It Didn't Break Me: It Changed Me 43306y

IT DIDN’T BREAK ME It Changed Me

S. S. CUSTIS

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Published by AuthorHouse 10/09/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3027-3 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-7283-3025-9 (hc) ISBN: 978-1-7283-3026-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019915725

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Childhood Memories

Chapter 2 My Grandmother

Chapter 3 That Night

Chapter 4 Alive but Not Living

Chapter 5 I Wasn’t Dumb; I Was Desperate

Chapter 6 Tired of Pretending

Chapter 7 Not Even on Vacation!

Chapter 8 When God Showed Me Myself

Chapter 9 Fighting Fear

About The Author

CHAPTER 1

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

I grew up in a happy family where I knew without a doubt that I was loved. I had the normal experiences that come with childhood, both good and bad. I don’t know whether my parents struggled raising my sister, two brothers, and me. It wasn’t something our parents revealed. I just know I was mostly happy. I coming home from school and smelling the dinner my father was cooking for the family. My mom lucked out because he enjoyed cooking, and she did not. Don’t misunderstand—my mom could throw down in the kitchen, and there are some dishes, like her mac ’n’ cheese, that only she can cook for me. She was just happy having someone else cook. My brothers and my sister were athletic, but I was not. Marching band was as athletic as I got in those days, so I signed up to be the statistician for the football and basketball teams. Our neighborhood was largely composed of immediate and extended family . My aunt and cousins lived next door. My maternal grandmother lived directly across the street, with one of her sisters living on each side and her third sister on our side of the street, one house over. Just down the street were my mother’s in-laws, so I was surrounded by cousins my entire life. This also meant relatives were everywhere, so it was difficult to get away with anything. I didn’t necessarily try to get away with anything, but my brothers and sister got caught doing all sorts of things, like climbing out of the windows at night. My grandmother lived nearby with my uncle. He could outrun any child in our neighborhood and often challenged the boys in the neighborhood. He always won. His temperament swung from one extreme to the other; some days, he was relatively docile, but other days, something seemingly random would enrage him. Some of those occasions, however, later became hilarious stories my cousins and I told at family gatherings for years. My uncle worked for a neighbor who owned the neighborhood after-school hangout, keeping things in order and stocking the drink machines and store shelves. Additionally, he generally kept the kids from getting too rowdy and kept them out of the grown folks’ business. He always carried a stick or something that could be used as a weapon. My uncle took particular exception to what he deemed as disrespect from children. Once at the pool hall, somebody’s child got

smart with him, and he became so enraged he accidently threw his false teeth into the open stove in the pool hall. He was scary when he was angry—but it made for great comic relief. On a separate occasion, my cousin, who lived next door, became the object of his wrath. Our home had recently caught fire and was being restored, so I was staying at my aunt’s house. (That’s what family does.) It was a normal afternoon, and we were sitting around because our parents were not home from work yet. We knew Grandmom was at her front window with her eyes on the whole neighborhood. My cousin was sitting on one of the kitchen barstools, talking on the phone to her friend, when my uncle walked in. Apparently, he had asked her earlier to do something for him, and she said she would but had not yet done so. So when he saw her on the phone, he said, “You need to stop talking on the phone so much.” Well, my cousin, with all the sassiness of a ten-year-old’s smart mouth, said to herself (but loud enough for him to hear), “I’m in my own house. I can talk on the phone if I want to.” I don’t know why she did that because he ran straight toward her with a mallet— his new weapon of choice. My cousin bolted from the side door of the house and ran as if her life were in every step. Seconds behind her was my uncle with his mallet. My cousin streaked across the street to Grandmom’s house and ran inside to hide. Running on anger and adrenaline, he practically tore the hinges off Grandmom’s door. Somehow, my cousin managed to hide briefly and then got back to Grandmom’s front door, with my uncle right behind her. Fortunately for her, something on that same door he’d almost pulled from its hinges grabbed his shirt and held him long enough to impede his progress. This enabled my cousin to slip behind the big tree in the front yard. In his rage-fueled haste, he ran right past her and never even saw her behind the tree. He assumed she had run back home, so that was his destination. That allowed her the opportunity to find a hideout in our hollowed-out house, which was under construction. By that point, this had become a scene for the neighborhood, and Grandmom came out to get everything and everyone under control until our parents returned home. That woman was a true saint but a very mischievous one at the same time. More on that little lady later.

School was as good as one could expect. I was shy and introverted but had a close circle of friends with whom I attended kindergarten through high school. Luckily for me, I found favor with the classroom bully, so I was never on the business end of her shenanigans. Back then, bullies would just pull hair, push you in the hallway, and laugh at your clothes. It wasn’t like this digital age, where bullying extends across various forms of social media, and bullies can hide and become emboldened by their anonymity. Even though I had close friends, I often spent a large amount of time in my room, reading, while most other neighborhood kids were outside playing. During the summer months, however, our instructions were to go outside and not come in until the streetlights came on, unless it was to get something to eat. We were pretty lucky to have the neighborhood pool hall just down the street, with all sorts of pinball machines and games. Also, less than half a mile away was a Little League baseball park, so we would ride our bikes there and play softball. (Well, I would watch.) Our own backyard was fairly big, so the neighborhood kids often gathered there to play softball, kickball, football, or any other game we could think of or make up. All things considered, we lived a relatively idealistic childhood. I an incident when I was about nine years old, and I had gone shopping with my mom. We were about to cross the street, and I, in all my youthful exuberance, had walked a few steps ahead of her. I stepped from the sidewalk into an empty parking spot and look around a parked car to see if it was safe to cross the street. While I was standing there, looking the other way, a car began maneuvering into the parking spot. I turned around and locked eyes with a Caucasian man. From sheer shock and fear, my feet would not move, but the car kept coming. This man looked right into my eyes and bumped his car into me, almost knocking me to the ground. My mother was outraged and began yelling at the man. He got out of his car and walked away, as if we were invisible. Indignant, my mother marched me to the police station and reported the incident, stating exactly where the gentleman’s car was located. The police officer looked at us with empty eyes and, without showing any empathy, told my mother I shouldn’t have been standing there. He said there was nothing he could do about it.

