In '92 a Baby Girl Brought Heaven to the World

     When my daughter was born, it was one of the happiest days of my life.  She was my rainbow baby, born following an early miscarriage the year before.  Hers was an easy, uneventful pregnancy.  I found joy in how my body changed in order to give her exactly what she needed.  I had so much fun shopping for all her frilly, little baby dresses and headbands. I was so excited for her to arrive, to have something totally dependent on me.  But come delivery time, she wasn't at all interested in being born.  She was 10 days late, but more than content to stay where she was.  I could just picture her grabbing onto whatever she could hold onto!  After a 29-hour labor, she finally made her appearance. All 7lbs 11oz and 21 inches of her, with so much hair that people thought she was wearing a wig (I know, people are weird!).

     From the day Ellysa was born I knew I would do whatever was in my power to always protect her.  I would raise her in a "normal" family where she would always feel loved and safe.  No one would do to her what had been done to me.

     I endured severe trauma in my early childhood (birth - 4 years), the effects of which I am only just beginning to understand.  It destroyed my trust, and damaged my ability to form emotional attachments.  Affection became a scary thing for me.  People were unsafe, even the people in your own family.

     When  my younger sister and I entered foster care, we were placed with an extremely affectionate family.  We were hugged, and held, and kissed.  Our parents hugged and kissed in front of us.  Even today, our family greets each other with a hug and a kiss.  It's still really hard for me.  It doesn't come naturally.  

     At some point, I fell into the routine.  The kisses before bedtime.  The hugging of pretty much every person I knew, whether it was family, extended family or church.  It's what was expected, so it was what I did.  I never really felt like I had a choice.  My body was still not my own.  I wasn't allowed to refuse, even when it made me quite uncomfortable.  (I'll save that for another post.) 

          During that time I really harbored a general dislike of men.  I didn't link that to the events of my early childhood because I just didn't understand it then.  I had snippets of memory, but it was all so compartmentalized.  I didn't allow the memories of abuse into my conscious thoughts.  It was too scary, too painful.  Still, I understood that babies needed affection and touch in order to develop, so I set out to do something that was unnatural to me.  It came easier than I thought.  She was so peaceful and looked like a baby doll.  I loved to hold her, to look at her, to dress her up.  Olan Mills (I'm really aging myself) made a lot of money off of us.

     All the while I was coddling Ellysa, I was teaching her what I knew about the world.  Both good and bad.  I taught her that men were scary and the world wasn't to be trusted.  I taught her that her body was hers and no one-- even her grandparents-- could not force her into hugs or kisses if she felt uncomfortable.  That ruffled feathers.  I taught her to always be aware of her environment.  Don't go places alone, and if she did to exude all the confidence she could muster.  Don't be distracted by her phone when she was walking through a store or a parking lot.

     I thought I was helping her, preparing her to protect herself.  Instead, I was scaring her.  Creating fear, increasing anxiety.  I thought I was teaching her that I would always be her protector, all she had to do was tell me.  Instead, she heard that if she wasn't like me she was weak.

     When Ellysa was 17 she left for Youth With A Mission.  Our family had been seriously harmed by an abusive pastor.  Fleeing the state was her way of dealing with that pain.  We drove her from Pennsylvania to Texas to drop her off.  I didn't realize that she wouldn't live at home again for several years.

     Following her time in YWAM, she moved to North Carolina to live with her roommate.  She was young, naive and far from home.  My ability to protect her was so limited.  I could only hope she was being safe.  Sadly, her roommate became involved with drugs.  She ransacked Ellysa's room and mail. Living with her became a scary thing.  When I visited, the roommate was conveniently never there, so I wasn't able to size her up, to have a clear picture of what Ellysa was dealing with.  I didn't have a way to help.  I would have liked for my daughter to move home.  She wanted to prove that she could make it on her own.

     During this time Ellysa met Mike.  We loved him!  He cooked. He was into computers.  He looked like Ryan Reynolds!  We spent time with him while we visited, and he was always charming and polite.  Behind the curtain, however, he was destroying her credit, emotionally controlling and sexually assaulting her. I still don't know all that happened, but I don't need to know.  I can't be mad at her for "letting it happen", when Mike was able to bypass MY radar systems, too.

     Eventually Ellysa called and asked us to move her back home.  She was broken, sad and angry.  I was, too.  I had trusted that man with my most valued possession, and he had treated her like she was a raggedy old doll.  With time she began to heal and settle into life here.

     After much coaxing, I persuaded Ellysa to get a job working at JCPenney's, where I worked.  She was still living with us, but working together brought a different level of closeness.  She was competent and capable, enabling her to quickly rise to management positions.  It did this mama's heart good to see her succeeding, healing, moving on.

     After Ellysa met her wife, Alli, and moved out our working together became even more important to me.  We made sure to see each other each shift.  Our offices were close together, and she usually stopped by before she'd head out for the day.  

     All along Ellysa had been dealing with increasing levels of anxiety.  It has been a constant for most of her life.  She's medicated.  She's professionally treated.  Still, it can overwhelm and envelop her.

