Ramblings of a Survivor

Over the last few months of beginning this blog, I have been privileged to have some of the most vulnerable honest conversations over texts with survivors, or those who support those survivors…and it’s caused me to ponder, and remember life changing moments where vulnerability was valued, respected, and encouraged. There haven’t been many of those moments outside of therapy, but there have been several that shifted my view of my recovery.

Recovery.

A word that is reserved for those with addiction – a life transformation that needs bravery, a lack of options or desperation – and an INSANE amount of work and self-instrospection.

Recovery. Unifying fragments.

Recovery….healing….conslidation.

The hem of her skirt brushed against mine. Tingles went up my spine. Not the good ones.

I’m not safe. No. No. I AM NOT safe.

A young girl, dressed in hand me down jeans and the expected red gingham shirt peeked around a corner.

Her cheek rested against the un-sanded, rough hewn column. She was barefoot, short and young, but stout with quite an ornery expression.

I snuck over to her, leaving my crossed legs and skirt behind.

“Shhhhhh…I’ve got this. It’s about disconnecting…just let me do this, ok?”

I’d known this girl since before I could remember, and boy, oh boy, was she a force to be reckoned with…I was glad I wasn’t her parent.

She grabbed my throat with a strength no child should have…no child COULD have.

‘Hey. hey. Hey. YOu’re gonna get me in trouble, we’re supposed to be in there following protocol, ok? Just shush. Just go back to the grain room, ok? I will get to you later, when i’ve got it all in control, ok?’ I sputtered.

I returned to my seat next to Sister Abbott, back to my skirt and crossed legs in their submissive, proper state.

I felt a tickle on the back of my neck, and adjusted…and glanced behind me, the hand hewn pillar gone, but her face inches from mine.

STOP IT! We are FINE. I’ll get you out of here, I promise!

My spine tingled. The hem of Sister Abbott’s garment again skimmed against the fabric of my skirt, sending electrifying fear through my body. I rotated my legs away from where she sat…

Where am I? Am I in Hungary? At the ranch? Where the heck am I? WHERE AM I?

“God is angry. God is ready to act. Are YOU? You have no choice! YOU ARE THE CHOSEN – FIGHT for the Kingdom! YOU ARE SOLDIERS IN THE ARMY OF GOD!”

Lynn squeaked out an “Amen” as he wrangled his two young boys who had taken to crawling around the room, untying any shoe they saw with laces…their wearers tentatively kicking them off with reserved gestures.

Why do I smell the sweet scent of alfalfa and grain mixed with the stench of my clothes? Why do I feel the sweatiness that had always been such a balm to me. Why do I feel an intense burning on my skin, not inside…outside. Why am I feeling a pitchfork between my hands – the crappy one that no one ever wanted with its bent spines that made the task of piling up the manure higher and higher so much more difficult? Why am I feeling and smelling and seeing Manure? Why can I only see a pile of manure???

We’d been like ants that day – Wasn’t lost on us that the disposal of the crap of 10 or so horses had to be hauled away. This was our task…move the manure pile…some days it was a relief…a place to hide from the tirades of leadership expecting white glove cleanliness of an “A-barn” from a hovel of haphazard stalls…other days it was punishment, a task so large the goal would never be achieved. “It doesn’t matter what you’re doing it for – God doesn’t give reasons! Move in faith! THIS IS GOD’S WORK!”

Sister Abbott looked around, her throat dry – she tried to clear it.

“Someone get me water.” THe sound of her dry tongue begging her body to produce saliva produced a forbidding sound: a slushy, sandpapery sensation whose sound felt like rubbing velvet backwards.

“You have been chosen. We have kept you safe and pure for THIS moment. THIS is your moment”

My hand scrawled across the paper: “You are the chosen ones…..”

I chuckled to myself. I’ve heard “This is the moment” all my life. What’s different now other than I can’t leave?

I AM A CHOSEN ONE. I AM THE HOPE OF AMERICA – OF THE WORLD….

Her crinkly confidence felt abrasive….

“BUT FIRST you must give yourself up.

FIRST you must lay your life on the altar.”

I shifted in my chair, glancing over to my aunt.

I don’t like her. I love her, but I don’t like her. I love her. She’s family – – she’s….she’s…she’s……..

The worst word I could conjure up filled in the blank I was trying to fill…

PERPOSTEROUS!

No, Melissa, get it right. Preposterous is so incredibly outdated….ok, let’s work through this…she’s rigid. Yes. She’s self-righteous. Yes. She’s controlling. Yes. she’s abusi— No. nope. the words before were fine. THOSE are better words…those words are already strong enough…I’ve been too truthful already.

Sister Abbott continueded with her sermon, her accent and cadence dripping with feigned royalty.

My uncle and I caught eyes. Maybe he would listen. Maybe Auntie would give us a moment. Maybe he could get me home….

Had to play my cards right.

How could I have not known? How could I have believed him. How could I have believed that he would hear me???

The little girl in the red gingham shirt postured herself in my direct site.

You aren’t real. I just have to get through this; you don’t understand all the complications. Just give me space. GO AWAY!!!!! I screamed.

She pulled a flower from the ground around her – clutching it close. “Don’t forget me, please. Just protect me, hear me, save me – SAVE US.”

I closed my eyes.

NO. NO. NO. I am fine. I am a fighter. NO one can touch me.

The little girl disappeared behind the trees, petals of the tulip she had held falling behind her.

Quietly she peeked out behind a tree of the transitory forest and in a still and eerily threatening voice she whispered: “I WILL be heard. Just you wait. I won’t stop fighting.”

