The Source of Hope

Joshua was 11 when he was diagnosed with Celiac disease. They found it when he stopped growing for a year, after already clocking under 20% on the growth chart for many years he eventually fell off completely. Our pediatrician, Dr. Vernier, thought he had growth hormone deficiency. With specialist after specialist, tests, and procedures, It took many months and thousands of dollars to realize not only Joshua had celiac disease, but so did Hannah.  

It was four years after diagnosis before Joshua began to catch up from being a malnourished 11-year-old “with the bones and growth plates of a 7-year-old”  to the size he should have been. All three of our children were tiny for a long time. We were used to it. Which made it feel even more shocking when Joshua came to me and confessed he couldn’t be left alone with his siblings anymore. It was 5 years after the attacks had stopped, but the door was still open and Josua was troubled by temptation he didn’t want to have. He’d realized his ability to manipulate after methodically testing first Noah, then Hannah to see if he could get them to do what he wanted. They both willingly submitted to harmless things, but now Joshua knew he could probably get something he wished he didn’t want and would regret forever. So he stepped up and bravely asked us to set solid boundaries between him and his best friends, his playmates, Noah and Hannah. He asked for accountability to keep from acting out and traumatizing all three of them. 

He was only 11. And I could lament how unfair it is he had to bear these burdens and extol the bravery and virtue of someone so young seeking help at that moment. Both would be true. But what do you think I felt when he walked up to me in our kitchen while the other two were ignorantly playing outside? I could see them through the window as he recounted to me his methodical test to see if he could, in fact, make them do his bidding. As the blood rushed past my ears and with my heart beating wildly in my chest, what do you think I felt, and how do you think I wanted to react? 

I felt anger. Rage. Fury at the world, at Sam, at the predator who’d introduced this perversion to him - my child who still looked like a baby to me and the two smaller babies in the yard. I wanted to tear something; someone in two. I would have happily picked up a weapon and beat a predator to death, even knowing I wouldn’t feel better afterward. If fight or flight is real, I was 100% fight. 

But my brave, tiny little boy was looking at me. We’d experienced years of hypervigilance after the season of assaults, watching their every move together, never letting down our guard. And it had waned and dissolved into a place of peace. So peaceful, the three of them shared a triple, tiered bunk bed we’d made to clear out a giant space to play. They had a huge, rolling yard with a hand-built pirate ship, cubbies, and adventurous places to pretend together. Every day, there were stories they created and every stuffed animal had a personality and purpose, usually crafted by Joshua. And he was telling me that time of childhood freedom had to be put aside. By him. To save himself and his siblings from the trauma he couldn’t stop remembering and feared acting out. And as I knew all of this in an instant and felt all the fury and pain from the past and present, I somehow opened my mouth and said the right things. 

I told him how proud I was. How grateful I was. How he did exactly what he needed to do. I reassured him of all the good things to come, how they wouldn’t be - couldn’t be - affected by his brave decision. I picked up this painful burden and that heavy one. When he expressed worry or concern about how Noah, Hannah, David, or I might feel, I eased his fears and picked up each one to carry for him. And then we spent the next week redoing our home to put Joshua in his own room. In a 950-square-foot two-bedroom home, it was a bit of a trick, but we did it! Of course, we did it. And I cried with David and alone, grieving another period of loss and regret I could never stop. Sometimes it felt like the pain would never end and was nearly too much to survive. 

When things are good, God is easily acknowledged and easily ignored. He can be brought out like a treasured possession, to chat with, about, and even worship and adore without really feeling the gut-wrenching need for Him trauma brings. In the pit of despair, we cry out to Him. I had already had it out with God and was mostly in a place of peace, and I knew without Him, I could not have been all I needed to be for Joshua. The wrong words, looks, actions, and reactions would have poured out of me instead. I am weak. He is strong. 

