I've been in my head a lot lately, like a lot. I'm having trouble getting my school work done. Trouble trying to get my work work done too. A sort of emptiness...maybe half exhaustion, half overwhelming suffocation. I'll just sit and zone out for minutes and minutes on end...I'll forget to blink even. Even when I'm watching tv, I'm not really watching. And while I feel like this has been going on for weeks, I think it really got worse after watching the documentary Leaving Neverland. Not because it was a horrible thing to watch, not because I took one side or another...I think it just rang a bell somewhere inside me and I realized that so many of my feelings growing up, others felt the same way. In part two of the documentary both Wade Robson and James Safechuck expressed feelings I remember haunting me every day of my life. Feelings of self-hatred, of confusion, of extreme loyalty and manipulation. It's not really even about Michael Jackson...I mean the documentary is but it's more than that. It's the psychological ramifications for the families, the friends...how so many lives were molded, manipulated and transformed into something you couldn't recognize. The lies, the pain, the grooming...it's a masterful example of the sophisticated mind of a sexual predator.
While I was watching, memories came flooding back to me, not of the specific sexual abuse that I endured but the time in my life where I felt something go horribly wrong inside me. It was summer, mom was loading me up in the bishops van because all the girls at church were going to girls camp for 5 days. It was my first time going, and I had a great time the first year I went. But sitting inside the van, waiting for everyone to load up...parked there in the church parking lot something wasn't right. I didn't feel right. I suddenly became panicked, overwhelmed, anxious, scared...I remember shaking and feeling like I was drowning but I didn't understand why. I told my mom that something wasn't right, something didn't feel good...but I couldn't tell her what or explain myself. She told me everything would be fine and I think she mentioned something to one of the sisters in the church about me not feeling good. But was something deeper, something at the very core of my beating heart...I think I was 14, maybe 15...that week I tried to kill myself. And even then I couldn't explain why. It's just that everything changed. Memories came back, feelings and thoughts and nightmares. I was drowning inside myself.
I had to leave camp early because they said "we can't keep her safe here." So mom drove up and got me and I don't remember what all was said, I just remember feeling lost and hurt that she didn't listen to me when I told her "mom something is wrong with me. Something's not right." I don't blame her at all, I mean even now I look back and realize what a hot mess I was and there's no way she could have known. That was the summer I lost my mind and with it, I don't remember much of high school or my early college years, it wasn't until I started really processing my memories, my life...and having conversation after conversation with God about what the hell happened to get me where I was.
The memories came and wouldn't stop...the nightmares stayed during the days. I was a complete dumpster fire as an adolescent yet was always there for my friends and always had people with me, around me, hanging out with me. My house was the safe house, my mom was mom to all my friends. And none of them knew.
I don't remember everything that happened to me in Boise where we lived from birth to about age 6. But mom has mentioned odd behaviors and concerns, that she was suspicious that something was being done to me. From the ages of 7-11 I was either being touched or being forced to touch my teenage neighbor Jason...my first memories of Washington surround Jason's penis and the secret places I was never to tell anyone about. The back shed, the fort, the stable on Mr. Watermans property, in the local dump, my own bedroom, his bedroom. Anytime and anywhere I was to be and do what he desired. I didn't know it was wrong, I assumed every relationship was supposed to be like that. During those years, we had a babysitter from down the street who, I think was in college...every time she babysat me, I had to touch her genitals while she laid on the sofa and watched tv. I don't remember how many times that took place. There were other times that I became the victim of sexual predators...the drama teacher in high school and the classmate in college that tried to rape me in the library.
This all came up again for me after watching the documentary, not because it disgusted me, I mean it did but I felt a connection with Wade and James because I remember feeling those feelings. The weight of the world, the confusion, the overwhelming anxiety. The constant feelings of knowing something is wrong but never knowing what it was. The feelings of self-loathing that held tightly to my throat choking the life out of me. I don't know what did or didn't happen in the world of Michael Jackson, I'm not sure I have room to judge one way or the other. But sexual abuse happens, more than I think anyone can admit to. The damage doesn't necessarily come from the physical motions, the damage, the deadly bombs that get triggered even years later...the psychological landmines. They never go away.
You just learn to be okay with parts of your body being blown off...put some dirt on it, wrap it in duck tape and carry on.
Until the next bomb gets triggered...
**I want to thank Wade and James for coming forward and praise them for being so strong in the face of great adversity. I can't say I would have done the same. Thank you for sharing your pain.**
https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/leaving-neverland
