Connection

I have watched the “film” at least a few hundred times. Me, standing off to the side of the playground, between the swing set and the road. Watching the kids during recess, running up and down the field and lawn between the elementary school and junior high buildings. It was cloudy and very cold that day. I’m watching intently, trying to understand. To comprehend what I’m seeing. It looks like any other day, except everything has changed in some mysterious way. It’s all slightly off. Foreign. Something has gone terribly wrong with the world and I’m seeking the tiniest of clues to help me understand. Something that will help me make sense of what I am seeing and sensing. Nothing is the same, even though, at first glance, it looks as if nothing has changed. Something has shifted and that shift changed the whole world.

The only sound I hear is that of the other kids laughing and yelling as they kick balls down the field, play tether ball, jump on the merry-go-round or jump rope. Otherwise, I am alone in a cone of silence and darkness. I am numb. Emotionless. Hyper-vigilant.

My mind races. “The world has changed. Everything has changed. Something changed the word. What changed the world?” I no longer belong; am no longer a part of the life unfolding before me.

Several years ago, while in therapy, in a flash, God revealed to me that the world didn’t change. I did. I was being sexually abused by my father and had reached an age where I could no longer cloak what was happening to me in fantasy, nor could I block it out. Reality had broken through. And it was far easier, though not accurate, to believe the world had changed than to believe what my father was doing to me had changed and damaged me.

That revelation turned everything upside down. Or maybe it turned everything right side up. Still, in spite of the revelation, as I viewed the scene that happened all those years ago, I felt nothing.

But yesterday, I felt.

Yesterday, I felt the dizzying confusion, the overwhelming terror, the desperation and pain. Yesterday, after all these years, I finally felt what I had evidently suppressed almost my entire life. The emotion I had repressed even as I was living and feeling it because it was so overwhelming, I couldn’t process it. Yesterday, I hurt. I felt what it felt like, standing there watching. I was frantically trying to manage, to comprehend, to make sense of the fact that I no longer belonged among my classmates. I was suddenly profoundly different. An alien on an unfamiliar planet. In disguise. Determined to keep the mask in place and to appear to be a normal child.

Inside, I was torn, broken, screaming a silent, gut-wrenching scream. Inside, I was in unbearable pain. All of the air had been knocked out of my lungs and I was gasping for breath, suffocating in agony. And I was utterly alone.

Before, I only remembered being confused. But confusion was the one piece of what I was feeling that could be acknowledged because it was the safest emotion in which to retreat. It was the only emotion I could allow because in my empty, unsafe world, I would not survive if I allowed myself to feel anything else.

I connected. And it was terrifying. But it was real. It was what I felt as a child standing in the cold watching everyone laughing and playing. Doing the things I used to do. I had been marked by darkness. By the evil things that happen in darkness. And the child I once was had been destroyed.

What If I Was Wrong?

Years ago, decades ago, when I was a brand new Christian, I started working for the street outreach ministry though which I was saved.  They needed someone to take care of all the administrative tasks and I needed a job.  I loved the work because there was such great purpose in what we were doing. We reached out to those the churches didn’t want. The street people, homeless, lesbians and homosexuals, people struggling with mental illness or drug and alcohol addictions.  The “failures” of life.  A lot of what we did involved working with area churches to help the people we reached get back on their feet as they began their new life in Christ.  It was hard work with no set hours, often requiring 14 or more hours a day.  But it was fulfilling.

It was also a traumatic experience for me on a personal and spiritual level.

As someone who had not been raised in church, who had abusive, neglectful parents, who turned to drugs and alcohol at the age of 14 just to survive the trauma and abuse, I suddenly found myself in a world where everything had been altered.  Was unfamiliar.  I didn’t know God’s Word or how He expected His followers to act.  I met the Living God and was born again, but I was not yet rooted or renewed.  I felt a bit like someone who had just arrived in a foreign country without knowing the language, customs or laws.

I certainly didn’t know this new world also had predators.

Not long after I started working for the ministry, the founder, a man after God’s heart, was asked to move into a national position.  He turned the local outreach over to the assistant director.  I had met the assistant director several times prior to hire, and frankly, I didn’t like him.  He seemed cocky, arrogant, and quite full of himself.  But over time, as I got to know him, my perception changed.  I started to enjoy our conversations.  He began asking me out…for a hike, lunch, to church…nothing formal.  But little encounters created a connection that was growing stronger and more intense over time.

Then, I met his wife.

I was devastated and confused.  Troubled.  I had fallen more than a little in love with him and we were, by this point, ministering at events together and very close.  There hadn’t been a single clue to alert me to the fact that he was married.

He told me our relationship was special.  We were the exception.  God had put us together in a very powerful way, to minister together, to meet each other’s needs.  God, he asserted, had ordained our union.

And I believed him.  For a while.  I should have known better.  But I was in a new “country” where the language and rules were different from anything I had known before.  No excuse.  But I believe him.  Until I heard our pastor preach a sermon one Sunday.  I can’t tell you what the topic of his sermon was, nor can I recall anything else he talked about that morning.  But I will never forget the one thing he said that opened my eyes.

He said, “What God says is right is always right.  What God says is wrong is always wrong.  THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.”

No exceptions.

That afternoon, I told him I would continue to work with him in the outreach, professionally, but would have nothing to do with him personally.  He tried to talk me out of it.  At one point during the conversation, a thought wedged its way into my mind.  That he was satan with skin on.  And as the thought formed, he stopped talking, turned to me with a mocking, demonic look on his face and said, “You think I’m satan with skin on, don’t you?”  A chill shot down my backbone.  But it was further confirmation that I was doing the right thing.

He told me I had been his greatest challenge.  He knew I was repulsed by him when we met.  And he was determined to win me over…and bring me down.

We still worked at the offices the church graciously allowed us to use.  He in his space.  Me in mine.  But the relationship was over.

