The Darker Side

In a previous posting, My Story..., I shared the story of my healing and recovery. But I have realized today that God wants to use ALL of my experiences - not just the ones I feel comfortable with talking about. (It will be helpful to have My Story... open on another tab, as I make reference to it often in this post. Read that one first though, because that one gives an overview and this fills in some of the gaps there.)

I started dating at the age of 10. It was that first date back in the fifth grade - at a St. Patrick's Day dance where I had my first kiss. Looking back, that was much too young. But I couldn't see that then. The fall after my 11th birthday, I was at my house with that boy - and we were kissing and starting to fool around. I wasn't sure where it was going, but he seemed to like it, so I wasn't going to stop. I suspect we would have come very close to, if not had sex, had my aunt not stopped by to drop something off for my dad. I dated this boy for almost two years. I dated two other boys during my time in junior high. Of my three junior high relationships, two were very physical.

During those junior high years, I also really struggled with my gender identity. I wasn't comfortable in my own body, and I kept finding myself drawn to wanting to be in a relationship with another girl. I kind of looked like a skater boy during those years - except when my mom would insist that i wear a dress or I was dressed for cheerleading or gymnastics.

By the time I reached eighth grade, I was pretty angry most of the time. I really felt, as most do around this age, that nobody understood me. I didn't fit in with the girls at school because I wasn't a preppy type. I didn't fit in with the boys because I was a girl. I didn't fit the accepted stereotypes.

As I started high school, I had hoped for a fresh start - and I got it. I was mostly in classes with older students who had missed my humiliations of junior high. I was still struggling with being attracted to both boys and girls. I still had fantasies where I could be with the girls I was attracted to without judgement, but due to fear I still didn't act upon them. I got very involved at school - with a whole list of extracurricular activities. I took the advanced classes and earned the good grades and did well in my activities - I even made the varsity team for softball as a freshman. But I was still angry and hurting on the inside. (This is where the part in My Story... matches up with my beginning to use painkillers.)

After I was raped as "a gift I would never forget" on my fifteenth birthday, I started getting hit. I would come up with every explanation possible to explain the bruises away. I lied to my parents about having sex, because I was so humiliated - and I didn't want my mom to take me to her doctor - I was afraid he would realize that something serious was happening to me. I also didn't want to have a doctor tell my mother I was pregnant. I was so angry and scared. I really began to shut down when it came to talking to my parents because I knew that the more I told them, the more likely I would become tangled in my own lies. I was sneaking around because of this guy, and did occasionally get caught lying about where I was.

This boy didn't just rape me and abuse me. He got me pregnant twice. He had promised me that if I ever got pregnant, he would marry me. When I told him that I was pregnant for the first time, he hit me and called me a lying bitch. Shortly after I realized I was pregnant, I miscarried. I didn't tell anyone. I told my mom that I didn't feel good, and asked to stay home from school that Friday. I told her I thought I was coming down with the flu, and she made a comment that I had seemed like I  was coming down with something for a few days. She let me stay home.

The second time I found myself pregnant, I told him on a picnic lunch at a small state park just a few miles out of town. He called me a liar then shoved me and I fell down a riverbank toward a flooded river. I landed against a tree that had fallen - where he left me. If I had hit my head or passed out, I'm not sure that he would have taken me home. I managed to pick myself up and climb back up to the truck and insist that he take me straight home. He insisted that there was no way that the baby could be his. I'm convinced that it was this fall that caused my second miscarriage. Once again, I sold my mom on the I have the flu story to stay home from school.

Just after the start of my junior year of high school, this guy left me for one of my closest friends at the time. I wish I could say that I walked out on him, but I can't. I even begged him to come back to me. His explanation - that I was too reserved & afraid to experiment in bed. (We did get engaged for a short time - there was no ring and he later said he was joking and that we weren't really ever engaged.) (There was a video of the two of us online at one point - I didn't know we were being taped. It has since been taken down.)

