul in exchange for this comfort. 

I wish I had known that I had sold my soul to the devil.

To be continued....

L is for Lion in Sheepskin

This is the fourth installment in a series covering the issue nearest to my heart.  I still hope to have one every day, but we'll have to see how that goes.  I want to share how I came to the passion that I spend much of my time and resources on.  Since this story is mine and mine alone to tell, there will be portions that are vague and I apologize in advance.  The road to healing is a personal one and it's not my place to tell the story for someone who may not be ready to have their part of it told.  Some material may be triggering.  Please read at your own discretion.

To read from the beginning, find part one here.

"Are you positive this is a friend? The Captain grimaced, 'Those are cliffs of rock ahead if I'm not mistaken.' The sexiest thing is trust, I wake up to find the pirates have come."  
~ Tori Amos, Jamaica Inn

He was everything I'd ever dreamed of.  And for a time, in the beginning, He reminded me of Hero.  It was different with Him from the beginning.  I didn't meet Him at a party or a bar; I was introduced through the family that I nannied for.  My habit before now was to sleep with the guy first, then if he hung around he might get to know me a bit.  If not, well then he got what he wanted and I didn't have to worry about fighting him off or being uncomfortable saying no when he wanted it.  This was different.  I thought I might actually have a chance for someone to know the real me.  He talked to me.  We made a mutual decision to not be intimate right away.  I thought it was a mutual decision.  

At this point, I was continuing with psychotherapy and medication and although I wasn't "all better,"  I wasn't flying off the deep end either.  I was still keeping The Secret, because that's the first rule of Rape Club; you don't talk about Rape Club.  My therapist was decent, for once.  I told him all about Him and I can remember vividly my therapist telling me:

"It sounds like this is a true adult relationship.  You are respecting each other, talking to each other, and you are keeping your boundaries.  Good for you."

I don't know why that is the part of this whole deal that still bothers me.  It's not that I expected my therapist to know better; he was only going by my disclosure and getting information the Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon way isn't necessarily the most reliable.  I think it's that I remember the elation in which I described Him.  The way that I described our relationship.  I was giddy, but not in a school girl way.  In a hopeful way.  And that makes me feel more stupid than anything else on the planet ever could.  I don't mean to be nasty to myself.  I completely understand that through my experiences, I was an easy target.  I know that it's not my fault.  I KNOW all of this.  But when I look back at that moment, all the statistics, all the therapy, all the retraining my brain goes out the window and I feel so disheartened for 18 year old me.  I've played it back over and over wondering how...How?  How did he know?  It's as almost if those of us with the shame of our experiences and the lack of self esteem wear a sort of victim perfume that predators can smell.  And then they separate you from the herd for their attack.

It began innocently enough.  I cannot believe I just used the word "innocent."
When we (He) made the decision for us to begin a sexually intimate relationship, everything was wonderful at first.  He would constantly ask me if I was okay.  I think that even if it wasn't, I wouldn't have said anything at that point.  I was too grateful to have Him be asking.

Little things started to happen.  During sex He would say things that were meant to humiliate or embarrass.  I guess I would freeze up a little or maybe get a different look in my eyes because He would say, "I'm sorry.  I was just trying something a little different."  It was always explained away.  There came a point when He asked me to do something that I wasn't comfortable with.  The old me probably would've just went along with it.  But He had empowered me (so I thought) to have an opinion.  I told Him I wasn't comfortable.  Looking back, I know that He didn't want me to be.  That was the point.  He said, "I'd love it if you would just try it. And if you agree, promise me that you won't base your opinion on the first time.  Give it another chance and if you're still totally against it, then it's okay.  I'll be okay with that."

That logic seemed sound.  I couldn't believe that someone was even asking my input.  And doing something you're not comfortable with...totally makes sense to do it.  And then do it again.  Just to make sure you're not lying to yourself.  This was seriously the thought process that I had.  So I consented.  I decided I wasn't lying to myself and it wasn't something I wanted to entertain again.  He didn't even look me in the eye when He whispered coldly: "Fine."

Here's the thing.  All of that right there?  That whole thing that went on?  It was inappropriate.  It was manipulative.  It was coercion.  But that took me YEARS to recognize.  I felt BAD for feeling bad.  I felt STUPID for being affected by it.  After all, I had gone through so much worse in my life...why was THIS the thing that made me feel like shit the most?

