A Survivor of Abuse: Remembering

Years ago there was a commercial for a fast food restaurant that supposedly had such a good deal a person was willing to break open an adorable piggy bank just to get that food. There was a moment when the little piggy was hiding in a closet and the shadow of it's owner would come through the wooden slats, a hammer in hand, ready to destroy the precious little being in order to obtain some sort of wealth inside.

I hated that commercial.

Why did I hate that commercial?

As I look back over my life there have been obvious clues that there was something deep within the recesses of my mind I was so afraid of letting out. Of course it's so much easier to look back and see the pattern unfolding, than to try and make sense of it as it's happening.

About five years ago I was coming to a crossroads. Things were simply not right with me. Though my depression was a bit more under control, I felt more attacked mentally, emotionally and spiritually than ever before. I knew I need help, but not the usual doctor/counselor/therapist/medication sort of help. Everything in my mind kept screaming at me that I was nothing. Yet this didn't make sense because all I had been taught in church said I was of so much value.

A few months previous my parents had been introduced to energy work. This wasn't my own first experience with it as I had been using it to get rid of many of my allergies through NAET. What my mom and dad had found, however, was a whole different line of energy work. My mom had offered more than once to introduce me to Sue, and had offered to pay for my first visit as well. One afternoon I was so desperate for the inner voices to go away I finally called my mom and asked her to make me an appointment.

It was awesome. It was difficult. I felt like a little child in her hands, something delicate and afraid and hopeful and trusting. Near the end of our second session she was deeply concerned that I had so many doubts of being worthy of happiness. She could sense that deep down I absolutely did not believe I deserved a happy life. In another session she stopped me once and said, "What happened when you were three?" I thought this particularly odd because only two years before my NAET doctor had asked me the same thing when realizing there was something that happened to me at the age of three that was keeping me from healing. 

"We moved to a new house," I told her. 

"Did you ever suffer any abuse?" she asked.

I answered with full confidence, "No." She sat there and stared at me, a subtle notion of I'm so sorry for what you're about to go through on her face.

Two different people asking me the same thing. What happened when I was three? I had no memory of anything bad happening. We had moved to a new house close to where I live now. We were there until I was about eight and we moved again. My best friend lived across the street, and my older brother's best friend lived two houses down (I always thought of him as my boyfriend).

One night as I had been pondering on so much I was in bed and a thought came out of absolutely nowhere. "I wonder if the reason I can't lay on my back is because he was so heavy." I've never been able to lay down on my back. I would get dizzy and disoriented and unable to breathe. I always thought it had to do with a nerve in my back that would somehow pinch. Not anymore.

I began to sob, gut wrenching, soul crushing sobs. I was afraid of waking up my husband so I went into our living room. I sat on the floor in front of our couch and pressed my face into the cushion to muffle the crying. 

I had to be making this up.

No way could this be real.

How could I have forgotten?????

After an hour I went to Facebook and not so subtly asked if it was possible to have forgotten something so horrible for so many years. The answers were a resounding YES! Many brave women came forward and told me they too had repressed those memories. I was grateful for their courage, but I hated the truth forced on me.

Still I didn't believe. The next morning was Sunday. The moment I saw my bishop and my husband I asked for a priesthood blessing. We went into the bishop's office where he asked what was going on. I told them, so afraid to look my spouse in the eyes. What if he didn't believe me? 

They placed their hands on my head and gave me a blessing from my Heavenly Father. I immediately felt peace, and was told in no uncertain terms that it was real, and it was time to start healing.

I have no doubt there is a time for everything, and in that moment I knew my body and my mind were ready to begin dealing with the horrors forced on me when I was too weak to fight back. That was when I realized why I hated that fast food commercial so much. For too long I was the little piggy bank, hiding in the closet, terrified of the shadow outside the door just waiting to take my wealth.