I opened my eyes, and focused on my notebook…my hand nervously sketching. The bodies of humans I knew around me were breathing more heavily than seemed normal…I’d never noticed their breath before.

Then the sound of a voice, a little girl broke through. I thought I could hear it, a language that I thought I understood echoed in my brain:

“I won’t let you forget. I will MAKE you survive. I will FORCE you to survive.”

“You are me.”

“I am you.”

Words spilled around me. I could see the pitcher above my head: an invisible hand holding its handle, the sheen of it’s white glaze mesmerizing me…no…TAUNTING me. I could see what was coming, but it was coming so slowly. TOO slowly.

Pour it out!!!

The hand holding it tipped in the wrong direction – stopping the flow.

NO NO NO – There’s something there! It wants to come out!

The liquid in the pitcher sloshed against its sides, almost reaching the spout…a few drops of relief splashed across the crest of its lip, falling to my parched existence. A moment of respite hit, only to give way to intense longing. My body stiffened. I shifted in my bed, adjusting the covers as images pitchers and water and words flowed across me.

Just say them all! SAY IT ALL, SAY IT NOW!

The bed beneath me turned to stone.

STOP IT! JUST LISTEN.

NO. SAY IT.

The texture of the plastic chair beneath me juddered underneath my nails as I methodically ran my fingers over its textured surface; the silent conversation between its vibrations and my nervous system settling the anxiety that filled my body with the need to move. Tiny white traces of dead plastic – like the skin that rose from my elbows when I was alone in bed and had no fabric hindering my hands from finding solace in repetitive rubbing – the plastic gave me something to pick at, something that wasn’t my skin.

I wondered if one day I’d have picked off so much plastic that the chair would fall beneath me. I wondered if I’d ever be in the same chair so many times that I’d have removed enough of it that its structure would be so weak that the weight of my body would break the plastic that held it to the shiny chrome legs…I wondered if i’d be here all my life..

The woman in front of me squirmed – sitting up enough to adjust her skirt and blouse. Her tightly plaited hair flapping down across the back of her chair, almost hitting my legs.

A strong Welsh accent brought me back.

Turning my eyes to the altar, I refocused.

A middle age man stood, his right hand on his Bible which rested on a rather stout speaker’s podium. My eyes caught his – uncomfortably.

“When the Spirit of the Lord touches you…” he paused.

“When the Spirit of the Lord touches you….” He seemed to have lost his words.

“When the Spirit of the Lord touches you…”

Silence.

I had started sketching a palm tree. My eyes didn’t raise. The depth of discomfort from his stumbling gave me that tingly feeling in my toes…I started wishing words into his mouth….

“When the Spirit of the Lord touches you……….you are free!” I willed him to say.

Say it! “YOU ARE FREE”

SAY IT!!! COME ON!!! I willed it toward him.

Silence.

I forgot the palm tree in the top right corner of my notebook.

My eyes darted to the podium. What is happening?

I slowly turned my gaze to the altar. This charismatic speaker had the attention of all 350 of us. Brother and Sister Abbott, Elders, Group Leaders, spiritual leaders, followers….kids – we all were hanging on his next words.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But the Lord is leading me to say somethign to someone.”

Everyone glanced around. I looked around me, feeling the power of this moment.

Warwick – Brother Shenton – this visiting speaker from the Assemblies of God, UK was a force. He had something so charismatic, so real, so much what my faith wanted to BE.

He tapped his Bible, and glanced at Brother Abbott.

“Excuse me, Brother, but I’m feeling led to say something to someone who needs to hear it.”

He skipped the stairs and jumped down from the altar into the sea of chairs that the brothers had put out in the worship area after the song service had finished.

I looked over to my right at the “brothers” section then turned to the single women and the families who had arrived too late to claim a pew…with my mom and dad. My sister was sitting a few rows ahead of us, and I could see my brother Colin nestled between a really tall blond guy and his buddy Dez the only black member of our troupe.

Warwick made his way down the tiny aisle delineating the two groups. I turned my body to look at the scores of pews behind us. I wondered who he would approach. I scanned the congregation, but all eyes were on Brother Shenton.

Silence.

My body felt the anticipation. My heart beat fast.

This hadn’t happened ever that I could remember in my 12 years. He had just stopped a sermon because he had a message from the Lord!!!

As I started to turn my body back to the front of the Sanctuary, I froze.

He was standing in OUR row. Confident with a slight smile – or was it undertsanding? Standing. Still.

My eyes caught his.

A hush crept across the fellowship – a hush that is only as silent as the murmur of anticipation can be.

Suddenly a sound tore across the building – a roar that I was acutely aware was only heard by….ME.

He moved toward me, directly toward me.

I grabbed my notebook, a spiral bound notebook that I’d been writing in for months…one with hidden pictures on each of its covers…green foliage surrounding the image of a cat – mice hidden in its leaves, taunting its central figure. I’d loved it the minute I saw it; I’d asked for it as a Christmas gift. My fingers clenched.

Please not my dad. Please not my dad. I know we aren’t perfect, but we don’t need this.

PLEASE NOT MY DAD.

I bowed my head, begging God to choose someone else – not my dad.

The woman next to me scooted her legs to the right as she allowed Brother Shenton to pass. I started to move my legs to the left so he could do the same.

A hand touched my shoulder.

HIS HAND.

He had STOPPED MOVING.

My heart stopped. My body heat rose.

“This child. THIS CHILD has the gift of Gab. She has the gift of Gab.”

Chuckles arose around the church.

Echoes of AMEN…LOUD ones…

My neck felt like it was going to burst into flames, and the flames lit my skin on fire up to my scalp.

“You all know it – right?” He focused all the anticipatory energy that he had built among the crowd.