I did not understand how that was okay, but a couple of years later, it would all make sense. The beautiful thing about children is that they love unconditionally, unbegrudgingly, and purely. It is when jaded adults implant negative and often ugly and untruthful thoughts in their minds that their perceptions are altered. While my ethnicity should be of no consequence to my life story, to say it did not directly affect the adult I became would be categorically untrue. As a child, I obviously realized some of my friends had paler skin than I had, but this had no real significance to me—that is, not until one of my classmates provided an eyeopening revelation that I’ve never forgotten. We were having recess at school, and a few of the young girls were talking about a club to which they belonged, the activities they were involved in, and that it was so much fun. Intrigued by their laughter and excitement, I asked them to tell me more about the club. They began telling me more, but then one of my classmates interjected, “But you can’t because you’re black.” My little adolescent mind could not comprehend this information. I don’t the conversation that followed. It was like a movie scene in which everything seems out of focus while the actor seemingly recedes within himself or herself. What I do is that it felt negative and hurtful, although I was not sure why. In that moment and all that afternoon, I tried to understand what it meant. The only thing I knew for sure was it felt awful. I went home and cried while waiting for my mother to come home from work to explain this to me. Later, she patiently explained that some people might dislike me for no reason other than the color of my skin. She then explained that was probably why the police officer hadn’t cared to investigate my injuries. From that moment, I began to wonder if my blackness was some sort of curse. I didn’t understand it, but I had no option other than to accept it. I moved on through my life with this memory lingering in the back of my mind, altering my perceptions about being African American.

CHAPTER 2

MY GRANDMOTHER

My grandmother was the glue that held our family together. When things went south, just the thought of upsetting Grandmom would prevent this from happening … for most of us. As with most families, there were those who only thought of themselves and always played the martyr, when actually they were the ones who brought pain to her. I dealt with those family from a distance because I didn’t want to upset Grandmom, but it was very difficult for me to see the pain in her tears. At that time, I did not realize that holding on to hurts, disappointments, and grudges would stain my life and relationships. No matter what was said or done to hurt or offend Grandmom, she never held a grudge against anyone and always forgave, no matter what. She always would say, “Let it go. I’m not worrying about it. Let God take care of it. It’s all right.” I’d think, No, it’s not! I held onto all the grudges she would not. I had no sympathy for those people, no matter what happened to them. I thought they’d get their just desserts, not realizing at the time that it was not for me to determine. It was not until after Grandmom’s death that I realized how right she had it and how wrong and judgmental I had been for years. It would taint my relationships and friendships, even though I was completely unaware of it in the moment. Throughout my life, Grandmom would pray and call the names of her family, asking God to keep, save, and bless us. Invariably, whenever I talked to her, she would tell me she had been praying for me—mostly that I would find a husband to take care of me, bless her heart. Regardless, I saw how her prayers caused situations to change on our behalf. It was well known that if she wanted to get something done, she would do it herself or constantly remind one of us to do it until it got done. Even when I moved away, she would remind me weekly to check the oil in my car, and if I said I hadn’t done it yet, she would tell me to go check it while she waited on the phone. That’s just how she was; no one could say no to her, even if anyone had the audacity to think of trying. My first memories of Grandmom were of her making her famous “pancake cookies” for her grandchildren every morning before we went to school. She would call to make sure we were up for school and ask how many pancake

cookies we wanted. However many that was, she would have them for us we walked across the street to her house. We had to bring our own plates with us to make sure we didn’t take any of hers. We never understood her feelings about her about her dishes—if she let us borrow something, we had better bring it back, or we would never hear the end of it. Occasionally, she believed things that weren’t hers were hers, and we couldn’t convince her otherwise, so we just gave in. I particularly summers because we were not permitted to stay inside all day. Grandmom would wake us at daybreak and make us go into the fields to pick whatever fruit or vegetable was in season. I hated picking string beans because the baskets were so big, and the beans were so small, and it seemed to take forever to get them full. At the end of the morning, though, I liked that we got a little money for our work. I felt like I was a big girl. We were permitted to go to the corner store and get any treat we wanted. My grandmother was one of the funniest people I ever knew, but she had no idea how comical she was. She would say things that were so funny, and my cousin and I would laugh so hard. Grandmom would look at us like we were crazy and say, “Why y’all doin’ all that giggin’?” That would make us laugh even harder, which made her roll her eyes and fan her hand at us like we were getting on her nerves, which we probably were. My cousin always got Grandmom started on stories from her youth that would have us doubled over, laughing. She said so many things that we didn’t understand until we were adults. For example, she would always tease her son, our uncle, about having a girlfriend named Los Scaba. As children, we thought this was funny and would tease our uncle about his girlfriend named Los Scaba. I was an adult before I learned this woman’s name was not even close to what my grandmother called her. I laughed until my stomach hurt. Grandmom would also tell us that my uncle would have a fit whenever his “nation would rise.” We didn’t have a clue what that meant until adulthood, when we realized she meant his “nature.” How gross. Grandmom always fought on our behalf about anything, at least figuratively speaking. If we were in trouble, she would call whomever and constinually state her case, until they just gave in to whatever she wanted.