A few months later, he came to my office and said he was not feeling well.  His house was being fumigated, so he asked if he could lay down on the couch in my apartment since he couldn’t go home.  My apartment was basically across the street, 2 minutes away from the office.  So, I reluctantly agreed.  I let him in, then headed back to the office, greeting the receptionist when I returned.  I spent the rest of the afternoon working, preparing for the next radio broadcast.

Late that afternoon, just before I was preparing to leave, I got a call from the receptionist.  She acted surprised I was in.  She said they had been looking for the my boss (GJ) because his wife had been calling repeatedly, frantically, trying to find him.  The receptionist told her we had left together before lunch and never returned.  I reminder her I was there and had talked with her when I came back, but she claimed she didn’t remember.

And just like that, we were accused of having an inappropriate relationship.  Rumors bloomed and circulated.  A meeting was called, involving several pastors of area mega-churches.  They were to review the facts and decide God’s will for me, determining my fate.

I had already confessed my sin, begging God to forgive me at the time I ended the relationship.  To have something I thought was in the past dredged up several months afterward caused me to wonder if God had not forgiven me.  I never denied what I did.  Nor did I try to blame him.  I was deceived, I should have known it was wrong.  And the minute I found out he was married, I should have ended it.  I had no excuse, so I threw myself on God’s mercy.  Prayed again for forgiveness.  And prayed God would speak to the pastors, giving them wisdom.  I told Him I would accept whatever judgement they levied against me as if it was from Him because I believed He would be my defender and bring the truth to light.  I prayed He would influence the outcome so His will would be done.  I prayed for His word to prevail.  And I turned it over to God.

The day of the meeting, they first met with GJ.  There were no chairs, so I sat on the floor in the hallway outside the conference room, waiting to be called in to give my statement.  I waited for over 3 hours.  When the door finally opened, I jumped up, thinking the time had finally come for me to speak.  But one by one, the pastors filed by me.  Some didn’t even look in my direction.  A few stared at me as they walked by with hard faces and cold eyes.  Then, my pastor called me into his office.

I was informed they had unanimously concluded I was a Jezebel.  I was no longer welcome in the church, nor would I be allowed to serve in the ministry.  I had been condemned, labeled a temptress, having supposedly caused a great man of God to fall.  There was to be no mercy.

I broke.  Accepted the judgement as from the Lord.  And I concluded my sin was too great to be forgiven.

When I became a Christian, I had a very close relationship with God.  He was not an abstract spirit “out there” somewhere.  He walked and talked with me.  He guided me.  And He gave me a new life.  Now, it was gone.  There was no hope because I was no longer accepted by God.  I was toxic, shameful, an abhorrent person who deserved the stones that were cast at me.  No matter how deeply I was broken, how genuinely I repented, how I strove to live a godly life from that point forward, nothing I could do would ever allow me to be restored to relationship with my Savior.

For years, I begged for forgiveness.  For decades.  And still, God was a million miles away.

Recently, I started going back to counseling.  Partially because, as I grow older, life seems very empty.  Partially because the pandemic has been difficult.  More isolating than I can bear.  Partially because the depression I have always fought has become a bigger monster than I can manage alone.  This past month, I shared this experience with him.  And his response was not what I expected.

He was angry.

Angry at the pastors who didn’t follow proper biblical procedure when conducting an investigation.  Who didn’t give me a chance to answer questions or speak.  He was so angry, he shared my story with an authority in the church, someone who would know the proper process to follow in cases of adultery (him) involving a married ordained minister, and sexual sin (me) involving a member of the church and worker in the ministry. Without divulging any personal identifying information, he shared what had happened and the steps taken.  And the consulted “authority” was livid.  Wanted names.  Wanted to take action against the pastors involved.  Wanted to make it…right.

They didn’t know me; who I was.  But they wanted to fight.  For me.

No one has ever fought for me.  Stood up for me.  Been on my side.  But because I placed the outcome of the meeting in God’s hands, I willingly accepted their judgement as His.  It crippled my relationship with Him for decades to come.

I’m trying to grasp what this means; his anger and assertion a great wrong has been committed.  I trusted God with the outcome and was cast out and labeled a Jezebel.  I trusted God to speak to the men who were contemplating my future.  But now, I am being told what they did wasn’t biblical.  Was even sinful.  I was the “baby Christian” and should have been protected.  He, the minister, should have been held accountable, place on probation and been unable to minister until he completed a period of counseling and rehabilitation.  I’m now being told God isn’t the one who judged me.  That I was condemned by a group of men who protected and covered for a “brother.”  But I’m having a very, very hard time believing it. 

It has been years since I was removed from the congregation and ministry.  Yet, in all those years, God did not once contradict their decision or set aside the sentence they handed down.

What is the truth?  I don’t know.  I can’t make sense of it.  And the discord is unsettling.

What if?  What if I was wrong?  What if God wasn’t the one who condemned me?  What if the distance I have felt from Him all these years was caused by my belief that He rejected me?  The belief that He didn’t accept my confession because my failure was too grievous?   What if He did forgive me, but I haven’t been able to accept His forgiveness, nor forgive myself?

If I was wrong, I can’t begin to comprehend what this changes.  What conclusions that would fall like carefully placed dominos.  When the first domino is knocked down, there is a chain reaction.  If I was wrong, what will this chain reaction do and how will I be transformed once all the dominos have fallen?

It is too enormous for my brain to comprehend.

Tightrope

I am walking a tightrope.  The rope is thin.  It sways and moves beneath me as I try to maintain my balance.  Storms assail me, bringing additional challenges to keeping a tenuous foothold on this frail, shifting rope.  Falling is not an option.  There are no nets.  There isn’t anyone to catch me; nothing to break my fall.  I certainly would not survive the plunge.  I wouldn’t be able to pick up the pieces yet again.  Nor would I have the courage or will to make another attempt at this treacherous crossing.  I am terrified.  All of my energy and concentration is focused on the next step, as I slowly make my way across the tightrope.  I am trying to maneuver my way to safety.  To solid ground.  I’ve been balancing here for a very long time.  I’m exhausted.  Overwhelmed with terror and despair.  And I’m running out of strength.  I’m running out of hope.