“Yes! You do! You know it! I don’t know this girl, never met her, but God is speaking, folks!”

I couldn’t even lift my eyes, let alone my head.

The cardboard cover of my notebook felt like paper. I was crushing it, bending it.

“And you all laugh. You all laugh because you don’t understand it. You don’t see that this is her gift from GOD.”

Silence fell.

“DO NOT mock her. Her ability to talk, will get others to talk. What you see as a foible is a GIFT. This girl will HEAL others with her words.”

His hand moved to my head. “I know you want to sink into the ground. I remember that feeling. I had that – I have that other than God’s Grace. Do NOT let others tell you to stop talking – and when they do tell you, which they will, and probably do: DO NOT STOP. You have the gift of gab – a gift that heals. Do NOT forget that. When you talk, when you share God’s message, you will help others talk, and THAT will heal people. Talking heals. You have the gift of gab – the gift of healing.”

His hand retreated. My mom put her hand on my leg. My dad shifted uncomfortably – the kind of discomfort that told me we would NEVER talk about this.

I saw Warwick’s feet take a few steps back. I couldn’t bring myself to sit up.

Not DAD?!?!?

NO! NOT ME!

“Ok, so back to my sermon. Sometimes God shakes things up a bit, eh?

The congregation erupted with laughter and agreement…

I didn’t hear a word more of that sermon:

“She has the gift of Gab. She has the gift of Healing. She will talk, and so others will talk. God has blessed her.”

The floor sank beneath me. I wanted to erase tonight, but I wanted to embalm it. I wanted to know it was true.

But I wanted it to not be true.

I turned my head, neck stiff.

Do I really have to get up?

The synthetic fibers of the sleeping bag crinkled loudly as I moved

Don’t wake anyone!

My toes touched the binding of the journal in it’s safety at the base of my sleeping bag.

CRAP! who heard that?

No on, Melissa. No one.

I shifted again.

Remember home. Remember. home.

6 AM

It’s…well, shoot. It’s only 10 pm there. Still time for a call.

Silence….but the clock ticking in the kitchen pounded.

Week 5, I think. Hadn’t heard from them in ages.

I want to die. Just let me die….no no no. let l me almost die.

I don’t want to all the way die, just let me die enough where I have to get home.

Still time for a call. Just mom’s voice.

Just let me die.

ZBRRRRRRRRNG

I was up, rushing up from the floor where my bed was, out the door of the communal space, and into the tiny dining room where the phone hung.

“Szia!!!!!!! This is Melissa.”

Silence.

Dead.

Nothing

Maybe next time.

“Do Justice, love Mercy, and walk Humbly with your God.”

My fingers nimbly turned to find the verse: an easy target. This was one of my “hope” verses – it was highlighted in my New Moment’s Children’s bible At a young age, I had discovered the “notes” section nestled in the frail pages – and I’d started a list of verses that were meaningful to me.

II Corinthians 12:9 – “My Grace is sufficient for you”

I Corinthians 13:12 “We see through a glass, darkly”

Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together”

Luke 6:37: “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven”

Ephesians 1:7: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace”

All of these were Scritptures of hope, recovery, and absolution. Is that what I was seeking — am seeking? Is this what I dream of as I tell my story? Yes. This. I want to have peace…forgiveness…resolution.

PHILIPPEANS 4:6:

“And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”………

Does it have to have that last prepositional phrase? Is that essential…is that descriptive essential? Can peace guard my heart and mind without belief in Christ?

Ian turned abruptly from pouring the drink he was working on for the customer a few chairs down from me; the 1930s suspenders and crisp white shirt crinkling as his hands continued to work. His eyes suddenly focused on mine – his attention on me, not on the concoction he was creating; his body adeptly dancing behind the bar while his eyes never left mine: a server handed him an order, which he took. Watching him was enthralling. He moved around the bar, gracefully, yet mechanically. Reaching for bottles without even pausing as our conversation ebbed and flowed…automatic.

“Wait, WHAT? You freaking escaped WHAT??? Wait. WHAT?!?!?!”

He set the chocolate martini and ticket down on the server’s tray without even glancing at them.

He placed both hands on either side of my place setting:

“WHAT????”

My head dropped. My fork picked at the blue cheese steak wedge salad that had become my usual order at this posh Beverly Hills bar.

“Ugh. Too many of those damn Dead Baby drinks.” I finished threw back the drink in front of me and backtracked. “It wasn’t a huge deal. Just a weird childhood.”

Ian stared me in the eyes. “This I HAVE to hear.” he said.

The screech of a bar stool against the floor broke the interaction. A handsome, polished man slid into the seat next to me.

“Come here often?”

My eyes rolled, and I glanced up at Ian, desperate for him to stop the coming barrage.

“Yeah, she’s a regular. Wouldn’t wrangle with her, if I were you. But – what can I get you.”

The man tipped his head toward me me. “Tough cookie, eh?”

“You can ask him directly, but I have a reputation for not tolerating bullshit at my watering hole.”

I turned back to my salad.

What had just happened? My therapist had told me to start sharing but obviously I don’t know what i’m doing.

“Well. Ok. Enjoy your salad.”

Why did I choose Ian – IAN – as the first person to tell??? What was I thinking???

“AAAAAH!!!!! MELISSA!” Squeals of delight bounced behind me.

I turned to see a beautiful young face, framed by pin straight blonde hair; she skipped up to me as I slid off my bar stool.

“KATIE!”

I wrapped my arms around my friend, suddenly completely present and at peace in this dimly lit hotel bar.

“Let me order your drink…..I mean….no one has to know you’re a freshman, right?”

“Ian, can I have another of these? No wait. Something easier.”

