I was a bully #SOCS

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Somewhere between the ages of 12-14 or so, I was a bully. I was one of those kids who made a few other kid’s lives miserable in school. Not a lot of kids, just a few. They were actually friends of mine, that I “sprung” being a bully on.  They never saw it coming. Neither did I.

I hated that part of me. I never knew why I was doing it. It made no sense that I could be walking out to gym class with a friend and just punch her for no reason. I actually did that…we were walking and talking and I punched her in the cheek. I instantly said “I’m sorry” and acted like it was no big deal. What the hell? And she stayed my friend. She was a quiet, meek sort of girl. Just like me. Except I hated that part of me, so I guess I hated it in her. And because she was quiet and meek and didn’t have a lot of friends (like me), I knew  I could get away with it. I didn’t understand why I needed to do that, it’s just something that erupted from me. I felt guilty afterwards. Shame.

I did it to a few other girls. I can remember starting a fight with a friend of mine in 9th grade. I made up a lie that I had heard her talking about me, and I punched her. We had been friends for 3 years, and I spring this crazy shit on her. Just awful.   There was another girl who was new and befriended me. She would come over my house sometimes. No one really did that, so you think I would have valued the crap out of her. Nope. This one day, I decided to become really angry at her and chase her out of my home with a big kitchen knife in my hand.  How scary must that have been for her? I can remember thinking to myself “why am I doing this?” as I chased her, scaring her… like it wasn’t even a really me. Like I was harboring a wild animal inside me and it would just break free on it’s own. I really had no control over it….or at least, that’s how it felt. It was sort of like watching a movie of it happening. When it came out, I think I felt a little powerful, or maybe in control…both things I never had in my life.

Over the years, I felt terribly guilty for how I treated them. Still, I never knew why. I just chalked it up to me being a bad person. I had always inherently known I was “bad”. I was never really sure why this was so…it’s just how it was.  I think I must have thought I was bad since my mom decided she didn’t want to live with me anymore. And I must have thought I was bad because my dad would keep reminding me that he offered me to her and she didn’t want me. He must have offered me to her because I was bad? Is that what I thought? I’m not sure I consciously thought those things, but looking back, I can see that I felt them. You don’t always have to put words or labels to feelings, or even understand what they are. You still feel them, and they define you.

I continued to do “bad” things, because that’s what “bad” girls do. That’s how I made sense of it.  When I was molested at 13, that was me being “bad”.  I figured I had “let” that happen to me because that went right along with me being “bad”. So, it only made sense for me to have sex with other guys when I was 14, because I was already so “bad” for doing what I did at 13. Even though I told those boys no, and looking back now I can see that what really happened is they raped me…I thought I was just “bad”.  I had no control over it. It was just who I was. It was me. I was bad. Not even just bad…I was a whore. But hey, we all know whores are bad, so really, what’s the difference?

When Facebook came on the scene, I found a few of those girls and apologized. They had moved on, of course, but seemed genuinely happy to hear me say I was sorry. I apologized for ruining what should have been the best years of their lives. I couldn’t give them an excuse, because I didn’t have one. That was 7 years ago, and I hadn’t started therapy yet. I was still bad.

Fast forward to now. I’ve been in therapy for a year now. And I don’t mean “just therapy”. I mean deep, painful, hard work therapy. I was going twice  a week for most of this spring and summer. Writing up to 10 times a day in my journal.  Peeling off those 30 year old layers resulted in PTSD…nightmares, flashbacks, hyper-vigilance, confusion, panic…really life changing stuff.  I describe the whole therapy process as a giant jigsaw puzzle. After I process a few layers, I’m usually able to put a few pieces together. Last week, the pieces that seemed like they just might fit was the piece of me being a bully and the piece of me being sexually abused. I wrote to one of my victims and asked her about the timeline. She remembered it vividly (which sucks, because I know she remembers it because that’s when her life was hell because of me). It was right around that time. I’m still not sure if it was right before the sexual abuse started or right after. If it was right before, it must be related to my mom leaving. If it’s right after, it must be related to the sexual abuse (or maybe the physical and emotional abuse of my teen years?) Either way, in the big picture, the point is moot…. it’s not going to change what happened. I have my answers….I was a bully because I suffered trauma. Does it really matter which trauma caused it? No, it doesn’t.  Trauma is trauma. Which one is minor details. All I need to know is that my trauma caused someone else’s trauma, and that sucks. We are in our 40s now, and they have all moved on, and even consider us “friends” now, so I am grateful for that. And hopefully, by me making amends, maybe when they think back to those awful times, they might not be so awful now. I’d like to think their memories sting a little less now that I’ve reached out to them, but I’ll never really know.

One thing that does not make this whole question moot is… most bullies do what they do because something bad happened to them. Well, I can only speak for myself. Maybe some kids are just born bad, or just have bad role models… but I really don’t think that’s the answer for most of them. I love that schools and society are addressing bullying now. Back then, it was brushed under the carpet as “kids being kids”. That’s wrong. Kids kill themselves from bullying. It needs to be addressed. But I also wonder…if someone had dug a little deeper back then…if they had found out why I was acting that way…do you think I could have been saved? Saved from 30 years of carrying that heavy load of guilt and shame inside me? Saved from making lifelong bad decisions because that’s all I thought I was worthy of?  I’m not going to wonder too much…it’s a moot point. The past is the past. I can look back at it, but only for so long. I need to look forward, because I’m not going back. I’m moving on. All I can do now is try my best to add happiness to the world, including to myself. I hope by doing so, I might reduce the amount of bullies in the world…even if just by one.