Because it’s not just a matter of knowing God is good; the same yesterday, today, and forever. It’s not enough to know you have to be the stable and kind, caring, pillar of faith and foundation for your child when your emotions want to do anything else. It’s not pulling yourself up by the bootstraps or Just DOing it. It’s certainly not listening to your gut, to your heart, or to your passion and will.  It’s actually letting go and letting Him. That peace that passes understanding? It’s in those moments. The abundance He promised? It’s given then. All things working together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His righteousness? You can see it. Those moments of panic and pain, where you’re in the deepest darkest well of despair but you must still be faithful to your parenting, even beyond your abilities. Right there in the furnace. There He is. 

When we share with parents who’ve recently discovered their child is a victim of assault the long, arduous, sacrificial road to recovery, victory, or even joy on the other side of the journey to adulthood, we are almost always met with anger and frustration. They want to push us away and be angry with the messenger. I’ve been asked to give hope instead, which usually means they want me to put limits on what pain they will feel. They want an end date on their pain or when their child’s recovery will be complete, even a promise certain bad things won’t happen. They want me to make them feel safe in unsafe places, feel peace where there is no peace. They want circumstances to be under control again. School. Church. Family gatherings. Siblings at play. And I can’t. It would be a lie to tell them to depend on people, even themselves. 

Truth is difficult. Pain is part of our journey and as parents, all we ever want is to spare our children from it. We want it so much our flesh tries to force us into seeing safety in other people and places because we crave it so badly. And then we play pretend and unwittingly force our children to do the same thing. Our very desire to create a feeling of safety takes the actual safety away. 

Or, we can lean on the one true, good, safe person in the world, the person of God. We can trust in God Himself to both provide the stability we need and thankfully, the strength to carry on when hard choices must be made. Jesus experienced every temptation, which means He made choices to protect others from His flesh by seeking boundaries and accountability from God. It means He had to have experienced blood rushing in His ears and pain so deep He couldn’t breathe but allowed God to grant Him peace enough and strength enough to say the right words and do the right thing. Somehow it’s always just enough and not a lot of extra, but it is always enough. God is, was, and will always be, enough. 

Will it be hard to walk with your child through the valley of the shadow of death and get to the other side, only to find out you have to walk through it again? And again? And again. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But your panic and your personal fight or flight when you hear that’s the road before you is because you believe, at least a little bit, that you’re being asked to do it by yourself somehow. And in that horrible circumstance, you would have every reason to panic! But you can’t do it alone. Each step forward you will have God before you, beside you, and inside you to carry you through. It is not up to you. It’s up to Him. Let Him do for you what I did for Joshua. Confess your burdens as they rise up, then let Him carry them. Share your fears, then give them to Him. Submit your decisions, your desires, and yes your anger and frustration to Him. Allow God to give you the freedom to live in peace, in abundance, and with the promise of seasons of Joy. 

Joshua is the one who chose to submit to God, to seek Him and His wisdom, to believe He was everything we told him He was. And one reason he would tell you is that He lived a life of miracles. Where circumstances were too hard, too scary, too much, that’s when God showed up. We had to learn not to fill in the spaces of fear, pain, and uncertainty with our wants, needs, wishes, or will. And when we managed to do so, He was there. And Joshua was watching. I give thanks every day he didn’t grow up to admire me or his earthly father for all we managed to do, though I’m sure he’d say he does. But if he stops to think about it, he will be the first to tell you it’s not we who journeyed us through from pain to healing, from victimization to victory. It was God Himself who reached down into the pit and pulled us out of the miry clay. To God be the glory. Great things He has done. And He is ready to do them for you, too. 

The Transparent Journey of Carol Beth Scott

In a few weeks, I will have completed my first 12 Step Program. I entered for co-dependence, hoping to break the final chains wrapped around my heart, mind, hands and spirit by immersing myself in truth. I am on the final step, having realized my core issues are abandonment and shame.

“My name is Carol Beth Scott, and I am recovering from co-dependence, shame and abandonment” ”

— Hi Carol Beth!

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I grew up begging my mother for therapy. She was such a victim of abuse and shame herself, she was actually terrified to let me go. And I heard about it, every time I asked. “You’ll tell them about me.” And she was right. I would have. It would have been my main topic of conversation. How she treated me when no one was looking. I often wonder what would have happened next, had someone known what I was going through. How I would be different now.