He started not taking my phone calls.  Breaking dates.  Being too busy for me.  I finally went to His house and relented.  I had "thought" about it and maybe I was being selfish for not giving Him what He needed in the relationship.  He acted happy to hear that and let me come in.  He said He had thought about it, too and He didn't want me to be uncomfortable.  I was relieved.  We went out a few times in the next couple of weeks.  We slept together at a friend's house, staying there after a small get together.  He joked that there was a video camera in the room.  Then said He was joking.  Then said probably not. Then He laughed and said He was kidding. I became uneasy again.  He took me for a romantic walk by a secluded swampland.  While we had sex, he whispered in my ear that he could feed me to alligators in the water if he wanted.  Other times during intimate moments, he would say things meant purely to humiliate and embarrass.  Things that as far as I have come, I still can't bear to repeat. Not even in text.

I went over to His house on a Sunday night with cookies that I had baked for Him.  I knocked and didn't get an answer.  I was going to leave Him a letter with the box of goodies and as I set it against the foot of the door, the door creaked open.  I had been there several times with Him not home, so I just walked in to set the cookies on the table and go.  It was dark and I reached for the light.  A hand slammed on top of mine, flattening the switch in the down position.  I felt my hair being pulled, an arm around my waist, dragging me away.  I knew it was Him.  It's the reason that to this day, I vomit at the smell of Estee Lauder's Pleasures for Men.  But there were other scents and tactile things, too.  It let me know he wasn't alone. I don't even know who did what.  There was an incident in the whole ordeal that has led to my intense fear of firearms.

I choose not to share the frame by frame details of this part.  It's too personal and too hard and I have found that sometimes, it causes a sort of victimization to the listener (or reader), or that in some rare cases, people relish in the horrific details.  Like people who read True Crime novels not necessarily because they enjoy them...but because they ENJOY them.  I don't want to allow either of those to happen.  Also, I do believe that there's a little something sacred in keeping parts of your story private.  I don't say any of this to justify what I choose to share and don't because NO one needs justification in that way; but more to let any of you struggling know that it's okay to not share it all.  It's okay to share just the parts that you want to. It's just as empowering and healing to share as it is to hold back the things that you want to.

I was left in a state where I couldn't even say my name.  The most basic of personal identifiers was lost on me.  If I said my name, then that was who I was.  And that meant what just happened, had actually happened to ME.  That was something I just couldn't handle.  When it came time, when I was asked what had happened...I lied.  I said I didn't know who it was.  I kept another Secret.  I was afraid.  And besides those good people who were trying to "get to the bottom of it"  I didn't tell anyone that anything had happened at all.

This is the important part for parents, friends, clergy, therapists, whatever.  Are you listening?  This is important.

Why I didn't tell:

I didn't tell my mother because I had behavioral problems. I was a "bad girl." I feared that she would say "What do you expect when you act that way?"  I didn't tell her because she knew that I was sexually active with Him so I feared she would say "Ummm, he's your boyfriend and you have sex, right?  What are you complaining about?" (which is ridiculous looking back because my mother is the most supportive, most fiercely protective of me person on the planet...but I didn't get that then.)
I didn't tell my friends because (besides the fact that I had very, very few): I was afraid that they would tell other people and it would become gossip fodder.  I was afraid that they would be sympathetic in the moment but secretly think that I was a slut who deserved it.  I was afraid that they would wonder what the big deal was because he was my boyfriend.
I didn't tell my therapist because:  I felt stupid that he saw me making all this progress and I was so proud of my "adult relationship"  that how could I have let this happen.  How come I couldn't see it coming?  I was scared that because of my tendencies as a cutter and delving into emotional and physical masochism, that he would tell me that I must have liked it, or at least that I portrayed myself as someone who would like it.  I was worried about these things because they were all things that I was thinking.  I was bad.  I picked the wrong guy, again.  I let him dupe me.  And maybe this is just something that goes along with having a boyfriend.  Because I had no examples in my life of positive male/female relationships...I simply didn't know.

He picked me up the next Friday like nothing had happened.  I was afraid to get in the jeep with Him.  But I was more afraid not to.  I sat silently at his house at the kitchen table, refusing to sit on the bed.  After a while of no words from me he said:

"Are you pissed about the other night? Wow.  I'm really sorry, but I thought we were taking things to the next level.  It was just role-playing.  That's why we said all that crap earlier about you not wanting to do it and me saying okay.  We were setting it up.  Otherwise why would you have said that?  Cause you were enjoying it just as much as I was.  I thought we had agreed we would take it to the next level."