 

This post is in response to the prompt “moot” in part of Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. It’s  neat way to stimulate writing. It’s organic…we can’t edit it. So, what you just read is raw…straight from my brain to yours….

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Dec. 17/16

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Baring my soul #SoCS

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I bared my soul this year. I never planned on it. I spent my whole life hiding my soul. I was so good at hiding it, even I didn’t know it was hidden. I thought what was on display was all it was, and it took baring it to get me to realize what I really had inside me. How one can walk around for four decades not knowing what’s inside them, I just don’t know…but it happens.

Baring my soul resulted in “opening Pandora’s Box”. It was life changing.  Pandora’s Box doesn’t just close up again. Nope, that sucker stays WIDE open until you deal with what it is you just released. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. I did it, though. I’m on the other side now, and can appreciate just how damn heavy that box of secrets was. Baring it all made me lighter. It made me free. Well,  a little more free. I really had to bust my ass emptying that box…it burned and I cried and it was excruciatingly painful. I didn’t think I would ever get the job done. It’s like the box was going to swallow me up…drown me…because I had to dive head first right into the nasty soul part to understand how to empty it. But I did it. One day, it was just empty. It’s crazy how it just happens. Plugging away, feeling hopeless…then it’s done. Liberating. Empowering. Freedom feels good. Funny, though…how come during all those box emptying days, I never noticed that other box? That smaller box that was inside the big box. Damn. Nesting boxes of souls. That’s just mean! But, that’s how it goes, I guess. I don’t make these rules, I just live with them. So, I find myself now facing this second box, wondering how hard it’s going to be to empty. I’m scared. I don’t want to go through all that again. I’m tired. But I can’t just go walking around with another box inside me. Not after all that work I put in on the first damn box. So, I peek inside and get a glimpse of what’s in store. Yup, still some shitty soul ruining stuff, but this box seems a little lighter. Whew. That’s how nesting boxes work…big one with a smaller one inside, then a smaller one inside that one. I bet after I empty this one, there’s a good chance I’ll find yet another one. Weird thing: I’m not really that scared anymore. I get it now. I already survived baring my soul. I already survived emptying “the” box. All these other boxes are just part of that first package. I can handle it. I might not like it. It might make me sad. That’s OK. I know I can be sad and angry and scared and hurt…and survive. I can’t control how other people are going to respond. I can’t make people be who I expect them to be. I can try to open eyes and hearts, but if it doesn’t work, that’s not on me. In the end, all I can control is how I respond.  I bared my soul…the ugliest things inside me, and I’m still here. I survived. I did more than survive, I grew.

Moral of the story: When life seems like too much to bear….wait.

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This post is a part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. We were given the prompt “Bare/Bear” and then had to write organically…no edits, just let it flow!

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Dec. 10/16

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Superhero-ish #SoCS

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  1. I don’t want to brag, but I just changed the world. Not kidding. I know, I know…one person can’t change the world, right? Well, that’s sort of right. I mean, what can one girl do? The world is so big!  But you know what? I might not be able to change a whole lot, but I can change some. A little. Even one single thing. Change one person’s perspective. Yep, I can do that. I know this, because I just did. And that’s how you change the world, right? One person at a time.

In a recent post of mine (Post Election Triggers), I talked about how, as a sexual abuse survivor, I was triggered by the audio tapes of our president elect, describing how he can sexually assault women because he’s famous. Most people don’t understand this. I can see that. If you haven’t been sexually assaulted, you can’t understand. Even for many women who actually have been sexually assaulted, they don’t understand, either. These women I’m referring to have fascinating, intricate brains that changed thought processes after the abuse as a coping mechanism…essentially numbing them through denial or self blame.  I know this because that used to be me, until I was lucky enough to find myself on a path of healing. I performed exhausting work on rewiring my brain, and people like me are fully aware of the effects of trauma. Just because I’ve rewired some of my thought processes, doesn’t mean I’m immune to triggers.

I have to say, listening to the actual tape was not the worst part for me. Sure, hearing him talk stirred up emotions of fear, shame and anxiety. Worse, though…it was the response of much of the country that hurt. It was listening to people minimize, dismiss, laugh at, demean and criticize my feelings. It was listening to people say they didn’t care about what he said or did. It was listening to people call the accusing women “liars”. It was listening to people compare his words to “50 Shades of Gray”. It was listening to people say they were fine with what he did, because the husband of his opponent did the same thing. And it wasn’t just people…it was my friends. It was painful to listen to people that are supposed to care about me, not care about me. I listened to them say that his abuse is okay because other people have done the same thing. Crazy.

I did my best to explain that I was not criticizing people for their political choice…we all get to choose who we want. My problem was with people choosing him and not calling him out on the hurtful things he said. Whether it was about sexual assault, racism, mocking disabilities….I have a real problem with people not condemning these things…not so much politically, but on a human level. Yes, you can stick to your political party AND call these people out on their hate. You can do both.