     Nearly 2 years ago I got a phone call no parent wants to get.  They were headed to the hospital.  My daughter wanted to hurt herself.  It's all she could think about.  They would let me know more later.  My heart was racing.  My mind swirled with all the scary thoughts of what she could have done.

     I went to work, going through the motions of my day, waiting for news. (On a side note: this is when we learned how incredibly broken the mental health care system is.  Despite Ellysa's critical state, no in-take was available to her for 5 days.  I don't know what people without support systems do.)

     Alli called with the update.  They were home.  She had taken Ellysa's car keys and hidden all the sharp objects.  People would need to stay with Ellysa until she could get into a program the next week.  I had never felt more helpless.  There was literally nothing I could do to protect her.

      Ellysa ended up being out of work for several weeks while she was in treatment.  I would walk into her office and begin to cry thinking about what I almost lost.  She had left a sweater hanging on her chair.  Sometimes, I would stop and touch it.  Smell it.  I would pray for her, thanking God for sparing her life.

     Tomorrow, Ellysa turns 29.  It's not lost on me how this could have been a birth remembrance instead of a birthday celebration.  I haven't always been able to protect her like I have wanted, but I hope she always feels protected how I could.

*Are you in a mental health crisis? 

 www.nami.org

 www.nimh.nih.gov

 www.thetrevorproject.org

     

     

... And I listened

      I've got a fire in my belly.  It's the kind that rises from deep within, when an ember of passion has been fanned. It had been squelched for quite some time, but it never went out.  It was dormant, tucked away for safe keeping, until a safe time to re-emerge.

     When I was in middle and high school, I wanted to be a social worker when I grew up.  I wanted to help people, like I had been helped.  However, somewhere along the way I was talked out of it.  I was told there was no money in it, getting a job would be hard, it would be too much emotionally.

     And I listened.

     I went to a year of college, taking gen-eds, before dropping out to go to Youth With A Mission (YWAM).  My time in YWAM stoked my fire.  During my time there, I was really able to work on myself.  I know that may sound like a cliche, but there was work to be done.  As I worked to reconcile my past experiences and who God was, I seemed to develop a magnetic field around me.  I was a magnet that attracted other abused women and children{it's so strange how we can sniff it out in others!}.  I had many ministry opportunities that allowed me to interact with other broken and abused women and children.  Their stories just poured out of them. 

     And I listened.

     As I have listened to so many stories of hurt, trauma, and victimization one thing has become clear.  We as a church do a really bad job of  helping these women, often to the point of revictimizing them.  We say "everyone welcome", which is true as long as you have it all together and look like us.  We say we want to help but they remain marginalized.  They sit in a corner alone.  You know why?   Because the modern church doesn't handle "messy" well, and messy is where these ladies and children reside.  Working through their "stuff" is a process.  A grimy, smelly, dirty process. 

     I've had periods in my life when I had more interactions with these women and children.  It was some of the most fulfilling times.  I felt a sense of purpose.  The fire burned bright. But then I went through some awful things.  I was revictimized by the church, by a pastor who knew my past and used it against me.  I was shaken to the core.  I began to question my calling, my ability to help, if I was even able to make a difference. 

     I shut down.

     For the past several years I have been in a "ministry desert".  I just didn't feel like I had anything extra to give.  But my magnet continued to pull injured women to me.  I gave what I had, though it didn't seem like enough.

     I listened.

    Over the last month, I have felt that ember fanned to flame.  I feel a passion burning deep in my belly.  I have a stirring that is pushing me forward.  I have to do something.  I just don't know what that looks like yet.  I just know that I, that we the church, need to do better.  It's time to reach out.  It's time our arms pull in rather than push away.    It's time I step out of my comfort zone and back into ministry.  I don't know what that looks like yet.

     But I'm listening.

Can you change a bully?

     There was a bully who lived in my neighborhood during most of my elementary and middle school years.  He was not just mean, he was cruel.  For a long time, I was actually afraid to leave my yard.

     I grew up in what some would consider an idyllic setting.  We had a house in the woods, surrounded by trees and hills.  There was a creek at the end of the lane where we spent most of our days in the summer.
     Our house was just a summer cottage when my parents bought it, as were most of the houses.  Five or six other families lived there year round.  My dad poured a ton of sweat into making that cottage a house we could live in.  He worked third shift at the post office, then he'd come home and work on the house.  What he didn't know, he learned.  He apprenticed anyone who would let him.
   
     When we first moved in there weren't other children my age, so it was a big deal when this family moved in down the lane.  They had a daughter and three sons, one my age and one my younger sister's age.
     This family put a mobile home on a large corner lot, and some time later added another mobile home, creating an "L" shape.  They then built a deck that filled in the space between the two. 

     Dennis was closest to my age, and the third child in his family.  He had a stay-at-home mom and a dad who worked long days.  His mom was nice enough, but his dad was terrifying.  The kids would stay away from the house as much as possible when he was home.  He drank, a lot, when he was home.  Then the yelling would begin.  I could hear it all the way up to my house.  Any minor incident would send him into a rage.  The older two boys were beaten on a regular basis, as was their mom.
     One day, Dennis's dad had an accident at work and he lost his eye.  Eventually, he was fitted with a glass eye.  This wasn't like the modern inventions we have now, the one you can't even tell are fake.  His was a full-on 1970's nightmare.  It was fixed in place, and totally resembled a marble.  I was both frightened and fascinated at the same time.
     After his accident, Dennis's dad became even angrier.  Ultimately, he had an affair and abandoned his family.

