I've Found My Way

Now that all of my time wasn’t wasted with my abusive boyfriend, I was able to rekindle my relationship with my mom as she continued to recover.

I told myself boys were off limits for a year. I made myself a contract and signed it. I was not to have a boyfriend for a year. I spent my summer hanging out with my friend Cat, working to save money for college and spending time with my parents. I was getting really excited for Montana. Cat and I got tickets for a country music festival that is held in eastern Washington called Watershed that was two weeks before we left for school again. While at the festival, I met a boy named Brent. He was in the Navy and extremely cute. After the festival was over, we continued to talk although he was four years older than me and lived an hour away. I convinced him that we should see each other again before I left for college, which ended up being our first date at a Mariners game. I left for college three days later. I’ll fast forward through three years to tell you the good part: we’re getting married next May. Brent has been my rock through the last three years and has shown me what a real man is. He is patient with me and has continued to love me through a year and a half of long-distance, two deployments, moving in with each other, and much more. This may seem silly, but it took me three days to know for sure that I loved him, that I wanted to marry him, and to tell him so. I realized that I was breaking my contract with myself when we started dating, but I honestly could not think of a single bad thing about him. He was so safe. I didn’t and still don’t know what it is about him, but there is a magnetic pull between us that I will never understand.About a year into our relationship, Brent was deployed and I moved back out to Montana at the end of the summer. I moved into an apartment, one that would eventually be the first one that we shared together. From August until October when Brent left the Navy and moved out to Montana to be with me, I was alone. Living alone meant that there was enough space for all of the crap to come out. At the time, my brother lived just three blocks away and had a new girlfriend named Allie. I slowly got to know Allie while she helped my mom and me unpack everything for my apartment. She was sweet and smart. But she had PTSD because she had been sexually abused by a former boyfriend. I started to wonder why I didn’t have any problems from what happened with Jones. It had taken me awhile after we broke up to realize that he was in-fact abusive. But I think once I determined that it was abuse, I just pushed it away. It had happened before and nothing was done about it, so why would it be any different now?Around this time, I started to realize what was going on. I started to feel things bubbling to the surface. I was having a hard time talking to my brother when he wanted to talk about Allie. It made me uncomfortable. I remember lying in bed late one night and getting a text from my brother that Coldplay had released their new single, encouraging me to listen to it. Within a minute of the start of the song, I burst into tears as it was a very sad song with a wonderful melody. At almost the same moment, I got a message from Jones. I clearly remember wanting to throw my phone across the room. I did not want to read it. I finally gained the courage and read the message. It was a half apology-half thank you letter and it was just weird. He “apologized” for his behavior while we were together and thanked me for the time and effort that I put into his family and specifically his sister, who I had become really close with when she was struggling with life. I basically told him that I hadn’t forgiven him and that I had been going to counseling after going through a rough patch. And that I would like to meet and talk over Christmas break. For some reason that felt like the right thing, even though it was the last thing that I had wanted to do. He agreed, and a few weeks later we were both sitting down at the Starbucks that he worked at when we were dating. I was a wreck and I had no idea what to say. I don’t remember what came out of the conversation, except for me asking if I could see his family before I left to go back to Montana. I had always been close to his family and enjoyed being around them and I did think of them after we broke up. A couple days later I drove to his house and had a good conversation with them. I returned to Montana with the thought that now I could start to heal. I had done the hard things and now it would get better.

I returned to Montana with the thought that now I could start to heal. I had done the hard things and now it would get better.