Some of my first memories are of disappointing my mother. I knew exactly how I was a disappointment, all the reasons I was a disappointing person, but I never could pinpoint exactly when the demonstration of this disappointment was going to happen. To this day, I couldn’t begin to chart a map showing the exploding mines in our relationship and how to avoid them, and my entire childhood is colored by this effort. I would do anything to avoid the yelling, the sleep deprivation, the threats, the (very infrequent) physical assaults, the torment. Most of all, I wanted to avoid the pain of hearing how worthless I was, though I didn’t know it at the time.

Hypervigilant. Anxious. Fearful. Overly cooperative.
My constant state of being.
Deceptive. Manipulative. Self abusive.
My survival mechanisms.

You would think I’d have gone to therapy the moment I left home, but instead I ended up learning how to give therapeutic counseling, counseling others in my volunteer positions in college and as a lifestyle. I’d already studied enough psychology textbooks and case studies to teach my own class, by the time I took one in the spring of my Freshman year. Not to mention, I lived with parents and a sister who all suffered from their own unique diagnoses that gave me case studies up close and personal. I knew enough to be a help to everyone. Everyone but myself. Why didn’t I help myself? Myself wasn’t worth it.

It’s different when it’s you who’s in pain. My Post Traumatic Stress served me well when I wanted to excel in class, in social situations, in business, even in helping others find the hope in their own healing process. As soon as I learned to harness my heightened senses combined with my overwhelming empathy, I knew I could go far. And as I let the grace of Christ temper my sinful nature, my survival mechanisms were taken captive, one by one. My fruit changed, but my inner spirit was still a child of neglect, abandonment and shame.

By the time I was married at 20, I was no longer deceptive, manipulative or self abusive. But I was in pain. And remained sensitive. I didn’t know how to choose people to be around me who didn’t abuse me and trigger my co-dependence. I was the proverbial doormat under the treads of many boots. The psychological abuse came swift and often, and I took it as gospel, changing myself inside and out at the least provocation, simply to make others happy.

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When you collect people who insert themselves into the abuser role opposite your co-dependent role, it can take many years to move past the pain enough to recognize it and release them from your life. My healing up until now can be measured not so much by the people who came into my life, but by the people who left.

I had a pattern. A very troubling pattern. As soon as I stopped performing for others, they would dislike me. And when you combine their immediate dislike with my overwhelming fear of disappointing others like I’d disappointed my mother all my life, you can see why it took me awhile to be strong enough to stop “the act” and be myself. Because I knew that “Myself” wasn’t worth liking. Why would I let her show up?

It wasn’t that I was pretending to BE someone else, actually. What I was doing is never allowing my own needs or wants to be considered or even realized. From the smallest decisions - where shall we eat dinner? To the largest ones - where shall we live for the rest of our lives? I didn’t even ask myself what I wanted. I didn’t even want to know. I only wanted to know how I could “show love” to others by doing what they wanted. In the process I completely lost who I was.

And then something would happen where I wouldn’t give over. I didn’t realize it until after all the losses were gathered into a memory heap, but the moment when I would refuse to be subservient and only exist to reassure others their decisions were best and “of course, I want that also” was when their behavior led to pain for another person. Even themselves! And most often, I spoke up for their children. and mine But of course, not me. Never me.

I wasn’t strong enough to speak up for me - not for the first 40+ years of my life. But as I entered my 30’s, I learned to be strong enough to speak up for others. And when I did, it revealed the true hearts of the people I called “friends” and “family” and that they didn’t love me. They loved the me that stroked them. Not actual me.

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Discover abuse or neglect -> Speak Up -> Rejection by the abuser/neglector

It seems so obvious now. But I couldn’t see it. My deepest regret is it took the entire childhood of my children for me to learn how to surround them with healthy people. My greatest joy is seeing them make better decisions than I did. Thankfully, they learned from my journey.

My in-laws were the first deeply embedded relationship I lost by speaking up for my husband and empowering him to speak up for himself and our children. A few years later I discovered my uncle had assaulted his daughter. I spoke up for her. My family chose to rally around the pedophile (so sadly typical) and not me, though recently I was blessed to see a few of them and actually hug them and share a meal. It still seems like a miracle.

