P is for Potholes and Phoenix

This is the eighth installment in a series covering the issue nearest to my heart.  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.

"You have climbed an uphill road, you have worn a heavy load.  You have cried through endless nights, nearly giving up the fight.  Watched your dreams like falling stars, heartache made you who you are and looking back you'll see that I have always been there..."   Kendall Payne, I Will Show You Love


I was rockin' it, y'all.  Rockin' it hard core.  I was in school and doing fabulous.  Never getting less than an A on anything.  I was working at the bar, doing my karaoke thing and loving it.  I was in therapy with a wonderful psychologist who was making me work and I was reaping all the benefits.  Life was beginning to get good.  I still had some anxious tendencies, was still on my anti-depressants daily and Klonopin when needed.  But I was feeling pretty full of awesome.

Rugs.  I hate those suckers.  'Cause they always know when to pull right out from under you.  I don't even want to think about what a worse thing could have been to someone like me.  This seemed like it was pretty effing close.

On a dark night in November, it was raining.  I didn't have to work, but I was hanging out at the bar with all my friends, enjoying a night where I wasn't the one organizing CD's, setting up equipment, and dealing with the drama of karaoke politics.  There was a wedding reception in the bar and everyone was in a good mood.  The rain and thunder were loud and only drowned out when the next singer began to ring out whatever they had picked.  The maid of honor decided to sing.  She got up to the mike, took a deep breath, and just before belting out her first note, the power went out.  All us drinking fools made light of it; clapping immediately yelling, "Great song!  Awesome! Loved it."  It was pretty hilarious.  All of a sudden, it just wasn't funny anymore.  Then we heard that familiar Alabama sound of one pissed off train.  Then we heard what we thought was heavy hail.  Then someone screamed: "Everybody get down!!"

I don't know what I thought I was doing.  I ran.  Almost the exact opposite of "get down."  But that's what I did.  And then dove to the ground and slid flat down on my front.  My ears popped. I felt something smash against my back.  Felt a weird pressure on the back of my neck.  Then, I felt wet.  I know that I knew it was a tornado at that point, because there were some crazy things going on in my mind and this was one of them: "Holy shit.  I'm INSIDE the tornado.  It's raining inside the tornado and I'm inside it."
Of course, I wasn't really inside a tornado.  But your brain thinks odd things in trauma.  Boy, did I already know that.  The not so crazy thing going on inside my head was that I wanted my mom.  I actually did yell out for her during the 10 seconds that everything was going down.  And by going down, I mean literally.

We found out later than the hail that we thought we heard was actually pieces of another building a half mile down the road hitting our roof.  The tornado ripped off the roof and slammed it back down on the building lopsided and the four walls crumbled inward.  The pressure I had felt over my neck was a table rolling across it. What I had felt on my back was the overhang of the serving bar collapsing and falling on to me.  I found out later that had I stayed where I was and followed directions, the juke box that had been behind me, would have shoved into me and sprayed glass into my skin.  Pretty glad I ran.  Not glad that I laid flat.  The reason that they teach you in schools during the tornado drill to crouch down is simple.  If you lay flat and shit falls on top of you, you can't get up.  You have no leverage to push the stuff off of you.  Hence, I was trapped.  A piece of insulation had somehow fallen over my mouth and the rain that I thought was coming from inside the tornado?  That was the water main breaking, drenching me completely and plastering that insulation like glue to my face.  I couldn't breathe.  This time, it wasn't my brain making me think I was going to die just because it felt like screwing with me that day.  I couldn't breathe and was about to pass out and I was literally thinking that I was going to die.

I stuck my hand out and someone saw it.  A few people pulled some debris off of me and grabbed my arms and pulled.  I'm grateful for the effort, I really am because in that moment I knew that someone had found me and that I was going to be okay.  But the heavy bar was still across my backside.  It kept me in place while they pulled.  And pulled. And pulled.  I was screaming but they couldn't hear me due to the chaos ensuing around us and the insulation still covering my face.  They pulled and eventually dislocated both of my shoulders.  And because I had hip injuries from a previous horse riding accident, the hips followed shortly after that.

I don't even know how I was able to get up and walk around.  I know that it was painful; the hips popped back in awkwardly and I screamed.  My arms were hanging limply at my sides and I began to search for somewhere to sit down.  Chaos was still around us and so many things happened that would take too long to tell.  I eventually sat down in the back of an ambulance that had finally showed up, received oxygen treatment for the fiberglass that I had inhaled, and they popped my shoulders back in.

My car had its windows blown out.  I was able to go get it the next day; soaked in rain and dirty with debris and mud, but it was at least able to be driven.  And then life went on.

Or did it?

I don't really know how to adequately explain the deflation involved after making so much progress with myself and my mental health.  I turned into quite the crazy.  If it sprinkled outside, I bawled.  Thunder was panic inducing enough to warrant a whole Klonopin rather than a half.  God forbid there were strong winds.  I was, as they say, a basket case.  I went back to not being able to drive more than for about 5 minutes.  I remember having to go to an appointment about that distance away and when I got in the car to come home it started raining badly.  I had to pull over (which I jumped a curb doing and damaged my tire) and run into the first business that I saw.  I was crying and hyperventilating.  I'm sure those people thought I was truly nuts.  But they were kind and let me stay until the rain let up.

