This is a long diary, so I'm breaking it into two parts. But this is how I came to not only acknowledge my own sexuality, but the fact that I was capable--no, entitled--to be a sexual person in the first place.
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My first crush was on a boy named Johnny in first grade. Johnny had freckles, bright red hair, a big grin, and gave me my first Valentine.
My second crush was on a girl named Shana in second grade. Shana had light blonde curls, blue eyes, and was nice in an off-hand, perfunctory way.
And then, when I was eight, I was molested, and that experience stretched out until I was eleven. I had no more crushes until I reached high school, and I deliberately put distance between myself and the person on whom I had the crush. After all, past experience had taught me what sex really was--and how could I say what had happened was a bad thing if, in the end, I found myself wanting to touch someone?
I channeled my energies into schoolwork, writing, and singing, and tried to suffocate my depression through binge eating. I avoided most boys--after all, I knew what they were after. Girls were safer, because I could hug my friends and satisfy my need for affection without acknowledging it was a need for something more.
I succeeded in smothering my sexual needs and awareness until I was in my twenties.
In college, I dated an athlete. He was later charged by the Honor Council with attempted rape (later lowered to something like disorderly conduct), but nothing was done as he not only graduated that year, but the girls in question were so sick of the process that they refused to drag it out longer by pressing charges. I shut down for months and went on an eating binge that horrified my friends; that summer, I was nearly 200 pounds--a full 50 pounds over what I'd weighed when I'd started that academic year.
I got myself back in hand. I officially "left home" that summer, moving my things from Arizona to California, and got an apartment in a really bad neighborhood--my neighbors were addicts and prostitutes, and some of the nicest people I've ever met. But my meals were, daily, a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and a tuna sandwich for dinner; I lost 40 pounds in a month. I found a place closer to school and moved in with a classmate so we could split rent, utilities, and food. And I struck up a relationship with another redheaded boy. It was sweet, at first. We talked about books, music, art, our mutual love of history . . . everything except for two things: sex, and my attraction to our other roommate, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, lithe little Ruth.
I never acknowledged it, and I was angry to find it was talked about amongst our friends. I tried to deny it--good God, you guys, what are you thinking?! It's Ruth! We're like sisters!--and managed to quiet the worst of the rumors. After all, I told myself, I didn't even want to sleep with Ian, who was my boyfriend; why would I want to make love to Ruth?
And then she moved to Madison, WI, to be with her boyfriend who'd gotten work there, and I spent several weeks wanting to cry.
I don't have much to say about my relationship with Ian. He was a sweet young man. He was definitely better looking than I thought I deserved at the time, even though he kept assuring me that he liked me at my weight. And one night, after having a few "white trash margaritas"--cheap tequila mixed with lime sherbert--I decided, after we started to kiss, what the hell, why not.
Do any of you know about vaginismus? Past molestation and rape victims will probably nod their heads right about now. With me, it meant--at that time--that I couldn't relax my vaginal muscles enough for penetration. For Ian, it meant he could barely get inside before I was pushing him off and crying out, "Stop."
Hell of a way to advance a romance. Now I had to confront the fact that I was unable to function sexually. Here I was, a semi-independent adult, in a relationship where my partner was willing and eager to sleep with me, and I couldn't make my body do a fucking thing. Literally.
We perservered. By that, I mean, occasionally, we tried everything sexual outside of penetration, and got to the point where much of it was pretty good. But I knew what was lacking, and I hated myself for it. After all, I reasoned, wasn't it my fault that I'd wrecked my body to the point where I couldn't do what every other woman on earth could?
I started bingeing again. Ian tried something out of what I think now was sheer desperation; he saw me cracking up, and thought proof of his love for me would pull me out. He proposed marriage. And I began to have nightmares. On the surface, they were almost comical--I always dreamed of being stuck in a kitchen, with small, screaming children hanging onto the skirt of my '50's-style dress. But in every dream, I was firmly secured in place by shackles, including a heavy chain that wrapped around my waist.
Something snapped. I didn't even have a name for it; all I knew was that I loved Ian but I also still missed Ruth; I was a physical wreck and hated my body, hated its need for affection, hated its inability to perform sexually--hated the fact that I even wanted to be sexual. That last was what drove me to the bathroom at 2 a.m. one morning, sobbing, searching for something with which to slit my wrists. And as I leaned against the counter, attempting to break apart a safety razor for the blade, a voice in my head said, what the hell are you doing? Are you insane? You're a woman, a human being, and what happened to you was shitty in the extreme--and you're going to let the asshole who did it to you win by killing yourself? News flash, babe; you weren't the one raping yourself when you turned nine.