I know that this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, one because of my intentional vagueness (again, my personal reasons make this so) and because how could a person really have that come out of their mouth?  But it accomplished what He wanted it to.  This was all my fault.  I should have been more clear.  If I didn't want that, why did I come over that Sunday?  I was asking for it.

The pirate came to my ship and robbed it.  And left me with the shell.  But I was the one choosing to be out in the ocean anyway, right?

I found out that we were moving due to another military transfer.  I was relieved.  When I said goodbye to him for the last time, I cried.  I was so grateful to be getting away, but sickeningly enough, I really thought that I loved Him.  And I thought that I would miss Him.  I seriously don't know why....

His last conversation with me was jarring.  I have no clue as to why I was trying to hold on to Him.  But it was actually Him that broke off the relationship saying that long distance wouldn't work. He told me goodbye.  And then He said this:

"You'll be fine.  We had a fun run, kiddo.  But the truth is, I actually prefer Asian women."

And seriously?  That was the last thing He said to me.  I don't know if it's a form of Stockholm Syndrome that kept me so attached to Him despite everything, but at that time, the last sentiment hurt worst of all.

I eventually did mention something to someone in his chain of command.  The response I was given?

"Are you sure?  He's such a model soldier and helluva guy.  Maybe you misinterpreted things."

That was a major downside that led to a LOT of self blame.  But moving day came.  The upside was that I was free.  But I was still just a shell.  So, free to do what?

To be continued...

M is for Meandering and Mother

This is the fifth installment in a series covering the issue nearest to my heart.  I still hope to have one every day, but we'll have to see how that goes.  I want to share how I came to the passion that I spend much of my time and resources on.  Since this story is mine and mine alone to tell, there will be portions that are vague and I apologize in advance.  The road to healing is a personal one and it's not my place to tell the story for someone who may not be ready to have their part of it told.  Some material may be triggering.  Please read at your own discretion.

To read from the beginning, find part one here.

"Mirror, mirror where's the crystal palace?  But I only can see myself skating around the truth who I am, but I know... the ice is getting thin. When you gonna make up your mind?  When you gonna love you as much as I do? When you gonna make up your mind 'cause things are gonna change so fast?  All the white horses have gone ahead..."  
 ~ Winter, Tori Amos



The thing that a lot of people end up thinking when they read this story is this:

"Where were her parents? Why didn't they do something?"

I feel that this is an important question to be answered because my parents could have been anyone's parents.  They were good parents, for the most part.  They were and are good people.

When things happened to me when I was little, no one knew anything.  No parent goes to family gatherings looking out for the "Crazy Uncle Sal" who is going to molest their child.  Because most families, mine included, don't have a Crazy Uncle Sal.  Most people don't think in a million years that someone close to them could hurt their children.  My parents are no different.  There were no "weirdos"  in my family.  And that brings me to the most important point I could ever hope to make for parents.  You cannot smell a rapist.  There is no "look" there is no "smell" there is NO idenitfier. Sure, you may guard your little ones more closely around the drunk of the family, or if there's a user in the family, because those people are more likely do to things that are careless and hurtful.  But a molester, a rapist, a sexual deviant, a predator, even someone who is just "curious" perhaps a young relative..........they have the ability to look just like you and me.  Therefore, the biggest thing a parent can do is to constantly reinforce to their children that they MUST tell a parent or other trusted adult if someone does something to them.  I am here to tell you right now, it is most probably the ONLY way that you will ever know.  And I didn't tell.  There was nothing that my parents could have done because there was no immediate threat known keeping me away from this person and there was nothing to be done after the fact because I. DIDN'T. TELL.

During my adolescence, it is no secret to anyone that I had some major, major behavior problems.  I had some major mental problems.  I suffered with depression and anxiety, which manifested themselves in acting out behaviors.  My mom was focused on the symptoms.  My parents were divorced, my mom was remarried, they had a new baby, they had jobs, they had lives.  And my mom had this teenager with so many problems that she didn't even know where to start.  Her focus was keeping me alive.  The behaviors that I had at the time were risky.  I was running away, staying out all night, involving myself with unsavory people, cutting myself, threatening suicide, crying for days straight....  At the time, the "why" was not the thing on my mother's mind.  It was stopping the overt behavior.

We have a pretty thick history of mental illness in our family.  It made sense for my mom to believe that I was just struggling with that.  And truth be told, if NOTHING had ever happened to me in the way of assault, I truly believe I would have STILL had mental illness.