I lost a few friends over this. They couldn’t get past the political part, and were not going to bend for anyone. They didn’t care who got hurt, as long as Clinton did not win. One girl, who had been my friend for 30 years, stuck to her political guns and stood by her comment “Adult women have a responsibility to report sexual assault at the time of the event, or they are just as guilty as the one who assaults them” (referring to women who wait years to come forward). Well, I waited 30 years to tell my story…

I let my emotions get the best of me one day,  when I posted a quote on Facebook about many women watching the equivalent of their abuser being elected to the presidency, and to be kind to them…as chances are you know multiple. Obviously, the post was referring to me. The first comment was from a male friend who said “…and 4 brave men in Benghazi were unavailable for comment”. This was a perfect example of how crazy this election was. Here I am, putting it out to the world that I am hurting because of sexual abuse, and a man minimized it, because of what happened in Benghazi. Don’t get me wrong, I feel horrible about what happened in Benghazi. I hate that those men died. It was truly awful. But what the hell does that have to do with sexual assault?! It’s OK for sexual abuse to occur rampantly in this country because people have died elsewhere? I should shut up about my pain and not care about Trump assaulting women because of what happened in Benghazi? I don’t matter because of what happened in Benghazi?

I told this friend to “eff off” and deleted him…along with a few others who chimed in. One of them said “Whoa! So you think rape is worse than murder?” …like it’s even appropriate to compare the two things. Rape is OK because murder is worse?? It made no sense, and was so cold and hurtful. I really struggled the week of the election.

OK, I’m sure you’re wondering where the hell the part is about me changing the world. Fast forward to last week: the friend who made the original comment, the guy who I de-friended on Facebook…he sends me a private message, wishing me a happy birthday, sending his love…like I didn’t just tell him to “eff off” 2 weeks ago. I was perplexed. I contemplated ignoring it, but I didn’t. I told him I was surprised to see his message, that it was as if he didn’t recall our interaction. He said he wasn’t going to stop loving me because we had a fight, and he apologized for hurting me and wanted to know what it was he needed to do to make things right with me. Damn. I’ve never had that happen before. That really happened!! I cried. Finally, someone validated me. Finally, I felt worthy to one of “those people” who were making me feel like I didn’t matter. And I didn’t just think of me…I felt like it was validating all women who were feeling this way. I ended up sharing my story of sexual assault and he was so apologetic, saying he wished he had known. I told him it’s too bad that people have to either be directly affected by this or have someone they know be directly affected by this in order to be mindful of feelings. It’s too bad we have to share our story in order to get people to understand, yet at the same time, we share our stories and people still don’t care. We shouldn’t have to work so hard to get people to care.

So, this guy now has a new viewpoint on sexual assault, and more so on people’s feelings. This may sound like a post on sexual assault victims (well, OK…it sort of is), but it’s more about a solution to much of the anger in our country. We need to care about each other’s feelings, even if we don’t understand them. When someone else is hurting, I am not the one who gets to decide if they should feel hurt…they are. If I ever hurt someone’s feelings unintentionally, I will always be sorry and ask what I can do to make it better. I will not make them feel small or stupid or childish for having feelings, whether I understand them or agree with them or not. I will not tell them that I didn’t intend to hurt them, therefore they shouldn’t feel hurt. This is not what’s been happening lately, in this country of ours. People are calling other people losers, whiners, “too sensitive”, drama queens….for having feelings. They tell people to “toughen up” when they are hurt. This makes the hurt person angry, too….which leads them to want to hurt the other person, and next thing you know, we have a country full of people hurting each other. We are all different. We all react differently to situations and trauma. Instead of being a divided country that hurts each other, we need to unite and heal each other.

So, that sounds like a great plan, but is that going to happen? Probably not. The anger runs pretty deep in America. But you know what? It happened between two people. It happened to me and my friend. I can bet the next time he sees a woman talking about feeling scared regarding our president and sexual abuse, he’s going to respond differently. And I’m pretty sure he’s going to come across this scenario, as there’s so many of us out there. So many of us that are speaking up and sharing our stories. Speaking up makes a difference. Calling people out makes a difference. Not to everyone, but to some. And if I can get one person to change their views and want to help heal a person, maybe you can, too. You don’t have to be a superhero and change the whole world. Just be superhero-ish … change one person’s world.

 

This post is a part of Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. The prompt was “SH”. I had to use a word that had those letters in it, and let it flow…totally organic writing with no edits.

 

 

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Dec. 3/16

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Love breakthrough

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Emotional roller-coaster. That’s the best way to describe my feelings this year. Ever since that one ugly marital fight a year ago in September, I’ve felt it all. Well, almost all. Frustration and resentment stemmed from that day, and lasted through couples therapy. It  transformed into sadness and longing as I transitioned into individual therapy to process my Mom/abandonment issues. After I peeled off that Mom layer, all hell broke loose as I processed the sexual, physical and emotional abuse that followed. Fear, shame, sadness, anger, disgust, guilt, depression…basically months of negative emotions. It seemed as though it might never end, but it did. Little by little, I started having happy moments, empowered moments, fun moments. Like a pendulum, I would swing back and forth between the highs and lows, though luckily I could see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I kept up my “work”… therapy, writing, meditating, nurturing myself… trying to love myself.  Sometimes, I was just going through the motions, but that’s just part of the process. The positive moments eventually started to outnumber the negative ones, and I turned the corner.  I started believing in myself. I started to feel a little less unworthy. I shed a lot of that heavy guilt and began to learn, appreciate and accept…me. Though, throughout it all, one thing kept bothering me. I couldn’t feel love. Through my painful, exhausting work, I rewired my brain enough to believe that the people around me loved me. I knew it to be true, in my head. I just couldn’t feel it. So many times, I would find myself nervously admitting to my therapist that I couldn’t feel anyone’s love or caring for me, not even my children. I was ashamed of this. It made me feel ungrateful to admit it, like I was not appreciative of the people around me. Especially when I said I couldn’t feel the love from my children. What kind of mother says that? This type. This mother who is nothing but raw, open and honest sitting on that couch. I give therapy…I give me…my all. I’m not wasting time playing games or pretending. I want to be “normal” so desperately, so I tell Susan everything. Everything. Each time I told her this, I looked down in shame, imagining her thinking I’m ungrateful or selfish or whatever it is I’m thinking of myself when I say it. She didn’t.  Each time she reassured me, “It will happen in its own time”, smiling. Smiling, like she knows. I never believed her, because I knew I was different from her other clients. She thinks she knows, but she doesn’t know.