“Sure.”

Katie perched her thin, lanky body into the bar chair next to mine; its posh white leather encompassed her awkward, uncomfortable movements, giving her space to adjust and figure out where it was.

“You think they’ll know I’m not 21 yet?” She settled in, absorbing the richness and sophistication: certainly not a place that most 19 year olds remember most of their first drinks.

“Friend, I have you.”

We fell into the beauty of back and forth conversation about our day…

We’d had quite the day. We’d learned that the third part of our trio was engaged, and moving off to Cambridge to work on her Master’s degree. She was our joy…someone who just knew how to break through the intensity of our lives, someone who had lived a life outside of our experience, and had maintained an absolute hold on family and friends in a way that Katie and I were just learning about…..and she was a bit of an actual celebrity- a child actor on one of the most successful shows in history. Andrea held her cards close. She was someone who meant the world to us – and the only of us three who seemed to have her life “together.”

I could feel the man behind me listening. I knew it was coming – I knew the conversation he’d overheard earlier would be more than he could resist.

He broke in….”SO what’d you escape?”

Katie glanced at me her eyes saying everything her voice wasn’t, “What the hell is this guy talking about?”

“Um. What the F are you talking about?” I turned toward him without turning my chair – stiff and unwelcoming. My face riffled with disgust and feigned shock at his intrusion.

“I heard and then saw the bartender react to your comment. Now my curiosity is up”

Looking around the room, I fluffed my feathers and said, “Ha. That ain’t a story for a bar.”

Katie looked flustered, and awkward.

With his back turned to us, I saw Ian look over his shoulder, “I usually sqaush these inquiries, but seriously, what the heck? I’ve known you for a couple years, what do you mean you escaped Budapest? I know you taught English there, but escape?” He turned toward me, offering another shot for all three of us.

Katie looked at me with confusion.

“Oh, please tell me you aren’t that oblivious? I lived in Hungary in 1994!!!! Do you guys know history at all? Can you imagine ever experiencing life post-Berlin wall in eastern Europe?? Lord Almighty.”

Silence.

They all three checked the others’ expressions: “Don’t want to be the one who doesn’t get it” was written on all their faces, and they went with it…

I chuckled: “Yeah. I escaped. And, Ian, KATIE! You know me – I’m dramatic! Come on, let’s just have a shot.”

Crisis avoided. Who cares if it wasn’t honest? CRISIS AVOIDED

I was flooded with a hope that I could do life outside my past…I could manage all these story lines. Pride at my talent for shifting focus bolstered my confidence….my therapist be damned. No one needed to know, she was wrong. I didn’t need to share my story….my imagination was powerful enough to figure out how to reinvent my life so that I could actually LIVE.

I could LIVE without the confines of my truth. I could create my life as I needed it to be.

Justice be damned. I hadn’t ever seen it.

Mercy be damned. Who had given it to me?

Humility be damned. No one needed to know.

The dry grass jumped up between my toes as my Birkenstocks trod across the lawn. I was a bit early to pick up my kiddo. I always tried to time pick up perfectly – just early enough to see the kids go in from their last recess which was when parents could assemble awaiting release, but late enough where I didn’t have to awkwardly talk about how school was going for my third grader. I don’t have a neurotypical third grader, so these conversations are terribly taxing.

“Oh, that’s great that they’re reading Harry Potter!”

“How great that they’re writing in their journals every day!”

I want to say, “Well, my kid wrote his name.” – and I want them to feel the level of accomplishment we feel…but…not the case.

I hate those conversations. They’re so….so…NORMAL. My kiddo, well, he didn’t do the read-a-thon this summer. Nope..we spent the summer not going on trips because we spent the summer with tutors and interventions…all while being blown away by his understanding of science, his memory of facts, his ability to connect concepts, his ridiculously high IQ that requires constant stimulation. My kid isn’t “normal” – but he is exceptional – but “neurotypical” parents don’t want to hear that stuff. It’s weird.

I leaned against the tree, hoping beyond hope that today had been another successful day – one without emotional outbursts, one without him slumped against the school building feeling isolated. Maybe even a day where he’d interacted with another peer – without major confrontation! That would feel like success.

I hadn’t timed my arrival well, so was more than a few minutes early, which is why I found myself hiding from the blaring sun under the shade of a tree near the “early primary” school door. I sunk into the hole of Instagram reels, and bode my time.

With a start, my head jolted upright.

“I have my Bible verse!”

Melissa, snap out of it. You’re here. You’re 46. You’re here, you’re not there.

Years of my work with therapists kicked in.

RECENTER….you’ve got this.

Flashes of memories disrupted my balance. I wavered on my feet.

That was weird.

I hate when I remember stuff I don’t remember. This whole “living life” thing post trauma is so incredibly unpredictable.

But that voice….

Ok. Ok. What the heck is going on….

Senses. Get back to what IS

What do you taste? You really shouldn’t have had those Good ‘n Plenty – they were stale. Nothing worse than stale licorice….

The shade seemed to have disappeared, and other parents were gathering behind me, chatting blissfully.

What do you smell? Rain. I think it’s going to rain.

Shoot, am I allowed to be standing this close to the building when they head inside from recess? Maybe I didn’t read the school rules enough.

What do you feel? I feel fabric against my skin, grass between my toes. Ugh. I should have worn sneakers.

My heart was beating a million miles an hour. Why? What just happened? My face is flushed and hot? WHY?

Ok back on track: Senses…there’s no reason for panic.

What do you see?

What do you hear?

A few women in jeans and tshirts began wrangling kids… ” Come on, friends! Get in line. One at a time…I can’t go in until all of you are in…”

The words faded:

“I have my Bible verse!!!”