She always had a stash of cash that she kept locked in her closet, and every time we were about to leave, she would offer us money for gas. We would always tell her, “No, we’re fine,” but she would make us take it; if we didn’t, she would say we were blocking her blessing. When I was in college and would come home for the weekend, she would go through her cabinets and refrigerator to find anything she could to send back with me. It was always like grocery shopping in Grandmom’s cabinets. All of my friends who met her fell in love with her, and she became, by default, their grandmother as well. She fell in love with our pastor’s family, especially his youngest son. During the holidays, she would make her famous rice pudding. She would always ask which of her grandchildren liked it with raisins and who did not. She would make two pans of each, and we would share—except for our pastor’s youngest son; he got an entire pan to himself. She would say, “I love all my grandchil’en, but there is sumin’ ’bout him.” We all accepted the fact that there was just something about him, and so we always looked out for him—until he got married, and we ed him off to his wife. Grandmom would always take pleasure in embarrassing her children. Most of us grandchildren found her antics hilarious. She once asked my sister’s boyfriend if he was “pokin’ her” (having sex with her). They were embarrassed, but it was hilarious. She always said what came to her mind. She made it quite clear that a woman should have enough “booty” for a man to enjoy, even though her booty was as flat as a board. She had no problem telling me and my single cousins that when she was our age, she could have any man she wanted and that we were single because we didn’t know what we were doing. (Fair enough; clearly, we didn’t.) When I was in high school, she met a guy I was dating. He was a football player and had a fairly big frame, but he looked like the teenager he was. On that first meeting, my grandmother said, “Look at you with that great big efelant body and that little baby face.” (That is not a misspelling; that’s how she said elephant). If I put on a few extra pounds, she would say, “That’s right; that’s what a man wants—something he can hold on to.” She would call me over to her, to get a closer look. If I said no, she would shame me, saying, “Come over here and do as Grandma said.” I dutifully would shuffle over to her so she could pinch my booty and laugh at me.

She was in her eighties and had a boyfriend. I was in my forties and was struggling with relationships. She often told me and one of my cousins, “I can’t wait for you to find a man so you won’t be alone, without someone to take care of you.” She told me, “On your wedding day, I’m going to dance until my shoe heels come off.” Alas, I was not able to make that wish come true before she transitioned—and that haunted me for longer than I would have imagined. In her waning years, when she was sicker than she let on, she was still as ornery as could be. I thought she wasn’t eating much because she was just being her ornery self and didn’t like anyone’s cooking but her own. On one occasion, she said she wanted something to eat from the local diner, so we convinced her to go out with us. We loved spending time with her, no matter the occasion. Once she figured out what she wanted to eat and we ordered, she promptly began to complain that it was taking the server too long to bring her food. She then said that her sister’s children and grandchildren didn’t drag her sister all over the place, like we did with her. Clearly, she had chosen to forget that she had agreed to go out with us. The only thing to occupy her attention was playing with her one-year-old great-greatgreat-grandson. When his mother got pregnant with him when she was fifteen, we all thought it was a huge mistake, but he became an amazing blessing. In my grandmother’s waning years, this little boy was the joy of her life. She looked forward to seeing him daily, and when he’d gone home for the evening, she would claim she hadn’t seen him in days. She was so extra. We would tell her that he had left a few hours ago, and she would declare, “I haven’t seen that baby this week, and I wouldn’t tell no lie.” “Okay, Grandma, you are right,” is all we could say. After her transition, the same little boy would be my mom’s joy and comfort, the one thing that kept her going after my grandmother was gone. It is amazing how God works things out. Even when it seems like a dilemma, he turns it into a blessing. When the food arrived at the diner, she said, “Who brought this mess? I didn’t

ask for it.” “This is what you asked for,” I said. “I didn’t ask for anything. I just said I was hungry and the server just brought me the food. Since I didn’t ask for it, I’m not going to pay for it.” My niece said, “If you don’t pay for it, you’ll go to jail.” “Well, I’m going to jail,” Grandmom said, “’cause I’m not paying for it.” “The diner will make you wash dishes if you don’t pay for your dinner,” my niece said. “I’m not paying or washing dishes,” Grandmom insisted, “so someone had better pay for that food.” Never mind the fact that she had put forty dollars in her stockings to pay for her own food. We were laughing so hard at her antics that the server came over to ask if she was behaving, which we answered with an echo of no. As we were leaving, Grandmom asked who had paid for her meal. “I did,” I told her. “Well, bless your heart,” she said, “’cause I wasn’t going to pay for it.” At that moment, another patron was entering the diner and heard her. He saw the forty dollars, which now was down around her ankles, and he said to us, “She wouldn’t pay for her food, but she has a private stash in her stockings. That’s a damn shame.” We all saw the money and started laughing hysterically. Those memories would cause both joy and pain throughout the years