Well, she does know. I’ll be damned if there’s a thing about the human soul this woman does not know. I’ve been not feeling love since…well, since…hmm. I don’t know. I guess that’s a long time. I’m sure I’ve felt it at some point in my life, but right now, I can’t recall. I can remember feeling it, but with conditions. Knowing it was at risk if I didn’t play by the rules, and is that really love? Anyway, it happened. It happened at my butterfly party (see last post). I wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, or maybe the song, or just that I was with a fun group of people, or I was tired. I felt like I had to blame it on something, because I was afraid to let myself think it really happened. If it really happened, something else would happen to make it not real, or go away, and I would be left feeling empty. Feeling loss. Feeling that hole inside my soul again. It’s much easier to just set myself up to not let the things I want to happen occur, then I won’t be disappointed. But you know what? It happened. And it wasn’t the booze. And it wasn’t the song. I know this because it happened Saturday night, and each day since then, I’ve thought about it…and cried. Oh sure, I cry all the time, but not this type of cry. This one is hard to describe…a feeling of love, joy and belonging, mixed with the sadness of knowing it’s something I’ve been missing for so many years. As I was surrounded by that circle of friends, as I looked into each of their eyes as they smiled and sang to me, I felt it. I felt love and I cried, because I honestly thought it was just never in the cards for me to feel that…to have people want to give me that. This is what I’ve been working on all year.  I went from a girl who felt she didn’t deserve a damn thing in life… not love, not kids, not attention, not even going to therapy, to a girl who felt she deserved to throw herself a birthday party. A party to acknowledge her freedom from the heavy shame she’d been carrying around from her childhood. A party to acknowledge her bravery in getting divorced so she could preserve her true self. I stood right in the middle of that freaking love circle and accepted it all. I felt no shame. That’s when I realized I had accomplished my greatest feat yet…I had learned to love me.

“People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one….”

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Butterfly party

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reborn

 

I can remember when we were deciding to buy this house. It was about 8 years ago, and as we toured the open floor plan, we both kept saying how great of a house it would be to throw parties in…and we were right. I’ve hosted so many birthday parties, Christmas parties, craft-night parties, baby showers… you name it. I love entertaining. If I was not out doing something fun with my friends, I was having them over to do it here. Social butterfly, always something going on. I was a good time!

I was not consciously aware that by constantly socializing and developing new friendships, I was covering up the “real me”…the me that I hoped no one would ever see. The me that was insecure, and unlovable. The me that had done so many shameful things in the past. The unworthy me.   I was desperately trying to fill the hole inside me and create that feeling of emotional intimacy I didn’t even realize I was craving. I was trying to create a feeling of being needed and wanted… “worthy”… the feelings I never felt in my marriage, or from any boyfriend, or from my parents, or really from anyone other than my children. It fascinates me that I was oblivious to all of this as I went about my socialization. I knew it was an accomplishment that I went from being that “loser me” to the “popular me”. I had worked hard on changing it, but honestly never thought in a million years it would work. I slipped into this dream role so effortlessly, no one had a clue. I was so good at it, even I didn’t have a clue.

Fast forward to earlier this year.  I started therapy and the journey of processing my entire life. Opening up Pandora’s box was painful and raw, and made me realize the role I had been playing was not the “real me”. I felt like a fraud, and knew that if my friends found out who the “real me” was, they would know I’m a fraud, too. I couldn’t imagine keeping the act up with them, now that I had acknowledged who I really was. I dropped out of the public eye for a few months. I couldn’t face anyone. I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere… except my therapist’s office.  This is when I realized where I was my entire life…in a cocoon. It’s one thing to live in a cocoon, blissfully unaware. Sure, it’s uncomfortable, but when it’s all you know, it’s not so bad. It’s a whole other thing to be aware… to realize you are trapped inside. It’s crazy how shame can be such a bully. Trauma causes your brain to protect you in the most bizarre ways. Blaming and shaming yourself is so much easier than acknowledging the horror of what really happened to you. I became my own worst enemy. No one could judge me harder than I was judging myself, but I couldn’t understand that at the time.  I understand now.

I understand now, because I spent the past 9 months working hard to rewire the thought processes in my brain. It took me 9 months to  crack through the layers of that cocoon and start my real life.   I’m now on the outside, with the cocoon pieces surrounding me, admiring these beautiful new wings amidst the dark remnants. I think it will take me some time to figure out how to use them to their full potential, but that’s ok…I’ve got my whole life ahead of me.