A boy, with red flannel pajama bottoms grabbed another kiddo who was pushing their way through the crowd. His hand reached to her shoulder. She shrugged him off.

“I have my Bible verse!!!”

He reached out to another as they also ran passed him.

I couldn’t stop staring. Heart dropped – what my jaw wanted to do.

His blonde head darted around, looking for someone to listen.

“It’s MICAH 6:8!!!!” His face looked around for someone to listen. Children ran toward the growing line.

“I have my Bible verse,” he said again as his head dropped.

Another boy ran by him and yelled something. I don’t know what. I didn’t – I couldn’t- hear despite the volume I knew it had. He screamed at him:

“I have my Bible verse”

His words filled my body – pounding against my skull.

As the line of children disappeared into the school building, the boy approached his teacher, and his head lifted. He looked her in the eyes and said, “I have my Bible verse” He didn’t wait this time. “Micah 6:8!!!!”

“Oh. Ok. Um. Well, I’ll have to look it up, gotta end the school day, Buddy!”

Why can’t I remember the importance of Micah 6:8???? What does it say? Come on, Melissa, you know the Bible…I KNOW at some point you had to recite that verse. I know that is an important verse…I mean this is a public school…so why would a 2nd grader know Micah 6:8 when I didn’t even have a “sense” of what it says?

I stood still. Eerily still, under the shade of the tree. How had I heard his voice out of all of the din? How had his words pulled me out of my hiding???

The parents who had been behind me moved to their chosen spots to pick up their kids. I was frozen where I was, under the shade of the tree. Memories flooded me. Not ones that I could visualize or articulate. Just emotions. I wiped a tear from my eye, and moved toward the door where my son would come running out, bursting with the news of his day.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8.

There was an excitement in the air: the kind of excitement that proceeds dread. It was the kind of feeling that comes in the instant before you burn yourself while grabbing something out of the oven with a just a dishtowel. A false sense of “it’ll be ok” mixed with “this is gonna go all wrong.”

The roll call began.

“Here.”

“Here”

“Here”

I never really knew why they did that. There was maybe a dozen of us – both grades combined. Pretty easy to see who wasn’t there and who was…we all knew who would late, who had been early. It had been the same exact student list since we were in kindergarten and first grade – a few gone now that we were in 7th grade and families had chosen to leave the Fold. You’d think they’d know without having to go through a darn list.

Off we went, making the trek from the church basement to the Sanctuary.

We knew we would be there until lunch. The question was more…when would lunch be? How long would today’s “revival” meeting last? Sister Abbott, the pastor’s wife, had a pension for speaking for hours…but maybe today it would be a 15 minute sermon followed by 4 hours of prayer. Or maybe we’d be taking notes for three hours and only have a short prayer time. I hoped against hope it was the latter. I had a sketch I really wanted to finish.

Each grade filed in: boys in their navy blue slacks and white shirts, girls in their simple, but colorful pinafores – Laura Ashley McCall’s pattern 3223 – all sewn by mothers or wearers. The rainbow of solid colors swirled as most girls snuck whispers into the ears of those in front or behind them. The boys slid into their pews quiet and subdued, yet a subversive energy rumbled beneath their demure faces. For each class, a teacher could be found planted between the chromatic prism of white and blue, and a rainbow of colorfully dressed girls: a physical barrier between the two forces. With larger class groups, the wood of the pews provided the barrier necessary to maintain appropriate spacing between male and female.

And then it started.

My Uncle. My Uncle who used to sing folk songs with my other uncles…with my dad and grandad at family gatherings; My uncle who laughed with me and my family so many years ago. My Uncle who I KNEW…that was his body up there, but that wasn’t him. A sense of grief. Unimaginable grief. My Uncle was gone

“Ok! We’re all here!

Lord Jesus, we begin our day with you at the forefront. We ask that you……”

That wasn’t my Uncle. I shared his last name and he was my dad’s brother. But he wasn’t my uncle those mornings. There was never a morning he was there as the Principal of Winham Street Christian Academy where that man was my Uncle…I adjusted.

My Uncle was someone different than that.

I shuffled through the notebook in front of me. I stole a look at the front left pew that was empty other than an older woman who sat stiffly, epitomizing the character of an Englishwoman. In the pew behind her sat a row of 2nd graders, fidgeting and restless, their teacher tapping the knees of egregiously energetic 7 year olds.

“Hands in your laps!”

Uncle was finishing up his ridiculous introduction – all of us had known Sister Abbott since before we had memories, why did we need an introduction?

Just say, “So Sister Abbott wants to have two weeks of putting you in your place.”

Call it like it is “UNCLE“ – or whoever the heck you are.

“Open your hearts; you are the hope of America, and that is a responsibility that takes repentance!”

I scribbled a heart on the notebook in front of me….

then a zig zag down the middle.

It was going to be a long morning.

“Open your Bibles to MIcah 6:8.” her imperious voice rang out.

“Do Justice, love Mercy, and walk Humbly with your God.”

Memories are confusing to me. Plain and simply – confusing:

I remember. Strong, vivid memories…

But then……I don’t remember.

But then…. maybe I do.

No. No. NO. I REMEMBER.

Hold on. HOLD ON, Melissa. You can’t just put stuff in that didn’t happen. I mean….if it didn’t happen…it didn’t happen.

Maybe I can to talk to someone else who was there – maybe they’ll be able to help me remember. I don’t want to create something that wasn’t there.

NO. I REMEMBER.

But…wait. I KNOW that I put some pieces in so that people could REALLY understand the weight of what happened…sometimes the facts don’t give enough credence to their impact. So how do I tell this journey pressing against my skin???