     Dennis was mean to me almost from the beginning.  He had found someone weaker than him.  Walking to and from the bus stop was torture!  We lived on a dirt road that was covered in gravel every summer.  All the way up the lane he pelted my feet and legs with stones while he yelled "dance".  I would pray for the bus to be there so I wouldn't have to wait with him.  Coming home was no better.  At one point, I remember the bus driver giving me a head start before he let Dennis off the bus.  I would run as fast as I could down that dirt road, praying that I wouldn't fall. (Don't get me started about how the bus driver handled this!)
     My younger sister was a scrapper.  She had brute strength and wasn't afraid of anything.  I remember a time when Dennis had been threatening to beat me up.  I was supposed to meet him behind the fire hall.  I was filled with dread.  I knew for sure I was dead meat.  When it was time for the fight, my sister stepped in.  She beat the daylights out of him!  He got in a few punches, but she won in the end, loudly demanding that he leave me alone.
     She bought my peace.

     There was a brief time between adolescence and puberty when we had a love/hate relationship.  We'd get along for a bit, but then he'd show up at my house with a sledgehammer, demanding I smash something with it (usually a frog), or he would smash my foot.  I don't remember ever smashing something myself, but I saw him do it plenty of times.  It was enough to keep me in fear of him.
     My parents didn't like me hanging around with him.  They had that parental spidey sense, the desire to protect their child.  They didn't know what he'd done to me in the past-- I never told them-- but they were determined to protect me in the future.

     Once we reached puberty the general taunting ended.  My body developed early, and soon both Dennis and his older brother were sniffing around.  I knew enough to stay away from his brother, but Dennis and I had a few make-out sessions, but nothing sexual.  My  boundaries were murky.  Mom and dad taught me to save my body for marriage, to not let men take advantage of me.  This contradicted with my early childhood experiences.  Grown men had already taken advantage of me.  It was all too confusing.  

     Ultimately, Dennis sexually assaulted me.  Twice.  I didn't tell anyone.

     I write these experiences all to get here:  how different would Dennis's life had been if another adult had intervened?  Would he have been a kinder, gentler, non-abusive person if he had received tenderness, acceptance and unconditional love?  I believe so.  I'm not excusing his behavior.  Not by any means.  But, now as an adult looking back, I can feel empathy for him.  

     How different would our world be if we all did what we can to bring healing?  What if we stopped turning a blind eye to abuse and neglect?  What if we saw beyond a persona, beyond their living situation, beyond the clothes they wear or if they're bathed?  What would happen if we all reached into those people's hearts?  That's what Jesus would do.  

     I want to be more like that.   

   

He Didn't Destroy Me

     I grew up in the church.  It wasn't part of my life with my biological family, but I loved it from the time I moved in with my foster/adoptive family.  I didn't understand it then, but I felt safe at church.  I just knew there was something different there.

     My parents were committed leaders. My dad was the worship leader and served on the church board for most of my formative years.  My mom was a Sunday school teacher.  She served in the nursery, taught some of the girl's groups and also cleaned the church.  We hosted weekly Bible study groups at our house.  Basically, if the church doors were open, we were there.  If there was a reason to meet up with others from the church, we were in.
     Those we some of the happiest times of my life.  Sure, there were some sad times.  When a beloved youth pastor and his wife moved away, I was devastated.  When the church split and we didn't go there anymore, I lost contact with friends.  But I formed new friendships at the next church, which lessened the blow.
     Church represented continuity for me.  The location, congregation might be different but my feeling of safety remained.  My soul was soothed.  It truly was a refuge for me.  None of my abuse, damage, brokenness mattered there.

     I hit a rough spot with church when I was in high school that lasted through the summer after graduation.  I was still in a relationship with Jesus.  We still talked-- all the time.  But I no longer felt like the church "fit", if you will.
     Fortunately a group from Youth With A Mission (YWAM) visited our church for a weekend.  I'll go into all the details about that in another post.  But I will say that that weekend was life-altering for me.  I finished out my first year of college, then went into full-time ministry with YWAM for the next 3 years.
     During those years I grew to understand why church had been so comforting for me-- I had experienced God.  I totally immersed myself in getting to know God, to really hear him and recognize his voice.  I begin to deal with my pain from the abuse and trauma in my early childhood.  Bit by bit, I was becoming healthy.  Whole.

     When I married my husband, we quickly rooted our little family in the local church.  And, like our parents, jumped in with both feet.  We taught boy's and girl's groups.  We attended Bible studies at other's homes, and hosted our own.
     My husband's job changed often during our early years of marriage, but we always found a church quickly.  It provided comfort and community, as well as allow us to continue to grow in our relationship with God.
     Naturally, when we had kids we wanted them to have the same church experience we did as children.  As toddlers they loved it.

