We’re in the midst of a volcanic cultural shift. The #MeToo movement has unleashed a tidal wave of never before spoken truths about the abuse, harassment, and assault that women have endured for centuries. For the first time ever, women are calling out their perpetrators and actually being believed! And yet… It doesn’t make sharing my own trauma any easier.
For me there are three factors that have held me back from sharing my story.
The belief that I don’t have a right to claim "Me Too" when other women have experienced so much worse.
The fear of judgement that because I did technically consent people will accuse me of pretending to be a victim.
The embarrassment that the decisions I made when I was younger have continued to affect me as an adult.
However, I think it’s important to write this part of my story down. All of these events have directly fed into my depression and anxiety. And even though I’m happily married now, I still deal with the scars of those wounds inflicted on me so many years ago.
I have this funny looking scar on my arm from when I was about 16 years old. I had some girlfriends over and we were doing each others’ hair before a youth group event at church. I remember sitting on the floor while one friend used a curling iron on my hair. The straightener was plugged in next to me, turned on, and piping hot.
Don’t ask me why I thought it would be a good idea to pick the straightener up by the cord and start swinging it around in a circle in front of me, but I did. Only, I didn’t give the straightener enough momentum to make it all the way around the circle. Instead, the straightener peaked and fell straight down, open-faced on my forearm. Immediately searing a “V” into my skin.
Now, over 10 years later, the scar is mostly gone. However, when I tan in the summer, that part of my skin stays white because there’s not really any melanin there. Most of the time I don’t even know the scar is there, but once the scar is exposed, I’m transported back to my Mississippi bedroom.
Our brains work the same way after trauma. Our mental scars may fade over time, but they never go away completely.
The feelings that come after experiencing a trauma don’t have an expiration date. Some of those less empathetic people might say, “Shouldn’t you be over that by now?” But anyone who’s ever experienced something difficult knows that you can’t rush healing and that in many cases we’ll never fully be healed. Those scars will always be with us.
I grew up in a conservative Christian household. When it came to physical affection, dating, and even romance movies my parents were about as strict as you could be. I remember watching Disney’s cartoon Cinderella and when Cinderella and the prince kiss at the end of the movie (after they were married by the way!), my dad would put his hands over my eyes and say, “Ew gross. Close your eyes.” Maybe he was just being funny, but back in the day I took his words to heart.
Growing up that’s how I looked at everything from a peck on the cheek to sex. “Ew gross. Close your eyes.” I don’t even really remember my parents showing each other a lot of affection in front of me. When it came to dating, there was a strict “no way” policy.
To save myself from the embarrassment of having to explain to my friends and the guys I liked that my parents were “lame” and wouldn’t let me date, I convinced everyone that this was my choice. I kept all my guy friends strictly in the friend zone. I got really good at being the third wheel. I even enjoyed being spared the pressure-filled high school dating scene because I watched my friends get hurt time and time again and knew I didn’t want to go through that.
So it shouldn’t surprise you that my first kiss wasn’t until I was 18. I’d held on very closely to the narrative that I was too good for any of the boys in my life. I became that untouchable good girl that everyone liked but would never dare try to date because I was so innocent.
At 18, my first kiss opened my heart up to my first experience at love. The fun, dorky high school kind of love that’s full of innocent kissing, late night texting, and childish flirting. But it was all a secret. I didn’t dare tell anyone about my relationship with Calvin* because I was ashamed. *Name has been changed.
Scroll below to see photos of me, my friends, and my
family from my senior year of high school .
My whole teenage life, I was the girl who’d never been kissed. I was the girl who’d never even told a boy she liked him. I was the girl who’d been asked to speak at a “True Love Waits” conference and compared dating to a game of “Never Have I Ever.”
I’d been put on this pedestal and now I’d become just like every other love-struck teenager. It’s easy to look back now and laugh at how silly I’d been. But back then my biggest fear in life was disappointing the authority figures in my life like my parents, the youth pastor, and other adults in the church. I felt like they all expected me to be better than everyone else. So I was afraid I’d be shunned, judged, and maybe even removed from the youth group leadership if anyone found out.
Like most secrets, the truth eventually came out right before my family was getting ready to move and I was on my way to college. There’s a lot more to the relationship’s implosion, but for time sake, just know that it was bad.
My best friend was mad I’d lied to her and a little confused by why I’d even been interested in Calvin. My parents were also confused and I think a little surprised that their innocent little girl could even be capable of having feelings for a boy. *gasp* And then I felt like everyone in the youth group turned against me and suddenly I was looked on as being slutty and manipulative.
And here's the real kicker... all we did was kiss.
