I was 26 years old... have been married
for a few years and had one son.... it was August 1996... and a
phone call was about to change my life forever....
We had spent the day in Brooklyn, NY at
a friend's little boy's birthday party.... the day had been really
weird and Jim and I along with our young son were all feeling very
off.... on our way home to NJ we had picked up a good friend of
ours.... We arrived home.. and I put our son to bed and my husband
and our friend went downstairs....
The phone rang... I thought it was
another friend calling back as we had gotten cut off.... but it was
my mother... Her first words were, “Is Jim home?” I can't recall
whether it was something in her tone or something just caught me as
weird but my response was, “Why? Mom did nana (my mom's mom who had
lived with me since I was 2) die?” I don't remember much after that
except she said, “No. It wasn't nana. It is your dad.”
What I have been told of the moments
that followed was that Jim and our friend came running up stairs
thinking that an intruder had broken into the house and I was being
stabbed.... I don't remember dropping the phone.. I do somewhat
remember being in the living room but I don't remember much about
that evening.....
We had never been close.... everything
was left unresolved....
What I do remember in the days and
weeks that followed was the pain.... the bewilderment... the fear...
and looking back I was desperate to move away from it … desperate
to get over it.... desperate... Period... just desperate....
I honestly can't remember how I used to
think back then … and I didn't journal well enough back then that I
can go and look back.... what I have is what I know happened and
what I felt..... I didn't have the capacity to sincerely ask for
help... I didn't own the capacity within me to communicate what was
truly going on inside.... I wanted someone to understand where it was
that I felt I was but couldn't communicate it and the need inside to
have some release was just overwhelming....
As I write this next part.. I pause...
right now I pause... putting my hands to my mouth I think out loud …
am I really going to do this.... am I really going to write this next
part... I have already shared it publicly but this feels different
to me...
But here we go.... I am one for jumping
off ledges these days and so here I go..
There wasn't anything really going
on.... Jim and a friend had gone out to rent a movie.... and I had
put our son to bed... I laid there.... to say that I had the
capacity to think rationally back then I think would be a stretch...
but there is so much I don't remember.... I don't say I don't
remember to remove ownership of my actions... I say that I don't
remember because back then I wasn't even a shadow of who the person
God would heal me and bring me into being... but I did do these
things I am about to share.... I remember doing them.. I just don't
remember all the thoughts around them....
The screen door was blown in the
wind... and it shut against the frame …. friends have said that
maybe it sparked a flashback... or maybe this or maybe that... but I
take full ownership of the choice that I made in those moments.... in
that moment fear that someone was going to break into the house
gripped me.... fear that hurt or pain was going to ensue.... but no
one was there I went out of my son's bedroom and no one was there...
I stood in the room and the idea that if someone had been there... if
someone had been breaking in the house and was to rape me the pain in
the natural would match what I was experiencing inside... I had sadly
known that experience and it felt like it matched....
I am having the hardest of time writing
this part and it isn't because I have a problem telling you that what
happened next was that I lied.... I created a lie that I had been
raped and lived it out for a couple of weeks.... The hard thing
about writing this is just that I lack the memories of all the
thoughts that were in my head... I remember being in a car with a
friend trying to convince him that it had happened... everyone knew I
was lying.. I was just desperately trying to cling to it as
reality.... I remember standing in the doorway of our bathroom as Jim
gave our son a bath asking him if he believed me.. I remember sitting
in a cafe with a girl friend and I remember whispering into the ear
of another woman the lie of the story ….. I guess I thought if this
happened then maybe it is ok to feel so badly.... looking for any
sort of legitimacy for the pain that I was in... Not giving myself
permission to say losing my father was traumatic enough … not being
able to say in a healthy way.. “hey, I'm really hurting and I
really need help...” Not being able to say, “ I am in need..” I
need attention...” “I can't breath” “ I can't feel this way
any longer.”
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