Last night, I entertained friends for the first time in over a year. I just turned 45, so I threw myself a party. It seemed fitting, as it’s been 9 months since I started this journey. Sometimes, you have to die a little bit inside in order to be reborn. I called it my “Re-Birth Party” and invited my tribe. My tribe consists of friends who have met the “real me” and didn’t think I was a fraud at all. Friends who didn’t judge me one bit (something I still occasionally have to remind myself to believe) for those horrible things “I did” over the years. Friends who saw me feeling unworthy and unlovable and instead of running away like I assumed they would, stayed and valued me and loved me. Still, I have had a hard time feeling that love, even though I now know it exists. This work takes time, I guess.  I actually have quite an extended tribe, which is pretty amazing. I couldn’t have all of them here… you gotta start in baby steps. Anyway, this party was perfect. We ate and drank and laughed and danced, and even had a disco ball! It lasted till 1am, which is pretty late for a group of 40 and 50-somethings! Everyone was happy. I was happy. I was surrounded by empowering, uplifting, loving friends, and it was real. Towards the end of the night, we linked arms and sang along with “Danny’s Song”. I ended up in the middle, with me singing to them and them singing to me. “And in the morning when I rise, bring a tear of joy to my eyes and tell me everything is gonna be alright…”  and that’s exactly what happened. I was moved to tears, but for the first time since I started this journey, they were tears of joy.  I was worthy. I was lovable. I was happy.

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Pretty amazing dysfunctional Thanksgiving sleepover #SOCS

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(This post is a part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Basically, I’m supposed to write organically…no rewrites or edits, just let it flow. The word prompt is “pretty”. )  So, here goes nothing…

This Thanksgiving was pretty amazing. It went down pretty much the same way it’s gone down the past several years…my mother in law (and her dog), sister-in-law and her husband, my husband’s two nieces and their husbands (and their two dogs), me, my husband, my two sons and  our dog, all at my house. It’s only my husband’s family, not mine.  Everyone comes around 2pm, as is tradition.  I cook the turkey and desserts and they all bring a side dish, as is tradition. We eat dinner then move on to playing board games while drinking and being merry, as is tradition. Someone inevitably brings up politics or some controversial conversation, which of course never ends well when people are drinking. Someone inevitably starts yelling, which I think is pretty common at family gatherings…especially when you combine alcohol and dysfunctional family dynamics. This time, it happened to be about Trump and Muslims. (Funny how hidden family racism is not so hidden after a few bottles of wine). Nothing ever too major, since this family is used to fighting, and nothing that can’t be smoothed over with a few distractions…then we go on with our business of having a good time, as is tradition. The majority of the evening is full of laughs and quality time spent together. I especially enjoy the nieces and their husbands. They are all in their 20s and a blast to hang out with. I’ve known the girls since they were little kids, so it’s cool to have a relationship with them as adults…as equals. Around 1am, everyone (including the 2 boxers, 1 golden-doodle and 1 bulldog) packs into our 4 bedrooms and spends the night. (Someone usually passes out on the couch from having one too many shots…and one of them fell in the bathroom and crushed my dryer vent this year…one more thing to add to my appliance repair list). Every year, this is what we do. Same food, same conversation, same games, same fights, same drinking. It’s a giant dysfunctional family sleepover, and even though someone always has an argument, and most are extremely hung over the next morning, they all seem to love this tradition. My boys laugh so much at the bantering and storytelling. It brings me joy to see them interact with family.

 

So, what makes this dysfunctional Thanksgiving sleepover “pretty amazing”, compared to all the other ones? My husband and I separated a month ago. He moved out, and I am living here in our home with our two children. It’s still fresh…the separation. Some heavy shit went down between us this summer. Yet somehow, despite all of said heavy shit, we have been able to continue being a family with our two boys. Last week, we went to the Patriots game (damn Seahawks…grrrr….) as a family. The other night, he came over for dinner. And last night, he and his entire family came and we broke bread (and wine glasses and dryer vents) and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. Why? Because I want my children to understand that family doesn’t end just because Mom and Dad don’t live together anymore. I can remember family holidays when I was a little kid. We would all gather at my grandmother’s house…my uncles and cousins…so much fun. Then, one by one, they all got divorced. And next thing you know, there’s no such thing as family gatherings anymore.  No more bonding. After the age of 10 or so, I never saw my cousins again…and two of them lived the next town over. We finally reconnected in my 20s, when a cousin happened to deliver a pizza to my house. We looked at each other for a few seconds, and realized “hey, you look familiar…”  We rekindled our relationship and have since become close, but I regret the time lost over the years. I don’t want my boys to know the feeling of family disappearing. It leaves a void, whether you realize it at the time or not. I want my boys to feel as much love, as much belonging, as much happiness as I can give to them. Things may change down the road. I have no idea if my husband and I will still be amicable a year from now. I have no idea if one of these dysfunctional drunken fights will be between me and him instead of my mother in law and sister-in-law. I have no idea if he will be married to someone else next year. All I know is this year. All I know is we are amicable right now. So right now, my kids just had a great, fun, traditional family Thanksgiving, bonding with their grandmother and aunt and cousins and mom and dad, a month after their dad moved out…and that’s pretty amazing.

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 26/16

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45

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Today I turn 45. I’ve never been one to regret growing older. I’m grateful to have made it this far. Since I was a teenager, I’ve always had this feeling that I was going to die young. I never really knew how young, but I knew I would never make it to grandparent age. I think I often pictured it to be in my 30s or 40s, so to make it to 45 is pretty good. Why? No idea. Just something I’ve always “known”. Not a suicidal thought, just regular old dying…like disease or accident or something out of my hands.  Kind of like how I’ve always known that living “happily ever after” was never in the cards for me. I grew up knowing I wasn’t the type of girl who was going to have someone fall madly in love with her and want nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with her.  Sometimes, I would imagine it, but inevitably scolded myself for dreaming about things I didn’t deserve. I was never quite sure why I didn’t deserve them, but I was smart enough to be aware of it. Like not living to be old, it was out of my hands. These are things I’ve just inherently known, like knowing I was female, or I was Native American, Italian and French…you are who you are and the things that are going to happen, well…they just happen.