One of the things that has held me back from writing my story has been my own self-awareness — do I write what I feel about my past regardless of how the facts have diminished in importance while the emotions they left behind have burgeoned and forged their own truth? Do I tell a fact-based story of this-happened-then-that-happened – one that can be read by those who witnessed it and be confirmed by them? Do I have to write a story devoid of the vibrant authenticity that exists in my personal recounting? Is it possible to honor all the other survivors, many with more horrific recountings, while still expressing how impactful my own personal life history was?

I don’t want to tell a story that is untrue, but where is the line between validity through witness and validity through authenticity?

The story that I feel compelled to tell is a story where the minutia of who and what and when and where fades under the luminance of my personal truth of experience. Where I have landed after a many years’ long battle is this: I will cause some who were alongside me consternation, confusion, moments of “what-the-f- is-she-talking-about”; it may cause people to point out all the places where my recollections are far from the reality that they experienced, or maybe even happened or didn’t. It is not my goal to tell this story as one of auto-biography, but rather one of experiential-memoir: the vulnerable, inner workings of my joys, my traumas and their impact. The warping of truth, the insertion of plain and simple fabrications that happen to those of us who have been forced to survive, have created the memory of my past. My imagination has often become the very thing that has held me through, and yet has undermined my confidence in the retelling of events. I have decided that I will not betray my conceptions and interpretations in the narrative of my story, because without them, there is only a 30 page essay on the struggles of being human.

As you read what I write, please keep this in mind: I am writing my experience – with all its fallacies and wins and coping mechanisms. You can decide whether you want to know the “factual truth” or whether you will accept the words I say as “my truth”. You can decide what pieces you accept as meaningful (negative or positive). You get to take what I write in the very way I learned to live in fullness, in hope, and in “authenticity”: YOU have control over how you experience my way of expressing. Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention, and the most inventive thing we were given as humans is our ability to create a world where things make sense for US and OUR pain – whether that’s with endless reciting of facts or whether it’s what our body and mind and psyche feel safe recounting or somewhere in between.

A small sob broke out a few pews back from me. I glanced over to my mother, who was also huddled over in prayer, her forehead pressed against the back of the pew in front of us. Her back curved and her right hand reached above her head. I could barely reach the next pew without tipping off the one I sat in, but the navy blue hymnal that was held in the restrains of its holder provided me the same support that the greasy, sticky wood gave her. I could smell the paper leaves as my right hand brushed rhythmically through the pages: the restricted “fllllllpppppp” of the fibers beneath my fingers. My head was against the binding that was just heavy enough to support me, but light enough so that the pages could still float between its bindings. The sanctuary hummed with a scary, premonitory weight.

Another series of sobs.

I glanced at Mom. Without opening her eyes, she reached her hand to my thigh: “It’s ok. God is moving.”

Dad sat next to her, straight upright, fidgeting. His eyes were closed in prayer, but his mouth didn’t move. His body was stiff: jaw clenched. In his lap lay his Bible, warped, curling and frayed from years of thumb flipping and fervent following of our faith; a testimony of his dedication to our family – though my gut knew not from dedication to the man who currently stood at the front of the congregation.

Sobs turned into wails.

I looked again at my mother. She maintained her ardent commitment to prayer, while furthering her comforting caresses.

To my left sat my sister. She was in contrite quiet – not praying like my mother, but also not staunchly stiff like my father. She just simply sat. Breathing. Heavily.

The wailing grew.

I knew I couldn’t sit up and look to see where it was coming from, but I knew that cry. I’d heard it before. I knew who it was, and knew what would happen next. Soon the person emitting the gut wrenching wails would be surrounded by a sea of women in leadership…the rest of us kids glad it wasn’t OUR parent, and in the same moment feeling the crush of shame hitting her three children…and what if we were next?

But then again, maybe this would make things at home better for them! Maybe she won’t be so awful and crazy to them! I’d heard stories…

As if on cue, I spotted two of the elder’s wives stand up from their seats from opposite sides of the sanctuary, and make their way toward the seats behind us, calmly and quietly supplementing to God in words I didn’t understand – their tongues arriving before their bodies did. I adjusted my position, stealing a look behind me.

She was sitting upright, her back against the pew, the back of her head at a parallel to the floor. One of the Sisters had her left hand on Marion’s abdomen and her right hand on her left shoulder. Another woman stood behind her, cupping Marion’s head in her hands. Yet another elder’s wife’s finger tips where pressing vehemently on her forehead – Marion’s back was arched as if it was double jointed as she succumbed to the pressure. The pastor’s wife, Florence, was bent over – her mouth directly next to Marion’s ear – a tight grasp on each of her wrists. With every word she spoke, she thrust Marion’s hands in whatever direction she desired. Yelling and screaming angel language – “tongues” we called them. Marion’s body twisted underneath the physical control of these four. I hid my head, breathing deeply, inhaling the scent of the hymnal – a fragrance of dust and paper that had become my comfort.

Help. I’m scared. I still feel terror. Stop it. Someone stop it.

Marion’s wails turned into something I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t even thinking about her kids anymore. They were only a few years younger than me, and I was too scared to think about how they were feeling…I could only think about what would happen to ME if this happened to MY mom. What if MY mom was a sinner like theirs was?

As the congregation swelled in volume with prayers through the languages of men and of angels, I sought solace in my mother. Reaching over and hunting for her hand through my closed, fearful eyes. I found it. Her bony, veiny hand wrapped around mine, squeezing hard. I cracked my eyes open and looked at her, realizing I hadn’t heard a sound out of her since Sister Abbott had walked from the podium and approached the back left of the congregation where Marion sat in all her vulnerability.

