The stealing of innocence......
This is a part of my story that I don't get to talk about much anymore. Maybe because I've worked all the way through it to a place of healing or maybe because I've been saving it for writing it out here where there just may be more healing, It's a hard story to tell, but one that may help someone else out there going through something similar. That's what I believe Jesus does with stories like mine...He uses it for good...nothing is wasted in His view! I pray you might be blessed......
It happened when I was 5 years old. My mom had taken my sister and I to the same babysitters house that we had been to for a long time. Everything was normal except that the babysitter's father in law was there to visit....he would be the man I would soon refer to as "the old man" for the rest of my life. To this day I don't remember his face, just that he sat by the big picture window in a big recliner and that he changed me for the rest of my life. No one knew, which we found out later, that this old man in the big recliner had sexually abused his own daughter for years and that's what he did to me that day, I won't go into the details...that was talked about enough in my 6 or so years of counseling, but I will tell you this--it's amazing what the mind can do when experiences are just too much for a little girl of 5 to handle. I don't know to this day how long it went on but one day I remember I got brave and told my mom....I remember our pastor coming over....I remember my babysitter coming over....and that's about all I remember about it until 15 years later!
For real--15 years!! Fast forward to the summer between the freshman and sophomore years of college. I was a homebody and spent the summer like I usually did, either at work or at home. Those were the years of soap operas and I was watching one that day that had a story line of childhood sexual abuse and that was my first flash of a memory.-- I have to pause here and just tell you that looking back over my life I truly believe that it was God's mercy and timing that brought this out when I was ready and could handle really dealing with what had happened.-- The flashes bothered me so much that I finally asked my mom what happened because I had pieces, like blurps on a movie screen I couldn't make sense of, but it didn't make sense. My poor mom had no idea I had tucked it away in my brain because to my parents knowledge I had talked about it on and off until I was about 9. I think she was a bit stunned by my question but finally asked what I remembered. I said, "the babysitter's and an old man". She sat for awhile and finally said something like, "you were sexually abused by that man when you were 5 years old!" My eyes were slowly opening to why I was the way I was. The more it sank in the more I felt like I was spinning and couldn't stop. What I didn't realize was that the spinning had started when I was 5 and even though I had tucked away the memories I had continued spinning myself into a human cocoon to keep out any more pain.
It explained so much...why I was such an angry kid...why I didn't let people get too close...why I thought I could get through dealing with this new information by myself...BIG. FAT. WRONG. When a wound runs this deep you need the right people, mainly a counselor, to walk you through it. For the next 3 years of college I went to counseling every Tuesday until we had to switch it to Thursdays and God blessed me with great lady in my counselor and a great room mate who sat with me every Tuesday or Thursday on the nasty old love seat in our dorm room and just let me talk or cry and usually made me laugh. I needed to start learning how to let the little girl trapped in the cocoon make peace with the adult I was on the verge of being trapped in the same cocoon. For a long time the little girl in me battled with the grown up in me and it wasn't pretty....a very long road.
(Just so this doesn't get too long, I'm going to save the healing part for the next post. In all honesty--it isn't written yet. The words will come and with them maybe hope for someone out there who is hurting. Thank you for being on this journey with me....Simply put---God is good!) To be continued...... :)
It happened when I was 5 years old. My mom had taken my sister and I to the same babysitters house that we had been to for a long time. Everything was normal except that the babysitter's father in law was there to visit....he would be the man I would soon refer to as "the old man" for the rest of my life. To this day I don't remember his face, just that he sat by the big picture window in a big recliner and that he changed me for the rest of my life. No one knew, which we found out later, that this old man in the big recliner had sexually abused his own daughter for years and that's what he did to me that day, I won't go into the details...that was talked about enough in my 6 or so years of counseling, but I will tell you this--it's amazing what the mind can do when experiences are just too much for a little girl of 5 to handle. I don't know to this day how long it went on but one day I remember I got brave and told my mom....I remember our pastor coming over....I remember my babysitter coming over....and that's about all I remember about it until 15 years later!
For real--15 years!! Fast forward to the summer between the freshman and sophomore years of college. I was a homebody and spent the summer like I usually did, either at work or at home. Those were the years of soap operas and I was watching one that day that had a story line of childhood sexual abuse and that was my first flash of a memory.-- I have to pause here and just tell you that looking back over my life I truly believe that it was God's mercy and timing that brought this out when I was ready and could handle really dealing with what had happened.-- The flashes bothered me so much that I finally asked my mom what happened because I had pieces, like blurps on a movie screen I couldn't make sense of, but it didn't make sense. My poor mom had no idea I had tucked it away in my brain because to my parents knowledge I had talked about it on and off until I was about 9. I think she was a bit stunned by my question but finally asked what I remembered. I said, "the babysitter's and an old man". She sat for awhile and finally said something like, "you were sexually abused by that man when you were 5 years old!" My eyes were slowly opening to why I was the way I was. The more it sank in the more I felt like I was spinning and couldn't stop. What I didn't realize was that the spinning had started when I was 5 and even though I had tucked away the memories I had continued spinning myself into a human cocoon to keep out any more pain.
It explained so much...why I was such an angry kid...why I didn't let people get too close...why I thought I could get through dealing with this new information by myself...BIG. FAT. WRONG. When a wound runs this deep you need the right people, mainly a counselor, to walk you through it. For the next 3 years of college I went to counseling every Tuesday until we had to switch it to Thursdays and God blessed me with great lady in my counselor and a great room mate who sat with me every Tuesday or Thursday on the nasty old love seat in our dorm room and just let me talk or cry and usually made me laugh. I needed to start learning how to let the little girl trapped in the cocoon make peace with the adult I was on the verge of being trapped in the same cocoon. For a long time the little girl in me battled with the grown up in me and it wasn't pretty....a very long road.
(Just so this doesn't get too long, I'm going to save the healing part for the next post. In all honesty--it isn't written yet. The words will come and with them maybe hope for someone out there who is hurting. Thank you for being on this journey with me....Simply put---God is good!) To be continued...... :)
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