This Is Me

MY LIFE AS A SURVIVOR OF CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE

Chapter 1 -- I knew at 12 years old this story would have to be written... I’ve given up everything that stands in my way of writing this. My career as a journalist, my bad habit of drinking and partying into oblivion, even the pursuit of men, one of my greatest obsessions and addictions. All of it in one way or another has stopped me from facing what is inside and putting it out... Mostly, my life has been a series of adventures and misadventures designed to keep the demons at bay. Overachieving or trying to, desperately seeking approval at all costs, traveling cross country in search of anything to make me feel alive, then taking chemicals to stop the feelings that inevitably arise too fast and furious for me to handle. And then, like many women who struggle, the usual round of suicidal thoughts and pitifully feeble attempts, the counselors, group therapy sessions, self-help books and experimentation by professionals who think a pill can cure what ails me. And through it all, the shame that any of it might actually be necessary. (full text)

Chapter 2 -- I had my first flashback at 22, though I had no idea at the time that it was anything more than a bad dream. It would be years later before the images became clearer and the reality more obvious... First, they arrived as shadowy figures that appeared in my room late at night... they found me standing on the bed, eyes wide with fear, pointing to the figure only I could see. “No, no, no, get ouwwwwwwwwwwt,’’ I screamed. “Get ouwwwwwt... we chalked it up to something I’d eaten, a bad dream... Drinking was my medicine, the only way to cope... Sobriety, despite my rapid descent into serious alcohol addiction, was simply not an option... The [AA] counselor introduced the possibility that something had happened to me as a child. I refused to consider it... (full text)

Chapter 3 -- It isn’t easy to get up every morning and face this blank screen. It isn’t easy but every key stroke brings me, I hope, one step closer to freedom. (full text)

Chapter 4 -- When I was 27, my best friend’s father got up one morning and shot his wife, his mother and then himself... We found out later that Joe had been depressed... I didn’t know it then but the Robertson deaths had unearthed a horror so deep within me I’d forgotten it was ever there. (full text)

Chapter 5 -- Falling in love with a married man is never a good idea, particularly when that man is also your boss. (full text)

Chapter 6 -- Yesterday I broke my own writing rule and failed to get even one page finished. It was a migraine day and I don’t accomplish much of anything on those days. I have had debilitating headaches since childhood (full text)

Chapter 7 -- I was on the cop beat so it was easy to stay busy. Fires, murders, political scandal – we had it all and I loved every minute of it... With all the chaos on my beat, there was no need to deal with or even acknowledge any internal chaos... If I wasn’t chasing stories, I was out with other reporters who drank as much as I did and tried to outdo each other with their wit and war stories. It was an exhausting but exhilarating pace. (full text)

Chapter 8 -- The ferocity of the latest round of flashbacks – the ones that would finally force me to seek help – was horrifying. Often during intimate moments, they would transport me instantly to another place and time (full text)

Chapter 9 -- as the women began to reveal themselves... Flashbacks were a given. Eating disorders, self mutilation, voices that told them horrible untruths about themselves, even multiple personalities and something called disassociation... Body memories, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide attempts... these women were scarred but strong, defiant in the face of their pain, determined to find a way to cope, to be survivors not victims... I shared the frustration of not knowing every detail – the who, what, why, where and when that the reporter inside of me demanded to know and understand. I wanted every question answered, every detail, no matter how ugly, revealed. (full text)

Chapter 10 -- In October 1997, a day after my 28th birthday, [Sara] a 9-year-old girl was raped and murdered and left in a field a block from her home. Her uncle and another man were eventually charged... Child murders were not new to me, sadly. I often became close – in an odd way – to the victims, getting to know them as a reporter, through family memories, photographs... Sara's death was different. (full text)