     My husband's job took us out of state for a bit.  When we moved back here to Pennsylvania, finding a church was suddenly difficult.  We had never experienced that before!   He'd like one, I'd like another.  We visited a church where not one person spoke to us, and another on the same day the pastor resigned.  When we finally visited the church that would be our home for the next 10 years, we were ripe for the picking.  However, our experiences on that first visit were vastly different.  He felt like he was finally home.  I felt like my spidey sense had been activated.  I watched from the sidelines, for a year, as my husband became involved and our children made friends.  I watched until they wore me down.  I overrode my gut instincts and jumped right in.

     During the first 7 years, we were honeymooners.  Our lives revolved around the church, to the point that we sacrificed relationships with our own families.  We were given subtle suggestions that all our friends should be from our church.
     We joined teams.  We led groups.  We hosted Bible studies in our home.  I became the pastor's administrative assistant.  We enjoyed a favor that stirred jealousy in people who were working so hard for it.  We became part of the pastor's family.  They helped us through some really tough times in our life, and we opened up to them.  Me, especially.  I told them all about my trauma and abuse.  I showed them the broken pieces of me that I was trying so desperately to hold together.

     All the while, we were being manipulated.  Coaxed to behave a certain way.  Groomed.  They knew all my secrets, so they knew just what buttons to push.

     The pastor was a narcissistic control freak.  He would joke that he could "punish people without them even knowing it".  At some point that became directed at us, especially me.  But in my blind trust, I didn't see it until it was far too late.  Even when he made inappropriate sexual advances towards me, TWICE, I dismissed it as being in my head.  When my daughter was being punished as a way to control me, I dismissed it as she was being overly sensitive.  When my husband started to feel like something was incredibly wrong going on, I still refused to see it.  I had overridden my gut instinct years before; now I didn't trust it anymore.  They had broken me.

     But it would become much worse.

     One of the greatest offenses one could do at that church was to ask "why" about anything.  Blind obedience was demanded.  Anyone who questioned was quickly discounted and driven out.  His tag line was "if this isn't the church for you, we're happy for you to find another one".
     Well, I committed that greatest sin.  I dared to question.  I dared to compare one of my character issues with his.  They decided I needed to go.  They launched an all-out character assassination of me.  They froze us out.  Shunned, if you will.  We lost friends, but it was so much worse for our kids.  They didn't know why any of it was happening, and I didn't know how to explain.
     By the time we left there, I was broken.  I spent the next year in mourning.  I cried every single day.  My body just shut down.  I developed complex PTSD.  I watched my children fall away from the church because of what we'd all been through.

     I clung to God for my very existence.  We found another church, a place that gave us the space to begin to heal.  You see, a man hurt us, not the church.  A man attacked us, not God.  If there is one thing I know about God, it's that He has to be better than any man.

     It's been almost 10 years since we escaped what I now have come to understand was a cult.  It's been a rough road dealing with all that damage.  Unpacking those boxes, all the little compartments I had to stuff those memories into just to survive, is both freeing and terrifying.  I'm definitely not the person I was then, but my relationship with the church has not changed.  Mainly because it's not based on man.
   
     God has not changed. That gives me hope.  That gives me strength.




   

What's Your Versatility?

     Today's writing prompt asked what is most versatile about me.  Hands down, the answer is my hair.  The color changes one a pretty regular basis, between reds, blondes and pastels.  I used to think the cuts changed a lot, too, but as I look through pictures, it appears that I cycle through the same  three or four.  It never goes longer than a chin-length bob, but shorter is better for me.

 
   I was born bald, and they say I didn't really grow hair until I was two.  Even then it was wispy, blonde cotton.  It tangled easily, and I often woke in the mornings with what my mom called a bird's nest in the back.  As a result, it was kept pretty short when I was young.
     My hair was white blonde until I got into high school.  Hormones.  It slowly turned into that dishwater blonde that no one really likes or chooses. Still, it was blonde.  There is a certain amount of attention that blonde hair attracts.  That is both a positive and a negative.  It's particularly hard for a shy child.

     After I got married, I went to cosmetology school.  It was a great place to learn, experiment and be inspired.  Yet, I clung to my blonde hair.  So many women were paying me money to get what I had naturally. However, my blonde continued to darken.  When I finally added blonde highlights, I felt reborn.  And I was hooked.  I stayed blonde and I continued to lighten it more and more until it was platinum.  It stayed that way for years.

     The first time I changed to red was completely by accident.  All it takes is a few drops of red dye left in a color bottle to make a real mess of porous, white hair.  It was an adjustment, but when I looked in the mirror, I felt "natural".  My biological aunt and uncle have red hair.  When I looked at me, I saw them looking back.

    That first time that I colored my hair red, I felt like a different person.  It felt like I stepped into a new life.  My make-up was different.  My clothes changed.  People responded to me differently.  I felt like I was more able to "blend in".  For years I was content to be red during the fall & winter, then be blonde for the spring & summer.
   When I discovered fashion colors - neons, pastels, silvers and brights- my world changed.  I was able to express myself, my creativity, through my hair.  I no longer felt the need to conform to what had so long been expected of me.  I didn't choose these colors to attract attention, as some believe.  I just felt like I was finally able to show who I really was.

