Disclaimer- This is an incredibly vulnerable post with some sexually explicit material-
Last night, I watched Oprah's Leaving Neverland special about the recent documentary of two victims of Michael Jackson's sexual abuse that had finally spoken out. The director stated 'You're only as sick as your secret.' That really hit me. I've been working with a healer for the last 8 months and she said when I came out about being a victim of sexual abuse on Facebook that she was hoping I would do that. The truth is, I'm afraid. I don't want people to know. Its not that I carry so much shame about the fact that I'm a victim, but instead the circumstances around it. I've wondered if sharing my secret with others besides my very closest confidants might support me in letting go of this fear- Somehow free me, like it has them..
So here goes- I'll tell you my story. its pretty candid, so I'll warn you now.
Ever since I can remember I've been a highly charged sexual being, like my barbies were having sex at 8. Being raised in a 'devout' Mormon family, I was NEVER permitted to watch PG-13 movies until I literally hit 13, so how would I know to make my barbies have sex- or what it even was?
I'll share some stories to lead up to it. When I was 12, I came home to find my father in handcuffs outside speaking to the police. I ran inside to find out what happened. My brother had been beaten with a belt and the police had cameras taking pictures of my brothers bruises. While this seemed shocking, the only shocking thing about it was that the police where there. Being beaten wasn't uncommon, I suppose seeing bruises was new. My dad never beat us so that marks would stay as far as I could remember. The next week social services came, sat me and my then 5 brothers and sisters down on a couch and talked to us. They asked questions, we had answers. My 7-months-pregnant mother sat next to the interviewer, who was across from us, with a completely appalled look on her face. She was the breadwinner. I remember her gone often until evening for work, whilst my dad stayed 'working on his business' from home. The conversation ended with the man saying 'Sounds like physical, emotional and mental abuse.'
Abuse?
What?
Questions flitted through my mind and the attention hungry (Oh- the neglect was real in my house- like, we brushed our teeth every few months real) dramatic part of me then wanted to sensationalize it in my mind, because part of me didn't believe the label was true. The interesting thing about abuse, is although it may be obvious to others who haven't experienced it, when you're in it, it doesn't seem abnormal. A fish growing up in dirty water, doesn't know the water's not clean. But after the man left, my mother asked us if we wanted her to divorce my dad. The answer was a resounding YES! She looked shocked and said she only stayed together with him for us. Years later that statement would break my heart as I came across a surreal letter to her divorce lawyer of the abuse, manipulation, and rape she received from my dad.
That story is simply to show how it took me some time to discover what I came to understand now with other abuse. The last 8 months taught me that I spent much of my childhood and life in a fantasy, dreaming of being saved, getting the love and attention I needed, and consequently self sabotaging to constantly be in need of help to fulfill that deep subconscious desire.
Now on to the sexual abuse- 5 years ago I was nearly engaged. His name was Bronson and his only real flaw in my opinion was his attachment to Super Heroes and his innate need to always be saving others, ironically. I knew he was the one for me but I felt like he was too good for me, and of course, was terrified of the idea of commitment after my parents marriage, so I sabotaged it. I started my healing shortly after when I hit ground zero. Like, the bottles were in my hand and if my sister hadn't walked in the room, I don't know if I would be here- Zero. I asked her to take me to the hospital to see what the options were to check myself into a mental hospital- and I was serious. They told me it would be more cost effective to do out-patient therapy and so the next day I reached out to the therapist I'd been seeing rarely and we began to make sessions every day, occasionally twice a day, for the next several weeks.
He saved my life- and got me to where I didn't want to take it- but this is also where I discovered something may have happened in my childhood I wasn't aware of. I began to share with him some things I'd noticed about my early age understanding of sex, how I had felt like I had somewhat of an addiction at one point (I felt a compulsion to be physical with men to feel love- even when I didn't want to be physical), and a panic attack that I realized didn't make any sense. I had the attack when I was 21, in college, and was under a lot of mental strain. I had been bathing and had a strange fear that my father was going to get to my private parts. I honestly felt mentally disturbed and terrified and wanted to check myself into a hospital then too. My whole life I've felt like there was a shadow over it, like something that I wasn't aware of was there, and it was in my face but nowhere to be seen, and I was starting to get an inkling of what it was. That therapist along with others would tell me more likely than not I was a victim of sexual abuse.
I had no memory though- simply uncomfortable vibes and experiences that made me believe there was more to my dad than I knew. I'd heard stories, of how my aunt had a restraining order from him because she woke up to him masturbating while watching her sleep, or how most of my extended family seemed to hold something against him, how he put his hand on my knee and somehow it triggered me when I was on a trip alone with him around the time I was going through puberty. But I didn't KNOW if something really happened. It all felt like conjecture and a small part of me felt guilty for wanting to believe it was true, as if I was making him out to be more of a demon than he really is.