My mother had her own issues and still worked tirelessly to try and get me "better."  She sent me to therapists and doctors, admitted me to inpatient programs, tried to keep as tight of leash on me as possible.  But bills don't pay themselves and my mom had to work.  I think back as a parent now, of how many sleepless nights I caused her.  How she probably laid in bed, knowing somehow that it was her fault.  Wondering what she could have done for me to not be this way.  It breaks my heart.  There isn't enough "sorry" in the world for what I put her through.  And yes, the things that I was putting her through were a product of my experiences and my illness which are most definitely not my fault...but I still feel like my silence was.  If I had been honest with her or with therapists in the beginning, I may have made more progress in my teen years.  But this is what sexual assault can do to you.  I was completely mute when it came to that.  It became a vicious cycle.  The more I stayed silent, the more my rage and depression caused me to hurt those around me who loved me most.  And the more I did that, the more I couldn't say anything.  My hurting them had loosened trust.  My lying and sneaking out had made me untrustworthy.  So I convinced myself that anything I said, I wouldn't be believed.  And I feared the fall out.  I was afraid if I told my mom, that she'd tell the family, and that they would try to "punish" the person(s) along my life who had done these things.  At this point, I didn't want anything but for it all to just be over.  I wish I would've given my mom more credit.  I wish I could have seen her on her knees every night, praying for me.  Maybe then I would've known that I could have told her anything.  And she would love me no less and if I didn't want her to tell anyone else, she wouldn't have.

So my family moved.  I had gotten away from Him.  I was 19 and still living with my mom and stepdad.  It was my stepdad who ended up telling me that I needed to be out of their house in 90 days.  I got a job at Pizza Hut and began saving for an apartment.  At the end of those 90 days, I was still a little short.  I went to my stepdad and asked for an extension and he gave me another 90 days.  I only needed 30.  I remember thinking how unfair it was that he kicked me out.  I boiled inside and promised myself I wouldn't take a thing from him.  Looking back, it was the best thing anyone could have done for me.  It was the push I needed to find myself.  My stepdad and I are very close now as I can see and appreciate the love he had for me that I didn't know then was love.  I ended up getting a better job at a department store and had enough stability in money to finally move.

I moved into a small one bedroom apartment 5 minutes from my mom's house.  The new found responsibility was daunting for me.  I started having more and more panic attacks.  I didn't want to be alone.  I would go to the bar and meet a guy and bring him back to my place just so I didn't have to be by myself.  I'm sure you all can guess that we weren't playing checkers.

There I was, floating through life aimlessly.  Using men and being used, in turn.  Crippling anxiety attacks. Working through my daddy issues. Trying to work and pay bills and be a "grown up."  Still not dealing with my past.  And my mother was there every step of the way.  Constantly telling me how much she loved me.  Helping with anything that she could.  Staying on the phone with me at 3 o'clock in the morning while I cried that I was dying.  Looking up new therapists for me to go to.  Setting appointments for me.  Helping me with bills when my job wasn't enough to make ends meet because of sick days due to anxiety.  She was there; watching me meander through the quagmire that is sexual assault aftermath and mental illness.  Wondering why I couldn't see the beautiful person that she saw.  Wondering why I couldn't love myself as much as she loved me.  I'm sure she was seeing her peers have children going off to college, getting good jobs, having children.  And she was dealing with the words of the last therapist that spoke to her after a session:

"You will be taking care of her forever.  She will never be able to live on her own.  She'll never get married, she'll never be okay.  You need to prepare yourself now for having an adult dependent child for the rest of her life."

I didn't know that he had said that to her.  And I'm sure with everything going on, she was starting to believe it.  I hadn't even heard it and I was starting to believe it.  Things always need to get a little worse before they get better, and I was no where near the sunlight yet. There were still many more dark days ahead. But she was going to help me.  She would never tire getting me help.

And I was gonna prove that asshole wrong.

To be continued.....

N is for Nanoseconds

This is the sixth installment in a series covering the issue nearest to my heart.  I still hope to have one every day, but we'll have to see how that goes.  I want to share how I came to the passion that I spend much of my time and resources on.  Since this story is mine and mine alone to tell, there will be portions that are vague and I apologize in advance.  The road to healing is a personal one and it's not my place to tell the story for someone who may not be ready to have their part of it told.  Some material may be triggering.  Please read at your own discretion.