At the age of 30, I did speak up to my mother, and not for others. For myself, when I realized I was modeling abuse to my new baby daughter. And to my mother’s everlasting credit, she changed her behavior. I know it was for the sake of her grandchildren, but it was enough. I was with her up until the moment she died.

But it’s the friends I chose where I learned my greatest lessons. Not only did I give over, tolerate judgment, listen as they gossiped, abused and maligned others in my presence without correctly assigning their behavior as indicative of their character, I also ingested their judgment of me as truth. Until the day they turned their ugliness into abuse of their family, by neglect or design. Until the moment when they attacked their children or my children or even themselves, and I couldn’t stand by without saying something. And so I did.

Again, I didn’t see the pattern. But what happened when I finally opened my mouth is I spoke up FOR someone else and that’s what made people turn against me. I still struggle to understand HOW this is possible, but it’s true. And thankfully, I’m finally healthy enough to understand the validity of this pattern.

It’s been two years since the last toxic people exited our lives and it’s been a year of healing and challenges - for all of us, am I right? And in the midst of the challenges of Covid, early in 2020, I entered Regeneration at church and learned to participate, to deal, to step up and stand up.

Except that’s not at ALL what Regeneration is about. It’s about Trust. And Faith. And giving over and allowing God to care for you, not others and especially not yourself. It’s simply not possible for me to do all that needs to be done to make my journey about Glorifying God instead of myself; about following the two greatest commandments. Do you know what they are?

The Greatest Two Commandments

I wasn’t loving my neighbor by giving over to them and allowing them to use me for their own gratification. That is definitely co-dependence and that was what I was trained up to do. And that’s the direction I went.

But the truth is, it’s not loving. It’s selfish. It’s not a real relationship. And I love authenticity. I crave authenticity. And I’m finally walking in the steps of my own authentic self. And you may not like me. And I have to be okay with that. I’m starting to be okay with that.

There is so much good news in this, but what I want to share right now is that this chapter of my journey ends with me being able to love people better. I entered afraid I would be told I had to stop DOing for others, because I was doing it out of co-dependence and not love. But instead, I learned I could DO for others with my whole heart and it’s so incredibly freeing. I LOVE to show LOVE. And now I can do it better.

If you’re a victim of shame, pride, self protection, co-dependence, your own sin, others’ sin, basically - are you alive? Then you can be blessed by participating in the 12 Step journey of Regeneration, too. If you choose to take that first brave step, let me know. I want to pray for you. Really!

"Mama, my banana isn't full" and other heartbreaking + empowering moments in parenting.

It started whimsically. After calling Hannah “Hannah Banana” so many times, I started to rhyme Joshua’s name, too. “Joshua Squash-oo-ah” - you know, because it rolls right off the tongue, right?

Not really. But families are goofy at best & we are the goofiest of all.

But a friend of ours couldn’t stand that the middle child was left out of the consumable nickname trend going on, so as he left our home one day he proclaimed “I’ve got it! He’s “Noah Cup-a-Joe-ah!” and it stuck. They were 2, 4 & 6 years old. My goodness were they cute. And tiny! Tiny little edibles.

Hannah Banana
Joshua Squash-oo-ah
Noah Cup-a-Joe-ah

Often they were called by the second half of their names only. Banana, Squash-oo-ah, Cup-a-Joe-ah & that’s just how it was. No one questioned it!

As they struggled to make sense of their emotional ups and downs, we talked. A lot. (still do!) We talked about how that sad feeling they had sometimes was because their cup was empty and it needed to be filled. Joshua and I talked about it the most. He was dealing with his therapy and recovery from the assaults he’d endured and this helped him to name where he was on the emotional scale that day. A good day meant his cup felt full. Days where he felt heavy and sad, angry at what had happened or just a general feeling of frustration, he could tell me his cup was pretty empty and we’d work together to fill it up and make things incrementally better. It was a wonderful & empowering tool for our boys in recovery. I highly recommend it.

Then one day, a tiny Hannah toddled up to me and told me her Banana was empty.
Now, you’ve just read all of this back to back, so of course you get what she meant. All that talk about Cups & Noah had cup in his nickname, so little Hannah had connected the two and then told me her Banana wasn’t full. I didn’t have that privilege & I have to tell you it confused the heck out of me!