CHAPTER 3

THAT NIGHT

When I entered high school, I was as nervous and awkward as most teenagers, but I still had my close circle of friends with whom I shared most of my classes. Like most young girls, I was self-conscious about my looks and wished I was prettier, thinner, and smarter. Even so, I was no pushover and only followed when I chose to do so. I was stubborn and wouldn’t do anything unless I really wanted to do it. Often, in an attempt to provoke me, my friends would say I was a wimp or a punk or some such name, and I would smile and agree, saying, “Yep, I sure am,” and we’d laugh about it. As is often the case, during high school, first love blossomed—or what I believed was love. You know the story—boy meets girl; boy’s family moves to another state; and boy and girl are naïve enough to think they can make it work. That was when we thought love would conquer all—that was so adorable. Time went by, and boy went “ghost” and stopped answering his phone. I eventually learned from a third party that he had gotten married. It was a tough hit for a young woman experiencing what she thought was true love. This, my friends, is when the first sign that I was losing myself, began to appear. I was broken-hearted, embarrassed, and about to descend into a dark place within myself. I started drinking—a lot. I started partying—a lot. My closest friend had left from school for a semester, so I kept almost everything to myself. This was when I started building emotional walls that grew so high that if I cared for anyone, I was loath to show it. By this time, I was a senior in college and was consumed with going to class, getting ready for graduation, and—did I mention?—partying. During a party that my roommate and I threw at our off-campus apartment, with me as the bartender, a life-altering event occurred that would change me forever. We danced a lot and drank a lot and were having “good old college fun.” After a few hours, I felt I’d had a little too much to drink and decided to go to my room. I always locked my door because at parties, couples would try to find some place to make out. Unfortunately, that night I must have forgotten to lock my door. I heard voices in the distance, and I thought it was everyone out in the living

room, partying and being loud. A few minutes later, the conversation seemed louder, but I couldn’t make out what was being said or from where the conversation was coming. I opened my eyes and thought I saw someone in my room, but then he was gone. But he wasn’t. And I had blacked out from all the alcohol I had drunk that evening. Somewhere in a distant fog, inside my head, I heard a male voice say, “You’re next.” I opened my eyes and saw someone on top of me, but the alcohol slowed my reflexes, and I couldn’t get my arms to push him away. Then I realized that my arms were not moving because they were held down by two other guys. I thought, This must be a really bad dream because I know these guys. They’re my friends. I tried harder to move, but I couldn’t. I heard the door open again, and the light from the hall shone in, but whoever opened the door simply walked out. I must have blacked out again at some point because I wasn’t aware of anything else until I woke up the next morning, partially naked, lying half on and half off my bed. At this point, it became glaringly obvious that the previous evening’s episode had not been a bad dream at all; it had been a living nightmare. I got up, showered and threw up all the contents of my stomach. Later that morning, the phone rang. Whether out of fear or an attack of conscience, one of the guys called to apologize and explain. I simply hung up the phone without saying a single word, and we never spoke again. This was when I started disappearing, along the outer edges of my existence—sort of how a picture appears when it’s slightly out of focus. I began pushing my true self behind what would become a shell of my former self. I pretended it never happened, but it altered my entire life. I look back and wonder, “Is this when it began … when I started disappearing?” I did not report the incident because I was ashamed and thought I would not be taken seriously because I had been drinking, and they were my friends. As is often the case, women who are victims of assault are made to feel as though they must have done something to cause the horrible thing to happen to them. Either their skirts were too short, or they were promiscuous, or they just plain asked for

it. I can assure you, however, that no sane woman would sign up for a scenario in which she would willingly allow a man, or men, to sexually assault her. I started missing classes, or when I went to class, I retained nothing. I could not fathom disclosing the incident to anyone. At times, I experienced extreme anxiety, seemingly for no reason. I experienced extremely low times, when I would look at my wrists and consider whether I wanted to cut them open. During these times, I felt especially lonely, but I was not sure why? Decades later, when the #metoo movement arrived, women still were judged if they were raped or taken advantage of. However, this movement was the catalyst that brought me to the understanding of the root of my panic attacks and extreme anxiety. As graduation grew near, I realized I had failed one of my classes and would not be able to graduate. I told no one and avoided everyone. On graduation day, I simply told my mom that I hadn’t gotten an assignment in on time, and I would not be able to walk at graduation. It was kind of true, except it was more than one assignment; it was the entire class. I didn’t want to return to school, so I convinced my mom that I would complete the assignment and have my degree sent in the mail. I have never gone back to that place at any time for any reason. The very thought repulses me. It wasn’t until a few years later, when I moved to another city for a job, that I finally completed my degree, but I couldn’t tell anyone because then I’d have to explain everything else. At least I’d done it! I decided I would wait until I had earned my master’s; my mom could be proud of me then. Then when I got my master’s, I thought, I’ll wait until get my doctorate, and then she will really be proud of me.