 

It’s worse at night, when the terror hits me full force, the distractions of the daytime no longer there to buffer and dilute the impact.  I cling to the rope, praying, praying, praying for relief.  For a respite.  I am assailed by feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness that further weaken me.  I am tormented by my failings: depression, isolation, weakness, self-hatred, distortion.  And there’s the elephant, the childhood abuse from which I’ve never recovered, the ensuing damage and all that it entails.   I am pulverized by my inadequacies.  I feel the full impact and struggle to stand against the wild and brutal storm.  There is nothing to protect me.  No shelter.  It lashes me without mercy.

 

I doubt my ability to make it across.  I regularly question whether it is possible to keep going while facing such a brutal storm. I don’t even truly know if there is “another side” to reach.  I certainly can’t see the end.  But I must try to keep walking for clearly, staying where I am is not a viable option.  At best, I can exist here short term,  for this is not bearable or tolerable and life is not sustainable in this precarious position; in this desolate, lonely place.  It is a place of certain death, this place of desperation where I regularly slip from the rope, frantically grabbing hold, climbing back up, scarcely able to cling to the fragile connection, this nearly invisible thread that is supposed to lead me to a better place.  To the mystical place of healing.

 

I am ashamed.  Ashamed that I have to struggle my way along this journey.  Yet others cross much more quickly.  With so much more style and pizzazz.  I am slow, clumsy, uncoordinated.  I want to hide.  I feel the extra weight of my shame because of my inability to traverse this tiny rope that others walk without hesitation or exertion.  I wonder at my complete inadequacy and deficiency.  It pains me to be so slow and faulty.  So inept and incompetent.

 

If I fall, who will cradle what is left of me?  Who will reach out a hand  to lift me up?  To give me a gentle touch, acknowledging my pain and brokenness?  Will it matter?  Will anyone even know I have lost the battle?  Will anyone care?

 

And what happens if the line snaps?

 

I cling to the tightrope, trying to regain my balance before attempting to stand.  Before I try to take another step on this slippery, swaying, rope that is my life.  Alone, without a net.  Always alone.

 

 

Love

I have come to the conclusion that the biggest obstacle I have experienced over all the years of my life, the one thing that has kept me from achieving some level of wholeness, is attributable to an overwhelming lack of love and acceptance.  Sounds kind of…obvious.  But it’s the conclusion I’ve reached after trying to understand why, in spite of significant effort and energy expended, regardless of much prayer and years of counseling, though I am a Christian who is supposed to be a new creature in Christ, I have yet to achieve a life that could be described as more than a desperate attempt to survive.

 

It’s hard to put into words and to adequately explain.  And it is somewhat depressing.  But there is nothing resembling “new” and a lot that appears to be a “creature,” about me when I look in my inner mirror.

 

Love is the one thing my heart has hungered for.  Panted for.  Cried out, prayed for, hoped and dreamed of and wanted more than anything else in the world.  Since childhood, through the teen years, young adulthood, not-so-young adulthood, until the present moment, it is the one essential ingredient I have never been able to attain.  I have ached, hoped, desired, craved, and desperately prayed for this one thing.  Just one simple thing.  Love.  I have wanted to be wanted.  To be the other half of someone’s world.  To have a partner who thought I was kinda, sorta, maybe awesomely and inexplicably, special.

 

It’s as if my soul knew this was the only mechanism that could save me.

 

I have watched multiple friends, coworkers, acquaintances and strangers find true love.  People who seemed, at least on the surface, to be no more loveable than I.  But time after time, they have found a mate who adored them and who was committed to making a life with them.  They have gone through ups and downs, but no matter what, they have worked together to achieve happiness and contentment.

 

Life has had meaning.  Because they were loved.

 

Being loved is something so many take for granted.  They simply “are” loved and they don’t see it as being special.  They were born in love, raised by loving parents and were reared knowing what it meant, what it felt like, to be loved.   That’s what they have experienced, so it is what they expected.  And received.  They aren’t surprised to find their soulmate.  It’s what they have seen, at least at some level, in their parent’s relationship.  And so, being loved has become something they believe they deserve.

 

I, on the other hand, heard the words, but never experienced the actions that are born in a heart that loved me.  I was never good enough.  I never did enough.  I always failed and fell short.  So, I never received love, nor did I have the parental example. I sensed it was something I desperately needed.  I felt it was something critical that I was missing.  But my parents were only capable of abuse.  And that, it appears now, looking back, is the thing that has defined my life.

 

I hungered for this undefined “something” that seemed to make life worth living, but was not allowed to taste it.  Or to know how it felt.

 

I married a man who said he loved me…until we were married.  Suddenly, I found myself measured against every other woman he encountered.  I did not fair well in the comparison.  And so, I spent most of my life listening to him tell me that he didn’t love me.  Because.  And there were so many reasons. He would recount my flaws.  My shortcomings.  My failures.  What I accomplished wasn’t worth so much as an honorable mention.

 

When he left me for a more worthy specimen (and who wasn’t more worthy?), I realized even the hope of being tolerated was asking far, far too much.

 

Somewhere hidden in my soul, far down in the caverns of my heart, I’ve believed being loved was the one thing that could heal me.  Not magically.  I knew it would take work.  But I have somehow sensed love would let me see the things I have never been able to see, allowing me to overcome and rebuild my shattered being so I could be the person I was meant to be.  I believed it would vanquish the deep-seated brokenness I have carried with me. And I thought it would rewire my brain, thus setting me free.  Blissfully, joyfully, free.

 

I still don’t understand why others who are flawed and terribly imperfect can find at least one person to cherish them, but I am somehow far too awful to be loved.  Or maybe even liked.  However, over the decades, the point has been made exceedingly clear.  For if wanting to be tolerated is seeking something that is beyond the ability of any human being to give and is asking far more than they can be expected to provide, then it surely follows, hoping to be loved is but an impossible dream of a foolish and unworthy heart.