But when I did get it, I felt both happy she was able to express her emotions and sad she felt empty. One look into her eyes and I knew it was true - her banana was, indeed, empty. But I knew what to do for my little girl & we filled her right up!

For years, she expressed herself in measures of banana and like other moments of being little, she grasped what she’d done and changed her language. I was sad all over again.

As they grew older, Joshua and I refined the discussion to where they all have multiple cups - one for God, for each parent, for peer relationships, for adult relationships, finally for romantic relationships. The tool has expanded to help us understand one another’s needs and when to fill them. We seek to help those who fill their cups in all the wrong places and/or walk around empty. It’s still empowering.

And there’s never been a better example than the day Hannah told me her banana wasn’t full.
(Just so you know, today she is VERY full in ALL her cups!)

Brokenness - My personal story of sexual assault

As my daughter begins her journey of dating and relationships, I’ve found myself revisiting my past to help her navigate her present. Gentlemen. Predators. All the shades inbetween. Like most women, I have multiple chapters where I was forced into something sexual I didn’t want, followed by a period of pain and shame-filled actions as a result. Perhaps by writing my experience here, I can help other daughters navigate their present, too. Perhaps I can help you?

WARNING: This post is graphic and painful. Yes, there are triggers - for victims, those who love victims and people who love me. Proceed with caution and guard your heart.

How I Was Groomed To Be A Victim

I was 17. I’d been going to my new high school for less than a year, and been posturing the whole time. I stepped from a small town world where everyone knew I was a “good girl” brainy person, into a faster-paced world of popularity, partying and impurity. My desperation to fit in kept me in a state of constant deceptive performance. I poured beer into bushes at parties so people would think I drank it. I held a burning cigarette, but didn’t inhale. And I could talk the talk, but I’d never walked the walk of sexual experimentation.

And then I met a boy who paid attention to me, who professed his love for me on the first date. My even greater desperation to have someone love me was huge, and I drank his “love” up like a person dying of thirst would drink water. He was tall and accepted, if not the most handsome of boys who were vying for my attention at that time. He was just goofy enough to make me feel like he was safe; like he was the exception to those surrounding us. His father was an attorney in town and they were active members of the Baptist church, so why shouldn’t I expect to be treated the way boys treated me back home? By home, I meant the town I grew up in. Where I lived now in Texas, felt nothing like home.

Then he began taking me to his house for the last hour or two of our dates, where we walked straight into his darkened room and he shut the door. I followed like a lost lamb. His parents would greet us as we walked through. I knew they heard his door lock. I was overwhelmingly uncomfortable with the whole situation, particularly when he showed me the collection of Playboys his father supplied him with, stacked neatly in the closet.

As uncomfortable as I was, my senior boyfriend never forced himself on me. He never pushed me physically, that I remember. He just began a methodical emotional push toward sex, until I at least considered it. I went so far as to go get a prescription for birth control pills, which promptly made me vomit. Daily. My plan was to stop taking them, but I didn’t know how to tell my boyfriend, so in my typical weak fashion I kept taking them. And I kept vomiting.

I was taking them when I left for my spring break trip to El Paso, to stay with a youth pastor’s family I met while at a leadership camp for my church. I was so happy to be wanted somewhere, and usually summers and school breaks meant watching others go and have fun while I stayed at home with a nearly agoraphobic mother, so I knew this was going to be great. And I got away from the pressuring boyfriend, too.

Looking back, my growing acceptance of my boyfriends’ treatment had groomed me not to speak up for myself. Coupled with my mother’s severe insistence I never rock the boat, bother anyone or really be something anyone could ever remotely be upset with, I was destined for abuse. I only needed someone who was ready to take advantage of me, and I was headed straight to that person without any ability to defend myself or anyone ready to defend me.