 

Now that I’ve started on my journey this year, I think I’ve started to unravel the mystery of why I’ve always had those feelings. They seemed so normal my whole life, up until this year. Now I know they are not normal feelings…unless maybe you have unresolved childhood trauma. It makes sense for me to feel my life is not in my control. How could it be? It never has been.  At 9, I learned the first lesson: It just wasn’t in the cards for me to have my mom want to stay. At 13, I learned it wasn’t in the cards for me to choose with who and when I wanted to have sex for the first time (and second, third, fourth….15th…20th time….). At 14, I learned I could not control the anger of my stepmother, nor her impulsive rage towards me. It was out of my hands. Just how things were. At the same age, I learned it just wasn’t in the cards for me to have a dad that could protect me from her. Through the rest of my teen years, I kept on learning that first sexual lesson I received at 13. Actually, for the rest of my life I kept learning that lesson. I can’t remember at what age I figured out that it just wasn’t in the cards for me to ever know what real emotional intimacy felt like. It’s sad that this realization didn’t make me sad. It was something I accepted before I even realized it. I knew I wasn’t worthy. I even had come to the realization that it wasn’t in the cards for me to have kids, because really…how can that happen when no one is going to love me? Thank God I was wrong on that one…I have somehow been blessed with two of the most lovely, compassionate, amazing boys anyone could ever dream of having. I’m always surprised at how these two awe-inspiring human beings were created from the nothingness of me.  I knew I didn’t deserve them. I figured I must have slipped one past God, and was so terrified that he would realize the mistake and take them from me. So far, he hasn’t noticed, but the fear still exists.

 

I’ve come a long way in the past year. I’ve started to understand how I’ve become who I am. I understand why I have that hole inside my soul. Heck, even understanding there is a hole in my soul is pretty amazing. I always thought my feelings were normal. Just how I was. Now I know they are from trauma. Lots of trauma. So much trauma that I kept hidden in a box, deep down inside of me. The jagged edges of that box are what carved the hole inside my soul. That’s often how it works…one trauma sets you up for the next, and so on and so on. It’s a pattern that keeps repeating itself because it’s all you know. Since it’s all you know, as far as you can see, it’s normal. It is what it is. People can live and die without knowing any better. Luckily for me, I happened to stumble across a little glimmer of light while in couples therapy. It turns out, that little glimmer of light was a crack in that box I kept my trauma in. Amazing how a little bit of therapy with the right person, at the right time, using the right tools (writing in my journal, meditating) is powerful enough to crack open that box. I ended up spending the past year diving head first into that box. I saw the darkest parts of my existence and for a while, I thought I might suffocate and die in there. By the grace of God, I came out. I’m not all the way out…I think my feet are more often than not, still standing in the box, and sometimes, I get tired and just lie down in there, but other times I step out of it. I stepped out enough to realize that I actually have some control over what happens to me. The trick is to understand that I can’t control what others think or do, but I can control how I respond, how I act….what I’m willing to let happen to me.  It took me reaching the age of 45 to realize I control me. I control me. I could have just taped up that crack in the box and went about my business. I think that would have been a lot easier, but you know what? That just wasn’t in the cards for me.

glimmer

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#SoCS: Yes

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This post is part of SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Saturday, with Linda G. Hill). The word prompt is “Yes”.: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/24840312/posts/1228591316

(Basically, I’m supposed to write whatever comes into my head, using the word “yes”.  Meaning, no re-writes, no editing…just let it flow, baby)

“Yes”. I grew up only saying “yes”. I never said “no”. Don’t get me wrong, I often felt like saying “no”, but it never worked out that way. Even if I didn’t actually utter the word, “yes”, I said it with my actions, or more often, lack of action. I didn’t learn how to say “no” until I was almost an adult, and even then, it was difficult.

Why “yes”? That’s a good question. It became so routine, I just figured “that’s the kind of girl I am”. I had no answer to why I never said “no”, why I never stood up for myself, why I was so submissive. “It’s just the kind of girl I am”. I hated being that girl, but was powerless to change her.  I was raised in a generational household where children were seen and not heard. Talking back was not an option. We were permitted to have two emotions, “happy” and “sad, when appropriate”. My dad had no ill intention with these rules, it’s just how he was. Raising kids isn’t easy, and he certainly had no manual. Even if he did, I doubt there would have been a chapter on “how to raise your kids when your wife moves across the country”.  That being said, my mom could’ve used the chapter on, “How to raise your kids when you yourself were raised by an alcoholic and a schizophrenic”.  Too bad there was no manual for us kids, either. I could have used the chapter, “how to grow up normally when your mom moves across the country”, or “how to say no when a family member touches you”, or “how to say no when you’re treated like Cinderella” (meaning Cinderella at home with her stepmother, not at the ball). Hmmm….looks like if there ever is a manual to be made, they should make the kid’s version first. Parents are probably too busy and too damaged to read theirs, anyway.

