Opening Up

Bleh, I’m sick and I have so much to write about. Let’s be realistic. I’m not going to be able to write about all the things I do or even all the things I plan to write about. That’s life. So I’m just going to write about what I can write about. What’s the biggest thing that has been going on in my life lately? Well, it hasn’t been pleasant. It’s been horrible, interesting, enlightening, and painful. In order for all of this to make sense, though, I have to go back and explain something amazing that happened several days ago. I had gone camping with some of my friends, which is an interesting story in itself. After we packed up and went our separate ways I was hit with a horribly familiar feeling. I couldn’t quite place it because it had been so long since I’d felt it. I was feeling anxiety, a lot of anxiety. My heart and thoughts were racing. My limbs and gut went numb and I drove like a maniac. I didn’t understand what was happening or why I felt the way I did. It was like the few days before then (when I started to have body memories again) had piled up in me and I reached breaking point. I felt isolated and I hurt so bad. I tried to tough it out. I was on the road to my house, so close to my house that I could almost see it. Then I saw him. I saw my abuser’s car as it passed me going the opposite direction. I fell to pieces. I debated a whole lot about what to do. I didn’t feel safe at all. The anxiety was like a horrible countdown clock threatening imminent danger. My thoughts were irrational. Somehow the huge latch Dad put on the door for me looked like a twig and I was sure that it wouldn’t stop my abuser from getting inside. He once took apart a doorknob to get to me. The friend I normally went to for help was really sick that day. I didn’t want to bother her. I knew she cared, but she felt so bad that helping me, no matter how much she wanted to help, would make her feel worse. I had been writing and thinking about all the bad habits and patterns that I had been breaking as I healed. Not asking for help and suffering alone is one of those bad patterns. I decided to take a chance and trust. I texted another good friend of mine. I asked her to pray for me because I was really struggling. She texted back and I opened up to her. I let her know what was bothering me and how I was feeling. Actually, before I started telling her, I hadn’t realized that I was afraid. Truth be told I was terrified. She invited me to her house. She told me she wanted to help and that she wanted me to be safe. It took a lot of convincing on her part. I just find it so hard to believe that I’m not a burden to other people. Trusting my friend and going to her house was one of the best things I did. I could have tried to deal with it alone, but I’ve seen the results of that time and time again and, trust me, it isn’t pretty.

I was super super nervous as I pulled into my friend’s driveway. I was shaking. You know that feeling when you feel like you’re an inch tall? That’s how I felt. I was embarrassed, ashamed, nervous, anxious, hopeful, and desperate. My friend met me at the door. I found it hard to look her in the eyes. It’s hard to do that after you bare your soul to someone, especially if it wasn’t in person. She hugged me. Some wounds are in a place so deep that words alone cannot heal them. This simple act was worth a million encouraging words to me. I was scared and anxious, just like I had been when I told my parents about the abuse. The difference, this time I was met with a reassuring hug. I didn’t have to have it all together; my friend just wanted me to be okay.

We talked . . . a lot. I was shocked by how willing she was to listen because a lot of people would rather distract me from the pain. I have to process it; running from it only postpones it. I found out how closed I’d become as I talked. I was so nervous, so afraid of rejection that I’m sure at some points my voice must have shook. It was hard to talk but I needed to talk about so many things. I talked about the abuse, PTSD, anxiety, how I cope, my parents, etc. Everything is so tied together. I realized that I couldn’t tear down every wall. I could only become vulnerable to a point. I wasn’t able to show how I really felt when I talked. Instead I talked about things in a joking tone and smiled and laughed a lot. I cope using humor a lot. It was either laugh or cry. Crying felt too vulnerable, so I laughed. This may sound strange, but it’s how I protect myself. Sometimes I can’t face everything at once and I have to take things one at a time. In this case I could handle sharing the content but not the emotion that goes with the content.

I decided to break a bad pattern that day and I’m so glad I did. I am so blessed to have opened up to my friend. Having more than just one person to go to when I’m really struggling is really comforting and it makes me feel more sane. When only one person tells you you’re not crazy it’s hard to believe it, especially when you do crazy things and feel like a lunatic. But when two people together agree and tell you you’re not crazy and you’re not bad and you’re not a burden . . . It’s easier to trust what they say and believe them.


This is Simply Life by Faith


-Jerelle

Crap

I’d like to say that the past week with my friends has been nothing but awesome. However, life isn’t often the way you would like it to be. It started Saturday night. My friends and I were spending the night at one of our friend’s houses, playing board games, watching Harry Potter, laughing, drinking coke, and eating cookies. Just like any other of our awesome sleepovers. But this one was different. I was hanging out with my friends when all of a sudden something happened that I thought and hoped would never happen again. Remember how I said that I no longer have PTSD, well, apparently that only means that my symptoms aren’t constant enough to be diagnosed as PTSD. I still have symptoms, just not to the extreme that warrants a diagnosis. That night I started to have body memories again. There’s no nice way of putting it, body memories suck. Body memories are physical sensations of trauma. Nobody will be touching me; I could be all alone in a room and feel hands gripping my wrists or a heavy weight on top of me. To put it bluntly, it’s like being sexually abused all over again without a physical person doing the abuse. Imagine a weight that you can’t push off of you, hands that wander that you can’t fight. Yeah, it sounds scary and disturbing. I know it’s my body remembering what was done to it but it freaks me out. I feel like I’m being hurt again, I feel horrible, invasive things being done to me and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. And it’s not limited to just the sexual abuse. A few times I felt the pain of being hit in the head. I fought my abuser. I bit him, kicked him, scratched him, punched him, did all I could do to get him to stop. His response: he hit me. He’d hit me in the head, the shoulder, arm, face, it didn’t really matter to him. He was a football player and weightlifter at the time. He was just careful to not hit me hard enough to leave a mark, didn’t want any incriminating evidence. Can you imagine how hard it is to pretend that you’re fine and laugh and joke with your friends when you feel hands moving up your shirt? You feel all alone. You feel like you’re a freak. You feel like you could burst into tears at any moment and you want so desperately to numb out the feelings. But if you numb out reality will get fuzzy and you find yourself in his room again. You blink hard and shake your head and your friend’s room comes back into focus then flickers back into your abuser’s room. You want to tell your friends, you want to reach out for help but you’re afraid they’ll think you’re crazy.

Nothing I do makes the body memories go away. They come and go as they please. When I feel them, I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to fight. With body memories there’s no physical person to fight off of you, no way you can run away. What do you do with the fight or flight response? How do you act normal if you’re with people? I don’t know and the best I can do is try to hide it, clench my fists tight, breath, and look around the room I’m in to try to ground myself in the present. What I really want, and this is really really hard to write, I long for someone to just hug me and tell me it’s going to be okay. Nobody told me that after I told about the abuse. Neither of my parents reassured me or hugged me. They asked me endless questions and watched me cry and I didn’t understand and still don’t understand why they never comforted me, not even a pat on the shoulder. I guess they were in shock, I mean nobody expects one of their children to abuse the other.

Sorry this isn’t a very cheerful post. I can’t hold all of this inside indefinitely. It has to come out and how do you go about having a conversation about body memories with a friend? It sounds like it would be really uncomfortable for the listener and I don’t want to burden someone like that. Sometimes, when this PTSD crap happens and I feel crazy . . . it’s really lonely. Crying alone is one of the worst things ever.

You’ve been reading Simply Life by Faith

-Jerelle