Healing

I've gone back and forth on whether or not I'd ever post this part of my life's story to my blog. Today I've gone back and forth on whether or not I'd post this particular story from earlier today to my blog. As I'm typing this I'm still not sure if it'll see the light of the internet b/c we all know how trustworthy the internet can be. Perhaps just typing it out is what I need. We'll see if it gets posted.

First the necessary and not-at-all-pleasant background so that you'll know why the resolution that I got today was so profound for me.

Years ago over about a half a year's time, I was repeatedly assaulted and molested by {dirtbag}. I'm pretty positive that none of the five people that read this blog know {dirtbag}. This horrible person worked my soul into the ground so that I had no fight left, so that I didn't have the emotional strength to fight back. {Dirtbag} turned me into an object for whatever sick need {dirtbag} was feeling at the time. I was not a child when this happened, I was much older. Age didn't matter. {Dirtbag} and predators like {dirtbag} don't necessarily focus on age, they focus on want they want and go after it. 

I was not cognizant of what happened to me until last year, around November. It was like I knew it but mostly my brain didn't understand what it was and so that part was shut down. But when I realized what it was, my life crashed around me: night-long flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, inability to concentrate, etc. 

Different aspects of my life began to make sense, as well. I hadn't (haven't) been active in the church for a while. I thought that I was simply lazy, or that maybe my testimony wasn't strong enough, or that maybe I was just a bad person. No. What really was going on was that {dirtbag} molested me and attacked me various times at a church. What had been so pushed back into the deep recesses of my mind could no longer stay; it was leaking out and I was in pain--a lot of it. Because of all of {dirtbag}'s attacks in church-related settings, my emotional ability to handle even simple scripture study or prayer was like reliving a bit of the pain. I had no words to describe it, except that I was sure that I was weak, pathetic and lazy of spirit.

No. I wasn't.

At the end of last November I began seeing a therapist, and thus the healing began.

It's been hard. I've had to fight so many times just to be able to do a bit of homework. There have been times where I've had to fight for the next minute, where my hope was that the next minute would bring the peace and solace that would be enough for me to survive to the minute after that.

I have had better times, times where I've laughed, had fun, had my worries and my burdens lifted. Days where I don't feel the pain and the pressure smashing at my heart. There have been times where I've even felt victorious.

All of this is leading to what happened today. 

We're in a new ward after the move. The bishop called me on Wednesday b/c he wanted to meet me, so we set up an appointment for today. We chatted for a while and then I told him why I hadn't been active in the church for so long. Without going into great detail I explained how I'd been attacked at a church repeatedly and elsewhere. The look on his face was one of concern, love, sorrow and support. We talked a bit and he asked me about my healing--if I'd felt any, especially thru the atonement. (Yes, very distinctly at times.)

Then he said two sentences that became the catalyst for this post: "I want you to know that it wasn't your fault. You are divinely clean." My head tilted a bit to the right and then the tears flowed down my cheeks. I sat there with the tears on my cheeks, as they are again now, and I knew and I know that what he said was true.

This feeling and this knowledge is why I decided to write this and post it for the masses to read. I am not alone in this. Countless others have suffered a similar terrible fate to mine. {Dirtbags} exist everywhere. But knowing and feeling that nothing these horrendous people have done to us is our fault, that none of it makes us unclean, or dirty and filthy like I've felt for so long, this gives us the power back. 

I write this to share this knowledge and to no longer hide behind the shame. I'm speaking out so that maybe one more person won't feel so alone. What happened to me isn't who I am, but it certainly is who {dirtbag} is. I refuse to hide anymore behind a veil of pain and guilt. The more that we can speak openly about surviving molestation and sexual assaults in a safe way, the less power the perpetrators have. The more that we act with understanding toward victims and survivors, wrapping them in protective and healing love, the safer this world will be.

After the bishop and I finished our discussion, I walked into sacrament meeting, sat down by a couple of friends and their perfect little girl, and took the sacrament as though it were the most normal part of my Sunday.