#MeToo has shattered me into a state of having to deal with a burden I've carried for five decades. I was adopted into a Midwestern farm household where I had no rights as a female, and everything that happened to me was my fault—because I was "a girl." My older adopted brother was allowed to abuse me freely. While my parents were distracted by serious health issues, they were also good at willful blindness and reiterating the rights of "the boy."
By my teens, I was abusing alcohol and allowing myself to be abused by others outside the family because that's all I knew, and because vulnerable damaged girls are easy prey. My other abusers included a winning high-school wrestling coach. Of course, the community wrote me off as being promiscuous.
Not one single person ever suggested that maybe I deserved any kind of help.
I would attempt suicide at age 18 and marry an abusive alcoholic 10 years my senior the following year. He, too, was damaged, but we somehow gave each other enough stability to be in the world, though not well. We both drank excessively. I would eventually leave him and put myself through college—one class at a time for 10 years—on the end of a shovel installing landscapes. I went on to a 20-year-career in technology and policy journalism that I left last summer after burning out.
I intended to continue doing contract work but increasingly found myself in a state of low-level depression and complete lack of motivation. I've experienced depression since I was a child and have mostly managed with a vegetarian diet, exercise and yoga, but I think my body is rebelling against the demands of carrying this grief, as well it should. I have run marathons, skydived, earned a black belt, taught fitness classes, SCUBA-dived and hiked virtually thousands of miles among other things. Physical exertion was also my way of balancing my alcohol consumption. That's one thing at age 40. It's another at 56.
Right now, I haven't had a drink for a week, and neither have I been out of bed much nor eaten during that period. It was possibly triggered by an elderly aunt whose estate management fell to me, and who is one of those emotionally abusive older folks who seems to utterly sweet. She felt it necessary to bring up my "lovely" brother, who has not seen nor contacted her in decades. She also only respects what men have to tell her, so I feel nauseated every time I have to deal with her on administrative issues.
It's like I'm trapped in that farmhouse in the middle of nowhere once again—where, by the way, my 94-year-old mother continues to live and thus I have to stay when I go see her to help her do things she can no longer do.
I have been seeing therapists off and on for 40 years. I was diagnosed with childhood-abuse-related PTSD a few years ago. That's when I earned a black belt—by learning to fight back on the dojo floor. It helped, but nothing seems to be enough.
A few years ago I had to move to a smaller community with fewer resources. I've yet to find a helpful therapist. One gets tired of telling one's messy story again and again, especially when it doesn't help. One therapist I saw was a sweet Jewish grandma who'd been married most of her life to her childhood sweetheart. She didn't have a damn clue about the damage of incest.
Right before writing this, I reached out to the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center. The website says they have an Adults Molested as Children support group for women. I hope I hear back from someone. I am afraid for myself. Not so much that I will end my own life. I've danced with that demon since I was two years old, when I knew I would never bring children into the world I had come to know.
I am afraid because I have been robbed of so much happiness in my life. So much joy, and I am now in a relationship with a wonderful and understanding man with whom I really feel as if we can make this work and see each other through to the end. I don't want to be an anchor or a shadow to this man. I want him to see the best of who I can be. I want him to see the light within me. I want to know who I could be if I weren't being consumed by the guilt, shame, grief and horror of how I was treated the whole time my brain and body were forming.
I had a robust and dynamic life for most of 40 years, even if it wasn't the happiest and even if I failed repeatedly at relationships. I was able to avoid the abuses of my past and convince myself I was beyond them. I lived and worked in New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Now, at 56, it feels as if I never left home.
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