 

A heart that hungers, never to be filled.

 

Assault

I was born into a war zone, to parents who were incapable of giving love, who thought a child was the answer to their disappointments and unfulfilled dreams.  I was supposed to meet their needs, give them a sense of purpose and complete their life.

Just by being born.

Instead, I had needs.  I was a colicky baby who cried too much.  I pooped my diapers at inconvenient times, assuming one can poop a diaper at a convenient time.  I wanted attention.  I needed to be fed and bathed and cared for all hours of the day and night.  In short, I was a drain.   I was too much and I asked too much of them.

By existing, I let them down completely.  I didn’t magically erase their disappointment or provide them with fulfillment and purpose.  I was work.  And that wasn’t part of their plan.  Or their fantasy.

As I grew, I became wary.  Silent.  Watchful.  Thoughtful, alert and fearful.  Turns out, I had a lot to fear.

Full disclosure.

My father sexually abused me.   But he didn’t just molest me.  Or rape me.  Or ram his penis down my throat until he came as I gagged on his sperm.  He didn’t limit himself to coming into my room at night to satisfy his lust.  He had a more deviant game to play with his firstborn.  Fantasies that went beyond kissing, fondling, raping or forcing me to perform oral sex.

Fantasies straight from the pages of the porn magazines he hid beneath his mattress and the cushion of “his” chair.

He read the articles.  He read them to me.  Or made me read them out loud.  And then, he commanded me to act them out.  With him.  He, in the role of the manly man who was so irresistible to women, they would do anything…anything…to please.  I was a prop.   A thing.  A puppet without will or strength.  He set the stage and pulled the strings.  Forcefully.  I was helpless.  No way to fight against him.  And as a young toddler, I had nowhere else to go.

Even as a middle-schooler…where could I run and what could I do to provide for myself?

Being abused as a child does something to you.  Being sexually abused by a father breaks something so deep inside the soul, no doctor or friend or lover or self-help book can fix it.  No amount of therapy can put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.  What was, is no more.  A new creature has to arise from the ashes if one is to survive.

And I did.  Somehow, I went on.

But life has not been kind, nor has it been easy.  Though none of us are promised a painless ride, I’ve had more than my share of trauma.  And I’m exhausted.  Too many years of my life have been lived while fighting a life or death battle to survive.  I’ve been assaulted.  By forces that were too strong for me to fight.

Assaulted by the dark side of life.  From the time I was born, throughout childhood, into adulthood.  Nothing has been easy.  No one has loved me.  Healing has escaped me.  And I’ve been alone.

Perhaps I waited too long to get help.  I tried to fight without assistance.  Thought if I tried hard enough, I could fix myself.  Thought it was my responsibility to do so.  Bothering anyone else with my “goo” would be unthinkable.  I learned this lesson early, when I first tried to reach out while I was still living in the nightmare.  I learned when I was told to shut up.  To never lie about my parents again.  To never speak of what happened to me.  To keep my repulsive and disgusting contamination to myself.

And I have.  Other than to write about the ugliness of my soul and the damage to my heart, I’ve only talked to a professional.  Which didn’t help.  I’ve lived the lie.  Always fighting for another day.  A better day.

I am running out of fight.

I have been assaulted by those who were supposed to love me.  I have been rejected by people who said they cared.  I have been required to perform, to give, to meet the needs of others in a variety of ways for the entirety of my days upon this earth.  I have had to justify my existence.  I have had to fight for even so much as a tiny scrap of ground on which to live and simply be.

Every day, I wake up to the same war that has been raging within me over the course of my entire life.  The war outside of me has changed.  Parents who abuse me.  A husband who doesn’t love me.  Friends who betray me.  An employer who uses me.  A pandemic virus, being looked over for promotions, job losses, churches that condemn, cars that are wrecked, finances that never provide quite enough.  Life is chaos.

But the assault within me has not changed and that is what has defeated me.  Not good enough.  Too messed up.  Too much.  Too fat.  Not pretty enough.  Undeserving.  Too much trouble.  Broken.  Disgusting.  A burden.  Defiled.  Not lovable.

Assault after assault after assault.  Because I can never be the person I should be.  I can never forge a  normal, healthy, whole person from this fragmented, unworthy debacle.

I think my father’s sperm, that detestable bitter seed that I was forced to swallow, impregnated my heart and gave birth to a darkness so deep, nothing can penetrate the vast inky void.  I think his abuse is what caused the irreparable damage.  Damage from which I could never recover.  And that’s why I have lost the war.

I survived the assault.  But I didn’t live through it.

 

To Tell the Truth

I’ve been told that most people, or at least those who did not experience a childhood generously seasoned with various types of abuse and trauma, are able to fit the pieces of their past together in some sort of linear sequence.  They recall incidents of significance within a timeline, often associated with the grade they were in or the teacher they had that year.  They reminisce about the friends they hung out with during different stages of their youth.  Where they spent their summers.  The joys and the pains of a nurtured, wanted child.

As one ages, the memories the child retains are not always clear and some experiences are mislaid.  But by the time they reach high school, many recollections fuse and merge with the present moment, contributing to the making of the person they have become.  More is recalled than is forgotten.  Personality is forged and beliefs are  cemented into place.

Young adulthood is marked by falling in…and out…of love.  By college and, for many, their first “real” job.  It’s punctuated by those big steps most take as they establish their own lives.  Leaving home.  Marriage.  First promotion up the career ladder.  The birth of a child.  Or two.  The years fly by with increasing speed, but memories flow and connect, one to another, one after another.

When sharing memories of childhood, those recollections are generally intact for the relatively unscarred among us.  Not every detail is recalled, unless the event was unique or concerned a cherished episode.  But there are no glaring holes, for the most part.  No noticeable mislaid amounts unaccounted for time or years that have vanished.  No fragments that float in and out of focus, fading into nothingness.