My first hint of what was to come was when I walked into the house where it would happen. I was entering a home of a family with parents, siblings and my friend, someplace I never dreamed would be unsafe. I’d let this young man chastely kiss me one time the summer before on a bridge at camp, but in my naivete I had thought informing him I had a boyfriend when he invited me to visit for a week “and go to church events” meant that he would consider me off limits, and we’d just be friends. I was excited to see him, to meet his family, to see our mutual friends who lived in the beautiful city of El Paso. I wasn’t attracted to him, but we’d been friendly without a mention of anything else for nearly a year. All of a sudden, my nightmare began.

“Where should I put my bags?”
He walked me to his room. He motioned to his bed.
”Where will you sleep?” I asked.
”With you, of course. You don’t mind, do you?”

Of course, I minded! But I had zero idea what to do. His room was right off the living room. His mother watched us walk in and I felt pretty sure she’d overheard what he said. I immediately began to justify this somehow in my head. I was probably being prudish. They had a small house & maybe this is just what’s comfortable for them? I’d slept in a bed with my best friend, Brian before. We had no trouble treating each other like brother & sister, so maybe this guy had the same thing in mind? Surely, he did! I mean, his mother watched us walk in the room! If he meant something different, that would make her complicit. And in my mind, there was no way a mother would be complicit about something like this.

But then I thought of my boyfriend’s mother watching me walk through and hearing the click of the door. I thought of his stack of Playboys above the basket of clean laundry she’d placed in there, proving she was complicit in all ways. Yes, mothers could be complicit.

I wanted to throw up. This time it wasn’t the birth control pills.

How It Happened

That afternoon, we walked over the border to Mexico with a large group of friends - his friends, not our church friends. I had fallen in love with Mexico as a child, and felt no fear of visiting the country. Many members of my family were/are from Mexico and everything about the culture feels safe and happy to me. Everyone with me was Mexican & they all pledged to watch out for the lily-white girl in their midst. I began to relax and feel safe. I started to have fun.

We went to a club with loud music in english - I recognized all the music and sang along. The club was clean and full of all colors of people, and I so loved to dance. I was having the best time! “Look at me!” I thought. “I DO get to go places.” I would have something to talk about when we all got back after spring break and returned to school. “See, people! I am NOT a loser!”

My friend asked if I wanted something to drink. By the way he said it, I knew he meant an alcoholic drink. I’d learned how to be a partying participant without risking my well-being, or so I thought. I told him I would drink ONE drink, but it needed to be girly. Something frothy or frozen, or fruity. I knew those were expensive & he’d only want to buy one, plus the alcohol would be minimal.

No one had told me - ever - that girls can get drugged in these situations. And because no one had described it to me before, when the haze washed over me and I needed help standing up, I thought this must be what people meant by a strong drink. Nothing had prepared me for this moment.

They were working as a group to help me back across the border. Later, my memories came back to me in fragments, with gaps inbetween. I remember their frantic talk before we talked to the border crossing guards. Would they stop me? Would something happen to them because of me? In my stupor, I think I tried to convince them it would be fine & it didn’t matter I was caucasian. I didn’t understand what they meant.

I kept looking down, trying to focus on the lines in the pavement. Burned American flags littered the space outside the entrance to the US from Mexico. “Should this make me concerned?” I wondered. I was too out of it to care.

And suddenly, I was in his house; his room; his bed. And he was on top of me. I don’t know how I got there, or if I even helped. Did they carry me? I wasn’t very big. My first fully formed memory of the night after I took the drink, was pain. So Much Pain. His penis was pressing against my pubic area, but he hadn’t tried to enter me. Perhaps he’d already realized I was a virgin and it would be difficult? I honestly didn’t know what had happened in the moments leading up to this painful, methodic thrusting going on over me, in my friends bed. Not all my clothes were off. This confused me. “Didn’t people take all their clothes off to have sex? Why didn’t my friend have all his clothes off?” my brain was in a state of wondering confusion about this person, my friend. I wondered what my friend was doing, as I emerged from the haze.

