I Hear You, I See You, I Believe You, and Me Too.

I’ve been suffocating lately. The news. Kavanaugh, Cosby, Catholic priests. Me Too, Time’s Up, Speak Out. So much conflict. So much animosity. So much violence. So, so much ignorance. It’s taken me a long time to muster the emotional strength to sit down and write this post. There’s nothing comfortable about acknowledging one’s pain, much less sharing it. My hope is that maybe – just maybe – someone out there needs to hear what I have to say.

First, this. “Why didn’t she say anything when it happened?” I’m glad you asked. It took me years to verbalize the things that happened to me. When I was very young, I believed him when he said the boogeyman would get me if I told anyone. I was small, the boogeyman seemed very real, and I didn’t have the words to explain what had happened anyway. When I was a little older I heard, “No one would believe you anyway, you bad girl,” which seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Who would believe me? I was just a nasty, dirty thing, and nothing I had to say was worth paying any mind. Years later, he laughed at me. He attacked me, made me bleed, held me down, took what he wanted, then laughed. Have you ever felt humiliated? Have you ever been so shockingly betrayed and violated that your very sense of self shatters? And do you know what happens when you report a crime? Endless questions. Retelling your story over and over and over. Suspicion. Accusations. Judgment. Blaming. “Why were you there? What were you wearing? Did you lead him on? Was it a misunderstanding? Did you send mixed signals?” It’s very difficult to stand up for yourself when your emotional legs have been broken to pieces.

Next, this winner. “Boys will be boys, and shouldn’t be punished for things they did when they were young and stupid.” I have sons. They do boneheaded things sometimes. They forget to do their homework. They neglect their chores. One even stole a pack of gum once… and, guilt-ridden, returned it to the store. There is a very big difference between youthful indiscretion and criminal assault. So maybe a college kid gets drunk, as college kids do from time to time. He’s at a party, he’s into a girl, she flirts with him a little, things get heated, she tries to pull away, and he thinks, “Hell, she was into it a minute ago and I’m all primed to go, so we’re doing this.” She may have been drunk too, so she didn’t really know what she wanted, right? He does his thing, buckles his pants, moves on with his evening. He graduates. He goes to law school. He gets married to a nice girl and has a couple freckled babies. It’s entirely possible he never again thinks about that girl at that party all those years ago. But guess what. The girl at the party didn’t forget. She thinks about it all the time. She blames herself, of course. “I never should have gone to that party. I shouldn’t have flirted with him. I shouldn’t have had so much to drink.” Maybe she graduates, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she turns to more alcohol to dull her senses and help her forget. Maybe she starts sleeping with all the men she can find, since she feels so used and filthy anyway. Maybe she finds a nice man to marry, but they struggle because every night, in bed, she flashes back to that party, that moment where everything she understood about love got turned upside down. The point is, she doesn’t get to pretend it didn’t happen. There’s no statute of limitations on accountability. She deserves justice, and it’s better late than never.

Here’s another loaded indictment. “Women make false accusations all the time, and ruin men’s lives out of spite.” First of all, it’s important to note that this does, very occasionally, happen. There are people out there who will take advantage of the sensitivity of this issue and manipulate it for their own gain. The problem is that this tiny minority pollutes the entire pool of actual survivors. If you have a gallon of clear water and add two drops of blue food coloring, you’ve turned the whole gallon blue. It’s grossly unfair. Revisiting my previous point about why survivors are often reluctant to come forward, this is a big one. I do not want to subject myself to the complete character assassination that often comes with a public accusation. Andrea Constand, who was raped by Bill Cosby, was ripped apart by the media for her hair, her clothes, the way she spoke, and what she “stood to gain” by coming forward. For a lot of us, the cruelty and criticism is just too much to take. It’s horribly unjust to penalize the honest for the lies of the greedy.

