from victim to survivor - my own story.

NOTE: This post discusses child sexual abuse and may be a triggering subject for some readers.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

-Socrates

A little girl in a white night dress sits on the floor of her closet. Knees pulled up to chest, arms wrapped tight, she makes herself as small as possible. The door is cracked open, but the darkness is prevailing and only a tiny shaft of light falls across her form. She closes her eyes and prays that the sights and sounds outside the door will fade and that she will be safe within this room. She hopes someday that she will be able to open the door slowly and emerge into quiet peace.

I was a young child when I was sexually abused. Now I remember pieces of what happened, I remember sights and sounds. The smell of a man, the aftershave he wore. The red and black checks on a flannel shirt. The weight of him on top of me, crushing my life and suffocating me. The color of the walls (yellow) and the carpet (brown shag). But when I remember it, I remember it as a third party, watching from above, in the corner of the room.

Throughout my life, until I was 24, I blocked those memories out, along with most of my childhood. I went on with my life, as "normal"; as I knew "normal" to be. I didn't realize that people don't just block out years of their life. I didn't realize remembering a 6th birthday party was something most people take for granted. I thought it was normal to have violent nightmares every night. I argued with people who said it was impossible to die in your dreams, and if you did you would die in real life. I had died too many times to count in my dreams and I remembered every time thinking, 'it's not so bad.'

Every night when I fell asleep, the dreams would come. It seems like they were always there. I was in a house, or a building. I was hiding, always hiding, fearful of being discovered. I remember a clock that always showed up in my dreams, signaling that I would have to come out of hiding, and I remember always being chased and, sadly, caught by my captors. Waking up nightly in a sweat, completely silent, biting my lip until the blood came, I would open my eyes and lie still as a statue. I would look around the room fearfully, getting my bearings, then eventually drift off to another nightmare. It happened for so long, I grew accustomed to it. I knew no other life.

ugly words [or] god is not a rapist

RAPE.

It’s an ugly word. It hurts coming out of my mouth. It elicits a visceral response, a bitter taste on the back of my tongue.

But it is how I would describe my first experiences with the church.

I was raped as a child. Someone took my innocence and my trust and they replaced it with cowering fear.

I was raped  spiritually and emotionally and mentally.

My own power was taken from me and in its place, the power of Someone Else took over, and that “someone else” was the Church.

But the worst rape I experienced was the rape of my perception of God.