CHAPTER 4

ALIVE BUT NOT LIVING

I was always told not to ever be in a position where I depended on anyone but myself. As I often do, I took this advice a bit too literally. I was only really in love once in my life, and in the beginning, I gave it everything I had—I just couldn’t help myself. It felt so wonderful to love someone and know he loved me back. Wow, this was an amazing experience. Our love waned, however, as love often does. I couldn’t it how much I truly wanted him, and he left. It was a love that I accepted was over, but I never forgot it. Even more hurtful was having to watch this person move on while I was still struggling to do so. Because it’s what people do, I went through life just existing —because the alternative was not an option. So life continued without me, and no one even noticed, not even me. I pretended it didn’t matter, but it broke my heart. There were moments of joy, and life seemed to be on the upswing. I convinced myself that I had a grasp on life and what would be would be. For a time, this worked, and I focused on work and getting my master’s degree because that kept me from thinking about how disappointing my life seemed. I was mistreated and ed over for a promotion but told myself, “It’s okay because it must be a part of God’s divine plan.” So I motored on, trying to be content with God’s plan while I watched others fall in love, marry, and have children, and I was still alone. Big mistake. Comparisons are viciously cruel. So on to the doctorate was my course. I focused on my family and tried to make sure they knew I loved them. I knew they did, and they loved me too, but I wanted the love that family and friends could not supply. It wasn’t even about physical love but an intimacy with someone I could love and trust, who would love and trust me—a relationship where I could just be silly and be the me that no one else really knew. Alas, when trust is tested, how could I get that back. I failed, the test failed, and my love didn’t love me back. I figured out that I wasn’t being fair to other men I had dated because I was comparing them to that one, forgetting the pain he’d caused. The memory often

glamorizes more of what was great and pushes the bad parts into the background. I compared everyone to what was great about that one, and they always failed in comparison. Things never seemed to work out, and I wondered what was wrong with me. Why couldn’t anyone truly love me? I was smart, funny, kind, loving, and attractive, but I was forever unlucky in love. There again, the fog around me started getting denser, and I didn’t realize I was disappearing even more. The worst part was that as time ed, many of the men I’d dated would tell me that I was “the one who got away.” This was very disconcerting because I felt that they had walked away, or they hadn’t taken the time to understand and appreciate me. On one occasion at work, when I heard that statement (or something similar) for the third time in two weeks, I became so enraged that I said to myself, “If one more person comes out of the woodwork and makes that statement, he will see the flip side of me and be eternally grateful that I did get away!” As my anger faded, I knew I was loveable. I knew I had so much love to give, but it never seemed to be enough. Feeling unloved is one of the most heartwrenching, debilitating feelings in the world. How dare the world go on and leave me unloved and unwanted? Why? What was it? How could I fix it? The mist became even thicker. Who was I? Did I even know? Did anyone know? Was I disappearing, or was I hiding from the world and all its obnoxious happiness?

CHAPTER 5

I WASN’T DUMB; I WAS DESPERATE

Contrary to a popular misconception, I wasn’t stupid. I was weak! I wanted so desperately to be loved that I ignored my inner intuition. I believed that if I could love this person enough, then he would love me back in the same way. I learned the hard way that this is rarely true. However we start a friendship, relationship, or any other kind of “ship” is generally how it ends. I spent years learning this painful yet valuable lesson. It was years before I realized how that night in college impacted my fear of showing the magnitude of what I felt. There were times he seemed overly focused on sex, and it frightened me because it reminded me of that night. I would back away and shut down. I was never able to explain this without reliving that night. In retrospect, however, I understood how it appeared that I was pulling away because of disinterest. It took years to understand how significantly communication Impacts all realms of a relationship. We would have periods of great times together and then periods of really bad times. But I found my memory softened the bad times and overly embellished the good times. Memories, on occasion, seem to either try to preserve you from the pain or only remind you of the pain. What a fickle mistress is the brain. Invariably, when I was all in, he was not, and when he was all in, I was dubious —to say the least. It was years of back and forth until it was finally over. I’d experienced so much pain, but I still was unable to walk away, even when I realized we likely were not the best choice for each other. God knew he had to make him walk away from me because I don’t know that I would have had the strength to make a clean break from him. I didn’t want to lose all the great times we had experienced, but I kept all the hurt compartmentalized in my mind. It always reminded me of the pain, sending with it the ever-mocking fear. It was paralyzing, reminding me I always had been and always would be second best. I couldn’t understand why it seemed I was so difficult to love. The thing that made the pain and fear so much more hurtful were my loved ones’ attempts to encourage me to recognize my own worth. Often, the problem was

that my perception of their attempts to inspire and incite me to make changes to better my situation, distorted their message from an uplifting one to one that made me feel downtrodden. So many times, I’ve heard people who have made it to the other side of their heartbreaks attempt to encourage those who are still in misery by telling them, “Stop being stupid!” To suggest that I was intellectually deficient because of my inability to bring my head and heart to one accord is not only unfair but also hurtful. I often think those who have managed to extricate themselves from bad situations forget the pain and suffering they endured, and somehow, they lose a bit of humanity.

CHAPTER 6

TIRED OF PRETENDING

Don’t show them how you really feel. Fake it till you make it. Put a dance on it. No! I was tired of all the platitudes that gave me no sustenance. They just turned me into a fake who was trying to pretend I was fine when I wasn’t. I would stand in front of people, smiling and putting on my best Oscar-winning performance, and then get in the car, crying and feeling broken. I cried all the way home and did not stop until I had to go back out in public and perform again. When I was unable to keep up the performance, I simply stayed away from the world in my blacked-out bedroom of solitude and anguish. No one ever explained to me how to get through the pain authentically. I grew up in the Pentecostal Church and often was urged to scream it out, shout it out, and dance it out, and then God would fix it. So I did, lest I be called a disobedient she-devil, witch-woman in the church. I would scream, yell, jump, and shout until my head hurt, and still I would go home broken, saddened further by the fact that the prescription for my particular situation didn’t seem to work. All I could do was wait. During a really dark time in my life, God moved in an extreme way on my behalf. During that time, I didn’t understand why it seemed that everything that could have gone wrong did just that. I was laid off from my job and was in two automobile accidents within six months. Over the next three years, I experienced crippling pain, overwhelming depression, and abject fear that this place in my life would bring me to complete disaster and failure. My mom, who had recently retired, left her home and spent almost four months helping me get back on my feet and taking me to doctor’s appointments and physical therapy sessions. This was a very difficult time for me because of my circumstances but even more so because I had to ask for help. This was something I was not fond of doing, nor did I have much experience with it. There was a market less than a quarter mile away, and I could walk there when I needed groceries. A convenience store was just on the corner when I wasn’t up for the walk to the market. It’s true that you find out who your true friends are when you are down and out;