The memories of an adult who was traumatized and abused as a child are often full of black holes and missing pieces.  One explores the inky waters while imprisoned in darkness.  Yet little can be retrieved from the dark chasm into which we blindly probe.

There is an overriding feeling of loss.  A feeling that important experiences have slipped away.  A knowing that terrible things have occurred and reality is securely hidden behind an impenetrable curtain.  And always, there is a lack of continuity, a shattering of the core of the soul, cruelly marked by the loss of innocence.

Also present is a wary suspicion that truths (if truth exists) have been carefully hidden behind and beneath layers of lies and deception.  A questioning of “reality,” wondering if it has been cloaked in fantasy, changing the story altogether to make it palatable.  Details are deflected and denied until they can no longer be recalled, even with effort.  Truth is painted over, forcefully morphed and minimized until the pain is finally bearable.

Telling the truth is not an easy task.  For the truth is no longer easily discernable, nor can it be viewed without calamitous consequences.  It has become a monster that must be avoided at all costs.

Facts have been dulled and softened.  Covered with shadows or swallowed by gloom.  Truth is the enemy of survival.  And one must survive at all costs.  Even if the price is the loss of one’s own soul.  Or sanity.

And so, we tell ourselves, “It wasn’t that bad.”  “It doesn’t matter.”  “It could have been worse.” “I have nothing about which to complain.”  “I survived, after all.”

Should we uncover some long-hidden tidbit that springs from the night which always dominates our heart, truth feels foreign and threatening.  Questionable.  We speak it out, rolling it around in our mouth and mind as we test and poke it.  But that long-forgotten fact now feels like a lie.  We have so thoroughly deceived ourselves, the truth seems outlandish and preposterous.  Thus, we chastise ourselves for lying.  For making things seem worse than they were.  For using some “fabricated” reality to garner sympathy, as if we are nothing but a pathetic, selfish, attention-seeker who is validated by pretending to be the victim of some horrendous tragedy.

When we tell the truth, we begin the process of whitewashing and cloaking it once more, even as we hear the words escape from our lips.

In therapy, one is encouraged to uncover what has been covered and to acknowledge what has long gone unacknowledged and unaccepted.  This goes against everything life has taught us.  It counters every experience we’ve had and every lesson we’ve had to learn the hard way.  Telling the truth has become a sacrilege.

To tell the truth.  To speak of it, touch it, let it touch us, is a luxury we cannot afford.

 

 

Shadow Monsters

A sliver of a moon
gives a sliver of light.
There’s a foul shadow
across the sky tonight.

 

Nighttime has always evoked mixed emotions.

I like the anonymity it affords.  You can hide in it.  Relax your radar, let your smile slip, cry if you need to, all without being detected, chastised, chided or rejected.  You can simply “be.”  Allow the shadows to swallow you.  Drop pretenses and remove the mask.  Release the pressure and breathe without being evaluated, weighed. Condemned.

With the light of day comes scrutiny and judgement.  Requirements. Demands are made, standards are set and must be met.  Flaws are exposed and magnified.  The worst is laid bare and probed, then mercilessly dissected.  No matter how much effort you expend, you can never measure up.  For when you reach one goal, the bar is raised.

The dark keeps your secrets.  Covers imperfections.  And forgives all flaws.

But the darkness is also treacherous.  You never know when you are about to walk off a cliff or if you are taking your last step on solid ground before plummeting into a pit from which there is no escape.  It keeps everyone’s secrets; not yours alone.  It hides all who come to it.  All are welcome to take shelter in its impenetrable folds.  For the darkness is ravenous.

It welcomes monsters.

When I was a child, I feared those monsters.

I was convinced Medusa appeared in one corner of my bedroom each third night of the full moon.  Terrified I would look at her and be turned to stone, I kept my eyes tightly scrunched closed with my head under the covers in case I forgot and inadvertently let an eyelid crack open enough to see her waiting for me.  I was terrified of the ghosts who gathered and danced at the foot of my bed, anticipating opportunities to eat any fingers or toes that happened to stray over the edge of the mattress as I drifted into a troubled sleep.   Waiting to drag me away into the place of forever darkness.   I heard their footsteps as they wandered through rooms and across rafters, restlessly pacing, impatiently awaiting an opportunity to do me harm. Or do me in.  And I was terrified of the shadow monsters who lived in my closet and under my bed.  Monsters who blended into the darkness, who came to life as dusk turned to night.

I feared…everything.  Everything that lurked in the night.  For the night was full of wraiths and apparitions, specters and banshees, all harboring malicious intent.

As I grew older, I realized monsters were real and they didn’t need to stay cloaked in inky shadows, only coming alive only when they couldn’t be fully seen.  I learned that they hid in the daylight, in plain sight, without fear of discovery.  And two of them slept in the bedroom across the hall from mine.

There are monsters…and then, there are monsters.

The most terrifying monsters in my house were the ones who were not supposed to be monsters at all.  They wore a pleasant mask when presenting themselves to the world.  A mask that hid menace and evil.  They knew how to smile at the right times. To say the right things.  To appear harmless, or even kind.

But when the mask came off, I saw them for who and what they were.  Even if there was only a sliver of moonlight to guide me.  Even with my eyes scrunched closed tightly.  I saw.

I escaped that house as soon as I could and fled the town where I grew up.  I fled that place where I was forced each day to struggle in the night with ominous shadows.

What I discovered was this: if you grow and live in the darkness, it doesn’t magically go away when you do.  When you have soaked in it, it goes deep.  It permeates your being.  The night burrows far underground inside of you, takes root and flourishes.

The shadows became my skin.   Doomed me to live my life shrouded in a thick, gloomy fog.

I discovered you can run away, but you take yourself with you wherever you go.  So, though I escaped the haunted house of my childhood, the house of perpetual darkness where evil ruled and roamed, I could not escape myself.  Nor could I escape what it had made of me. What I had become.  I had to make peace with the night.  I had to learn to embrace the dim sliver of light allowed me and to live with the dark phantoms who now resided in my soul.

