On letting scars stay

The past 2 days have included some really unpleasant emotions for me. I saw a video online of a boy at a poetry slam expressing the effects of his rapist being suggested as a Facebook friend for him. He was completely eloquent. As much as I try to give a voice to victims, it is such a rescue for me when I am able to listen to someone else be a voice for me. I "shared" the video with a caption of my own explaining that some of my Facebook friends are Facebook friends with my attacker or members of his family. The moment made me feel strong. I had a platform of activism and exposure to the issue after being given the resource of this guy's words. It felt good...and then it didn't.

Within a couple hours of watching the video and sharing it on my wall with my caption, I began to feel the darkness of my trauma come back. I felt the sludgy filth start to stain my insides again. I recognized what I felt and tried to put it in the lock box I have crafted for this type of trauma, and then I forced my mind to concentrate on other things. The sludge stayed though. It was content to stay in the background of my thoughts as it laid in wait for the first moment that my mind was not distracted by other things.

It crept forward a couple steps today, but I didn't recognize it. It disguised itself as the stress I'm feeling over our impending move. The disguise was only partly effective though. As I sat today telling a friend about some really wonderful things that are happening in my life, I found that a weird angry passion had entered uninvited into my contributions to the conversation. "Why am I so angry?...I sound so angry...what is this?" I thought. Even with this internal questioning of myself, the sludge's sloppy ruse was sufficient to distract my attention from it.

It crept forward another couple of steps while I was at the grocery store. I forgot to eat until late afternoon, so I was "hangry" by the time I got to the store with my husband and another friend. I wanted a cupcake. I had even picked out the cupcake that I wanted (because that specific cupcake was going to taste noticeably better than the other ones on the ceramic tray). The girl working the bakery was taking her sweet (see what I did there? "sweet") time filling out an order form with a lady ordering a cake for the birthday party of the child standing next to her. I walked across the aisle to where my husband was standing at the deli sandwich line. I ordered my food and then made excuses to Dan for my short temper by explaining that I was just so hungry. He made a teasing comment to me. I snapped at him and said a bad word to him that he did not deserve to hear. I began to feel frustrated that I was so on edge and apologized to him nearly immediately, but the feeling of something being present that wasn't invited was starting to register. Still the sludge had not totally revealed itself until later in the evening.

My husband is a very, very tender person. He is so attentive to me. Sometimes to the point of being embarrassing to me to be treated as someone so valuable. This evening he made a tender gesture towards me, and the sludge came charging forward to the front of my being. I literally physically pushed Dan away. I didn't shove him. I moved his hand away. He was offering me love and tenderness, and I rejected all of it and walked out of the room. He had done something completely sweet, but it triggered a memory. Something about it reminded me of a different time. The moment the sludge had been waiting for came. It swallowed up the tenderness my husband was offering to me and replaced it with the memories of times that I had been stolen from. I felt the infection of it poisoning our evening together, and I felt totally helpless and really frustrated. I asked myself and I asked Dan out loud when the day would come that these things wouldn't haunt me anymore. Neither of us were able to find an answer so we spent a couple hours in different rooms.

After our sabbatical from the presence of the other, he stepped into the doorway of our bedroom and, with the same careful tenderness that he always employs asked the same careful question that he has used every time this sludge has stolen a moment from us - and there have been so many. "Do you want to talk about what happened tonight?" I am ashamed to admit that my first impulse was to continue to "protect" myself from letting someone get close to my heart and to tell him "no", but I felt my head nod in a "yes". I asked him to turn on the light so he did and then laid down on his belly next to me on the bed. Then he just looked at me...and waited.

I began to talk through how I haven't been as vigilant about continuing my healing process over the last few weeks. If you pay close attention to my blog (so...my mom), you may have noticed that there have not been as many posts during that span. (again, this is probably only my mom) I am so thankful that people have found some of my words here to be helpful, but the primary purpose of this blog is, in fact, my own catharsis. When I don't actively pursue that healing, not only does the healing not happen, but the muscles of what is left of my spirit begin to atrophy a bit.

As I was talking, the light of sense shone through to my brain. I was ready to admit something that had been fighting its own way to the front of my brain in a battle against the sludge. This is permanent. These scars and amputations of my soul are permanent, and to pretend they are not does nothing but make me look like the emperor with his "fake" adornments. Cloaking myself in the denial that there are parts of me that have been severed and stolen only leaves my spirit vulnerable in a way that is not productive.

That is a hard thing to accept. I have fought that admittance since the first experience I had with being forced to do something to which I did not consent or being treated as an object. I waged my war against this realization even more furiously each time a new event would occur. I have spent more than 10 years of my life training my brain and soul to believe that, if I fought hard enough, I could gain back the things that were irretrievably broken or that I could make the scars from the darts and knife marks of acts of hateful people just disappear. That's just not how it works, so it is no wonder that I have spent so much time confused.

They are permanent. I have to accept that, and on this day, I choose to. There are now parts of me that are gone forever, and there are now scars that I will carry on my spiritual skin for the rest of my days. So what will I do about that?

The first thing I'm going to do is stop looking around for the things that are gone. I cannot regenerate or resurrect the things that have died or been cut away. Then I will be even more vigilant about strengthening the parts of me that are left. I have found myself to be able to compensate in ways that make life more beautiful than it would have been if I had never been altered. I have come to be aware of what strength in those parts actually feels like. I know now how to train those parts of myself, so I will not let myself forget that attention needs to be given to that. I will also celebrate victories. I have admonished others to celebrate victories amidst their struggles. I will allow myself to do the same. I will also give love, and I will accept love.

My journey has been really circuitous and really bumpy, but I have learned some things along this path of mine. I have learned that doing the things I listed above will result in the ugly voice of the sludge being quieted. So, sludge, go back from whence you came. You're not welcome here. I hope you've enjoyed your stay, but it's time you found the door.