the same can be said of family . Throughout my life, I’d had a handful of friends who knew me, at least to the extent that I would allow. During this difficult time, I was forced to deal with the heart-wrenching disappointment of people I had believed in turning against me. It was a very weird experience for me when a total stranger, who lived near me and had noticed my dilemma, befriended me, took me to appointments, and regularly checked on me. My pastor and his wife also checked on me and prayed for me to get through this period in my life. When I ran out of savings and had trouble paying my bills, they helped in that respect as well, even when my pride would not permit me to let anyone know the true state I was in. I promised I would pay them back when I could, and I made certain I did. That kindness would never be forgotten. Had I gone through only one or two of these situations, it would have seemed a minor annoyance, but the layoff, the accidents, the physical pain, and the emotional pain combined took me to an almost catatonic state. I thought I would not survive with my mental well-being intact. However, whenever anyone asked how I was, I said I was just fine. The only way I knew how to get through it was to pretend everything was okay, but this only served to deepen the depression and my constant uncertainty of how long I would have to fake it to make it. Then, one Sunday morning—I it like it was yesterday—during praise and worship, I told God how much I needed him to help me get through what I was going through and how tired I had become. In the middle of the song, I felt something in my spirit break, like a dam breaking under the pressure of a barrage of water. There was no visible sign; it happened so subtly that an onlooker would not have seen anything. In that moment, however, it seemed as if a three-thousand-pound weight had lifted from my body. I wept in gratitude that, somehow, things were turning around. Although I didn’t know when or how, I knew it with a certainty that I had never known in my life. Less than a week later, I received a call about a job I had applied for so many months earlier that I could not even recall submitting my résumé. I was amazed at how quickly God brought me out. I would recall that experience again and again throughout my life.

CHAPTER 7

NOT EVEN ON VACATION!

Years later, I was fortunate enough to take an amazing vacation. On the other side of the country, away from everything that reminded me of life’s disappointments, I took long walks on beautiful beaches and lay poolside for hours, enjoying the downtime and the peace it afforded. Or so I thought. I was awakened one night by an intense pain; it was almost unbearable. I sat on the side of the bed, gripping my stomach and my heart, trying with all I had not to cry out from the sheer magnitude of pain I felt. I thought, What is happening? From where did this intense pain originate and why? As I sat there, with the fog of sleep slowly ebbing away, I realized it had been a dream—more like a nightmare in my subconscious, an unprovoked assault on my heart. The remnants of the dream started rearing its evil self into to my conscious mind. Thankfully, I only ed bits and pieces of the dream. I shudder to imagine its impact if I had recalled everything. In the dream, I was sitting in church, feeling a sense of peace and joy, for no other reason than today was a good day. The point being, I was not sad and had nothing specific on my mind. As I was sitting there, the speaker, whose face never came into view, pointed to me and said something like, “If you can just let go of it and stop thinking about it, God can come in and fix it, and you can get over it.” I don’t the exact words, but the sentiment was to stop dwelling on the things I needed God to change. In the dream, I thought, Now what is he talking about? My job, my personal life, my uncertainty about my purpose? What? Next, I was walking toward the ladies’ room. While in the stall, I heard a few young ladies chatting about the men in their lives, both good and bad. As I made my way back to my seat, it appeared the church had become a much larger venue, and there was an enormous crowd through which I had to maneuver. As I began this trek, I looked up at the Jumbotrons to see who was on stage. I didn’t hear what was happening, but I saw a group of people with instruments, so I assumed it was a concert of some sort. I didn’t recognize anyone in particular—and then I did!

It was bizarre that I then saw them, the men who had hurt me. Then, almost instantly, I saw him—the one person I truly loved. It was if someone had gone to great lengths to design a montage. I kept seeing their faces at various stages of our college days, alternating with pictures that seemed designed to provoke pain. This was when the pain began, first as a prick of pain, but it grew as a different picture in the montage came into view. Then, almost without detection, it morphed into an overwhelming anguish. It was at this point in the dream that I tried unsuccessfully to fight back tears that were fighting just as hard to burst from my eyes with all the fury my heart felt. This was the point at which I awoke, dazed and confused as to why I felt such an overpowering sense of sadness. Even though I was thousands of miles away on vacation—as far removed as I could be from anything or anyone to remind me of home—I was still suffering from the ache I had securely packed away from conscious thought. On an island, where my biggest concern was if the weather would allow for beach time, with only the sounds of the ocean in the background, the past viciously invaded. But why? I have no control over what thoughts enter my subconsciousness, but I’ve made a conscious effort to immediately push them away whenever they attempt to creep into my mind. Why would people assume I want to harbor those thoughts, which are obviously so painful? I had asked God countless times to please remove these hurts from my heart and my mind, seemingly to no avail. Then I began to wonder if the pain was visible on my face or in my posture. It couldn’t be! I had worked tirelessly to get past it, over it, and through it. So again, I start to disappear, both figuratively and literally, to avoid people and pain. My efforts to avoid pain were futile. There were moments where it subsided, but then, without provocation, it would return. I would look for selfaffirming quotes to encourage me, and often, I would get the same message to just get over it. I’d think, All I have to do is get over it? Really? I had no idea. That’s all I have to do! No one ever told me, however, how I was supposed to do get over it. I know I’m sarcastic, and sometimes my mouth is a little too slick, but just how do I get over it? I wanted to scream, “That’s exactly what I have been trying to do here—get over it!” I kept asking God to help me and show me how to get over it. So I continued to distance myself to the outer edges of life.