     Over the past couple years it has become increasingly more difficult for me to return to blonde.  I've come to realize through a lot of therapy, that I associate all the bad things that happened in my life (child abuse, molestation, sexual assault) with being blonde.  That makes it hard for me to want to go there.  However, being blonde also feels the most comfortable, the most like home.  It turns out that the versatility of my hair, it's chameleon-like adaptation, has been a source of healing for me.  It allows me to work through painful events without looking it in the face every time I look into the mirror.
    I'm platinum right now.  Of course, it's summer so that makes sense.  But I'm content to be this way.

   
   
    That's my versatility.  What's yours?

What Does Healing Look Like?

     Five years ago my guts exploded.  I had a cyst on my intestine that burst, allowing grossness to flow into my abdominal cavity.  I had an extensive surgery and spent 10 days in the hospital.  Several times the surgeon  told me that he didn't know how I was alive.
     When I returned home, I spent another eight weeks in a recliner because I could barely move.  The pain in my abdomen was excruciating.  Every movement felt like I was being punched in the stomach.
     Two weeks after I got home they removed the staples.  All 22 of them.  They were in various stages of healing and it felt a little cruel to be yanking them out, causing me more pain.  The surgeon assured me that it was healed enough to stay together on it's own.  He could see that the healing had begun. A scar was forming.
   
     Where there is a scar, it's a reminder that an injury occurred but has healed.  But how do you know when an emotional wound has healed?

     A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about my sexual assaults, and many people responded with "now your healing can begin" or "I hope this brings you healing".  Honestly, the healing began long ago.  I wouldn't have been able to write that post if it hadn't.  Emotional healing happens much like physical healing: in phases.  It takes time.  There are levels.  God cares too much to force it all at once.

     My first level of healing began when I was placed in foster care.  Just being in a place where I was no longer being harmed allowed my emotions to begin to reset.  I was still hyper-vigilant, but I was finally in a place where I could just be a kid.  It wasn't always easy.  I had nightmares and was easily frightened.  I had memories that I didn't know what to do with, so I learned how to compartmentalize them, to tuck them away in their individual boxes to deal with at a later time.
     For several years I left those boxes untouched, stowed away like Christmas decorations in the attic.  Occasionally memories would pop up and I would stash them back into their boxes, unwilling or unable to deal with them at that time.  Their appearance stirred up too many emotions, too much pain.

     The next level of healing came during my time in Youth With A Mission.  When I was there I learned so much about God's character.  That, coupled with an accepting environment, allowed some more of the layers to be pulled back and dealt with.  This was where I really began to work through forgiving my biological father.  He had much to be forgiven!  As I struggled through some of these, God began to revel to me where He was during those times, holding me in His arms.
     In YWAM I became friends with guys for the first time in my life.  It was a safe environment, with low expectations.  It was more a commune of brothers and sisters than an episode of The Bachelor, which allowed me to unpack some of the boxes of sexual assault.  This was sometimes a raw experience.
     My husband was one of those guy friends.  He tells the story of how a group of us were playing LIFE.  One of the outdated parts of LIFE is where it forced you to get married.  Well, when it was my time to get married I made the male peg ride in the far backseat of my car.  This was very disturbing for him.  He had his first glimpse into what my life was like, but wasn't bad enough to chase him off.       Our 30th anniversary is in a few weeks.  During those years there have been pockets of healing.  Again, not easy times.  I often felt like I was ripping off scabs.  Healing meant finding my voice.  It meant standing up for myself.  It meant knowing that whatever lay ahead of me had to be better than what I was leaving behind.  It meant that my husband and I weren't always in sync.  It hurt.

     For 10 years we were heavily involved in a local church.  I, we, experienced much healing there.  However, a lot of additional injury occurred, too.  I'm still working through that, so I'm choosing to not include those years in this post.

     I started attending a trauma support group eight years ago.  For the first 2 years I went I didn't speak.  I always sat in the same place, where I could see the door and everyone else that was there.  I observed.  But there was a stirring inside me.  It was the need to unpack some of the heavier boxes. 
     I began seeing a therapist, who was also the leader of the support group.  A few sessions in, it felt like she reached right in and yanked out the boxes.  They felt like balls now, bouncing all over the place.  They didn't fit back together, neatly, anymore.
   
     That process started five years ago.  Am I healed?  No, but I am healing.  It's similar to when my guts exploded.  Even though there was healing taking place on the outside -- evidenced by a scar-- there was still healing that needed to happen on the inside.  Emotional traumas are the same.  At times, I feel like I'm totally normal, whole, complete.  Then there are days when I feel like I'm just holding on by a thread, my emotions bubbling just below the surface. Both of those are okay.

     What about you?  Do you have boxes or bouncy balls?  Healing can start in either place  are you ready to see what yours looks like?