To read from the beginning, find part one here.

"The storm is coming but I don't mind.  People are dying, I close my blinds...I want to change the world, instead I sleep.  I want to believe in more than you and me.  But all that I know is I'm breathing.  All I can do is keep breathing.  All we can do is keep breathing now."  ~  Ingrid Michaelson, Keep Breathing

If you've never experienced anxiety attacks or other forms of mental illness, it's really hard to adequately grasp the toll that they take on your life.  Your brain sometimes seems split into two.  Your body doesn't respond to either piece.  It's like an eternal torture that you can't really escape because you can't run from something inside you.  I think that's why there is such a high incidence of people with these issues doing drugs or drinking to excess.  You'll do anything; try anything, to get some sort of relief.  A break from the madness in your mind.

Living in my first apartment was interesting.  I had to learn a lot of basic lessons that most people learn well before they are on their own.  At this point, my mom had become more of an ally than an enabler.  She had learned ways to help me cope, but also was really trying to teach me to be a grown up.  It's funny.  When you're little, you think that you will just naturally know things when you get to be a certain age.  Even my daughter will say things like:  "I'll bake cakes when I'm 22."  She somehow thinks that just the act of turning 22 will give her the knowledge and the coordination needed to bake a cake.  I guess I kind of thought that about life, too.

I think I spent a lot of time waiting.  Just waiting for the day that the anxiety would pass, that my need for attention would wane, that the little mundane things that are involved in grown up life would just come to me. They didn't.  Maybe they do for some people, but for me, every single small step was hard work.

I learned that it's important to save money.  Cause you kinda need it for bills and stuff.  I can vividly remember going to the music and movies store and spotting a complete boxed set of  Nightmare on Elm Street DVD's.  Oh, I wanted them so badly.  But I didn't have enough money for them and my rent.  In fact, purchasing them would be close to the amount that I paid for rent.  A grown up with experience would've walked away.  I bought them.  I figured that I would just pay the rent with late fee on my rent out of my next check.  But when you have crippling anxiety attacks and end up calling into work a few times, you don't make as much money as you did on the weeks that you didn't have anxiety attacks.  So payday came and I couldn't afford my rent.  I buried my head in the sand, thinking that it would go away.  I've had a life long problem with doing that.  A couple weeks later I was served with an eviction notice.  I had 10 days to get caught up or I was out.  I really didn't know what to do.  I felt embarrassed asking anyone for help.  Here I am at 19 and can't even do something as simple as pay my rent?  But I figured my mom would bail me out if I tucked tail and groveled.  And I think that was the turning point in which my mother began to really help me.  I asked her for the money and being my mother, she couldn't stand to see me evicted.  But being my mother, she couldn't stand to see me not learn how to do this for myself.  She paid it for me.  And then she drafted a payment plan for me to reimburse her....with interest.  To be honest, I was grateful and angry at the same time.  Because of my issues (and because of my highly honed manipulation skills), family and other people had always kind of given me what I wanted.  I yearned to be a productive adult yet was angry when I had to do the things that it takes to get there.  I think the step that my mom took to start ensuring I understood that you can't take advantage of people (even though it was a learned behavior by so many people taking advantage of me) was a tiny step in starting to retrain my brain.

It took a few other lessons before I started being more careful with money.  I remember going across the street to buy a pack of smokes and a Dr. Pepper.  I hadn't balanced my checkbook but went ahead and wrote a check for it...hoping it might float.  But it didn't.  Between the store fees and the banks fees, that pack of smokes and a drink cost me $63.  Something triggered in my brain from that.  But because I can never be "in the middle" on stuff, I went to the other extreme.  I counted every single penny coming in and going out and kept the most concise and perfectly handwritten ledger you have EVER seen.  (And I still do this today...I just don't update it every single day and read over it 200 times a day).

I was working and doing pretty good during the day...

But then there were the nights.  I still couldn't handle nights.  Panic attacks were almost nightly.  The only coping methods that I had were calling my mom and crying while she made every feeble attempt possible to calm me down or going out to the bar, being around people in those late night hours so I wouldn't have to be by myself.

I started frequenting the bar across the street.  It's funny, because at this point I was not 21.  AND I didn't drink.  I still don't really, save for the occasional night out.  But this bar had karaoke.  I've always loved to sing and am pretty good at it.  I had won several talent shows growing up and I had done karaoke at my aunt's house when she bought that giant laser disc karaoke system.  I grew up in a really musical family and had sung with bands and done a lot of small community concerts.  So I thought I'd try my hand at that.