How was it possible that hurts that occurred years and even decades earlier were still impacting my existence? I was unaware of the #metoo movement until sometime later. I experienced enormous fury when I’d hear people say things like, “Why is she bringing it up now?”; “Why didn’t she report it when it happened?”; or “Women are just piling on to get attention.” I would never engage in the conversation, however, because of my own experience and fear that my fury would bring to light that awful experience, and then I’d no longer be able to hide it. I thought, If you have never been assaulted, you have no right to judge, nor should you insinuate yourself into the conversation. Yet it somehow freed me to be honest with myself about that night and its impact on my adult life and relationships.

CHAPTER 8

WHEN GOD SHOWED ME MYSELF

If you ever pray for God to show you yourself, be prepared to listen, and he will do just that. After years and years of trying to figure out my life, I sincerely prayed for God to show me who I really was—and then I just waited. Strangely enough, I expected some sort of profound experience or extraordinary awakening that would hit as a bolt of lightning, but it didn’t happen that way. It occurred over a span of years. Little by little, I would be performing some innocuous task, and someone would say or do something that reminded me of something similar in my life. Often, someone would do something, and in my mind, I would question the person’s actions, only to a specific time when I’d done something similar. In those moments, I learned things about myself that I had never noticed or, in some cases, had never accepted about myself. One extremely enlightening revelation was how I would close myself off from people who had disappointed me. I’d deal with them from a distance but would always hold a grudge, all the while believing I possessed a supremely Christlike, forgiving spirit. I further learned that even when I allowed someone to get somewhat close to me, I always held back a large portion of my true self so that person never really knew what I felt or thought. Even when I believed my actions were sufficient to prove the intent of my heart, I began to understand how my inaction in some instances revealed a strong barricade that even the most agile would have difficulty getting through, around, or over. Painstakingly, I began to work on pulling down this blockade one brick at a time. During this time, I came to understand that even though I easily could navigate around innocuous topics, I could not communicate effectively on those things for which I felt deeply. I often thought I had expressed my feelings quite well and that others were unable to understand me. I rarely considered that I was not effectively communicating. When God showed me myself, however, I became fully aware that I’d been communicating in code and then had become annoyed when others could not decode my meaning. I began maneuvering my way through this too. Further, I learned I was effectively pushing people away from me, while under

the delusion that they were pulling away from me instead. Day by day, I became more of a recluse. It had gotten so bad that I would go straight upstairs to my bedroom to do homework or watch television until I took my nightly sleeping medication. The only person I spoke to regularly was my mother. It became a routine that I didn’t mind too much—until I realized that life was ing me by, and I’d have nothing to show for it. It was then that I realized I was trying hard not to care, while judging those who cared too much. I would often tell people they were trying too hard to please other people and weren’t being true to themselves. While I was trying to prove how much I didn’t care, I was hoping with all that was in me that they knew how much I did. It was a dichotomy that shocked even me. However, as God was showing me, I accepted that I was every bit the hypocrite I was accusing others of being. I acknowledge that I am a still a work in progress, and as long as I’m willing to it this, I’m being true to myself. Accepting that you have a problem is the first step, right?

CHAPTER 9

FIGHTING FEAR

Fear is paralyzing because it frightens us into immobility. It is also a lifetime fight because it is part of human frailties. Conversely, if we can find the strength and commitment, it can feed us and energize us to achieve greater things. Often, however, fear can cause a person to give up on the challenges of life and, on some occasions, give up on life itself. Because I had often felt I was never enough, I felt completely empty inside. There wasn’t anything that anyone could say to make me feel any different. Whenever someone complimented me, it sounded empty and felt disingenuous, not because they were but because I couldn’t make myself believe it was true. During these times, which occurred sporadically throughout my life, I’d feel an emptiness and sense of dread so deep that it would often give me pangs of anxiety. What confused me was that nothing different had happened; no one had said or done anything hurtful, but for some unknown reason, the heaviness would remain for weeks at a time. During these times, I would drink a glass of wine to settle my nerves and the anxiety. Then I began having a glass with my sleeping medication. While this dulled my senses temporarily, in the morning, the pain was still there, as spiteful and hateful as could be. The pain and pressure were so intense that I labored to breathe normally, and often, tears would pour from my eyes as though something dire had occurred, even though it had not. It was curious to me that these periods often came after I had experienced a moment of encouraging myself to not give up, no matter how low a blow life sent my way. I lay on my bed one weekend, watching the Wimbledon tennis championships, during a match between two of the all-time top tennis players. It was an exciting match; each player battled ferociously for each point. As the program went to a commercial break, a snippet of a song played before going to commercial. I immediately searched for the song to onto my phone. It epitomized the match between the two players as the singer sang that despite her struggles she would never give up or wave the, proverbial white flag. I just had to find that song and add it to my Girl Power and Working It Out