Chapter 11 -- To the readers of these pages, whoever they may be, this little book may seem to be a random jumble of ideas and experiences, one leading to another with little rhyme or reason. The truth is that this process, for me and for many women, is quite often just that - a random jumble of ideas, feelings and revelations – full of fits and starts, discovery and despair, events and happenings that appear at first unrelated, or even irrelevant, yet inevitably lead to a deeper and deeper discovery of inner truths. (full text)

Chapter 12 -- I began writing thinking the processing part was complete – and thus I was ready to write. I did not suspect the writing would become the process... to the woman on her own journey of discovery – whether through writing or simply sharing with others – remember this: your mind can be like a bad neighborhood. Don’t go there alone. (full text)

Chapter 13 -- The deaths of my best friend’s parents and the death of a child I never knew brought painful, long-buried memories to the surface... The memories were far more in my body than my mind... these episodes, as we began calling them, lasted anywhere from two minutes to 20. When they were over, I would collapse on the bed, curl into a ball and sob. I did not want to be comforted or held. My agony was mine and no one else could possibly enter until I was ready to emerge. (full text)

Chapter 14 -- Denial is a fairly common reaction among women who have been sexually abused... I sank into a deep depression, also not uncommon... My therapist suggested some time off from work, perhaps even hospitalization because I had been having thoughts of suicide. (full text)

Chapter 15 -- More than any abuse I suffered as a child, the pain my mother endured at the hands of my father is the most difficult chapter of my life for me to approach... My mother deserved so much better than she ever received – as a child and as a woman... I have often said my mother is the kind of woman who would blend into the wallpaper rather than attract any attention. It is painful for me to realize she was not always that way... My mother left the chaos of one alcoholic home for the rage and fury of another... My father... seemed to have a chip on his shoulder... I cringe thinking of the brutal lessons he learned as a child, only to repeat them with his own family... The images of all she endured have never left me... I would fantasize about taking a knife and killing my father so we would be free... As with so many abusive men, my father’s rage was always ridiculously disproportionate to the supposed offense that prompted it... His suspicions of her infidelity brought on the worst attacks... The police, called by the neighbors, would take my father outside, tell him to calm down and suggest he go for a walk. He was never arrested, never taken out of our home... In the 70s, these were private matters between a husband and wife... (full text)

Chapter 16 -- Despite my promise to myself to write for at least an hour or so each morning, I have taken quite a lengthy retreat from the project. It has been at least a month, maybe more. I told myself it was because I had “real” work to do and bills to pay. All good, responsible reasons, I guess, but excuses nonetheless... Amazing how quickly the brain can wrap up into tidy little packages the messy memories it no longer wishes to grapple with. (full text)

Chapter 17 -- Sara spoke to me last night. Or I should say, nudged me... The feelings of Sara’s presence had never frightened me but tonight they were oddly unwelcome. I knew without any doubt why. Her memory was somehow challenging me to go to the dark places of my own reality and do whatever I needed to do to find my own place of understanding and compassion... Perhaps putting an issue to rest is even more difficult than clinging to it as if to a life preserver. Our stories become so much a part of who we are maybe we are afraid of what we will find if we choose to relinquish them, even a little. (full text)

Chapter 18 -- 'When fear knocked, faith answered. The door opened and no one was there'... It was many months before I had the courage to walk from the side of the road where a cross was erected in Sara’s memory to the tiny grave where her battered body was laid... inexplicably drawn by a need I still don’t comprehend. (full text)

Chapter 19 -- I still have moments of intense fear and crippling depression. I still struggle with a tendency toward addictive or self-destructive behavior. I grapple with the questions that remain unanswered... I hadn’t had a real flashback in at least a year... Lifting my head from my hands, I wondered briefly where I was. It took a moment for me to come back to the car... I sat very still and watched, thinking of Sara once again... I closed my eyes and held her in my mind... I had never fully mourned her death, just as I had never mourned for the little girl in me... Sitting by the field, watching the rain that day, I knew she was at peace. And so was I. (full text)

AUTHOR: Anonymous