The really interesting thing about karaoke for me at this point in my life is that it got me attention.  But this was the first thing in my life that I could do, liked to do, that got me positive attention.  People were recognizing my talent and not my body.  The owner of the bar actually gave me a job after hearing me sing Unchained Melody.  I was going to be a karaoke jockey on Thursday-Saturday.  It was a great way to supplement my income and I loved doing it.  Then it developed into me having my own show on Thursdays.  It was pretty awesome.

But I guess I wasn't ready to accept positive attention.  It didn't feel right to me.  I still don't know if I just had a hard time accepting compliments or if I couldn't believe them.  I'm not sure what was going on in my brain, but I basically ruined it for myself.  I took the completely benign act of being a great singer and turned it into something else.  Because of my history, it was almost like if there wasn't a sexual or self mutilating component to it, I couldn't navigate it.  So I began to sing songs like I Touch Myself or anything else that was suggestive or that I could at least put on a suggestive show to.  The bar owners loved it because soon, we had a huge loyal following for my Thursday night "shows."  They were making money, I was making money....but it wasn't enough.  I still didn't feel validated.  So I would take whoever my "biggest fan" was, home to my apartment.  It became a vicious cycle.  I'd sleep with him, then hate myself.  Then pour my emotions out on stage, start to feel alone, find someone...do it all over again.  Sometimes these would turn into relationships; sometimes not.  When they did, usually a guy would have a threshold of how much "Crazy Girl" he could take and when it got to that point, he bounced.

I'd sit in my living room and cry until I couldn't breathe.  I hated myself.  I hated men.  I hated everything.  I thought about how I thought I was going to do all these great things.  When I was a child, I had dreamed of being a doctor.  More than anything I hated running into Her.  That girl.  So many different faces but all the same.  The girl with so much self confidence that she kicked guys to the curb.  The girl so proud of herself and protective of her body that she would tell me about how she waited x amount of days/months/years to sleep with her boyfriend.  The girl that found her soul mate and was getting married.  The girl who didn't need a man whatsoever and was confident and comfortable just being alone with herself.  I hated that girl because I wanted to be that girl.  Meeting one of those girls just showed me that it actually was possible; that other women achieved it...but that I couldn't.  I wouldn't.  There was nothing for me but where I was.

At some point in that year, whether due to stress or genetics, no one is real sure, I lost my hair.  I was diagnosed with alopecia areata.  It started with a bald spot the size of a quarter and ended up with almost my whole head, some eyebrows, and eyelashes.  For a girl already struggling with self esteem, but ironically a girl who used her looks to get what she wanted, to get a sick sense of protection while farming herself out....it was devastating.  I ended up wearing a wig for a while, as the hair grew back short and stubbly, I converted it to a "boy cut."  I was on steroids for the condition and they caused me to balloon in weight.

The panic attacks became more and more frequent.  They weren't the kind that would send me to the ER screaming like they were when I was a child.  They were the ones where my brain was just telling me that I was going to die.  I would become almost catatonic at first, listening to the voice in my head.  Then I would get hysterical.  The thoughts would keep coming and I couldn't control them.  I was taking Klonopin at least 3 times a day.  The only thing I could do was numb myself. I sat and counted the minutes.  The seconds.  The nanoseconds.  If I could just get through this one, then would come another one.  10 minutes would turn into 20.  Sometimes that was a comforting thing, knowing that I was still here; second after second.  Sometimes it was agony; knowing that it was continuing second after second.  All I knew was that I was breathing.  I didn't feel like I was; but I just kept repeating to myself:  "I have to be breathing.  I'd be dead already if I wasn't breathing."  It's still heartbreaking to me that the fact that I wasn't dead already, was the only factor I had to determine that I was alive.

I had a therapist at the time who would just say "Bless you little heart" without offering any suggestions.  She was pretty much useless.   Except for one thing.

My insurance was going to run out when I turned 21 if I was not a full time student.  Having the medical issues that I did, I couldn't let that happen.  I had gotten my GED three months after I dropped out of school.  I had always wanted to go to college, but I just didn't think it was in the cards for me.  I didn't think that it was possible.  She informed me that I could go to a local junior college.  I started the registration process.  I honestly had no idea how I was going to be able to go to school and work while suffering through the panic. But I guess we would find out.

To be continued...