There's so much more to be written about the incredible disservice the church and Christianity has when it comes to teaching young people about sex. I look back at my upbringing with gratitude that I wasn't caught up in "going-nowhere-fast" relationships in high school and that my parents did encourage me to keep my standards high. However, I'm also heartbroken for the girl who was made to feel like a crush was a sin. We need to do better as a Church body to teach young people grace over guilt. We need to stop scarlet-lettering people who make mistakes. And we need to stop making up rules about "purity" simply for the sake of appearances.
But I digress....
I look back now at my relationship with Calvin with a lot of joy and laughter because it really was filled with that innocent, overly-dramatic, first-love kind of feeling. In the months after the break-up when I moved away and started college though, I didn’t look back on our relationship the same way I do now. Back then I saw our relationship as a colossal lapse of judgment and now I was nothing but a disappointment to my friends and family.
My whole life I was the good-girl, Miss Perfect, the high school sweetheart, the youth group leader, the Bible scholar. Now my identity had been destroyed and I was left without a clue as to who I was anymore. Suddenly everyone knew I wasn’t perfect. From holding a reputation of purity to now being called a slut, I sank into my first real experience of depression. I believed that everyone had stopped loving me, including God.
And if I’d already ruined my reputation, what did it matter what I did anymore?
It was at this point in my life, when my loneliness was at an all time high and my confidence was at an all time low, that I met a guy named Trevor*.
*Name has been changed.
Trevor was my age, but much more “worldly” (for lack of a better word) than I was. His idea of friendship was making out on the couch in the basement and “experimenting.”
Because I didn’t have any other friends at this time, I didn’t want Trevor to stop hanging out with me. The thought of losing another friend in my life was paralyzing. So it didn’t matter to me that he would shun me in public or say mean things about the way I looked. I couldn’t let him think of me as weak. I let all the comments roll off me like raindrops on a windshield.
Those memories from the basement are difficult for me to relive They all run together with only a few
(Here's a picture of me from the summer before I went \ away to college. I don't even recognize her.)
pivotal moments really vivid in my mind. Like the first time he whipped out his penis because he thought it was funny I’d never seen one before. And then he dared me to hold it to prove I wasn’t a prude.
I’ve been through a lot of counseling about the following series of events. When I first told my therapist, she wanted me to call what I’d experienced rape. I haven’t been able to do so. There were some extenuating circumstances in my life that compelled me to say yes to things that I didn’t really want to do. But I still said yes. So instead of rape, I’ve come to call my experience sexual manipulation.
Here are some of the things that happened to me that year.
There was the time he told me I could practice giving him a blow job since one day I’d be married and it’d be embarrassing if I didn’t know how to make my husband happy.
One time we were watching a movie in the basement and he pleasured himself right there in front of me because that was a normal thing to do and I should get used to it.
Another time I remember a group of us going to the movies and he bought me my ticket and some snacks. On the way home, he told me to pull into the gas station so he could buy some dip. When we got home, he said we should break into the pool behind our neighborhood and go skinny-dipping. When I told him no, he got really angry. He told me I was a bitch and a tease because he’d bought me my movie ticket and now wasn’t willing to put out.
He also told me of his sexual endeavors at school, going into detail about all the women he’d slept with, baiting a reaction out of me.
One time after we’d been fooling around, he laughed and said something like, “I always wanted to become your fall from grace.”
Eventually, Trevor and I stopped being friends. There wasn’t some dramatic ending to everything. We stopped talking and I don’t think either one of us missed the other. My college life was improving and I was well on my way to becoming more confident again. I’d also worked on my relationship with God and forgiven myself for what had happened in the past.
Then Calvin and I reunited.
I was determined to do things right this time. No secrets. No shame. We were both adults, both in college, both ready to make it last this time. Only, we’d both changed a lot in the last three years. He wasn’t the boy I’d fallen in love with in high school. He’d probably tell you I’d changed too.
Being older, our interests were more mature. No longer was enough to just hold hands under the table. And without any supervisors in our lives, it was up to us to create the boundary line that wouldn’t be crossed. The problem was he and I had two different lines.
When I saw him for the first time, before we’d even said hello, he kissed me. Hard. At the time I thought it was romantic. Now we were in a real relationship.
He’d visit me on the weekends and it only made sense to stay at my apartment where there was an extra bed. Except he didn’t want to sleep in his bed, he wanted to sleep in mine. This was a problem because I really wanted to remain abstinent until I was married.
He’d joke about wanting to take a shower with me and even when I locked the door, he’d pick the lock and hop in with me. He’d start to feel his way around my body and not stop till I finally gave in and kissed him back.
He got really good at knowing when I was too tired to fight. We’d be lying in bed and because I didn’t want to wake my roommate in the next room I couldn’t yell at him to get out when he started to make a move. Instead I’d just lay there, annoyed but ultimately willing. The sooner it was over, the sooner I could go to sleep. Besides, he loved me. He said nice things to me unlike Trevor. Calvin and I were in a real relationship and we’d be together forever. What did it matter if I waited to have sex with him now or when we were married?
