The Aftermath: Healing Through Music

The road of recovery from my first abusive relationship has been a long and difficult route that I continue to walk, despite it being almost 10 years since. After my assault, my abuser turned almost everyone in my high school against me. I was reeling. I was hurt. I was confused. I turned to Jared, who was the only person who knew the full extent of what happened. But Jared was making a habit of disappearing.Jared was struggling with his own demons. He had suffered from severe depression most of his life and had been medicated for it. I was only 14 and he was only 15. I won’t share his past or his demons, but I will say that Jared had a lot of external contributing factors to his depression. Jared really wasn’t in any shape to help me put myself back together—he had enough of a task to put himself back together, let alone me, but that’s hindsight in 20/20. At the time, I clung to him like he was the last raft off a sinking ship. I got close again. I got invested. Jared had accumulated more demons in the year since he and I had broken up, and eventually, he almost drowned to death in them. I tried to be there, but Jared and I were very different from who we were before—pain had shaped us both. Despite wanting and even trying, I was in no shape to help him, and he was in no shape to help me. Jared and I eventually lost touch.Honestly, I lost touch with everyone. I isolated myself. I didn’t trust anyone. If I couldn’t even talk to Jared, who could I talk to? I was so messed up and confused; who would want to put up with me? I never fixed myself during high school. The rest of the time I was there, I tried dating people, and every time I started to get close to someone, I panicked. I wasn’t just a little scared, I was PETRIFIED. Self-destruction ruined every relationship I had.At one point… I honestly still can’t believe I did, but for awhile I wanted Seth back. From studying psychology of sexual abuse victims, I know this isn’t uncommon. I hurt for myself looking back at it. I thought that no one could love me like this. But he said he loved me. I tried to get him back. I dropped a letter in his locker saying I was sorry for hurting him. Somehow, I felt sorry for him. I can’t explain how glad I am that he didn’t want me back. I can’t imagine what hell I would have submitted to had he taken me back.Where I turned next… probably wasn’t the healthiest option either, but it was good for me at the time. Music was one of the few things that kept me going through this time. In school, I always had at least two pairs of headphones with me at all times. When the bell rang between classes, I immediately had my earbuds in for the entire 3-minute passing period. I couldn’t hear what people were saying. If someone shouted something disgusting at me (which happened after Seth spread rumors about me), I couldn’t hear it. I usually just listed to music with my head down on the lunch table or on the desk if we had free time to work on assignments. When the last bell rang, I had headphones in during my walk to my locker, and out to my mom’s car, or out to my vehicle after I got my license. As soon I would get into my vehicle, my iPod was plugged directly into my stereo’s head unit and BLASTING music. Usually I had the music in my earbuds or in my vehicle so high that it prevented me from even thinking clearly.I had stumbled across a band on Facebook after their bass player added me. They were from the state next to mine. Things were getting so much darker in my life, and I was having to convince myself that I just needed to get through the next hour. Just get through the next week. Just get through this day. I got an invite for a show the band was playing about three hours away. On a whim, I asked my mom and dad if I could go. I think they were so surprised I even wanted to do something. My dad drove me to the show, and we showed up WAY too early, like three hours before the show started. The bands were loading into the venue. I saw the bass player of the band who invited me. He stopped with his guitar and asked if I was there for the show. I said yes and told him my name and that we drove three hours for the show. He was so surprised he turned back to his band mates and said, “Guys! Come meet Andy! She drove THREE hours to be here!” I recognized their drummer from the pictures I had seen on their bass players FB. He gave me a hug and introduced himself. And then I saw him. Their lead guitar player was WAY more attractive in person. He gave me a hug and WHOA. I got shivers up my spine. What the hell? We struck up a conversation and my dad suggested taking a picture. So, I took a picture with him and the other guys. Looking at that picture, I think that was the first time my eyes didn’t look dead in the two years since the assault.He and I continued to gravitate toward each other, even after fans started arriving (it wasn’t a very large show, but they were a very popular regional band). I saw gorgeous college girls flirting with him (he was 17 and I was 16). Yet, he abandoned the conversation with those girls and came over to talk to me again. When they went on stage, I didn’t even know a single song of theirs. I had come on a whim. I was almost front row, and during one song, he reached out into the crowd and a bunch of girls reached for his hand, but he intently grabbed mine and flashed a big smile at me while they sang a line about being too shy to ask out a pretty girl. After the show he invited me to the after party the bands were having at the sports bar down the road. My dad was tired, and we still had to drive back, so I had to decline. But for the next year, I traveled to shows for his band all over the tri-state area, was in their music videos, and even got recognized by fans a few times at shows, “LOOK, there’s that girl that was in the selfie he retweeted! He didn’t smile in anyone else’s selfies with him except hers and he retweeted hers!” “Wait, isn’t that the girl from the music video, yeah, it is! That’s her!” Despite us never being in a relationship formally, or even ever going on a date, I was able to use him as my excuse. We flirted a lot, we teased each other on Twitter and Instagram posts but never committed. But he was my distraction for the last year of high school. I didn’t go homecoming senior year or prom. I didn’t go to any of the senior events. I went to shows instead. It kept guys in the school from trying to approach me because I seemed “involved” with this guy.But at the end of high school, I was finally starting to get some confidence. While attending shows I met lots of people, and I had a lot of guys flirt with me. I was starting to realize I wasn’t hideous (like the girls and guys at my high school made me feel). I was starting to feel less broken. I was ready to start the next chapter of my life. I was still broken, but I was starting to realize that making all the old pieces fit back together wasn’t going to help and wasn’t going to happen. It was time to rebuild with newer, better pieces of me I had yet to discover.