I learned to survive with only that tiny sliver of light, in shadows deep and cold and empty.

I learned to survive where monsters danced and cackled in victory.  Where I was harshly caressed by their probing tentacles and terrifying whispers.  Haunted by an unseen presence.  Tormented by their icy fingers squeezing my heart.  Forever changed by those hideous shadows that darkened the landscape of my life and stole the sun from the sky.

The Day I Tried to Die

I had been planning for some time.  Stock-piling medication.  Preparing my will.  I made a list of all my accounts, numbers and passwords so my brother would be able to access and close them more easily.  I included insurance information, bank accounts and other important items I knew he would need.  I also did my research, verifying fatal doses and drug interactions so I would know how many pills I had to take to do the job.  Then I doubled and tripled that dose.  And just to make absolutely certain there would be no chance of survival, I doubled the tripled dosage.

Once all preparation was complete, I began to think about the timing.  I wanted to be ready.  To have reached a point of total certainty.  I didn’t plan to fail.  When I started swallowing those pills, I didn’t want there to be a “snowballs chance in hell” that I could be saved.

What brought me to this point?  Partially, my own brokenness.  I barely survived an abusive childhood and all efforts to recover had proved ineffective.  But I had been living through a particularly dark time that would likely have challenged even the most mentally healthy.

The company where I worked was pressuring me to compromise myself ethically, and they told me clearly what I must do to keep my job.  They wanted me to break some federal laws and I couldn’t do it, clinging to my integrity with what little strength I could muster.  When I refused, I was “asked to leave” because I wasn’t a “team player,” as well as for failure to follow their explicit, but illegal, instructions. Afterward, I interviewed with countless employers, but always found myself in 2^nd place, never chosen to fill a position, even when I was over-qualified. (I later discovered they were giving me a bad reference.) So a year later, I was jobless and out of money, living on credit cards, with no hope and nowhere to turn.

Just prior to this financial crisis, my husband left me for another woman. We had divorced 2 years earlier, a process that had diminished my resources, leaving me with a smaller reserve than was normal.   I was still trying to find solid ground after that unexpected blow; was terrified of being on my own after 22 years of marriage.  Because he was the more outgoing in our relationship, having a “warm-fuzzy” personality, most of “our” friends abandoned me, siding with him, consoling and congratulating him for having “put up with” me as long as he had.  My world had literally fallen to pieces, shattering me even further in the process.

My Schnauzer, who had been with me for 12 years, had died a couple of months before I decided to put my exit plan into action.  Suddenly, my house was devoid of life, for there was no one, human or canine, to greet me when I came home.  No one to keep me company during the long days and nights.

Our church also split about mid-way through the divorce.  The pastor told all of us “older” worship team members to find another place to serve, so after 14 years of attendance and involvement, I lost my church family at a crucial point.  It left me feeling as if God had washed His hands of me because I couldn’t live up to His standards, hang onto my faith and be an inspiration while walking through the dark valley.

I felt utterly alone, isolated, unwanted, unworthy of love and could see no reason to continue my life-long struggle to survive.  The time had come.

It was dark and dreary, cold, with the holiday season looming, when I lost all hope.  There was only one way out.

First, I took an overdose of Clonazepam to relax me.  I didn’t want to get scared and chicken out.  I then swallowed over 300 – 20 mg. Adderall pills.  I knew that 60 pills was the maximum dose anyone had ever survived previously, per the internet gods.  So it stood to reason, if I could get 300 pills down before losing consciousness, the dose would not be survivable.  They were small; I took them by the handful.  I stopped counting once I hit the magic number, but kept swallowing.  And I waited.

At some point, I started feeling guilty.  I was going to be the first patient my counselor would lose.  Though I have no memory of making a call, he told me I called him on his cell phone in the middle of the night to apologize for ruining his record.  He called 911.

I have very vague memories of what happened afterward.  Somehow the paramedics got into my house.  I remember only one thing clearly.  One of them got mad at me for trying to take my life.  He yelled at me and threw my phone across the room, momentarily shocking me back into awareness.  They transported me to the hospital by ambulance, a ride I barely remember (I recall being cold). And because I supposedly didn’t cooperate fully, I was intubated while the most horrible black substance known to man was forced down into my stomach.  I do recall throwing up black goop, repeatedly.  It went everywhere.  All over me. All over the nurses.  All over the floor.  I had no control, nor did I have the strength to care.  Everything in my life was black.

At some point, I was moved to ICU where I spent several blurry days. My memory of this time is also patchy.  I think I had a visitor or two, but I don’t remember anything in any sequence and I’m not sure if the things I recall were real or imagined.  When I was finally stable, the powers that be agreed to release me, but only if I would allow myself to be admitted to their psychiatric hospital.  Given no other choices, I acquiesced.

I still classify this time period as a true low point in my life.  I was angry for having survived.  And now, I was being forced to check into the psychiatric ward of the hospital.

I spent a week there, wasting time.  They did nothing to help me recover, nor did they provide any therapeutic support.  Instead, they took everything away, even my makeup, supposedly so I couldn’t hurt myself.  As if I could somehow kill myself with mascara.  They watched me eat, monitoring and documenting my location every 15 minutes.  Took my blood pressure.  Gave me necessary medication.  My regular counselor worked with their counselors and finally managed to finagle my release.

I returned to my empty house.  Lists still laying on the counter, waiting for my brother.

A few weeks after the new year, one of my few remaining friends bought me another Schnauzer (a huge, generous gift).  I bought another Schnauzer a few years later, shortly after I landed another job.  But the reprieve didn’t last long.  I lost it when the company was purchased by a large French organization that believed strongly in consolidation.  Though I tried diligently, I couldn’t pay off my credit card debt.  Even paying the maximum payment every month only saw me slipping further and further into a hole.

This is when I lost everything.

