When you look at a world that is nothing but darkness, life seems to boil down to one question. You either choose to leave this world, or your choose to look right into the heart of the darkness.
All stories are shared with permission from the subject and identifying information as been removed for privacy.
She’ll tell you right up front. Her childhood was nothing but traumatic.
Looking back at her childhood, all she remembers was her parents having an extremely volatile relationship. Her parents married at 17. She couldn’t tell you anything about her father, but can tell you about her mother’s struggle with Alcoholism. In fact, she was more or less supported by her three older brothers, all of whom were under 18 years old.
Her earliest memories are of her parents separating. It was the night that changed everything.
“I remember my dad saying he wanted take the boys [for adoption], he didn’t want me”.
That night, she and her mom moved into a motel room with a man she had never seen before. “Mack” was her Mom’s new boyfriend, that had shown up on the night that her parents separated.
That night. She was sexually assaulted.
Young children without the strength to fight back or run will often freeze in place during sexual assault. An automatic reaction that will haunt them as they progress through life.
“I was just frozen – I couldn’t move”
Lying in bed, confused, broken, and alone, she cried as she overheard her Mom having sex with her assailant in the room next door. In her mind, the people that could help her the most, were her brothers.
So she ran.
Being to little to reach the door lock, she slid a chair over to unlock the motel door. She ran directionless in the hope that she’d find her brothers where she found herself on the balcony. She perched herself on top of the humid rail, gazed through tear-filled eyes for direction, then fell.
A three story fall resulted in a three month coma.
The night, it wasn’t her mom that found her, it was the milkman out doing deliveries.
In Comatose, she clearly remembers the experience she had.
“I remember being in a completely white room. I remember seeing a person there that I recognized, but not from this life. He took me up and placed me on his lap when he told me something I will never forget:”
“You are going to go through terrible things in you’re life, but you’re going to for a reason.”
To the doctors astonishment, she awoke from comatose with a newly diagnosed condition of a Traumatic Brain Injury, as well as a scars to the body.
Her mom moved her out to California for a fresh start. However, the start was quickly interrupted when her assailant moved back in with her mother. In her recovery from her broken bones, she had no choice but to remain in his presence as he stole, had sex in front of her, and eventually, took all their money and fled.
She would be sexually abused three more times.
She ended up living with her grandparents as they were the only ones who could give her the attention that she needed as she recovered.
She eventually would gain the ability to walk and attend school, but would be heavily bullied as her three story fall rendered a different look than the other children. She was bullied over and over again, until she learned that if she assumed the identity of a boy, she could fight back.
“I remember how my brothers were tough, strong even, and no one bothered them”
As a child, she also learned that she wasn’t attracted to boys, like the other girls were.
“I learned that I was attracted to girls, and had crushes on my people in school, but could never tell anyone”
“I limped through school, but ended up serving a Mormon mission, as I felt that I could make other people happy. This taught me a lot, it taught me about healthy relationships, how to have fortitude in tough times.”
She enjoyed having the purpose of a mission, for once, it seemed like she had the answer she needed, despite all the traumas she had occurred. With a spiritual foundation, she had a something to fall back on. A safety net, if you will.
“I remember on my mission I learned how to feel. I could could feel alive, for the first time.”
The perpetual state of “numbness” is a common characteristic of PTSD.
“My whole entire life I stalled my emotions, and directed all that energy towards myself – I hated myself.”
She completed her mission with an open heart, but lacked a clear map on which direction to take next. She quickly fell into a state of depression, which was further complicated by drugs and alcohol.
“I knew I was running”
After years of running, brewing emotions, and rage, she started cutting and burning herself. If anything, she could feel the physical pain to release her locked emotions.
Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.
“On a Wednesday, I was going to take my life.”
“I went to church the week before thinking to myself that if God wanted me to live, there would be something to prove it. A women came up to me that afternoon, out of the blue, and asked if I needed a roommate.”
She can’t explain this phenomenon, but she feels strongly that this happened for a reason.
She found therapy to stop running.
“I had to deconstruct everything”
For years, she experienced the full spectrum of psychiatric phenomena.
- Psychosis
- Anorexia
- Bulletin
- Depression
- PTSD
- Anxiety
As she unpacked her life story, she realized that the root of her pain came from her mother.
“She sexually abused me, up til the age of 22, but I just wanted to please her. I wanted her to love me” She was never able to make this happen. We would later find out her mother struggled with Borderline Personality Disorder, a diagnosis that complicates relationships.
She would learn through the healing process that she would have these dreams at exactly the time that she needed them. She had a dream of moving out, getting her own place, and starting a new career.
For lack of better words, she made this dream come true.
“I moved to next to the Jordan River LDS temple and got a job serving food to the people”
This experience changed her life.
“I met my trainer and knew that I had known her, but not from this life.” She said. “We had an instant connection, and we fell in love. And for the first time in my entire life, I was happy – blissful”.
But it wouldn’t last.
Her partner died of cancer.
“I fell in the deepest depression. I could never climb out of it.”
Healing happens through connection, and though Grief never truly goes away, it can evolve.
She found solace with a group of people who had similar experiences that she did. You can never truly heal from something until you look at it from a different lens. Her support group allowed her to do that.
For the first time, she feels like she can live a life.
“My story was given to me, because I know that I have learned so many things. I have saved people because of my story. I know this, because I know the dream I had in my coma so many years ago.”
She’ll tell you, there’s no such thing as “half-assed healing”.
“You either do it or you don’t, but if you don’t, that’s to you and the worlds detriment. Why be alive and barely survive? Why not thrive? You can do it. You MUST do it”
“There are people that want to listen to you.” She said.
“I want to listen to you”
All stories are shared with permission from the subject and identifying information as been removed for privacy.
thank you to @kinghornsurfko for hand modeling the video