I squeezed again and whispered, “I Love you, Mommy.”

She was silent. Squeezing my hand, silent tears, and heavy breathing. My dad’s eyes were open now, and he was shifting from hip to hip. His jaw grinding. I knew he was going to walk out. No one ever stopped him. Why? What made him different? Why could he do that??? NO ONE STOPPED HIM.

“It’s ok, Missy. This isn’t right, but we have each other. And we have our faith. Jesus will make things right. She is hurting and needs Jesus.”

I glanced down at the notebook next to me, the one where I counted how many times the pastor spoke about specific words:

Jesus: 57

God: 89

Lord: 45

Damnation: 125

I’ve written emotively, passionately, vulnerably for several posts now; mostly not even knowing what words would stream from my fingers. In this process of writing vulnerably, I’ve started to remember how I got to this place. How I got to a point in my life that I can write and express without focusing specifically on the words coming out.

I’m writing this particular post because I’ve been sent many messages of “You’re writing…dang. You can write.” And I just can’t help but remember my Anne.

Anne Kiley was…well…Anne. You all don’t know her, and she’s gone now – in body, but her personage lives on in her students, in her literary legacy, at Whittier College……and in me.

I miss her. I miss her so so so completely. I miss her handwritten letters; her scrawling script, jagged and harsh. I miss her stutter; the “uuuhhhhhhs” that interrupted her words and sometimes distracted from her genius. I miss her big chest, her cold-feeling yet lifeline hugs; I miss her frank statements that were sometimes offensive. I miss her genius way of using totally uncomfortable, unexpected, hilarious and often inappropriate jabs – the ones that often totally missed their mark. I miss her heartfelt, openly loving, sarcastically cutting, constructive, awkward truth.

Her hands pressed against her thighs, leaning forward from the chair, she lifted her body to a stand in a gracefully, awkward movement. She turned her back to me, making her way to the desk across the room.

“Listen, I know that you think that “cuts like a knife” creates an image. It does….but how many times have you read that? Think about what is ACTUALLY happening. What is the ACTUAL pain you are having? WHERE does it hurt? If it’s in your chest, well, maybe it’s more like ‘stifling’ or ‘suffocating’ or….maybe…maybe it’s —-oooooh!!!!—-” She let out a gasp, and turned her eyes to mine, her face dancing with some sort of excitement:

Asphyxiating!!!

I mean…there’s a pleasure part to that word – right? It brings pain AND pleasure….is there any pleasure in your pain? You may be talking about the deepest kind of struggle, but is there any part of you that feels pleasure or joy there? THAT is what you have to find: what is the uncomfortable, what is the single word that sums up ALL of those feelings?”

I stared at her; am I seriously going to talk about asphyxiation with this woman who specializes in Victorian poetry????

Weren’t we just meeting to talk about a paper I was writing on Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”? I don’t remember signing up to talk about my deepest, darkest sexual pleasures. WHAT THE HELL was this lady saying?

My entire body paused…

What?

And hold on…her words started to sink in. I sat with myself for a moment: “Was there any pleasure in the pain I was writing about? Had I actually been trying to express some unidentified pain that was emoted by my reading of this poem???”

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Nope. No. No. It’s annoying Victorian poetry. It’s Byron. The Romantic poet – not some porno writer. I mean, as she always said, “REALLY?”

And yet, I did like the pressure it was putting on my heart – and my brain. This was weird. Invigorating. Something was moving in those spaces between heart and body and mind. Those places that you feel when you know how well you slept – or didn’t – the knowing of the unknown.

The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

“Look. We know you’re gonna pass this class easily. I could right now give you a B, a B+ even. That being said, you brought me this paper three weeks in advance of the deadline for feedback, but I kinda think you were hoping I’d say that it was fine and impressive that you’d done the work before you needed to, so i’d give you extra points. I assume that you think that by doing this, I will see you as a really committed student, and then…then you can judge where you’re at in the class so you can maybe focus on other classes. Melissa, I’m not here to grade you, I’m here to teach you. You’re not paying all this money for me to give you a degree. You’re paying me to push you, to show you new ways….to push you to be who you are, and I’m not settling for f’ing ‘cuts-me-like-a-knife.’”

Her deep signature chuckle filled the space around me. A jovial perforation of the bubble I was working so hard to keep.

“You’ll figure it out.”

She started gathering up papers, seemingly disconnected.

“Well, I thought maybe, um…well…I thought…..”

A groan escaped from her deep chest.

“Nope. Nope. Nope.”

She turned to me with her quirky smile that stretched her saggy cheeks:

“I’m not playing the game.”

She reached for her gray leather purse – a bag really – and stuffed a few items into it. “Office hours are over, my dear. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

“Come on,” feigning an English accent as she sorted through her collection of keys. “Office hours are over.”

She turned off the light. I still sat on her decrepit couch, pillows piled behind me. She walked to the rickety door of her office. “Like I said, my dear: Office hours are over. dP and the crew are waiting – Taco Tuesday with the rest of the group!” She’d found the key to lock her door.

I scrounged to gather my things in the dark, reaching hesitantly for my paper that lay where she had placed it on her chair when she stood up.

“But…I thought….”

“Literary Taco Tuesday calls. You’ll figure it out. Time for a beer together.”

“When ya gotta go, ya gotta go,” as they say. So it is with the dissemination of pent up stories, emotions, laughter and tears. So it is with love, and hate and anger.

“When you’re ready, it’ll come out,” as they say. So it is with letting out the thing within you that has beleaguered you, healed you, hurt you, held you . So it is with truth, and perception, and liberty.

