The Center of the Earth

I’ll warn you now, this is not the type of post you’ll want to read if you’re triggered by trauma related topics, specifically, sexual trauma. If you choose to read this, know that it’s full of detailed revelations, not details of my experience. It only looks long but I assure you, it reads easily. That said, here we go…

Many of you are aware of the sexual assault that happened to me when I was 6 years old by a man 70 years my senior. We knew him, he was like the neighborhood grandpa, but that all changed one afternoon. For a very long time, even in this moment, I take some sort of responsibility for this happening. Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds, but is it really? I can argue with you all of my reasons but it won’t change your opinion or mine.

I went to therapy today after work and we have been scratching the surface of my sexual assault. It has been something I have wanted to talk about for a long time in therapy but whenever the subject comes about, I put on my avoidance pants and take a sharp turn toward Nopesville – population: me. It’s not deliberate but it happens every time. My therapist (thankfully) called me out on it today and said that next week we really need to start focusing on that. My request to her was to jerk me back on track when I pull the avoidance card. She laughed and reminded me that avoidance is one of the most significant symptoms of chronic PTSD.

Here’s where this blog gets sticky. Where I feel excessively vulnerable. Where I’m afraid to say what I’m about to say publicly. So why bring it up? Well, for one thing, I know that openly speaking about this means that I am ready for a change – as scary as it might be. For another, I know too many of my friends that are right here with me. I’m giving myself a voice but I’m giving them one too. Here’s your last chance to peace out.

Compliments make me very uncomfortable. Even if it doesn’t seem like it. I’m very good at looking a certain way on the surface but feeling another underneath it all. It’s hard, practically impossible, for me to just accept the compliment and move on. “Why would anyone say something nice about me? They must be just trying to be nice.” Those were the top two lines that ran through my racing mind whenever someone says something nice about me, especially my appearance. But I realized something much deeper today and it’s something so deep that I could only imagine it as being like the center of the Earth. Hard, on fire, nearly impenetrable. Impenetrable. What a disgusting word for such an awful blog topic.

I believe that my sexual trauma is the core of who I am, for the most part. The trauma responses I have to many things, my chronic PTSD, my feelings about myself and the self-sabotaging I’ve done, and the appearance that I’m trying to hide behind. Subconsciously, I believe that if I look a certain way I won’t be found attractive, which is a huge reason why I am so overweight. If I’m not found attractive then someone won’t desire me in the ways that I was desired when I was only 6 years old. “Don’t look pretty, don’t wear that, don’t maintain a healthy weight, don’t put yourself in a position that will draw attention to your looks…” All of those thoughts race through my mind about 10,000 times a day. Don’t get me wrong, this has nothing to do with someones size unless we’re talking about the fact that I subconsciously chose to look this way as a deterrent to attention. In my twisted mind, I figured if I was fat, nobody would want me and I would be safe.

I struggle with this because, just last week, I got my hair cut and colored. For two days leading up to the appointment, I thought maybe I shouldn’t go. “Don’t draw that kind of attention to yourself, Aubrey, you don’t want what happened to you before to happen to you. It’ll be your own fault…again.” I went anyway because the side of me that’s advocating for my best and healthiest self won the argument. “I deserve to feel good about myself. I deserve to go have some me time. I work really hard and I deserve to have something that nobody can take from me.” Off I went. I love how it turned out and, for the most part, my new do has been well received, but I didn’t do this for anyone else. I did it for me.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great when people notice and compliment but thinking about the internal struggles I have with compliments and self-image, I’d be okay if nobody said anything. At least then nobody would make me argue with myself about whether or not I should let that compliment sink in and feel good or if I should push it away and run from it. It’s always such an internal struggle. I’m so tired of arguing with myself about whether or not I should be allowed to feel good about me.

What I realized today is that if I’m told I’m beautiful it makes me vulnerable and scared. “If that person thinks I’m beautiful, is there a chance I’m going to be assaulted again???” I’m so fucked up. Only Aubrey can take a simple compliment and turn it into some sort of sick, delusional, statement. Full disclosure, I realize how emphatically dramatic I sound. I’m even rolling my eyes at myself. As I type this sentence I’m thinking, “Maybe you shouldn’t make this post” but now my mind is shifting into thinking, “…but what if someone else out there feels exactly the same way and they just need to know someone knows what this feels like and that they aren’t crazy, they’re just sad.”

So here it is, folks. I’m sure there will be more on this later, if I’m not too afraid to talk about it. My writing is therapeutic for me. I know I haven’t come back here since the twins left, but many of you know how things are going in my life since this blog typically gets posted to Facebook anyway. I’ll circle back later and talk about my new favorite thing to talk about – my kids! As always, your questions, comments, etc are always welcomed but if you’re going to be a dick then move along.

xo,

a

 

Bumps in the Night

The kids were at their visit with their bio mom. Mitch was asleep because he had to get up in a few hours to work the graveyard shift. I can’t begin to remember what I was watching on Hulu. It was 5:15 pm on Thursday night. I was supposed to have the night off from the crisis line but I eagerly picked up an extra shift at the last minute. The phone was on, charged, and ready to be answered.

*Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.*

“Hi, this is Aubrey.” It’s the answering service. “Hello. I have a caller named Bob* that didn’t want to give out his information and said he’d like to speak with an advocate.”

The answering service connects the caller to me and within the first 1.5 seconds, I froze. It’s my dad. I haven’t heard his voice since my wedding day on August 2, 2008. Irrational. Irate. Infuriated. Ranting. Raving. Screaming. Swearing. Spitting. And this is about the time during the call that things start to go black for me.