   

13 Reasons Why

   

      I watch "13 Reasons Why".  There.  I said it.  I know it's controversial, and that it really stirred up a lot of conversation, good and bad, when it debuted a few years back.  I think conversation is important, especially when it allows people to have a voice that they may not have had before.  My adult children do not like that I watch it, and actually advised me against it.  However, I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  I could identify with so much of the plot line.  It was much of my own high school experience.  Some feared I would be triggered by watching; actually it was very cathartic.  It's strange for a 52-year-old woman to identify with a group of high school students, but watching transported me right back to high school years.

     I recently binge-watched season 3.  It's the best season so far.  I will warn you, it was often difficult to watch and the f-bombs fall like rain.  But this is the season that the characters find their voices, and finally tell their stories.  It was good to see how they supported each other and helped them understand each person's story could be told in the time frame that was best for them. 

     Sexual assault is never easy to talk about.  As hard as it is for women, it's even harder for men to talk about.  The statistics say that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 5 men will experience sexual assault before they graduate from high school.  Most of them will never tell anyone what happened and will live with that secret all of their lives.  I think "13 Reasons Why" will  help some of them to find their voice and tell their story.

     Here is mine.

     My early, early childhood was rough.  My father was physically and emotionally abusive to all of us, culminating in my mother's murder when I was 4.  He also made me shower with him, and touch him while we were in there.  This might seem mild, but it's still sexual abuse.

     After our mother's death, my younger sister and I ended up at our maternal grandmother's house.  She loved us with all of her heart.  My teen-aged uncles were still living at home, and my grandmother worked very hard to support all of us.  Unfortunately, that meant our older uncle babysat us sometimes.
     He came out of the bathroom wearing just a towel, and sat down beside me on the couch.  He said his girlfriend was coming over and he needed me to help him get ready for her.  He stood me on the floor in front of him and he opened his towel.  He put his penis into my tiny mouth, making me gag and try to escape.  He held my head there until he was done, again causing me to choke on his ejaculate.  He yelled at me for spitting it out.  Then, with his face close to mine, he hissed that I was to never tell anyone what happened.  He said my grandmother would punish me if she knew.

     So began my life of keeping secrets.

     My sister and I were eventually placed into foster care and then adopted.  My sexual abuse didn't appear on any paperwork, and I didn't feel safe to tell.  Plus I was so conflicted inside.  Our new family were Christians who taught us our bodies were our own, to not have sex before marriage, to not put ourselves in bad situations.  None of this meshed with what I had already experienced in my life.  And, my new family didn't know about it.  I felt like if I told them that they would see me differently and, maybe, not want me anymore. 
     I had a lot of trouble reconciling what they were trying to teach me about boundaries with how badly my boundaries had already been trampled on.  I entered my middle school years trying to figure this all out.

     Dennis was our neighbor, and we had a love/hate relationship.  His home life was super-brutal, he and his siblings were beaten on a regular basis by their father so I felt a bit of empathy towards them.  There were times when we got along really well, and there were times when he was just cruel to me. My parents didn't like us hanging out with them, for a number of reasons, but you know what they say about forbidden fruit.
     There were times when Dennis and I would kiss.  We got caught one time, and I was grounded because of the big hickey he left on my neck.  My parents and older sister made me feel so ashamed!  This only caused more conflict for me.  This was nothing compared to what I had already been through in my life.  But their reaction reinforced that it wasn't safe to tell my story.

     I was 12 when Dennis sexually assaulted me.  His family has an empty mobile home on their property that the kids would hang out in.  My parents has strictly forbidden my sister and I from going in there.  One summer day we were all hanging out, when Dennis and his younger brother asked us if we wanted a tour of the trailer.  They said they were making it into some sort fort.  My sister and I decided it was ok, so we went in.
     It started out innocently.  We walked from room to room as a group.  At one point Dennis told my sister and his brother to stay in a room where they had a bunch of games.  He said he wanted to show me something in another room.  I followed him.  There was a mattress on the floor. I looked at him, expecting there to be more.  He quickly pushed me onto the mattress, covering my mouth to stifle my screams.  Just as fast he was on top of me, pushing his tongue inside my mouth.  It was so slimy and his breath was bad.  He was dry humping me while he fumbled to unbutton my pants.  I tried reasoning with him, forcing myself to be calm while everything on my inside was frantic.  He ignored what I was saying, instead putting his hand up inside my shorts and underwear.  My mind was racing!  I knew it wouldn't be long til he won.  In my desperation, I broke into tears.  It caught him off guard and I was able to knock him off balance.  I ran through the trailer, grabbed my sister and leaped out the door.  We took a few minutes to regroup, then we headed back to our house.  When our mom asked where we'd been, we lied and said we'd been playing in the woods. 
     I never told anyone what happened because I was somewhere I knew I should not have been.  That made it my fault, right?

