Nurturing Myself; I Believe You.

Today, my son had a tantrum. He was feeling big feelings and hit me. Before he could hit me again, I held his fist and calmly said, “we do not hit in this family.” He went in for another hit before I held him to my chest like a bear hug and said, “we do not hit in this family. You are feeling a big feeling and that’s okay but I’m not letting go of you until you stop trying to hit me. Breathe, cry, and do not hit.” He attempted to fling his head backwards, resulting in me being pushed against the wall. I held him and repeated, “you are safe. I will let go if you stop hitting.” He felt his big feelings, calmed down, apologized and we talked about what triggered such an intense reaction. He’s only 4-years-old and still being introduced to many big emotions that he's learning to cope with. This is a part of parenting I didn’t anticipate would trigger me so deeply. This is a part of my PTSD that I have been working through. The flashbacks that occur can be intense and yet I have to remain grounded in the moment for my son. I have to be present, nurturing and strong for him. I have to set the example. He’s having a big feeling; he isn’t a bad kid. He’s working through something. I hold space and try to make sure he feels safe.

As my back hit the wall, I had a flashback of something I’ve always carried with me. It was not a repressed memory but rather one that I privately coped with having experienced. I was newly 18, homeless and living in a shelter with my family. One of my sisters was dating someone who hated me even though we never met. My sister often told people stories about me that weren’t true in effort to skew people’s perception of me. I was used to this and frankly didn’t care to have an opinion on her girlfriend. Still, this woman called our phone in the shelter and when I answered she spoke very angrily at me, demanding I do as she said and to give the phone to my sister. I was taken aback. With the minimal respect I had for myself, I responded, “you know it’s more polite to ask for who you want to talk to than it is to rudely demand I do as you say.”

Before I could pass the phone, she started threatening me. She said she knew where I was going to school and would easily call people to jump me if I ever talked back to her again. She said she knew a lot of dangerous people and could easily make a call for a dumb little bitch to be paid a visit on campus. When I told my sister this, she threatened me herself. I asked her to leave me alone in my room. She refused, saying nobody was around and she could do whatever she wanted to me.

I stood up to close the door the moment she stepped out of my space but she jumped back at me, pinning me to the wall and beating me with the phone. She pinned my arms to my sides and the wall so I couldn’t fight back while she laughed, “nobody is going to believe you! Nobody’s here to stop me!” She laughed harder and then started spitting on my face repeatedly. “There you go you fucking germaphobe. There you go! Now you have me all over you!” She shifted one arm onto me, pinning me to the wall and tried to use her free hand to pry my mouth open while she continued to spit all over my face, attempting to get spit into my mouth. “You fucking bitch! Nobody loves you! Nobody cares about you!” She screamed between spitting and beating me with the phone.

Eventually I freed one hand and grabbed the cordless phone from her. I fought back, screaming “You animal! You’re disgusting.” I repeatedly hit her with the phone until she was in the hallway and I quickly closed my door, locking it behind her. I was shaking. I was fighting back tears and I couldn’t believe what had just happened. The rest of our family returned shortly after and found her crying and screaming, “Megan attacked me out of nowhere!! Look at my bruises! She attacked me! She attacked me!!!” Within minutes, the door was unlocked and everyone was screaming at me for "abusing" my older sister. Nobody let me speak or defend myself. Everyone was saying I was so cruel to her and she stood behind them smiling, knowing that her plan worked; nobody believed me.

I’d love to say that’s the end of that. It wasn’t. That night, I was privately crying over my mistreatment. I was sitting on the floor, folded into myself with my knees at my chest, sobbing and burying my face into my arms and legs. The only “trusted adult” in my life sided with this sister constantly so, even though biologically I felt she could be trusted, she proved she wasn’t as trustworthy as I needed or deserved. I was hiding between my bed and the wall, attempting to take the least amount of space, to disappear. She stormed into the room, ridiculing me for being “such a bully to my sister” and telling me what a disappointment I was in her life. I begged her to leave me alone; she considered that “talking back” and screamed at me more. Then she lunged at me, grabbed me by my ponytail and dragged me across the room. She punched me repeatedly and kicked my body as I was curled in a fetal position clutching my scalp. I desperately tried to release her grip on my hair. Eventually, I pushed her off of me and she fell backwards on her bed. She started crying and screaming, “Megan pushed me! Megan pushed me! She attacked me too!” And yet again, everyone in the family returned to the room and told me how much they wished I wasn’t there and how awful I was. I was given the silent treatment for days, maybe weeks, until everyone else decided the punishment was over and I wasn’t “invisible” anymore. This part of the abuse was probably the most common so I truthfully can’t remember how much time passed but I was expected to just accept what happened and never talk about it again.  