There is something pure about what is happening within my soul and mind and body: something more authentic than I ever knew existed: a flow of ugly, of hilarious, of joy and of sorrow. There’s an unleashing of wild, unabashed honesty all while steadfast, healthy boundaries are securing their positions and limits.

As I have begun to untether the passion I have to share the path to healing I have experienced, an incredibly clear foundation has emerged: I have started to notice the stalwart structure of trust, of love, of loyalty that I historically have felt was so so far away from me, nudging me in familiar places…places I didn’t think it existed…hidden places it couldn’t know unless it had always been there. I am growing in my understanding that safety and grounded existence were always present – that the pieces of my body and humanity have only clouded my understanding of my essence..of my existence as part of a whole.

Speaking out about uncomfortable experiences can create an identity that isn’t what we dream to be; speaking of their impact to our reality can be upending. Stating our truth, exposing details, telling the story as it was without putting filters or completely changing the storyline is frightening. But…it’s scarier to hear responses, to hear what people think – to dread the criticism and the that’s-not-what-I-remember or everyone-has-traumas can cause us to shut down, to change the story, to create entire false existences that are more relatable but still hold the weight of our experience. Or maybe that was just me. And I found that speaking into the void – to my diaries – to my computer – was just as hard….or harder.

For years, my survival depended on creating a new persona, a new story – a palatable one for the “normals” I saw around me every day. I used the skills i had learned while in my trauma to build the life I thought I needed. It isn’t that this is the first time I’ve written about my journey – I have countless notebooks full of stories and emotional rants. It was that when I saw the words — when I saw my emotions and experiences on paper, they became real, and their etherial, this-happened-to-a-character-in-a-novel solidified in the form of written word — I couldn’t navigate through. I couldn’t see a way through. And so, I edited them to be more palatable for my reader…..

but who was my reader?

Who was my reader?

My reader was ME.

How often throughout my life have I edited my story for my own sake?
How often have I adjusted my story so that I could make it to tomorrow?

A little girl, clad in a white smocked dress creeped out of the dark: Crawling, really. Her eyes peered out around the semi-circle surrounding us.

Janet’s hands were on my knees. My eyes were clenched shut, streaming with tears.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!!”

“DO NOT TOUCH ME!”

My fists clenched and I stuffed them under each thigh. The coarseness of the couch ripped my knuckles.

“Ok, Melissa. Will not touch you. Can I sit close to you?”

My body shook. My hands unclenched and reached, trembling to cover my face.

A timid, girlish voice answered, without eye contact: “Yes, please.”

A half sob came out, caught in my palms that pressed to the front of my mouth.

I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could still see her silver hair falling over her shoulders as she leaned from her chair to be close to me. The scarf she had draped around her neck fell in unison with the flowy white blouse she wore. I could almost see her smile. Her kindness. Her soft stubbornness. Her assurance that she knew what she was doing.

Her chair was scooting closer to me, and she was in it. I could feel her. I pulled back…then impulsively put my elbows on my knees, face in my hands.

“I’m FINE.” I blurted out, my eyes popping open, sitting up – hands suddenly crossing in my lap.

The light pummeling in from the half open blinds of the window to my left burnt my eyes.
“I’m FINE!” I spurted out, blinking desperately.

Silence.

Then just when I was about to scream again, her sultry voice said calmly: “Yes. Yes you are.”

Oh My GOD. I’m seriously paying this woman money to tell me I’m fine???? I’m seriously spending an hour of my time just for her to get close to me– to TOUCH MY KNEES???? This is ridiculous.

But there has to be something right here. I’m crying. I’m feeling. I”m seeing little girls. WHAT THE F????

“Would you be ok putting with putting one of your hands on your heart and the other on your stomach?”

My eyes rolled. More hippy shit. This is what got me kidnapped in the first place…but…

Ok. If I’m paying her $180 on the recommendation of my neurosurgeon, what can it hurt?

Left hand on heart. Right hand on stomach. Eyes closed.

Silence.

A slow knot began to form in my stomach — in a place I didn’t know had nerves: right at the top. Phsyical. Not pit of your stomach….no….RIGHT at the top….then I felt a movement, skipping my chest entirely: pressure at the base of my throat. My hands reached up and pushed.

“What are you doing to me? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“Melissa. You’re safe.”

A flood of tears exploded. Sobs I had never ever ever experienced came from my knee caps. Not my toes. that was the only place I didn’t feel this constriction…FROM. MY. KNEES.

“Would you be willing to put your arms around yourself and hug yourself? I know I’m not welcome, and that’s ok, but you have everything you need. We don’t need to introduce new people into your space right now. But you need a physical acceptance and love.”

Out of a half sob, I glanced up at this face. The most neutral, non-judging face I’d ever experienced. Not love, not hate, not judgment, not expectation, not pejorative “my way will work for you.” Just a face existing in my space, and I put my arms around myself….the image of a little girl in a little white pinafore the only thing I could see….and I wrapped my arms around myself.

“Let’s come back.” she said with her raspy, silky voice. “You touched your essence today, and that’s all you need right now. That’s it.”

I tried to take a breath. It caught.

Her iPad dinged that the 50 minutes session was about to be up.

She sat back in her chair.

“That was a lot. A LOT. Be kind to yourself and remember that you deserve love. That each part of you deserves love. And just go back to being who you are right now…if she comes to visit, just say hi – and maybe hug yourself.”

Stunned with what I had just experienced, I stammered, “So what am I working on this week.”

“With where we are right now…there is no ‘homework’. Go back to your life. Go back to living. We will explore more next week if you would like. Or we can talk about the weather. That works too.”

” You’re the guide. “