I had to sell my house at a loss or declare bankruptcy.  With no job and nowhere to live, I had to leave the city I loved, the place where I created what little life I could build while the ground shook beneath me.  Let go of the place I called home.  My brother graciously offered me a rental house, for which I am forever thankful.  But as a result, I live in a small, depressing house with low ceilings and minimal windows.  Too little light.  I’m in a city I despise; a place I left the moment I graduated from high school.  A place filled with haunting, horrible memories.

Only my dogs have kept me going.  They need me.  I’ve had both of them since they were puppies and I know it would be traumatic for them if I were to die before them.  So I hang on.  I get up, go to work, keep my head down, produce, come home, hug them, and then go to bed, only to do it over the next day.

I am grateful for them.  For not being homeless.  I’m grateful to have a job; some income.  After selling my house, I finally paid off my credit card debt.  And last year, I was able to replace my 1999 model Honda with a 2014 version.   These are all good things.

But my heart is yet in agony.  My soul is still shattered.  I continue to live in isolation.

In the back of my mind, I am thinking. Planning.  My oldest Schnauzer is over 13 years old.  I know her time with me is limited.  The younger just turned 8.  If I’m fortunate, she will be with me another 4 to 5 years.  No one will need me once they are gone.  There are no friends who will mourn me for more than a day or two, at most.  Only my brother will be crushed. And that bothers me.  But enough to keep me alive???  I will have to answer that question when the time comes.

I am still in that dark valley.  I have no hope.  And it has only grown darker and more difficult with the passage of time.

A Christmas Story

This is a lonely, painful time of year.   A haunted time.  Haunted by the ghost of Christmas past.  A cruel ghost who steals the joy of the season.  Far worse than the Grinch.  For the ghost who haunts me is a true monster.

 

It’s a time of laughter that never reaches the heart.  Happiness that never touches the soul. 

 

Supposedly, it’s a time of families and close friends cheerily gathering, celebrating, sharing love, magic, joy.  But some of us, people like me, must paint a smile on our face and pretend.  Our hollow laughter lacks the warmth and delight of those around us.  For us, this wonderful time of the year is just another empty, disappointing day.  Even more empty than normal because it’s supposed to be magical.

 

Those of us who are haunted by the ghost know the dark side.  We feel its icy touch.

 

Christmas past…Christmas break.  My father was a teacher, so he was home with my brother and I.  It was a few days before Christmas and it had snowed…a big, deep, delightful snow that turned the world into a frosted, glorious wonderland.  My father was born and raised in Michigan.  He was in his element.  And while this wasn’t a major snow by Michigan standards, it was significant for Missouri.  The snow was knee deep in the shallowest of places.  It was thigh high in the drifts.  My brother and I could barely contain our excitement.  We bundled up and rushed outside to enjoy the breathtaking frosted landscape.

 

My father didn’t often play with us.  But he too seemed enchanted by the beautiful snow that shrouded the world in clean, pure white, like icing on a cake.  Being from a state where a heavy snowfall in the winter was an everyday affair, he knew lots of outdoor winter games.  He asked if we had ever played fox and geese.  We both shook our heads “no.” Shivered with anticipation, as well as with the cold.  We were excited because he was spending time with us.  In a good mood.  Teaching us a new game.

 

Soon, he had us clearing a big circular path in the snow in an open area of our yard.  We kicked and dug and packed and tramped, working up a sweat.  Once the circle was complete, he had us make two more paths through the circle, cutting the pie into four quadrants. 

 

He was the fox.  We were the geese and he chased us around and through the pathways we had created in the snow.  The goal of the fox was to catch a goose.  Once tagged, the goose would become the fox. We ran for our lives!  Laughing.  Falling.  Laughing some more.  We played until we were soaking wet, freezing cold and totally exhausted.  Then we all tumbled back into the house to change into dry clothes and to warm our frosted, runny noses, red ears, and stiff, numb fingers and toes.

 

This is where everything changed.  Where the darkness swallowed the light.  Where the shadows became a heavy blanket of fog that blocked out the sun.

 

I was in my room, staring into an open dresser drawer.  I was trying to decide what sweater I wanted to wear.  As I poked through the 3 or 4 sweaters I owned, I was startled when the door to my room opened and quickly closed. 

 

It was my father.  He had an odd expression on his face.  Something felt wrong.  Time stood still as an eerie silence enveloped me.

 

In that moment, playful daddy turned into a dangerous predator.  A true fox.  He became the monster I called “sick daddy.”  Breathing heavily, he sucked the air out of the room.  Stood quivering with anticipation.  His stare filling me with an overwhelming sense of dread.

 

“Let me make you warm,” he said quietly but firmly in an odd, trembling voice.

 

Then he removed my clothes as I pleaded with him not to.  Begged him.  But he didn’t stop.  He seemed not to hear me.  He kissed, fondled, groped, invading me.  And when he was finished, he said, “There, now isn’t that better?  Don’t you feel warmer?  Get dressed and come on out to the kitchen.  I’ll make us all some hot chocolate.”

 

And he was gone.

 

I stood shuddering in my room, unable to move for what seemed like a very long time.  I watched the shadows gather and dance all around me. 

 

Finally, I picked up my discarded clothes and placed them in a pile.  I dressed quickly.  Quietly.  I felt numb.  Frozen by ice that was colder than the snow that covered the ground outside.  Once dressed, I picked up my wet things to put them in the laundry and cast a glance back into the room before walking out the door.  I wanted to make sure everything was in order. As if anything could ever be put in order again.

 

But what I most remember…vividly remember…is looking back and seeing myself still there in my room, hopelessly broken, barely breathing, laying on the floor.  Bloody.  Splintered. Destroyed.

 

I knew I had a choice.  I could either go back, hold her tightly and die with her or turn my back on her and walk away.