A few months later, I finally opened up to my therapist, Anna, about my brother and what had happened when I was a child. In my mind (and family), it was still to be kept a secret. According to my parents, I had to contact Mary to make sure that nothing would happen to Jack if I talked about it. For the rest of the year, I met with Anna once a week and we waded through what had happened. She helped me prepare for talking to my parents over Christmas break about Jack. I was finally fed up with their “you can’t talk about it” attitude and was ready to do something about it. I wrote them a letter explaining the way that I felt and eventually read it to them. Although it was a long conversation, not much came out of it. I don’t think they fully grasped what I was saying when I said that I wanted to be able to talk about it. They claimed that I was never told that I couldn’t talk about it and that they were just waiting for me to come to them for help if I was struggling. I returned to Montana for my last semester with a new load of confusion added to the issue. In their minds, I had made up that I couldn’t talk about it and I was beginning to question everything that happened. Throughout my last semester of college, I struggled with panic attacks and what I call anger attacks. I learned that I had been doing incredibly well for the trauma that I had endured, but it is hard to believe that to be true when it feels like your world is falling apart. Through reading books about the subject, I learned that my mind most likely dissociated when I was 10, and I am currently fighting a battle between my 22-year-old self and the 10-year-old. Although life was absolutely insane between my recovery, work and school during the last year of college, I managed to finish both semesters with a 4.0 GPA, making it so that I could graduate with honors on my 22nd birthday. During this journey, I have relied on my body to tell me what I need to do next. Around the time of graduation, it was apparent to me that my next step was to confront my brother about wanting to tell people. I was fighting a war with the 10-year-old me because she wanted to be free, and the only way to set her free was to take the mask off and tell people about her. I had written him a letter and had thought about reading it in front of my parents, him and Brent. But the only problem with that was the part about Jones. My parents didn’t know that part, and I knew that telling it to them then would have just turned the conversation into talking about him and not what I had come there to talk about. While out to coffee with my mom a few days before graduation, I mentioned that I had started telling people and that I wasn’t going to stop. I had told a good friend when she confided in me that she had been raped a year before, and I told my cousin who I am closest with. There wasn’t a huge reaction by my mom, and after I was really proud of myself for saying what I did. Later that day, my mom returned alone from a walk with my dad and said that everything was “fine”, but I could tell that it wasn’t. As soon as my dad returned, all hell broke loose. My mom had told my dad everything that I had said and my dad drove to my brother’s house and told him. My dad was furious. He didn’t understand why I so badly needed to tell people what had happened. He wanted me to think about the consequences that it would have on himself and my mom, my brother, and my extended family if I told everyone what had happened when I was a child. I couldn’t help but think “what about me and the consequences that I’ve dealt with because of what he did to ME?” But apparently I am not important in this situation.

I was fighting a war with the 10-year-old me because she wanted to be free, and the only way to set her free was to take the mask off and tell people about her.

The most difficult and painful part of the conversation was when my dad asked what actually happened between us, and admitted that he didn’t want to know what had actually happened back then. To me, it felt like he had just assumed that maybe there was some playing going on, but nothing worse than that — nothing that needed serious attention. It really made me understand what they had cared about in the situation. The entire conversation was so frustrating and stupid. I just can’t understand their blindness to my feelings and what I have been through. It is like they don’t realize everything that I have been through: all they can see is the pain they are in, and they don’t want anything else added to that list. To say that my graduation/birthday party was awkward was a huge understatement. My parents and my brother were terrified, I am sure. Terrified that I would just decide to detonate in front of everyone — that their problems would blow up in their faces. And I was just exhausted. I was so emotionally drained from the semester (really, the whole four years) and my recovery. But like normal, everyone painted on a happy face and made it seem like everything was picture perfect. The family pictures were a literal hell for me. After graduation, Brent and I took a two-week trip to Vietnam and I got some much needed space from reality. When we returned, I stayed with my parents for two weeks to work on wedding details and Brent moved to California for his summer internship. During the two weeks with my parents, we had to have another “talk” with me having to explain why I had to tell people again. It seems like the talks that we have are just as traumatizing as what we are talking about. It isn’t really surprising because I have been conditioned to believe that I am not supposed to talk about it. The talk led to the fact that my brother had been contemplating suicide — that, if I did tell people, he would likely either run away or kill himself, that blame was put on me. In what kind of sick and twisted world is that my fault? Luckily, I made the smart decision to move down to California for the remainder of the summer to be with Brent as we have had enough long-distance so far in our relationship and I sure as hell wasn’t going to live with my parents. This summer I finally gained the courage to send a letter to my brother explaining what was happening leading up to the fiasco before graduation, my feelings and that for now I wanted to leave my parents out of this mess. I included a copy of “South of Forgiveness” by Thordis Elva and Thomas Stranger. I would recommend this book to everyone, especially those who have been affected by sexual abuse in any way. I requested he read the book, as I read it and it was the first thing to give me hope  that our future doesn’t have to end on the battlefield. I haven’t heard anything back yet, so I would definitely say I am a bit stuck right now. But I am hopeful and looking forward to what he has to say. So what do I want today? I want you to know that I have been through this. I want you to know that I am okay, that everything will eventually be okay. That when I eventually do break my silence, I won’t lose everything. You know that saying about getting rid of toxic people in your life? Well, what if those people are the people who raised you? Am I just supposed to say “thanks for raising me but, I never want to talk to you again, bye”? Sometimes that feels just about right. When you ask the 10-year-old what she wants, she just wants to come out. And she will find her way out whether my family likes it or not.