Revelation
I had graduated from college. The bar I went dancing in was closing. There was nothing left for me in Chicago, so I came home.
I slept most of the summer, exhausted from school. I worked a few odd jobs here and there but mostly hibernated and collected myself.
Early one rainy September morning, I was driving my sister to school. While waiting at a stoplight, I heard the distinct sound of tires sliding across pavement behind us. Quick check in the rear view mirror, aaaaaand… crunch.
Their beautiful 1960’s Mustang was crunched at the nose. Our 1980’s Honda had the trunk jacked open and would never fully close again. Both my sister and I were in shock, and definitely sore in some places, including our necks.
Insurance covered it, and both my sister and I got massages twice a week for a month and a half. That part was great! it tapered off to once a week, then once every two weeks… etc. Between September and late December, my body had received more touch more often than the prior year and a half combined, even counting all the dancing I’d been doing.
The 2nd to last day of December, I woke up with a very uncomfortable sensation. It felt like… oversized fingers… were touching my thighs and genitals. I did not like it one bit. I tried to turn away, but I had no coordination. I couldn’t even roll over.
I opened my eyes, and there was everything as normal. The sensation was kinda there, I could force it away from my attention if I wanted to. It didn’t make any sense. And it was really, really uncomfortable. I didn’t want to feel this or face it, particularly at first.
The images persisted. At the start, I was happily lying on my back, enjoying being alive, and there was a bright ball of energy, like the sun, shining on me from far away, in the direction of my feet; it was pleasant, nourishing, appropriate. Then a shadow came; it was the shape of a man with large shoulders. It cast a shadow over me that was cold, dark, unpleasant, hungry. I felt sensations of overly large fingers 4–6" in diameter touching my thighs and genitals. Darkly, hungrily, weirdly; I didn’t have a clear image of who the fingers belonged to, but the presence felt like my dad, his dad or one of my dad’s brothers. I knew what they were after, I didn’t want to give it, and the fingers didn’t stop. I raged inside, and it had nowhere to go; the best I could do was flail ineffectually. I wrestled with this for what felt like 45–90 minutes before I was exhausted and fell asleep. Then I’d wake up, and repeat the whole process all over again. This continued for two straight days, December 30 and 31, 1997.
When I woke up on January 1st, I no longer resisted the fact of what happened. Someone in my own family had sexually abused me before I was old enough to roll over on my own; I must have been less than six months old.
At least I understood what happened, and why so many things in my life were screwed up, particularly around sex. Since I’d already learned that trauma passes generationally when my parents got divorced as I turned 16, I readily committed to, “The Buck Stops Here,” and that I would do whatever it takes to move through this and find healthy, clean ways to express and receive sexuality. This pattern of abuse stops before I have children of my own.
When I brought this up to my sister, I found out our dad had been sexually abusing her and another member of my family for years, and I knew then that it was him that did it to me too. I learned that she had been trying, unsuccessfully, to tell our mom, and that mom would not or could not hear her. That rift between my sister and my mom remained for a long time, and only recently has it begun to heal.
No wonder sex jokes were so painful. No wonder I couldn’t go there, even with people I wanted to. No wonder I felt so intensely ambivalent* about sex, and why when sexual desire came up in me for someone else, it got stuck in my throat or somewhere else. At least now had something I could do about it. I was going to do whatever it takes to move out of this hell. And when you’re going through hell, keep on going.
*Ambivalence is one of those strange words, which that it exists, is worthy of celebration. It took me many years to learn what it meant, and yet described what I’d been experiencing for a very long time. Yay!
Next up: Equipping for the Long Haul