This moment has stayed with me. Nobody believed me. I was very much unwanted and alone and have since learned the term “scapegoat” directly applies to most abusive situations from my childhood. I coped with it like I did most things, crying alone on my bed and distracting myself with art or television. I didn’t really share it with anyone except a few people over the years because I felt I was supposed to protect the two abusers from their “big emotions.” But who was there to protect me?

As I held my son today with my back pinned to the wall, I briefly felt scared as if I wouldn’t be able to free myself from the wall. That's what "the body keeps the score" means- even though I logically knew I am not 18 and homeless anymore, my body remembered the powerlessness and I panicked; disassociating while seeing myself through tunnel vision. My body remembered the feeling of my spine on the wall and I felt unsafe again. Of course, he is not my sister. He’s not the person that fear is connected to. I simultaneously thought, “I will be a safe person for him. I will let him have his big feelings and express his sadness. I will not react with the same physical force that I grew up with. I will be calm right now. I can cry later.” And I did.

I went into my all-too-familiar survival mode and truthfully, I am grateful I did. My son will never know what it’s like to feel the way I did for 20 years of my life and beyond. He will never experience the mental gymnastics of growing up around so much instability and emotional manipulation. I retroactively give my younger self permission to let this story free. I have carried it for so long because I didn’t want to hurt my abusers. I didn’t want others to look at them as terrible people. I didn’t want them to hurt any more than they were already hurting because I knew, deep down, their behaviors were symptoms of their own pain. At the same time, I recognize that in prioritizing their peace, I have protected them and sacrificed protecting myself for years. I was raised with the notion that domestic violence happens on a daily basis and that being “hit once or twice” isn’t abuse, it’s just something to move on from or something that was my fault. I was conditioned to believe I somehow deserved it.

This memory is still so intensely engrained in my body that I cannot shake it even when I know I am safe now. Keeping this a secret for so long has been an ongoing traumatic event for my soul. So today I free it. It’s not my secret to keep and I named no names. This isn’t a smear campaign. It’s my truth. I am safe to share it now.

The most challenging and rewarding role I have ever played is that of a strong mother. I was raised in chaos and fear. I was raised in dysregulation and I am doing my best to make sure my son will never know what that feels like. I’m not perfect. Every day I have to actively choose how to move forward from what I've survived. Some days are easier than others and sometimes I find myself saying, “Mommy feels overwhelmed right now-“ or “Mommy is feeling a big feeling right now. I just need a minute.” And, for the most part, he understands. My responsibility as a mother is to keep my child safe and what an enormous blessing to be the safe place for him as well as for myself.

I cannot go back in time and stop anyone from the years of abuse I experienced. I cannot fill the physical role of protector for my younger self but I will continue to show up for my own nervous system and speak my truth so that little Megan’s heart is finally heard. I didn’t deserve what I went through but I still experienced it. That was out of my control back then. It’s within my power now to heal the parts of me others hurt so deeply and it’s the ultimate gift that I can give myself.

I'm really lucky that God has given me the gift of art. To be able to see what I experienced and cope with it through drawing and letting it go is a powerful tool for healing. As is writing what's on my heart. In this way, I free myself of carrying this any longer.

Part of me has withheld sharing the most traumatic events I’ve experienced because they’re hard to accept. They’re too heavy to hold for myself and I don’t want to burden anyone with the weight and severity of what I’ve gone through. I don’t want pity. I just want to be given the chance to speak. I see now just how badly I needed that as a child and how often it was denied. I was told so many times in my life that my voice was too loud or hit a pitch that hurt everyone’s ears and so I learned, over and over and over again, how to shrink and tone myself down. Perhaps teaching me for as long as I could remember that my voice was unwanted was exactly the foundation needed to keep me quiet about the abuse for so long.

So, I nurture myself now. I love my voice, albeit sometimes tone-deaf and pitchy. It’s mine. And it deserves to be heard.

Nurturing Myself; I believe you.