If you’ve ever been to “da club” or “clubbin” or seen raves on TV, then you’ll know what I mean when I say how jagged people look when they’re dancing under a strobe light. It’s a bunch of 1 second stills, then it goes dark, then there’s another 1 second of light but the picture is different and so on. Jerking. Jostling. Jumpy. That’s what this call was like in my mind.

He’s yelling about how pissed off he is. He’s so angry and talking so fast that I can barely make out what he’s saying until he says, “I’m just going to kill all of them or maybe myself!” He has been unstable my whole life, so I’ve heard this from him before, but does he really mean it this time? How do I know? What do I do? I know! I will get him to calm down. Deescilate the issue so we can talk this out. I’ve seen my mom do this with him. I’ve tried to do this with him. I’m experienced in trying to deescalate my dad’s temper. These are all coping mechanisms a small child should know nothing about, but I know it all too well.

Me: “Bob. Bob…Bob, I need you to listen to my voice, okay? Bob. I need you to listen to my voice so you can take a deep breath, okay? It’s okay for you to be angry right now but I need you to breathe for me right now, okay buddy?

Bob: “Fuck you, you dumb bitch! You don’t have a fucking clue, do you?

Me: “Bob, you will not speak to me like that. I am trying to help you, but you are not going to speak to me like that again.”

My voice is firm. He calms down. 

Me: “Bob, I need you to take a deep breath for me and tell me what your location is.”

Bob: “I’m at the convention center. I’m sitting on the bricks.”

Me: “Okay, now I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to tell me the truth. Do you have a weapon on you right now?”

Bob: (irate) “No, I don’t have a fucking weapon on me, I’m not going to hurt anybody!”

Me: “I’m going to call to have someone come pick you up. What are you wearing?”

Bob: “Nobody here takes me seriously, nobody is coming to pick me up! That’s why I’m just going to kill every one of these assholes!”

Me: “Bob, I’m sorry but I have to take these kinds of threats very seriously so I need to call someone to come get you. I have to hang up now.”

It took me 3 different transfers to get to the correct city 911 operator. When I get to the right gal she tells me they are very familiar with this guy. I give her the full details (many omitted for privacy reasons) and we hang up. I called my boss to let her know what transpired. She asks if I’m okay and I tell her I’m totally fine. We get off the phone. I go to the bedroom to check on Mitch since I’m sure I woke him up by accident.

He asks if I’m okay. I crumble. 

For a good 20 minutes I’m hyperventilating on the bed, in my chair, on my back porch, and back to my chair. My legs feel week. I can’t stop crying. I HATE THAT I’M CRYING. The strobe light of memory lane flashes glaringly in my mind. My dad, all 6 ft 1 of him, towering over us in the middle of the night as we all quiver in the bed we’re sharing – begging of him to leave us alone and let us all sleep. The room is as black as his eyes but his casted shadow and his foaming mouth burn through us with the heat of 1,000 suns. He says the most awful things to the 3 of us. He is scarier than the monsters in the horror films I grew up watching. He is THE monster.

Maybe you’ve guessed by now that the guy on the phone wasn’t my dad, but his voice sounded just like my dad’s. It’s like I heard a ghost and when that happened, when that ghost kicked in the door, busting the frame, like he had time and time again, I instantly traveled back in time. Panicked. Shocked. Disbelieving. Yet, there I was, on the phone, trying to hold it together to help this guy calm down enough to get a description of what he was wearing, whether or not he was armed, and where he was at so I could report to police in the area he’s in since I have no tracking information like a dispatch center would.

I was truly terrified tonight. More terrified than I can remember being in years. It was a full on PTSD flashback and it completely drained me. At times, I couldn’t figure out if I was standing on my back porch or if I was hiding under the covers from the monster that my dad was. Thank God Mitch was here. He did such a great job at soothing, helping me breathe, refocusing my attention on that stupid tree in the back yard that I could barely see because it was dark, but dammit, he was going to get me to focus on ANYTHING other than the trauma I was reliving.

He grabbed my work phone, he called my boss, and he told her I couldn’t finish my shift tonight. She was extremely understanding and I appreciate that. I have been a crisis line advocate for a year now and this was the first time a call triggered my PTSD. I should also mention that the man I spoke with tonight has called multiple times before, and I truly like the guy. He’s a good man with a hard life. I think part of my tears tonight weren’t because of him, but for him. My heart cries out for where he feels insufficiencies in his life. Regardless of what the outside world perceives to be true or not, he speaks his truth to me when we are on the phone and his rage is not unfounded – it just came out in a different way tonight. I feel sad for him. Sad because I think he’s lonely and sad because, in his mind, his world is so chaotic and scary.

I really don’t know what I would have done if Mitch wasn’t here. I’m so glad the kids were on their visit with their mom during the call, but when they got home…oh, how I hugged and loved on them like no other. Not just because it made me feel happy to do so, but because it’s important for kids to be hugged and kissed and doted on by parents (or parental figures) in their lives.

Mitch, just as in many other scenarios, you were, once again, my hero tonight. Thank you so much for all of your courageous and heartfelt work to try to understand what it’s like for me to live with PTSD. Thank you for loving me when I’m sure I’m hard to be loved. And to anyone else reading this – thank you for reading, for not judging, and for continuing to encourage me to share whatever it is that’s on my mind through the written word.

xo,

a