Finally, the one that continues to grip my heart every day. “She should just get over it and move on.” Sexual abuse – whether it’s molestation, incest, rape, groping, voyeurism, or any number of other manifestations – changes its victims. Trauma causes profound psychological, emotional, and physical effects. Survivors are vulnerable to substance abuse, eating disorders, and self-harm, as those things help to numb the pain and amplify the shame. PTSD is a very real, very damaging condition. Much like combat veterans, abuse victims may have flashbacks, depression, anxiety, dissociation (the complete disconnect from reality), and crippling nightmares. Everyday things can trigger intense emotional and physical responses. Sounds, smells, textures, tastes become inextricably linked to the traumatic experience, and victims may maintain those associations for years or even decades. My trauma, which took place over a long period of time beginning when I was quite young, gave me a very complicated relationship with my body. In my child brain, I associated my body with the terrible things that happened to me, which led me to the conclusion that my body itself was bad, poisoned, disgusting, and needed to be punished. I’m still navigating the long and painful road of eating disorder recovery as a result. Sexual assault is not like a bee sting; you can’t just tend to it in the moment and wait for the pain to quickly fade away. If people could “just get over it,” we would, I promise you. No one wants to drag this around with them for a lifetime. We can heal, but we never forget.

To my friends who have lived through this suffering: I see you. I hear you. I believe you. If you want to share your story, I will listen. If you want a hug or a prayer, I will gladly offer both. If you are scared right now, or furious, or filled with shame, or just achingly, terribly sad, it’s okay. Me too.

The Dark Place

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: Despite what my carefully-manicured Facebook presence might suggest, I'm not even close to perfect. Ditto my children, my career, my marriage, even my dogs. We're all a big, beautiful mess. I have a feeling you'll be forgiving, as you may share that secret yourself.

I have another one for you. This one is harder to admit. I have Dark Places inside me. Sometimes they have names - shame, guilt, rage, fear, grief. Sometimes they're silent films replaying awful scenes. Sometimes they're just hollow silences. I don't like the Dark Places. I'm supposed to be happy! All the time! With everything! I do have an uncommonly blessed life, brimming with my aforementioned beautiful messes. I have an endless gratitude list. And I am grateful. What business do I have with Dark Places?

But here's the thing: the Dark Places exist in the midst of the bliss. The two aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, the more practiced I become at this life thing, the more I realize the two are symbiotic. Without the Dark Places, we couldn't possibly appreciate the bliss.

I haven't always had this sage Mother Willow outlook, however. In fact, for years (okay, decades) I fought to deny my Dark Places entirely. Anger? What anger? Grief? Don't be silly! I'm a wife and a mother and a teacher! I volunteer and go to church every Sunday! I bake cookies for my neighbors! I starve until my organs start to fail and I have to be hospitalized! Oh wait. That last one snuck up on me. It appears there's a cost to denying the Dark Places. In running from them - in denying the emotions and the trials and the unmet needs - I strangled my own humanity.

I don't know about you, but my Dark Places refuse to be silenced. I can try to hide, try to distract with work or good deeds or nice clothes, try to bury my head in the sand, but still the dark seeps in. It pops up in my dreams. It shortens my temper. It fuels my eating disorder. The harder I push against it, the more aggressive it becomes. Sort of like those Chinese finger traps. Panic and yank, you're stuck. Slow and steady, though, and you're out.

Hm. That's a thought. Instead of denying the Dark Places, what would happen if we picked up lanterns, grabbed a pal, and explored them? "On my left, I see anxiety about health problems. Up ahead at three o'clock there's a memory of a man who took what wasn't his. Wow, it really is dark in here. I'm glad you're with me. Let's keep going." Just as I'd take a preschooler's hand and show her the harmlessness of her closet, I can open my own mind and see that its shadows are far scarier than what's actually there.

Here's the thing: I am who I am because of where I've been and where I choose to go from here. Those Dark Places? They've given me the gifts of resilience, empathy, endurance, compassion, and patience. I can visit my Dark Places from time to time. I can turn on Tori Amos and curl into a ball and tend to my 14-year old self. I can turn on Eminem and hurl ice at the concrete and curse the evils of the world. I can call my grandma and ask her to sing me a song. Then I can pick myself up, brush myself off, and head back into the light, stronger for the time I spent in the dark. I can roll down a grassy hill with my kids AND read Sylvia Plath. I can laugh at nothing with my husband AND remember things that hurt. I have light and darkness within me, as we all do, and my darkness only serves to make my light shine that much brighter.

Sometimes I'm still afraid of my Dark Places. The other day when I heard someone deride the #metoo movement as a witch hunt, I froze, retreated, pretended that it wasn't me, too. I hid from the dark. But it WAS me, too, and I don't need to be afraid anymore. I'm still here, a fallible, vulnerable human being, standing tall with my face to the sky. And I have hope.