     I developed early, which caught the eyes of the older boys in our neighborhood.  They would appear in the yard while I was doing chores and ask me to go for a walk with them.  After my experience with Dennis, I knew that was bad news.  I made up plenty of excuses to make them leave.
     One night there was a group of us running around in the neighbor's yard.  Dennis's older brother and another neighbor showed up.  The three guys separated me from the group.  They held me on the ground and pulled my pants down.  I was fighting them with everything in me!  They were grabbing my breasts and crotch, laughing as they told me to be still.  I continued to struggle.  Then we I heard it... my dad whistling.  Everyone knew that meant we had to go home.  The guys released me, still laughing.  I pulled up my pants and ran home.  My mom asked why I had leaves in my hair.  I lied and said we had been throwing them in the air and some must have landed on me.
     Again, I kept it secret.  I felt like I would be blamed, so I told no one.

     All of this served to strengthen my introvert tendencies.  In high school I had friends, but no one close and definitely not close enough to tell them these kind of secrets.  I went to parties with friends but I had a heightened sense of needing to be in control, which meant I often stood out for not "relaxing".
     Dennis and his family had moved away while I was in middle school and, for a little while, mostly girls ruled our neighborhood.  One of the three guys involved in the earlier assault still lived with his parents, but he basically avoided us.
     My junior and senior years of high school I worked as a life guard at an amusement park near our house.  By best friend lived right next door to me, and worked at the pool, too.  She had way more freedom than me, with none of the fear.  Sometimes I'd go to parties with her or we would hang out at whichever house had no parents.
     One of those times my parents and sister were away for vacation.  My friend and I invited several of her guy friends to hang at my house.  Someone brought beer and some harder stuff.  We played games, listened to music and all of us ended up falling asleep on my living room floor.  I woke up laying on my stomach with someone's hand under me, a hand inside my pants.  I felt the familiar terror rising up in me. I pushed my body hard into the floor.  He growled, and pushed in his hand harder. The pain was horrible!  I was starting to panic when I realized other people were waking up.  He removed his hand, but I pretended to be asleep until he left because I didn't want him to know I knew.
     Once more I kept the secret and carried the shame.  My parents were away and I broke the rules by having people over.  So this was my fault, too, right?

     After high school I got a job direct-selling cutlery.  The company I worked for had weekly meetings and, occasionally, conferences requiring hotel stays.  Both were just excuses to do a whole lot of drinking.  I remember one of those conferences well.  We had spent the day touring the factory and meeting the bigwigs.  We also discovered that when you're part of a convention at the hotel, the liquor store didn't card you.  What could go wrong with a couple of hundred drunk teens to early-20 year-olds in a hotel?  We danced.  We watched movies.  We sat in the halls and drank. 
     I woke up in a chair, a guys was pulling on my arms, trying to get me to stand.  He said he wanted to help me back to my room.  I didn't know who he was, and I also couldn't see him very clearly.  He stood in front of me and tried to lift me by putting his arms under my armpits.  Once he got me up, he pulled my body tight up against his.  He was kissing me and groping my breast.  He tried to get me to walk saying he was trying to help me, but even stone cold drunk I knew he wasn't.  I acted like I passed out and slumped back down into the chair.  He called me a slut and whore, but he left me there.
     I didn't tell anybody.  I was drunk.  I was passed out where anyone could have harmed me.  This was my fault, right?

     All of these events served to create some pretty hostile thoughts towards men.  It became evident to me that men were only interested in me for what my body could do for them.  I was so disinterested in men that my dad asked me if I was "funny" (his term for gay).  No, not at all.  I was just harmed, damaged and nobody knew.  I was starting to take back control of my own body.
     This has created many obstacles in my soon-to-be 30-year marriage.  When my husband first began to show romantic interest in me, I would vomit most of this to him in an attempt to scare him off.  But he didn't run.  He has not always understood what I've been through or how it continues to shape who I am, but he has provided space for my story.

     If statistics prove true, there will be several people reading this who have experienced sexual assault.  It's time to start unpacking your story.  There are safe places and safe people who can help.  Your voice will come.  Don't let anyone force you to speak.  But remember these things:

• you are brave
• you are strong
• it's not your fault

When you're ready:

• info@joyfulheartfoundation.org
• www.13reasonswhy.info
• www.nomore.org

   

Church Abuse

I escaped from a cult.
Not the kind that kidnaps you, brainwashes you and demands a ransom from your family.  This one was far more sinister.

When my family moved back to Pennsylvania from Tennessee in 1999, we were broken.  Our marriage was in shambles, my husband was struggling at his job and our kids were young and needed a lot of attention.  We were living in his parent's house while we looked for our own, sampling churches along the way.

Once we knew the area we were going to live, we narrowed our church search to those close by.  In one church we went to, no one greeted us, or even acknowledged our presence.  In another, we just happened to be there the same day the pastor announced his resignation.  So, when we happened upon a small, overly-friendly congregation, it seemed like a great fit.  At least to my husband.  He went to the altar for prayer.  He cried and cried.  When we got home, he said being at that church made him "feel like he was home".

I didn't feel the same.
Something just seemed a little too good there.

I sat back and I watched.  That's what I do.  Size people up.  See if their walk matches their talk.  I hang back in the shadows, watching, trying to be unnoticeable.  I began to make friends on the fringe, but never quite considering it *my* church.

