I always write my best pieces in my head while driving in the car, on a walk, or in the shower. Never when I’m sitting in front of the computer. As soon as I open the word document, I freeze. And end up giving up.
But the other night, in the shower, I got that feeling. You know the one, deep in your belly. Not shame, but the opposite – that churning, exciting feeling of, Ohmygod. I need to write that. I need to write that NOW. So I am trying to write it. Even though it won’t be nearly as eloquent as what I wrote in the shower. Whatever. It’s better than nothing.
Two years ago I “outed” myself to my family, my loved ones, and the world, as a survivor of sexual trauma, and never looked back – I cut the cords that held me down, cleared away the spiderwebs, stood tall, and danced into the light, moving on with my life, free from what had held me in chains for years.
For the most part, I have lived the past two years without body memories, without flashbacks, without ruminating, without reliving it all, without obsessively analyzing it all, without self-blame, and without shame. It’s amazing what telling your story can do.
I haven’t felt a need to talk about it much. I don’t at all mind about talking about it. And I do talk about it when it’s helpful to others or when others have questions and want to share their own experiences. But there hasn’t been a time I’ve thought, OH. I need to also write that part.
Until that night in the shower.
For a long time, a very, very, very long time, I kept what happened to me as a kid, secret. Because of the circumstances of it, I didn’t even consider what it really was.
Here’s what I’m trying to say.
We are doing a better of job of moving away from “stranger danger”. We understand now that statistically, it’s actually rarely a stranger. We now don’t just tell our kids, “If someone in a dark ally tries to hurt you, run away.” We tell them, “Family members can’t touch you in ways that make you feel uncomfortable. Neither can coaches. Or priests.” And that is so good. And huge progress. Because now, people don’t always spend years and decades thinking, “Well, I wasn’t held at gunpoint by a stranger – so it couldn’t have been assault.” Huge.
We tell kids and teens about what can happen at a party. I know that it can be a stranger at party. It happened to me that way, four days before I went to college to begin my freshman year.
But I also know what most people don’t.
I know that it can also be a well-known and well-respected pediatrician.
And I know that pediatrician can be a female.
What I know, is that a well-known, well-respected, female pediatrician is going to be implicitly trusted by a family. Because, why wouldn’t she? What I know, especially now, is that it can seem messy with doctors. Because they are in that tiny category of people who CAN touch you in ways that make you feel uncomfortable. So what I know is, it’s easy to explain it away. To think, well, she’s allowed to do that. And also, she’s a woman. And it’s never a woman. So I need to just get over it.” But what I also know, what I really deep down in my soul know now, after years of hard work and putting all the pieces together and unpacking the memories: It can be a female. It can be a pediatrician. And it is actually NOT messy. Because if a pediatrician, if any doctor, does something that is not in line with what is medically necessary at that time, whether they explain it away or not, it is not okay. It is molestation. It is assault. It doesn’t matter that they’re a doctor. That is never an excuse.
And that’s what I was trying to say.
This past spring at work, I heard from a colleague about part of a new initiative to educate our (special education) students beyond “stranger danger”. While she was talking, she said something like, “They need to know: it can be coaches, it can be bosses, it can be doctors.” And my heart skipped a beat. YES! I wanted to scream. It can be doctors! Please, please, please tell them that!!! And please, PLEASE tell them that no matter what the media portrays and no matter what statistics trend towards, it CAN be a female. Please tell them that.
And that’s what needed to be written. Who knows why. It just did.
And that’s all.
I don’t have a clean and tidy ending.
No lesson, no wisdom, no ramblings.
Maybe I lost my touch for writing.
Or maybe real writing isn’t always tied up nice and neat with a bow. Maybe sometimes you just write the most important things and that’s enough.
