Sacred Ground

"Where there is suffering, there is holy ground."  -unknown

I have chosen to write about my childhood sexual abuse to remember the truth, to honor myself and my journey, and to encourage those on their own healing journey.  Below I am going to write about my experiences and it's going to get very, very ugly. 
I rarely share my sacred suffering, much less write it all out on one page for public viewing.  I offer this in honor of those who comforted me, in honor of myself, and in honor of those yet to walk this path.

Tread gently, good people.
Take off your shoes; you're standing on holy ground. 




My experience of childhood sexual abuse
I was sexually abused by my beloved Grampa Eldridge from the time I was 18 months old until he had a stroke just after I turned 3. I was repeatedly raped, culminating in being smothered into unconsciousness, nearly to death, just before my third birthday.
 
I had no conscious memories of the abuse until after my cervix and vagina ripped open during childbirth.  I found myself anxious, panicked, humiliated, confused, and I didn't know why.  I was circling this stake of abuse all my life, like a dog on a leash.  Around and around and around.  I remember my fierce joy the day I remembered I had been sexually abused my Grampa Eldridge; I now possessed the stake in my own hand.

Most of my memories were flashes, moments, images, dreams, smells, feelings, physical sensations, and much less often words and narratives that manifested over time.  I often pressed into things that bothered me.  For example, I was extremely afraid of spiders for years, embarrassingly panicked for a grown woman.  Then I dreamed of Grampa Eldridge's spider hands, coming at me out of the dark.  After that memory surfaced, my deep fear of spiders dissipated.  Another example was that I detested the smell of Tide laundry soap.  I originally thought that I was simply chemically sensitive.  Then I had a flashback to the smell of Tide, the sound of a washing machine, terror, and pain at Grampa's house.  I still detest that smell and remember the abuse every time I smell it.  I had a recurring dream in which a man's silhouette was back-lit in my doorway, my grampa coming into my room.  In the flashback, he entered from my lower left.  I was so gripped by this flashback that I would lie awake for hours in my 30's in absolute terror.  I finally asked Tim to move our bed so that the door to our room was on my right rather than my left.  I haven't had a terror flashback recently although if I'm awakened while dozing off, especially by foot steps approaching my bed, I startle awake with heart racing.  Another example is that for all my life, I had never been able to sleep with any part of my body dangling off the edge of the bed, even into my 30's.  I would jolt awake terrified that evil monsters were hiding under my bed waiting to grab my leg.  If I walked to the bathroom in the night, I would run back to bed feeling evil spirits behind me reaching for me.  After I remembered being smothered into unconsciousness, first my terror increased and eventually after months, eased.  I also had a vision of trying to hide myself under a bedsheet and another recurring vision of being chased by consuming evil through my childhood basement.  I eventually had a dream which interrupted the dream of being chased in which the light of Jesus became a door preventing the consuming evil from reaching me.  I can now sleep with limbs off the bed or walk around in the dark without fear. 
 
Many of the flashbacks and images would come to me in private and I found great help and relief in processing the sensations and feelings through bodywork.  Ginger, my chiropractor, Joe, my acupuncturist, and Tara, my shiatsu massage person, were of particular help.  The poem below is the most coherent thing I've been able to verbalize which I wrote after remembering while Joe was working on me.  I shook so hard and felt so cold when we first brushed the edge of these memories that I had to go away, process the raving terror, and then come back two weeks later to press into the bodily memory.  First I will include the poem and then a narrative.

Flashbacks Under Joe's Safe Hands


spider hands
     long   thin
         yellowed
      reaching for me

black silhouette against the
white light of the
      doorway

his hand clamping over
     my mouth
    silent screaming
    shaking my head
                 violently

he plugs my nose
and my heart races in
panic- I can't breathe
       & my heart stops

"Don't make a sound,
           or I'll kill you"

wipes his semen on me

upward pressure from
         vagina through uterus
         and into diaphragm
           and chest

hand/arm pressing on
  my chest & torso

legs forced apart with
         a lot of pressure

body think & heavy
                    body
               expanding,
                     bubbling away
               from soul

chest   arms   neck   tongue
        heavy & thick

uterus & vagina thin &
          emaciated

arms pinned down?
          left arm?