At that moment is when I finally realized, he was not my friend. He had never been my friend. And my ever-increasing pain told me I was in trouble. Also, my assumption was that crying out wouldn’t help, because in that moment of barely emergent fuzzy non-clarity, I believed his family had clearly gotten together and put me in his bed. My messed up mind believed she was in on the whole plan. I was still out of it - only my pain was garnering my attention, and the pain was forcing me to ever increasing levels of coherence. I could feel my pubic hair being ripped out from his dry thrusting against me. I felt what would later turn out to be blood, dripping down and inbetween my legs. The introduction of fluid as lubrication - my blood - increased his excitement and he pushed more and harder. The pain was intense. And all the time, he was begging me to let him in. I could make the pain stop, if I just let him into my vagina. I honestly don’t remember telling him he could. Maybe I did? I don’t know. But I do remember the relief of no longer having skin and hair ripped out in chunks. And I’m pretty sure at that moment, I again passed out. I know my memory stopped from either drugs or trauma, though I’m not sure which.

How It Never Happened

The next morning, his mother made tortillas. I don’t remember if I ate any.

We went to church. I don’t remember the service.

I stayed for many more days. I took my pills. I let him do what he wanted to me, when he wanted to do it. I was no longer drugged so as to allow it, but I might as well have been. In that moment where I was aware of the assault, I ceased to care what happened to me. The shame consumed me, instead. As the days wore on, I believed I must have created the problem. It was my fault. I mean, I was there and letting it continue? Wasn’t I just as complicit as his mother, as his friends, as him - the person I thought was my friend?

Right before we parted at the airport, he gave me a piece of jewelry as a gift. It felt like a burning coal in my hand. I thanked him, and walked away. I threw it away when I got to my home airport. I would never see or speak to him again.

While on my flight home, I planned how to tell my mother. The depth of my pain, fear and even my physical healing made me nervous. I was in over my head, and I knew it. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted a doctor to tell me I was okay, that I could have kids. The violence of the sex I’d experienced left me scared I was truly destroyed from the inside out.

As soon as we were alone - my mother and I, I approached her with my birth control pills in my hand. In my mind, they were the beginning of the problem. If I’d never considered having sex, this wouldn’t have happened to me. Right? It was ME. I was the problem. I needed to start with that - with my own culpability. I need to confess it all. To purge. To feel some relief. She stared with hard, steel eyes at the pills I held out. She didn’t seem to be breathing.

When she did speak, it was with fury. How could I make up such a horrific lie? How dare I do this to her? Was I really that cruel?

I’m not cruel. I’m kind. I’m a lot of things, but cruel has never been one of them. I was confused by my mother’s words; by her accusations. How could my own mother not believe me?

After many tears and pleas for help, something I said must have penetrated, because my mother said she didn’t care if it was the truth, she didn’t want to hear about it. I’d brought it upon myself by wanting to go visit & pressuring her into letting me. And I absolutely, positively must never tell anyone - and especially my father. If I did, he would hate me & leave, then where would we be? She couldn’t support us on her own. I’d need to shut up and leave her alone, already. I was required to shut up & never speak of it again.

So, I did. I shut up. Instead, I acted out my shame. From March of my senior year, until I met my future husband on Valentine’s Day of my freshmen year in college, I walked in worthlessness. 11 months of regrets would follow, one by one by one.

How I Failed To Cope

I didn’t pour the drinks out anymore. I drank as much as I could. What did it matter? I was worthless.

I let my boyfriend have sex with me. What did I care? I was worthless.

And when some of his best friends picked up on my newfound hypersexuality, they took me out behind his back. I didn’t have sex with them, but I came close. I’d become a giant tease, convincing myself my sexuality was a tool I now had control of. But really, what did it matter…….

You know, hypersexual girls who act out as a result of abuse look like they get it but they don’t. I began to dress more revealing, flirt in a new way, tease and play with boys. But it wasn’t until years later when I saw other women and girls walking in the same kind of pain, that I saw what it looked like from the outside. What appears to others as a power play is actually the saddest, most desparate cry for help, masked as something different. And I was wailing the loudest cry of anyone around me, but no one cared.

I partied with a fraternity, as their “little sister” my first semester of college. Thursday night parties were what I looked forward to all week. By then, I’d had a few sexual partners, was well over my high school boyfriend and was in a completely numb state, or so I thought.