2 years ago after starting on the road to healing from childhood, I had the most amazing visiting teacher in Los Angeles. (Visiting teachers are like a friend who checks in on you monthly- every woman in the Mormon church at the time had two). She was the most authentic, loving, friendly and empowering person I'd met and I wanted to know her secret. Then one day in class I sat next to her and asked how she learned to love herself. She told me she had taken a Transformational Training and after some self-sabotaging from me and gentle nudging from her, I decided to go.
This is where I broke.
The first training was great and made me realize, I honestly was still so stuck in the survival mode of my past and so I wanted more. I knew the next course was intense and spoke to my Coach from the first one as she knew my trauma from the past. I was triggered by simple things from my father's abuse in the first one, so I asked if she thought it was something I could handle. She said she had very similar trauma and I could do it. This, I believe, is where faith comes in- because what happened next could probably have made anyone want to lash out, leave the training, blame it for triggering them, and never move forward. But I had SO MUCH f'ing faith in God, the Universe, that despite it, I stuck in there, which is why I am here and the most healed I've felt now.
In the next course, we were led into a guided meditation to help us see things in our past that we were still holding onto and help us to let it go. Except, I didn't realize there was stuff there I hadn't seen before. There was a part during the meditation, where it felt like I was in the mud of my past and somehow, I just knew what happened to me when I was a child, and I felt like it almost was happening again. Needless to say I found myself curled up in the fetal position and screaming 'Don't touch me!' to my father in my deep state. I was simply terrified and so so hurt. I came out of it and found myself in a state of being that felt like how I remembered feeling when I was 10. Walking around in a fugue state and barely being able to function like the person I was before. I suddenly knew what I didn't know before. No memory was there of the event(s). But I knew. One of my sisters later went through the program and after going through a similar meditation asked me if something had come up for me during it when I had done it (most people don't have this kind of experience), I told her yes and what, and she said the same realization came up for her.
Flash forward to several months ago when I came across a billboard in Utah about preventing sexual abuse and I decided to visit the website mentioned. I found it incredibly informative and it made me see how my siblings and I were easy targets for predatory advances from others later in my childhood. I had been wanting to be brave and share my scars somewhere, so I thought this might be a helpful leeway as I wanted to share the information to prevent others from dealing with the same thing. I posted on Facebook, simply stating I was a victim and found the information helpful and imperative to parents of young children. What happened next found me when I was finally ready. A cousin wrote on my post stating that she was sorry and that we we're all in that same boat. I was flabbergasted, but in the same moment, 100% not surprised. I felt like I knew what she was going to say, part of me knew all along, so I reached out to her directly and asked what she meant. Over the course of a lengthy and detailed conversation my father's dark past began to unfold. As I write this, I'm struck with a sense of betrayal. I remember a time when I was at my Grandparents on my fathers side- my Grandpa had been getting violent with one of my aunts (my dad is the oldest of 11 kids) and I asked my Grandma if we should call the police. She looked alarmed, and said 'No, we don't call the Police. It's none of their business.' Things were never shared in my family. My Grandma taught me how to cut my food with a fork and knife like a lady, and I lived in a juxtaposition of feeling like we were meant to be high-class, but yet I felt like we were trash.
My Grandpa was a rapist and child molester. He was molested by his Step-Father. He molested my Father. And my aunts and uncles. None of them said it. No one said it to me before. My cousin told me this and began to share how she was not just my cousin, but my aunt. Her mother, my aunt, was raped by Grandpa. And that's where she came from. She was abused by my Grandpa as well, and my uncle. Once brutally attacked when she resisted. It makes sense because I've always thought she looked like the spitting image of my Grandpa when he was young. She said my Grandma used to say to her, 'You were meant to be MY child, my last child.' You can see now- the Shadow. But that's not all. My Dad did the same thing to cousins, aunts, and us. I don't remember brutal attacks and I've had an intuitive healer share it happened to me when I was 3. I think it happened multiple times, because my fears of it happening are surrounded by more than one triggering situation. But I want you to know, I'm not him. I think that's my biggest FEAR. That people will associate me with him. He's not my father. I wont claim him. In fact, I don't talk to him. He still tries to manipulate us. Tell us we're sinners, preach to us and say we need to listen to him, all the while denying he's done any wrong. Ya know, he would say every so often though, out of the blue, with deep remorse, 'Im so sorry. I'm so so sorry.' I always thought he meant for all the other things, and thought it strange that he would apologize when we were all aware what he did. But now I know, he meant taking my childhood. My sexual purity. There's so much more to him that I could say, but this, this is the story I needed to tell. I'm praying this gives me some freedom- I think it already has.