I’m an adult now. I’m a parent now. I know how to say “no” now, though only recently, have I learned to say “no” when it really counts. When it’s about me and my rights and my body and my values and morals.  I’m turning 45 years old this Monday, and I just now learned how to say “no” to people who crush my spirit. That’s a long time. But not as long as “never”, so I can’t complain. Learning how to say “no” has changed my life. It’s changed me. My journey this year has been the most excruciatingly painful process I’ve ever experienced, and it’s far from being over. Tears are being shed by everyone because of my decision to say “no more” and I feel bad that my choices now are affecting people I love. The thing is…I love them, but now I love me, too.  If I had to do it over again, would I?      “Yes”.

 

This post is part of SoCS: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/24840312/posts/1228591316

 

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Why women don’t tell

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We’ve all heard this question…”Why don’t women tell?” It’s a common one, especially in the wake of allegations against our president-elect. I’ve seen, and partaken in, many highly charged discussions about whether or not those women were making the story up. “Why would a woman wait 30 years, just before an election, to tell her story? Seems fishy.” Sure, it’s possible they aren’t telling the truth. We all know that some women do make up stories, which is unfortunate. However, it makes perfect sense to me as to why they would tell their stories now.  I know because, well… I waited 31 years to tell mine. Well, one of mine. Yeah, I’ve got more than one…which I think might be pretty typical, unfortunately.

See, these women all came out right before the election because that just so happens to be when the audio tape came out. You know, that “grab em by the pussy” tape. That’s when they were validated. I can hear their inner voices now, “That’s exactly what happened to me”.  I’ll bet they’ve spent all these years thinking badly about themselves…ashamed, guilty, second-guessing…”am I over-reacting? Did I lead him on?”  They often end up feeling disgusted with themselves, “how could I let that happen?”,    and the last thing they want is for other people to know about it. I know, it doesn’t make sense, but those emotions are really what a lot of women feel after sexual assault. It’s the brain’s bizarre way of making the event easier on you. If you minimize it, or blame yourself, it makes what happened to you a bit more palatable. That is, until something happens and you realize the truth.

One of my less traumatic stories only took 3 years to tell. I had received a gift certificate for a massage as a birthday gift from my sister. Turns out, the massage therapist was a former co-worker of mine, someone who I’d heard was let go for sexual harassment. I never really knew all the facts to the story, so even though a red flag appeared when I saw it was him, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I was already harboring my almost 30-year-old, much bigger story, so I was in no position to stand up for myself. Anyway, the massage starts out normal enough. Half way through, I roll over, under the sheet, for him to work on the front. You know, they rub the front of your legs, your arms, face, shoulders, breasts…oh wait, that’s right. Breasts are not normally part  of a therapeutic massage.  Unfortunately, lying naked in a corner office on the second floor of an isolated building while harboring 30-year-old secrets of sexual abuse does not make one feel very strong. I hightailed it out of there as soon as it was over, just wanting to put it out of my mind.

I kept this story to myself for 3 years. Do you know what made me decide to tell, after all that time? A news story. I read a news story about him being charged with inappropriately touching a woman during a massage. The police were asking anyone with more information to contact them. Should I contact them? It’s not like he raped me.  That’s right, I seriously believed “groping” was not sexual assault. While working at the hospital, I remember telling another nurse the story I read in the paper, and describing my massage event with her. As I was saying, “what if I say something and I’m making a mistake…what if it was just part of the massage?” , one of the doctors overheard, and interrupted me. “Are you kidding? A man touched your breasts and you’re wondering if it was just part of the massage? Have you ever seen me touch a woman’s breasts during an examination? No, you haven’t. That’s because I’m not a gynecologist”.  Wow. I felt dumb, yet validated. I ended up calling the police station and giving my statement. I never did hear what happened to him. I’m sure he got off on some technicality, or some lenient judge, or any of the other reasons men get to keep doing these things to us.

Like I said, that’s just one of my stories. That’s the least damaging one. Just groping.  Compared to the other things that have happened to me, it seemed silly to even talk about it, except really,  I know it’s not silly. It’s serious. Damn serious. It’s too bad that all my previous sexual trauma normalized this experience, and made it seem silly. It’s too bad that groping, sexual comments, inappropriate touching…all the “minor” unwanted sexual assaults are so common in society that it really is no big deal for people to hear about it. It’s accepted as something that men do. Women who complain about it are often brushed off, not believed or thought of as drama queens or prudes. Who wants to go through that, after having gone through the damn assault? No one.  And the thing about telling is… no one will ever look at you the same again. Even if they don’t believe your story, you won’t be just you anymore. You’ll be “the woman who lied about being groped”.  I’ve just started telling my story. No, not the massage story. The bigger, dirtier, more traumatic story from my childhood. The hardest part about telling was wondering what people…what my friends… were going to think of me. 30 years of shame led me to assume everyone was going to think of me as dirty, as disgusting…as shameful. They didn’t. But they do look at me differently. I’m not just Jami anymore. Now I’m Jami, the childhood sexual abuse survivor. People can’t help but associate that with me now. I don’t blame them. If you’d heard the story, you would too. I spent 30 years telling myself a different story. I spent 30 years trying to create a new person…”Fake Jami”…someone who was not dirty, not insecure, not weak. Once I shared my story, the jig was up. People were going to know I was a fraud. It was really,and I mean REALLY hard to share my story. It took months of intense therapy to get me to the point where I could say it. I can try to explain it here as much as I want, but honestly, if it hasn’t happened to you, you probably won’t get it. And that’s the problem right now…people don’t get it. Half the country doesn’t get it. They don’t get what it’s like to go on Facebook and see a meme making fun of the accusers. They don’t get what it’s like to have your sexual assault compared to 50 Shades of Grey.  It’s a fine line between standing up for yourself and being the “annoying feminist friend”. So, I can shut up, stay out of it and let things stay the way they are, or I can speak up and try to change even a tiny bit of this rape culture that our society has normalized. Guess which one I choose?