Then, the partying caught up to me & one of my fraternity “brothers” violently raped me while I was drunk. That part wasn’t what broke me, though. It was when he told the nice boy on campus, someone I had just gone on a normal date with, that I’d thrown myself at him and we’d had sex. It wasn’t sex. He raped me, but I knew I had no voice and no one would believe me.

Something about that combination of events broke me apart. Perhaps it was that it was the 2nd time I’d been raped? Perhaps it was because I had finally started to imagine I could be with a nice boy, again? I’ll never know for sure, but it felt like something inside of me physically broke in two.

Shortly afterwards, I withdrew and went home for the remaining part of the semester. The rapes weren’t the only horribleness going on in my life that led to this decision, but that’s a story for another time. When I went back to live with my parents, I rapidly descended into a full fledged depression and began to plan my suicide. I lost two months of memory, but I’ve been told it was spent mostly on the couch or my bed. I checked out and tuned out. I have scars from self-injury, but again this was before anyone talked about it, which made it easy to hide.

(I Don’t Know) How I Chose Survival

Then, as if by some miracle, I began to emerge from the fog. Something strong in me, something that I didn’t know I had, led me back to school and a vision for a tiny bit of a life. I changed colleges and for the first time since I’d moved from my little town of friends to this nightmare of a place, I went back to being a debater. I returned to public speaking. I began to shed my horrible habits of self-destruction, one decision at a time. I wasn’t good at it yet, because I was still looking for “love” in all the wrong places, but I was finally trying.

By the time I met my husband, David on Valentine’s Day of what was still my freshman year of college, I had begun to return to my former self. I was in a pattern of romantic relationship after romantic relationship, but my fragile sense of worth was at least being considered as I chose who to spend time with.

How God Chose Me

God sent David to save me from myself. It felt like he was the first person to see me. Ever. His gaze penetrated right through me as he drove me home from where we met., and it felt magnetic to be with him. I was so attracted to him, I had to think about my breathing. I loved how he made me laugh, how we both laughed, how I just knew he’d be the next boy smitten with me. That was, until he exclaimed “You’re a Christian. Why are you cursing? Christians shouldn’t curse.”

And that was the moment I noticed more than the way David fit so very well in his jeans. David spoke truth to me - and he spoke it to me like I actually could and should be held to a standard. You know, like someone who is worthwhile, instead of someone who is worthless. Like he could SEE me and like I counted! He looked at me and saw I could be better than the person in front of him, and I so much needed someone to see that.

After being friends for a bit, then dating for a bit, David accompanied me to my grandmother’s funeral, back home where I grew up. This was an especially bitter loss, as my Grandma was the most gentle and loving soul of all my relatives, and I never doubted she loved me for me. She was the only one who made me feel that way. While we were waiting for family to arrive for the lunch after the service, David & I got into a theological discussion and he discovered something about the way I saw myself. He realized by questioning me that while I had accepted Christ as my savior, I felt confident I had only gotten in because of God’s steadfastness and faithfulness. I was saved by default, you see. I didn’t see myself as chosen, wanted and certainly not as the daughter of the King. Then, David said it.

“If you had been the only person on earth, Jesus would have died on the cross JUST FOR YOU. He loves YOU. He wants YOU. He chose YOU.”

And in that moment, I was no longer choosing healing for myself. I was allowing myself to be healed; to be walked through the process by the maker of Heaven and Earth. And in Him, there was no shame. There is no shame. There was no fear. There is no fear. There is only acceptance through Christ. It’s not my fault, and it’s not any other victims’ fault. It’s never the fault of anyone but the criminal and those who help, hide or ignore. Because of David, I knew that. And I know that. I’ve never stopped knowing that.

Hope

Do you know that? Did you know Christ loves YOU so much, he would have died JUST for YOU? It’s absolutely true. He cares about all the things about you & He would never want anyone to hurt you.

You are precious.
You are amazing.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
You are loved.

If you’re reading this and you have a story, know you’re not alone. Victims. Survivors. Overcomers. We’re everywhere. It’s hard to talk about, but the more you do the less the shame can creep in. Speak once and it pierces the balloon of shame. Keep speaking and you can drain it completely. Find Christ and you can live abundantly and walk in joy.

I believe in you. You can do it! And if you’re not sure, ask me how.