I gave Ian the ring back. I told him that if he loved me, he'd leave and let me fix my life on my own.
And then I went to therapy.
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My therapist was not licensed; she was a psychology student with her master's, working towards her doctorate, who wanted to set up a therapy group for people who couldn't afford it. I had no insurance, but the therapist was a classmate of one of my old roommates--and I felt I could trust her. She was one of those rare, empathic people you sometimes meet, and when I joined, I also joined as a volunteer to help with some of the other patients.
There were four of us who volunteered--as we joked, we weren't just helpers, we were patients. And did we ever have a job to do. Three members told horrific stories of being victimized by Satanic rituals performed by parents and grandparents, raped and beaten in remote locations by groups of adults. At that time, the 1992 report on the hoax of Satanic ritual abuse (see here) was known about, but not widely discussed; the L.A. Times covered it, but the therapist didn't want to upset these patients--plus she had no experience with the whole subject--so we didn't say much beyond calming them down. Several had been molested by their own parents or sibilings; one woman was convinced she was, at different times, a tiger, a lion, or a leopard disguised as a frail human female. Kat was a special case; her mother had allowed her boyfriend to molest her, and used her hair as a sign whether she wanted contact. Down meant, "Leave me alone," as did a loose braid; a knot or bun meant, "It's good, you can approach me." Touching the back of her neck, or her hanging hair, sent her into a blind rage; she had to be hospitalized when she attacked a man who did just that to her.
Maybe it's a good thing I can't really remember much of what happened. I was working as a night auditor for a "bargain" hotel chain, and fighting migraines from the stressful changes to my body clock. A friend I met there told me that Vicodin was what she used to fight her own migraines, and gave me a gallon Ziploc bag half-full of the pills. I went from one a day to two--one to take before I went to bed each morning, and one to take when I got up and felt the pounding start in my head. Vicodin is wonderful. It doesn't just make the pain disappear like smoke in a strong wind, it wraps you up in a warm blanket of security and contentment. The world is your friend when you're on Vicodin--and awake.
I think I put on another 40 pounds in the 18 months I was addicted to Vicodin. I'd bring food to eat when my shift started, usually a pint of Haagen-Dazs or Ben & Jerry's, plus a chicken sandwich and fries from Arby's. Once that was gone, I'd order a pizza from Domino's, and wash it down with five or six sodas. I'm not surprised I have Type 2 diabetes now; I'm surprised I survived to be 25. My life was, eat and work, come home, take pill, sleep; get up, take pill, go to therapy, stop at Arby's and the store, go to work, eat, rinse and repeat.
But then three things happened. The first was that my therapist started me on what's called empty chair therapy. You place an empty chair in front of the patient, who is told to envision their abuser sitting in that chair--unable to speak, unable to react, just sitting there waiting for the patient to talk.
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I love empty chair therapy. It's where I learned that the anger I'd felt since I was a child was not only a good thing, but a healthy thing. Being ladylike and forgiving had done nothing for me but internalized my own pain and sharpened my self-loathing. I'd spent years fearing my own body and blaming myself, because, obviously, if I could want to love someone and desire sexual contact, didn't that mean I'd wanted everything that had happened to me?
Empty chair therapy gave me an outlet to scream.
That wounded child who'd been blackmailed and held down on a closet floor, disbelieving that this could be happening, with the blue desert sky just visible through the opposite window--that wounded child had learned a few fucking grownup words, and they were not, "It's all right."
They were, "If I ever see you again, you sorry sack of shit, I will end you, and I will string your guts around every fucking tree in ten miles."
I remember that because I think I actually shocked my therapist. The look on her face was one of, "Did I really do the right thing here?"
She did.
When I went home that night--it was one of my days off--I felt the start of a headache. I went to the dresser where I kept my Vicodin, and saw that I only had about 30 pills left. I started to count in my head how many had originally been in there, and realized I had no idea. And that was when it hit me: I'd been taking the damn things without knowing what was going on in my head or my body because of it, and I took them because if I didn't take them, the pain was unbearable . . .
I flushed what was left in the bag. That night, I took Tylenol and went to sleep.
I've had three migraines since then, and that was nearly 17 years ago.
Part Two deals with the second and third things that happened to me--namely, Francesca and David.