playlists. I was so encouraged that I put the words up in my workspace at the office. For days, I rode on this high and felt that I could conquer anything that came my way. Even when things came against me, I remained encouraged. I hadn’t worked out in months due to an illness, but I jumped on my treill and went to work. I was certain nothing could get me down—until a few weeks later, that vicious pain in my heart came back, seemingly from nowhere, taunting, always taunting me. These times often came with deep reflection, whereby I would sincerely look inward to determine who I really was. There was one realization that hit me hard. I had spent years asking God, “What is wrong with me? Am I so unlovable?” I begin to tally all the reasons I’d been told for why my relationships seemed to crash and burn. I usually followed these reasons with a severe and unflattering critique of everything I found wrong with myself. It was during these experiences that I would pray to God to show me myself so I could work on the areas in which I was not living to my greatest potential. When I finally started listening, there was so much I learned about myself. Most often, this would occur in the early morning when I was attempting to sleep or on some zero-dark-thirty in the morning flight. I am required to travel frequently for my job, typically at least once a week. During these trips, I would marvel at how awesomely and marvelously God created the world. I always wondered how anyone could question that something so amazing could be created by anyone other than an omnipotent God. I don’t care for heights; I find them scary, but I also have a fear of falling. My first memory of this fear was at an amusement park as a teenager, when I was on a school trip. It was my first experience on a roller coaster. I knew I didn’t want any part of it, but because everyone else was exclaiming how exciting and fun it would be, I convinced myself it would be fun. Never mind that in the back of my mind, I viewed this monstrosity as a death trap peddled as a thrilling adventure. We all ran excitedly toward the roller coaster to get our places in line. The closer to the ride we got, the more nervous I became at the thought of plummeting through the air on what was essentially a life-sized version of a Hot Wheels track. Still, no one tried to convince me to go. If they had, I think I would have

said no, simply on principle. As I’ve mentioned, I was the type to do something if I wanted, but no amount of teasing could make me if I didn’t want to do it. As we got closer to the front of the line, some of my friends were jostling to get into the front car, but I quickly located a car in the center, certain it would not be as frightening from that vantage point. I dragged one of my friends with me to help overcome the butterflies that seemed to be growing in both number and size in my stomach. With all the suspense of a horror film, the roller coaster slowly began to creak upward to the summit of the first drop. The sound of the wheels on the rails was not particularly soothing, but in retrospect, that wasn’t the purpose. Were they supposed to sound rickety, or was that just part of the experience? All I could think was, What is going to stop these wheels from shooting completely off the rails? Slowly, as the car continued to climb, the sound seemed to mock me, increasing my fear even more. We lingered at the summit for what seemed like an eternity but in reality was only a few seconds. My only thought was to focus on the death grip I had on the bar in front of me, praying it didn’t give way on me, while my friends were yelling and laughing in anticipation, with their hands in the air. Then, all of a sudden, the roller coaster plummeted down almost perpendicular to the earth, so fast that I thought my innards had found their way outside. Somewhere, halfway through the ride, I realized I was the only person screaming, while everyone else was laughing excitedly. I was quite the spectacle and the subject of many jokes that day, none of which bothered me more than the angry somersaults my stomach didn’t let me forget for several hours. I vowed to never ride a roller coaster again, and I never have. But this is to set the stage for that particularly treacherous day of travel. The plane shook ferociously and seemed intent on dropping out of the sky, yet I was unmoved. Typically, I’d experience a bit of fear, anxiety, and nausea. On this day—nothing. I watched grown men holding onto their armrests for dear life, possibly looking for comfort and acknowledgement that this was normal and nothing to fear. I felt nothing! No fear, no anxiety, no nausea, no nothing, as I looked around at the frightened engers. My only thought was, If the plane goes down, then it’s

my time, and I sent up a prayer to ensure I was heaven-ready. I was so frustrated and disappointed with life that it seemed the natural course; if it was my time, I must have accomplished all that I would. I had battled in relationships, lost, and came out bruised to the core, accepting the scars that would remain. My professional life was stagnant, with seemingly all roads pointing to dead ends. I’d enrolled in a doctoral degree program with no idea how I would pay for it. The rape had turned me into a shell of my former self— someone so unwilling to trust. I’d accepted that being alone was the natural course for my life. Feeling nothing at this point seemed normal. The turbulence on the flight continued until we finally landed—without incident. Upon landing, many of the engers commented on how rough the flight had been. I only nodded in agreement. As I sat in the airport lounge before my meeting, I thought about that flight. In that moment, I’d had no fear, but I realized I had been afraid of truly living my life for as long as I could . I had allowed disappointment and fear of failure to shackle me into immobility and inability to live my life to the fullest. Fear had stolen years of my life. This was an issue I had to rectify immediately. I was no longer afraid to love; I was no longer afraid of life! It had not broken me as I had thought, but it had changed me and I was committed to re-setting my thought processes and focus on being a better me because of all of the hardearned, well-learned lessons life had taught.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author spent years living with the shame of assault even as it effected every area of her life. Decades after the assault she learned how the assault effected her relationships. After years of hiding in the shadows, she began rebuilding herself, her mental health, and stopped hiding on the outskirts of life. She is now completing her doctoral studies in Strategic Leadership to help develop herself and better equip herself to reach and aid others who struggle to find themselves after dealing with trauma.