When I realized that he wasn't coming back, I attempted to overdose on painkillers for the first time. I failed, because my body freaked out and I threw up. I felt like a failure because I couldn't make anyone happy with me. I was depressed, and felt like even more of a failure because I couldn't even succeed at suicide.

I had already started to drink occasionally, but I started to drink more and more at this point. I was experimenting with street drugs. I came very close to getting caught several times, leaving someplace just moments before adults showed up and coming home reeking of alcohol after my parents had gone to bed. I was sneaking out of the house to go do things that no parent would ever approve of.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I went to church camp for the second and last time. While I was there, I had a camp boyfriend - like most kids do. He pulled me aside the first day, and told me a sob story about losing his grandmother who he was very close to. We almost got kicked out of camp for going off away from everyone and for PDA. (I held him while he cried on my shoulder.) Until we returned and explained what was going on, the counselors were completely ready to send us both home immediately. We spent the first three days holding hands & spending every spare moment together. Then he decided that he liked another girl from my cabin - who was 14. I was 17 and he was 18. While we were in evening chapel, he took the other girl behind the black curtains that were dividing the chapel (we weren't using the other side that year) and tried to rape her. She pulled me aside as soon as she escaped from him. She told me what had happened, and that she wanted to go home. I took her to talk to one of the female musicians that were doing our worship music that week. She went and found our counselor and the four of us went to go and talk to security. After we got back to our cabin - an hour after curfew - everyone wanted to know what was going on. Thankfully, our counselor saved her from humiliation. She said something about how we were working with getting another person the help that they needed - and that we had had permission to stay out late due to the circumstances. The boy was arrested that night on charges of attempted statutory rape.

After that happened, I tried again to overdose on painkillers, washing them down with alcohol. That was my second attempt at suicide. I just couldn't take the guilt that was following me around. I felt like I had set her up to become a victim, just like I had been a victim with my ex.

When I went off to college looking for a fresh start - I found one until someone recognized me from camp just a couple of months before. She started making a big deal about how I was involved in a polygamist relationship and how I set up a fourteen year old to get raped. At that point, I knew that this was not going away. It was broadcast in front of a lot of people that I had just started to get to know - people with no idea of the larger context of the situation. I began to drink more heavily still, and that seemed to help with the pain of repeated humiliation.

At that same time, I met the first guy that I dated in college (My Story... tells a lot at this point) While he was in jail, I found out that he was wanted on 42 charges in 30 states... Mostly check fraud, tax fraud, failure to pay various bills, and others of that nature. Suddenly, the trips to Western Union and the Currency Exchange late at night made more sense. He always had me drive, but would never let me go in. But I had a lot of receipts from his various transactions - the best that we could figure out was that he had a few accounts in the Cayman Islands that he was doing something illegal with. I turned them over to campus security when I went in to have them help me get a restraining order against this guy.

While I was dating this guy, I started looking into becoming an actress. I started taping inappropriate webcam videos and sending them to a few guys in exchange for gifts and money. This helped to support my addictions.

At this point, my life was such a mess that I just wanted out. I was using very heavily, and trying to just finish the semester. I was planning on dropping out of college after that. I just wanted the time to figure out what my next move was going to be. I was seriously depressed again, and spent time struggling with suicidal thoughts. I was realizing that I was now old enough to pursue the women I was attracted to without my parents being able to do anything about it. I saw who I wanted to be, and realized just how far away from that I was. That night was the first time I tried cutting.

That night, I cut to escape what I was feeling. It helped for a little while. But less than 24 hours later, I still wanted to die. I tried yet again to end it all, but I was caught by my roommate before I could OD again.

A few days later, I met the man who was to become my husband. (again, My Story...)