The difference between this fall out and so many others was that this time I had an amazing support structure.  I had finally learned the value of my mother.  I had learned that the things she had done that I thought were horrible and hateful were actually loving gestures of a parent who was trying everything in her power to save her child.  I had my wonderful psychologist who helped me get past it.  I was actually surprised at how quick I bounced back.  I was doing wonderful things in school.  I was maintaining an awesome GPA and I had joined our school's orientation team, which garnered me a semester of scholarship.  I was dating and although I still wasn't in any relationships that I would consider healthy by any means, there was no abuse and much less of the attention starved crazy Jesi antics going on.  A teacher at my school made a phone call and got me a scholarship to my next stop.  That was insane to me.  Me.  Little ol' me had been awarded a transfer scholarship to a university.  I was elated and overjoyed.

And scared as hell.

It was over an hour away from my mom.  I hadn't been that far away from her since she became my ally.  She was who I still called at 2 am when I was in the midst of a panic attack and needed  to be talked down. She was who I counted on for everything.  And she would be an hour away.  But I knew I had to do it.

The story of me moving into college is probably one of my proudest.  I loaded up a lot of my junk into storage that my mom would look after for me.  What could fit into my car, went into my car.  And lemme tell ya, it was LOADED down.  So bad that I had to have extra braking time.  Driving to a bigger city.  The capitol city, actually.  Which I had never been to.  By myself.  Are you kidding me???  And I moved all that crap up into my 4th floor door room...by myself.  Mom came up later when she had some time off work and brought me some more things, but that first day I did it all.  I'm still really super proud of me for that.

This school was pretty awesome.  And I did well.  I joined the cheerleading squad for one year.  I ended up having to get two jobs once I got a newer car so that I could stay afloat so nothing extra curricular lasted long after the first year.  I enjoyed all my classes and loved most of my teachers.  I made friends and had boyfriends.  I was President of the Psychology Club.  I joined a group on campus that ended up sending me to a training session on how to administer HIV tests with the Ora-Sure swab and how to do pre and post testing counseling.  That rocked my socks.  I got to go down to the red light district and convince people to let me give them tests.  Give them real information about HIV.  Many didn't want to listen, but some did.  And that was some of the most rewarding work I've ever done.  Even still.

Even though I had been donating whatever tiny bits of money I had and devouring every piece of info I could get my hands on to the organization RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest, National Network), this was the first opportunity that I had to participate in Card Day.  It's a day in September where you hand out material with information concerning sexual assault on college campuses.  It was amazing for me.  I know that it helped some people and most of all, it helped me.

I took one class called Personal Adjustment.  I had no idea what it was, but it looked like a decent psych elective.  It ended up being this really awesome class where you did a lot of journaling and self reflection.  You shared stories throughout the semester, learned to listen to other people, and basically had like a little classroom of informal group therapy going on.  It was pretty cool.  And it was the first time that I told a group of practically strangers about my life and my struggles with the aftermath of sexual abuse and living with mental illness.

I could see some uncomfortable shifting from people, but I could also see a range of emotions in their eyes.  Some looked at me with pity.  Some gazed back in solidarity.  But there was one girl.  One girl who never took her eyes off of me the entire time I spoke.  I didn't know her well in the class and I still don't remember her name.  At the end of the semester, we formed a circle and we had to write one word descriptors about each of our classmates and then read them aloud to each other.  I can't remember any of the other words used to describe me.  It came time for That Girl to give her word to me and she said this:

"My word for you, is Phoenix.  Are you familiar with the story from the Bible? (I was not.) Well, the story of the Phoenix Bird, is that it died in a fire and was later resurrected from its ashes of death.  It went on to multiply, and is a symbol of the miracle of God.  You have been through so much and you are here; stronger for it.  You haven't shed the nastiness of things that happened to you, much like the Phoenix still carries her ashes on her wings.  But you have been reborn into something miraculous and special.   The Phoenix doesn't allow those ashes to stop her from flying.  You have transformed into something that through the miracle of God, doesn't forget the death in the ashes but instead, treads through them to be born again into something more beautiful that it could have ever been without the heartache.  You are splendid and cherished and shine bright as a living testimony to the majesty of life and of the Lord."

I could only nod, whisper thanks, and shyly look away as tears filled my eyes, much as they do right now.  I hadn't before, nor have I since heard something more beautiful being said about me. I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination.  Yet this story touched me so deeply.  The quote that I chose for this post is actually from a Christian song, but I believe that it can apply to anyone, religious or not.  It says: "looking back you'll see that I have always been there."  I know that the artist is speaking from the perspective of God and that a person should look back and see that He has always been there.  But for me, I look back and see that I was always the Phoenix Bird.  I just hadn't risen from my ashes yet.


To be continued...