 

And so, I turned and left the shattered little girl behind.  I left her there, a pile of gore and broken bones, crushed spirit and ruptured heart, dumped where my wet clothes had been laying, hideously destroyed, fractured beyond recognition.  She wasn’t able to walk out of that room.  She wasn’t capable of facing the monster that waited down the hall, ready to ply me with hot chocolate and marshmallows.  She couldn’t pick herself up and go on; couldn’t stop screaming.  She was in a million smashed pieces and I left her there to fend for herself, half angry with her for leaving me, for making me walk out into the dangerous world alone.  I saw her body, ripped, torn, decimated.  And instead of rushing to her side and comforting her, I turned away.  I walked out of the room.  And joined my brother and father in the dining room to sip steaming mugs of freshly made cocoa.  As if nothing had happened.  As if nothing had changed.

 

Why do I remember this particular moment so clearly; so vividly?  It wasn’t the first time my father sexually abused me.  Nor was it the last.  It wasn’t one of the worst memories to haunt me.  Certainly, there are far more horrible recollections of perverted things he did to me, things I couldn’t blot out or from which I couldn’t disconnect. So why is this one day, this one event, etched so deeply and perfectly in my mind?  Why can I still see it as if it happened only yesterday?  Only seconds in the past?

 

Several things seem pertinent.

 

When my father began sexually abusing me, I was around 4 or 5 years old.  The memories I have of that time are veiled in fantasy.  I didn’t have the maturity to understand what was happening.  I didn’t like it.  It scared me.  It felt wrong.  But I didn’t have the ability to grasp or process what he was doing or the implications of his actions.  I was able to create a make-believe world and escape into it. 

 

As an older child, escape became more difficult.  I finally reached an age and a point where it was no longer possible to ignore, warp, or wrap what he was doing to me in an imaginary world.  I could no longer deny or fictionalize the abuse.  This is when I shattered. Completely, utterly shattered. 

 

I believe the crystal-clear memory I have, this memory that haunts me still, is of the day, the moment in time, when that horrible shattering took place.  So, even though what he did that day was not the vilest thing my father would ever do to me over the years he abused me, it was a significant moment in time because of the internal impact.  It was the moment my soul was utterly obliterated.

 

I didn’t stop loving Christmas.  Not then.  I do, however, hate snow.  And Christmas was never again a carefree or magical season. 

 

The holiday has never again been wonderful or innocent.  I find myself looking over my shoulder.  Waiting for everything to morph into some unspeakable reality.  There remains a hidden razor’s edge, cutting into my deepest and most vulnerable parts and wounded places.  There is now unbearable pain mixed with a momentary expectation of happiness.  Fear mixed with the shallow laughter.  Terror mixed in with the carols that are exuberantly sung.  And I have stopped believing Christmas will be special.  Because everything that was once special has been stripped away and destroyed.

 

Magic no longer exists.  The lights are not as bright, the ornaments aren’t as shiny.  I see the shadows.

 

A hideous monster hid beneath the bows and colorful paper that covered the gifts under the tree.  I knew the monster.  And the monster knew me.  He watched me, waiting, pouncing, taking.  Christmas that year was when I finally understood what he was.  And seeing, I firmly put the lid back on the brightly wrapped box in which he hid, disguised.  I stood, walked on trembling legs, and carried on, acting as if everything was as it seemed.  As though nothing evil lay beneath the tinsel, glitter and lights.  As if nothing foul had happened.  Pretending the Christmas snow was yet unmarked and undefiled.

 

He is long dead now, this vulgar, unclean monster.  This ghost of Christmas past.  But he haunts me still.

Die Empty

Lately, everything hurts.

 

The implausible weight of endless nothingness, the overflowing emptiness, is unbearable.

 

Pain pumps through my veins with every heartbeat.  I feel it in my chest.  Ever present.  A sharp ache, a constant reminder of each dream that has died, every hope that has been crushed.  I am drowning in a sea of regret and disappointment; no shore in sight.  And I am weary.  Dreadfully weary of swimming, of trying to stay afloat.

 

Where once I believed, clinging tenaciously to a future filled with promise while enduring the struggles and isolation of the present, I no longer possess yet so much as a mustard seed of faith.  Tomorrow will be another today.  A rerun.  All too familiar and never changing.  A Boolean loop that imprisons and binds me with unbreakable chains.

 

I look back at the girl that I was, unloved and abused, and am awed by her optimism.  Her will to keep walking, to keep trying, to stay the path in spite of her brokenness and struggle to merely survive.  She believed that I, this person she would become, would be full and overflowing with life.  She believed I would be scarred, but victorious.  Healed and whole.  Loved and fulfilled.  She did not see me in this place where I am now.  She pictured a very different end to her story.

 

She would never have believed that I would be living a meaningless, pathetic, lonely life.  Or that I would still be so empty.

 

In her mind, she saw me as a person who had a story to tell and much to give.  The story would start with unspeakable neglect and abuse, rejected and manipulated by parents who used and demanded and took until there wasn’t much of anything left.  But in spite of the nightmarish childhood that formed her, she would find a way to survive, overcome and thrive.  This is how she wrote the future chapters of her story as she played the possibilities in her head.

 

Someone would see value in her.  They would help her sort through the fragments of her soul.  They would stand by her side as she tirelessly put all the tiny shards back together.  And they would find beauty in the scars that marred her.

 

Life would fill her.  She would have much seed to scatter; much to share.

 

But it didn’t work out that way.  She is still in pieces.  And no one has ever thought her worthy, much less, found beauty in her soul.

 

I, this person she has become, would be a crushing disappointment.

 

But then, she is the one who tricked me into believing a better life existed just a few more steps ahead.  She is the one who fooled me; made a fool of me.  Who caused me to keep trying.  Who told me to never give up, no matter what.  She compelled me to believe my shattered being could be remade to hold life, joy and all manner of goodness.  Could be filled to overflowing with contentment, fulfillment and love.  She told me I would come to a point where life was not only worth living, but where I would genuinely rejoice in each breath.

 

She lied.  Or maybe she was horribly deceived.

 

It is now very clear where this path I walk will soon take me.  The implausible weight of endless nothingness, the overflowing void, is unbearable.  And I will die empty.