After we'd been there for about a year, I began to slowly let my guard down.  I became involved in things.  I attended women's bible studies and outings. I was assigned a mentor.  It seemed like the more I shared with her, the higher I rose in the church.  This brought jealous whispers behind my back and strange accusations.  It didn't make sense to me.  I was just being me, trying to improve myself.

I joined the prayer team.  I became the administrative assistant to the pastor.  I was in the inner circle. The whispers continued.  But I was confident in my position, knowing I was not doing anything wrong.  And as I felt more comfortable, I shared more and more of me.  My past, my hurts, my struggles.  The problem was, I was sharing those details with the wrong people.

The pastor was charismatic.  Fatherly.  Disarming. He seemed safe, maybe even trustworthy.  For me, that was a giant step.  The way he asked questions seemed caring, not probing.  I began to tell him more and more, thinking he was helping me deal with my past, sort out current issues, deal with people.  Instead he was grooming me.  Using my hurts, my quirks, my pasts to manipulate me, to further entrench me in their *system*.

Things were good there for a long time.
We established strong friendships.  Our house was often filled with people and laughter.
We experienced healing in our marriage, even having a ceremony there to renew our marriage vows.
I began to have healing in my life, starting to deal with scary, hurtful things from my past.
To let people *in*.

Then things got strange.  It began to fill uncomfortable.  We began to question things being said and done.  That was the beginning of the end.  I'd seen what happened to people who disagreed: how they were punished, ostracized, talked about, forced to leave.  Suddenly I was that person.  My worst nightmare was coming true.

The next 14 months were basically hell on earth for my family.  I watched my children's friends be torn away from them.  People quit talking to us.  I was forbidden to talk to the "pastor", and was assigned a handler who was supposed to be my liaison.  He took his job very seriously, using every opportunity to remind me of his place of power over me.

Fourteen months of pain and bewilderment.
Fourteen months of watching our friends drift away, choosing to sacrifice their relationships with us in order to maintain their position in the church.
Fourteen months of no one praying for us.
Fourteen months of crying every. single. day.

When we finally left there, I was totally broken.
My physical health deteriorated to the point that I had to stop working.  Some days I couldn't even get out of bed.  I was in constant physical pain.  The emotional pain was immeasurable.
I was diagnosed with complex PTSD.
I lived in constant fear of running into someone from that leadership team.  The few times i did see people at the grocery store, they made eye contact then turned and walked away.
I felt like a pariah.

We've been away from that for seven years now.
In some ways, I feel like I'm back to the broken woman I was when we first started attending there. The guard is so much stronger now, more impenetrable than it was before.
I'm more alert and cautious.
I'm slower to let people in, and quicker to let them out.
It's a lonely place to be.

I'm looking for the ways that I'm stronger now because of that experience.  Those are harder to find. I feel like the areas that I'm stronger in are negatives.
I'm more cynical.
I'm more guarded.
I'm even more untrusting.
But I'm alive.  I got out.
The cult, that man, did not break me.

Make a choice already

I've spent the majority of my life deciding what I didn't want to be.

I didn't want to be a victim.
A victim like my mother, brutalized by someone she loved.  A victim like my grandmother who fought the demons but lost.  A victim like that lost little girl that men touched and kissed and based her worth on her looks.

I didn't want to be dependent on a man for... anything.
I didn't want a man to tell me if I could spend money or not.  Not like my mom.
I didn't want to need a man to fix things, open things, protect me from things.

I didn't want to be different.
Not the shy girl who couldn't meet your gaze.  Not the adopted girl who didn't look like the rest of the family..  Not the girl who scratched rashes or had non-stop cold sores. Not the girl with the past so scary that she couldn't talk about it.

I didn't want to be used.
Not by any one.  Least of all by a father who treated me like a possession. Or an uncle with disgusting motives. Or any one of the boys who tried to lure me away into dark rooms and wooded trails.

I didn't want to be afraid.
Afraid of an abusive father with a quick temper.  Afraid of turning out like my mother.  Afraid of being less than.  Afraid of not being able to protect myself and the ones I loved. Afraid of the dark.  Afraid of the silence.  Afraid of closed doors and unknown places.  Afraid of people and afraid of myself.  Afraid of making the wrong choice.  Afraid of losing everything... again.

I didn't want to be alone.

The problem is that while I was so focused on not being something, I didn't choose what I did want to be.  I just let my life morph me into someone hard, jaded, solitary, non-trusting, fierce, abrasive and wildly independent.    I built walls greater than the ones Trump has planned.  I learned to disconnect from my body, to not respond to touch.  I learned to free myself from external emotion, to pace my breathing and maintain control.  I learned to hide all emotion and project a blank canvas that didn't belie the turmoil just below the surface.

They say if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.  I'm not sure that's the case.  I think it makes you harder.  People stop trying to get in, stop trying to penetrate the fortress that's been reinforced with fat and sarcasm on the outside, hurt and loneliness on the inside.  People pull away-- or are driven away-- and every fear about people is realized.

People suck.  People leave.  People hurt.  People disappoint.  People are... people.  And supposedly I need them.  Well, that's what I'm told.  I don't totally buy into that.  I'm skeptical.  But maybe I don't want to be.