One Saturday, early in the spring of 2006, a friend noticed how depressed I looked at breakfast that morning. I was dressed like a little kid - overalls, a green long sleeved t-shirt, high tops, and pigtails. I was seriously considering making breakfast that morning my last meal. He saw how depressed I was, and became determined that I would not be alone at all that day. He took me to the fine arts building because he said he needed company while he painted - he was an art major at that time - and sat me down with some of his paint and a canvas. I had never painted with oils before, (I can't paint in oils because I'm allergic - but we didn't know that then) so he gave me a quick lesson and we both painted all morning. He told me that he would keep it safe while it dried - and that I should come pick it up the next weekend. That night, he took me to a punk show. I was broke and couldn't even find the $5 for a ticket, so he paid my way. When I started to get into trouble in the mosh pit - he came in and pulled me out (I was getting too aggressive for my own good). I'm certain that he saved my life that day.

~Fast Forward~
In the spring of 2007, while my husband was studying abroad in Israel, the tone of the relationship with one of my best friends changed drastically. We had always been as close as sisters. But one day, we kissed. It felt so good, like I had always thought kissing a girl would be. I loved her, enough to consider leaving. We had a very physical relationship off and on, spanning the next two years.

While my husband was in Israel, I also walked away from God. I literally turned my back and walked away. I started reading everything I could get my hands on about various pagan religions. In my research, I began to find myself drawn to Wicca. Not just curiously drawn, but to the extent that I adopted it as my own. I began my own Book of Shadows. I started to try to learn to cast spells, and even attempted writing my own. I started summoning demons with the idea that I could control them and use them to do what I wanted. I started learning astral projection and dream walking - two more very dangerous things.

On December 8th, 2007, I lost my grandpa. I grew up with both of my grandpas and an extra grandpa as well. But this grandpa was my favorite. He was always quick to allow us kids to spend time with him, regardless of what was going on. He taught me a lot of things, including how to re-roof a house, take apart and reassemble a 2-cylinder engine, and how to do a basic spot weld. He also taught me a lot about love and respect. He was determined that his grandchildren would be able to take care of themselves no matter what was the problem. We went camping with my grandparents a lot in the summers. But when I lost him, I was devastated. I hit a new low in my addictions. I considered taking my own life again because the pain was so bad.

~Quick Notes~
During this skip: (for the more complete version of this period read My Story...) alcohol, painkillers, bisexuality, physical relationship with my very close friend, finances, cutting, suicidal thoughts and recovery

~Fast Forward~
March 29th, 2011 altered my reality in a very drastic way. It is my dad's older sister's birthday, and it is also the day that her husband killed himself on their front lawn. He had been struggling with depression for years, but we all just wrote it off. We all kind of assumed that it had to do with his struggle to find a job, but that was only part of it.

As many times as I have contemplated and attempted suicide, I never pictured it happening in my own family. In my head, it only happened in other families. This brought that idea to a sudden halt. My first feelings were of deep loss and then anger. Loss in that I would never be able to see him again, that he would never get to enjoy being an uncle to my future children. Anger in that he did this to himself and to all of us, anger that there was no warning, anger that I was expected to accept that it had happened and move on. My second response was guilt. The what if game ran rampant through my head consuming my every thought that was not already one of anger or loss. In this case, there was no one at who I could really scream "WTF have you done? Don't you see how you are hurting us? What made you think this was okay?"

As the days passed, I felt more and more empty. I alternated between wanting to feel something and feeling so much that I was overwhelmed. I was so tempted to cut, both for release and to make sure I was still alive - I did give in once. I wanted to lash out, to let everyone know how much pain I was in, but I felt as though I was supposed to let everyone believe that I was okay and that I was healing. Instead, I just kind of shut down and drifted through the days.

It wasn't until I started preparing for the summer music festivals that I realized I was beginning to feel alive again. Ichthus and Cornerstone both brought me closer to where God wanted me. GothiCon is where the current changed from the inward focus of healing and recovery and turned to the outward focus of sharing my trials and temptations with others to help them. God is definitely beginning to use me and my story. I hope that my story reaches someone that needs to hear it, and if it does, then everything that I went through will be worth it.