The Stories We Wear Part 2

After years of therapy, meetings for Adult Children of Alcoholics, and well meaning people who had come along and left an imprint in my world, I thought I was healed. I had faced my parents with all of the horrific details of my abuse along the way, forcing them to take the burden from my shoulders and carry it on their own. Yes, in my mind, I was already well and would never have to deal with any of those icky feelings again.
I was about to find out how un-healed I really was.

My mind is fuzzy now as I try to recall which came first, the "encounter" or the blood, and I suppose it really doesn't matter because the point remains the same regardless...I believe it was the blood though, so there is where I will paint the picture from.
I woke up one morning of my seemingly happy life to discover blood on my sheets, which sent me into a terrifying episode of crying and hysteria, which as you can imagine I had no explanation for(the blood I understood, mother nature had made herself known, it was the rest of it I couldn't explain away), for myself let alone my confused husband, and it led to frustrated anger on his part which was of no help to my already chaotic and scared heart and mind.  The blood took me back to being 14 years old, and being held down on my bedroom floor while a "friend" of the family raped me. My mind was flooded with the memory, swirling, sick, afraid, and the sight of the blood that he had caused to flow from my tender young vagina; it was all there in bold color and graphic detail and it was then that I knew something was still very wrong inside of me. My spirit was still very wounded, and the child in me who had long since found a corner to sit in, was screaming to be heard. My husband pretended to understand, but how could he? How can someone really understand what kind of deep seated despair that is, unless they have experienced it, unless they too have been robbed of their innocence and pure heart? They can't, and I will not believe anything different.  He proved to me later that night that he truly had no idea what I was dealing with when he annoyingly pressured me for sex, and then got angry when I had to stop in the middle of it to throw up. I was broken and wounded and not a very good wife...at least that's what the devil told me. My husband was angry and hurt and rejected, and there was nothing I could say to make him feel better because I didn't even know how to make myself feel better.
Some weeks later, as my luck would have it, the Good Lord decided to push me further because I still wasn't getting it, so as I sat in a small local cafe enjoying lunch with my husband and children, that very same monster came walking in to grab a bite, and sent me into a tailspin emotionally. I was forced to leave the table and retreat to the bathroom to vomit, and then made a swift exit from that place. I knew right then that I still had a very long way to go, and that I owed it to myself and my children and husband to get working on it.

I have been blessed enough to have been sent many angels in my life, but there are a few who will always stand out above any others, and one of them was a therapist named Bonnie. For the first time in my life, someone saw through the laughter that I used to mask my pain. For the first time in my life, I really felt like she got it, and that she could honestly help me...I just don't think I realized how much she would help me.  She kindly, lovingly and gently, stripped away all of the defense mechanisms I had built around me, and I never looked back for those hours in her office. In some of those first appointments, she would repeat to me over and over that I was safe there, and that I could say anything I needed or wanted to. I think she knew she was speaking more to the little girl in me, than to the adult me sitting there. I got to know that child inside of me in her room, I learned how to nurture her and how to heal her wounds. That child had been robbed of so much, and carried so much pain; it was a long, excruciating emotional process at times, but somehow I brought that tiny girl in me to the light and showed her that I would never allow her to be so hurt again. I learned about trusting myself.

Eventually, my marriage dissolved, I guess I'll just say that we outgrew each other, and sometimes that just happens, because not everyone is meant to stay forever. He served his purpose in my life and I hope that I gave him something positive also, in addition to the beautiful children we share.  Fast foward to one year ago, I felt like it was time to reach out and help others who are on this journey and became part of the Sexual Assault Advocacy Program. As I have stood by victims of rape, old and young, I've learned even more, I've healed even more, and I think I have given something positive to people I have encountered along the way. I have, and am, raising a strong beautiful young woman, who has my respect and admiration because she is so much stronger and wiser than I was at 17, and honestly?  I have to be thankful to some degree for all that I endured, because without it, I don't know that I would have been the kind of mother to her that I have been able to be.
The beauty of life is that when you open your heart to the world around you and give freely from it, incredible things happen and you find yourself learning just as much from others as you are teaching them; and wow, what a powerful freeing gift that can be!
I'm still touched by the profound resilience of Survivors when I encounter them and hear their stories, and often I am moved emotionally, because whether we all embrace it or not, we are bound together by a common thread. We were stolen from, but we learn that we don't have to let them win. We have the power, and the Right to take back whats ours.
Last night as I listened to a woman talk about her 11 year old daughter's abuse, she said something that struck many of us very poignantly; after the perp was brought to trial and exposed, and the child had testified against him face to face; the judge told the mother one day in the girls absence,  "tell your daughter, SHE WON"
That man got 32 years in prison for his crimes against that child, but even more than that, she won because she was brave, and she stood up and spoke it out loud and little does she realize yet at the tender age of 13 now, she paved the way for someone else to be brave and face her offender, by showing her own courage as she has.

It is my RIGHT to take back what was taken from me when I could not fight or defend myself; It is my duty as a woman, a mother, a SURVIVOR to speak out about it and not feel shamed, because I never know who may be listening (or reading) and will be able to draw strength of their own from someone who has been where they are. Yes, the ties that bring us together have been painful and so unnecessary and have felt like they were burning us alive at times, but from those ashes we will rise strong and healthy and use our own journeys for the purpose of healing and helping others as we go.
So here is to You, my fellow Survivors, for being brave enough to come into the light, and for being willing to share the stories you wear!