 

speak-your-truth

 

 

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Crying

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“You need to have a good cry. I mean the kind of cry where you are wailing, and it comes from deep within you. And after it happens, you need to set aside time to nurture yourself…take a bath, make some tea, be comfortable”. I remember my therapist telling me this back in February, back when I started therapy. Right away, I didn’t like the idea. I hate baths. And nurturing myself? That’s selfish. We had spent a few weeks trying to peel back the layers regarding my mom leaving me when I was 9 (a story for another day).  We had spent weeks on it, because it seemed like this was the unresolved trauma that was affecting me as an adult. I can’t remember crying much about it, when it happened…which is weird. What 9-year-old would just be quiet and go with the flow with  her mom moving away? Me. I would. I did. So, we started processing it, thinking that if I could get to the point where I could cry, where I could let out all of those pent-up emotions, I would start to heal the 9-year-old Jami. And if I started to heal her, then I could start to heal 44-year-old Jami and work on what was keeping her from not feeling anything in her marriage. Then she could become a better wife, the marriage would be healed and we could all live happily ever after. Just as soon as I fixed what was wrong with me.

The problem is, I couldn’t cry about it. Well, I could cry, but not cry…you know, like the cry she described. There was no wailing involved, which was strange to me, because I’ve always considered myself a crier. I tried channeling the old days, the days of me crying for weeks over a broken heart. I journaled. I talked. I remembered. Then I journaled and talked and remembered, again. Still, just some regular old tears…the kind that form so easily, because they are always right there, bubbling just under the surface. Just waiting for the slightest trigger. They are slightly cathartic, but not healing.I guess it’s like a volcano. You know, how they simmer and bubble, but you can’t really tell because it’s all under the surface. Every so often, they release a bit of steam, and that eases the pressure enough so it doesn’t erupt. I guess that’s the kind of crying I’ve been doing all my life…just enough so I don’t erupt.

A few months later, I let out a whole lot more steam. I guess peeling off that layer of Mom was just the beginning of this giant onion we call Jami. Turns out, there was a whole lot more than just her that I needed to process. My brain had hidden it from me. Not really hidden, as I knew it was there. Disguised is a better word. My brain disguised the other layers as a weird way of protecting me. Once we removed that outer shell, the next layer was suddenly right in front of my face. I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it all this time, but there it was… a raw, stinging layer, just ready to be peeled. I remember going into her office…crying, trembling…not wanting to tell her but having to tell her. I blurted out the story of my childhood sexual abuse, which turned into an epiphany.  It turns out, 13-year-old Jami needed a hell of a lot more healing than we could ever imagine.  I can remember her, a month or so later, commenting “you did not originally present as a typical abuse survivor”…referring to when we first started seeing her, for couples therapy. I said, “I know! My brain was so good at disguising it, even I didn’t know!”  It’s true…I had spent my entire life thinking I was a bad person. A month earlier, if you had asked me if I was sexually abused, I would have replied “no”, and that would have been an honest answer. I spent my life thinking I was responsible for all those horrible acts. Thinking I did bad things. Not once did it ever occur to me that bad things were done to me. It’s funny how the brain tricks you like that. I guess it’s much easier to blame yourself than to acknowledge the horror of what’s really happening to you.

8 months later, and we can see the game plan has changed. I went into therapy to try to fix myself so I could become a better wife and save my marriage. Turns out, I did fix myself..well, some of it, at least. And I probably am a better wife now, except we’ll never really know, because I left my husband. Come to find out, I couldn’t save my marriage and save me. I had to pick one, and I chose me. The thing is, this work is never done. I am going to need to work on saving myself for the rest of my life. If I stop working, I stop healing, and I turn back into 13-year-old Jami. I’m not going to be her again. So, I’ve been using my voice. I’ve been speaking out, standing up to comments that perpetuate this awful rape culture our country is so accustomed to. The problem is…not everyone likes what I have to say. In the past few months, this election has brought sexual abuse into the spotlight. I have been made extremely uncomfortable by the words of friends, strangers, media, politicians…and I have made others uncomfortable, too. I’ve called them out on comments made about “locker room talk” and “fake Trump victims”. I’ve lost friends over it, though most probably weren’t really my friends. Though this evening, one of them was. As I typed out to her how her words made me feel, how they triggered deep emotions of fear and  shame, and while I told her how people not caring about any of this reminded me of feeling like I didn’t matter…it happened. I erupted. I cried, and cried and cried. I wailed. I shuddered. It was loud. It came from my soul. I heard myself talking out loud through the sobs, “Please help me”. I was talking to God. I was talking to my angels. And, I think maybe…I was talking to me.  

I think it lasted at least a half hour. It ended with a yawn, which for some reason, I found funny. I thought back to that day in Susan’s office, when she perfectly described this cry. Ah, Susan…you’re always right. I wish I would just do what you say the first time you tell me…I could save so much time! I know how she would reply to this…”Trust the process”. I heeded her advice. I’m going to nurture myself.  So, I made myself comfortable. I put on some comfy clothes, made myself a cup of raspberry tea in my new butterfly mug, cuddled with the dog…and told my story to you.

fullsizerender

 

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