My Story: Part III

At first college wasn’t a whole lot different than high school. I did well in my classes, had zero direction – I was just there to learn. Had no idea what I wanted to do because I think maybe I thought I didn’t deserve a good job, or maybe I thought the best thing to do was to wait until someone told me what was acceptable for me to do so that I would continue to have outside approval and love from them.

I met people, formed friendships, but never dated. Wanted to, too scared to. Too wounded. Too shut-down inside.

I’ve seen other girls who were abused sexually react differently than I did – instead of swearing off all sexual contact the way I did, they become promiscuous.

But the pain is the same. Whether you sleep with everyone or no one, it’s because you feel you’re unworthy of real love. It’s because you’re hurting. It’s because real contact, real openness to real love is so painful you push it away by either letting nobody in or letting everybody in. Either way, you remain untouched at the core.

During my teens and into my early 20s, my parents sent me to a summer camp for Catholic youth (although children from any religion were welcome) in East Texas. That place saved me.

It was at summer camp that I began to thaw, started to feel, started to open here and there. I discovered I really did believe in God while I was out there – truly believed, felt His presence inside me – instead of viewing God as some sort of remote, untouchable, irrelevant spiritual concept that didn’t really have anything to do with me directly. I also started opening up to other people and to myself out there. It was Utopia – a place of love and friendship, support, we were all encouraged to be happy and joyful and be who we really were. I had no clue who I was, but it seemed like it was fun to try to find out when I was at camp.

I decided to work as staff at camp after I was too old to be a camper, and that’s where my healing really began in earnest. At staff training every summer, we would always hear a talk on how to spot physical and sexual abuse in campers. In 1996 I remember hearing that talk and feeling something start to erupt in me like lava.

When the talk was over I got up and went to our head female counselor for that summer – I remember feeling like I was a puppet or marionette, not entirely in charge of my own body. I remember walking up to our head female counselor and not really being conscious of my body at all - only what was going on inside me. She asked me if I was all right and it came flying out of me. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. It was an explosion. I almost don't even remember it - what I do remember is hazy and filled with explosive emotion, a supernova of released feelings.

It was the first time since I was 8 that I told anybody what happened to me as a kid. I was 19 that summer.

That’s where my healing started building serious momentum. That’s where my healing really began – confessing it set the rest in motion, and it never stopped. Thank God.

My parents found out that summer, too, and quite honestly I think I would change that if I could go back in time. Not because I feel like I still need to keep it a secret, not because I don't want to tell the truth, but to spare them from hurting so much.

My mom says she found a letter I wrote to someone and in the letter I talked about being molested. I have no memory of this letter, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t write it. I remember I’d come home from camp for the weekend and my dad was watching tv on the couch while I stood in the dining room sorting my laundry. He said very suddenly, "So mom says you were molested."

My stomach dropped into my feet. I started shaking. I could hear the emotion in his voice. I can still hear it.

They sent me to therapy, which I hope made them feel better. I didn’t get much out of it, as I wasn’t ready. I just wasn’t in touch with my feelings, with my wound. Still stuck in people-pleaser mode, still too smart for my own good: I gave the responses I thought were required of me, not my honest feelings.

That’s nobody’s fault, really. I just hadn’t gotten in touch with those feelings and was too self-conscious to start.

But my parents still loved me. I remember feeling very self-conscious around them after they found out and resented the fact that they told my grandmother. I felt like I was on display, being looked at and talked about in low voices. But at least it wasn’t a secret anymore. I hadn’t been punished. I hadn’t been disowned.

They still loved me.

I feel like that's one of the biggest reasons I was able to face everything that came up after.