But everything started and ended in three months. We broke up for a lot of different reasons and I don’t even think I cried when I said goodbye for the last time.
Then the next real relationship I entered was with my now husband.
Sam and I became friends after everything happened with me and Trevor, but he was one of my best friends when I was dating Calvin the second time and had even met him a few times. I never told him what had happened in either relationship until much later when we started dating.
Sam and I had both been raised to believe that sex was for marriage. But when I told him about me and Calvin, he never judged me or made me feel like a horrible person. Throughout our entire friendship, my husband has never said an unkind
word to me and meant it. He’s been quick to forgive, Sam and me from the first summer we started dating.
slow to anger. He’s always doted on me incessantly.
He’s my very best friend and the love of my life.
Even though six years had passed since my relationship with Calvin ended when Sam and I got married, there were still things that I brought into our marriage that rocked us. I didn’t know it until our honeymoon, but sex with my husband sometimes triggers the sexual exploitations of my past.
The things I’ve been told before, during, and after any sort of intimacy still pop into my mind when I’m with Sam. Sometimes the memories are so vivid that in the middle of sex I panic, get nauseous, and have trouble breathing. Often times after sex I go to the bathroom and throw up.
In those moments, I feel disgusted with myself like it’s still a sin to have sex even though I’m married. I feel angry because I can’t let go of those memories. I feel so much guilt for not being a better wife to my husband. And I feel embarrassment at my own sexuality and lack of libido.
Disgust, anger, guilt, and embarrassment. These four emotions send me into a shame spiral and inflame the depression inside me.
One would think that with all the female empowerment happening around the world, owning your past would be easier, but it’s not.
I don’t blame Trevor, Calvin or any of the other boys I didn’t mention for what we did. I’m not the victim in this story, but I have suffered the effects of our actions.
Do I wish these men had respected me more and protected my innocence? Absolutely. But I wish I’d respected myself more to stand up for what I believed and had the courage to say no regardless of the consequences.
We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. When we do, I also think it’s our job to share our lessons with others. Not everyone will write it all down and publicize it to the masses. That’s totally okay. You get to decide when, where, and to whom you tell your story.
Maybe one day you’ll have a daughter that you want to empower to say no or a son that you want to teach how to treat women with total respect. Maybe you’ll have a friend or a young woman come to you heartbroken and you’ll be armed with grace and compassion because you’ve been her shoes.
It’s my desire to use my past as a way to help others. Often times when we experience trauma we wonder what was the point of it all? A lot of people have used some variation of the phrase, “There’s purpose in your pain.” It’s not always obvious what that purpose is, but I 100% believe that it’s always there.
Sometimes you just have to find the purpose in your pain. Other times I think you need to create it. But if you’re ever going to own your past, that purpose is going to show you the way.
So here’s what has been helping me work through my past and create a happy future with my husband:
Talking. I talk about what’s happened in therapy. I talk about what I’m feeling to Sam. I’m honest about when I’m into the moment we’re sharing together and when I’m struggling.
Writing. Writing my story down has been very cathartic. It’s not the first time I’ve written about either. For years, the memories of my past have reignited in my mind and I’ve written countless journal entries and prayers. Each time it was helpful.
Praying. I took a lot of time with God and in the Bible to get to a point where I could forgive myself for what had happened. In the months following my experience, I spent a lot of time crying in Bible Study with my trusted friends and praying for healing.
Forgiving. Not only did I have to learn to forgive myself, but forgive the men who had hurt me. I’ve never had an actual conversation with any of them about what we did, but in my heart I have forgiven them.
Sharing. I’m a natural open book because for me the more I share, the more I gain control over the narrative. The more I’ve shared with people in different settings, the easier it gets to acknowledge my past without letting it define me.
I've read and re-read this article at least 100 times now. As my own worst critic, there's a lot I've written, erased, rewritten, and edited. The fear of publishing these words for whomever to read is terrifying. A lot of what I've shared in here I've never even told my parents or some of my closest friends.
But if I'm going to share my story of anxiety and depression then I've got to share the why and the how of my mental illness's origins. To some my experience is a "lower case t-trauma" meaning not all that bad. However, pain is completely relative. My experience is my experience and the heartbreak and emotions that sprang from that experience are very real.
That's what I want you to take away from this excerpt of my life. Your pain is just as valid as anyone else's pain. The scars that are imprinted on your heart and mind can't be judged because someone else's scars are "bigger" or "deeper." Whatever it is that you went through, are going through, or will go through is your truth. And there can be no shame where there is honesty with grace.
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