I was bad
       I'm being punished

thumb-sucking
           soothing
                   floating
                       disconnecting

tingling up sides of head

clenching of chest
                   fists
                   vagina
                   legs

pried open
      forced
           knee on leg
               fingers probing
                          hurting

head tingles
    chest constricts
            floating

my throat clenches
        constricts
my pelvic floor
               constricts
               weakens
               hardens

screaming
         screaming
                  screaming
    without sound
    without breath

push it down
 force it closed
      lodge it
           lock it

I am a good child
   I am a happy child
        I am good

I will not be beautiful
     I will not be wrong
            or I will die
               suffocated

suffocating on my own
                     screams
  I can't keep my legs
                   together
  I can't...

My soul and body
       stretch apart
       ripping
       snapping

I can't...
     I can't...

I can't scream
     and
     I can't remain silent

I can't weep
   I can't fight back
I can't protect myself
   I can't protect my
           baby sister
   except to shut up
         numb out
             hold still
        jam it
           wedge it
  suck my thumb
     eat sugar
          read books
     become fat & insulated
             until I can't
              even find me

don't let him
        touch me or
             he'll have
                     power
                         over
                               me

stop moving
          numb
             play dead
      don't cry
              don't scream
                      don't fight

death
   powerless








My vision of evil

I am three and am lying on my bed
My grampa is standing on my right raping and strangling me
Evil with the face of a wolf and glowing red eyes
Paces on my left, back and forth, back and forth
Mouth open
I am dying and evil is waiting, panting over me
Mortal terror  I know I am dying
Panic, blind frantic flailing
There are no words enough for this
Soundless screams in the dark
The eyes of evil on me and I cannot escape
Everything turns to black
I feel myself pulling apart, ripping, disintegrating
More than dying
Being murdered
I am no body
A huge Voice commands, "NO!"
Huge hands grab all my flying aparts
Gathering me up
A fist slams through my chest
Starting my heart
As I re-body with a giant breath
To find my bedroom door closing
Alone
In the dark
I clutch my little white puppy with red velvet ears
Waiting for dawn
Poached eggs on toast
And hell





This vision first came to me on Joe's table after Mark was born.  It was years until I stopped waking up in the middle of every night in terror. 

I find that I am not as grateful as I feel that I should be.
I am awed and I absolutely believe in that Power.

I don't believe I could have faced the demon and my murder without the Power in that voice and those hands.  Because pain and suffering and dying and treachery and betrayal and deceit are so very, very real and powerful.  That is what stood out to me through years of night terrors- the reality of evil, a very personal evil, coming especially for me.  And after looking that evil in the face, abject terror is the only sane response.  Blind panic. Mortal fear. 


Even in my darkest years when I was pissed at all things Christian, panicked by religious people, and off put by Jesus- even then, I have never been able to doubt the reality of God.  God is.


Like Gandolph at the pass of KazaDoom commanding, "You shall not pass!" and slamming his staff into the bridge.  The bridge shatters and the demon falls.  This image of the slamming staff and shout is exactly the image which came when the Voice shouted "No!"

God forbid my death, gathered me up, and restarted my life. 

The power of life and healing is deeper than the power of torture and death.
After what I have lived of the consequences of torture and death, anything bigger, truer, and deeper than that, well, that would be worth living for even after everything and everything.

I am not satisfied yet.
God has given me His word that I won't be disappointed.
I've told Him that I'll take all the best He's got for me.


Collaborating

I collaborated with evil.  I kept silent while he lived.  I perpetuated the craziness.  Yeah, I was a kid when it happened.  Yeah, I didn't remember.  But still, if he got to anyone else after me it was through my silence.  My solace is that several months after he strangled me nearly to death, he had a stroke which left one whole side of his body weak and painful.  I hope I was his last victim.

In an effort to make it right, I sent the letter below to family members.  Blogging about my abuse publicly is another way I tell the truth to make right my lies and silence.

When things go this wrong, no amount of suffering, no amount of trying will make it right.  And I say that from years and years of doing both.  Just recently I realized that this is what ancient writers were talking about when they wrote about atonement.  God's suffering and death atone making the universe right again while my suffering and death merely perpetuate the wrong and pain.  God has offered me happiness and I've accepted.  The wrong guy died and the collaborator lives happily ever after.  That is completely stupid and I've told God so but that's the offer and I've accepted.  Maybe true healing of craziness comes through being even crazier?  Maybe that only works if you're God being crazy.

6/1/09

Good afternoon, everyone,
After years of therapy and bodywork, the time to talk about the abuse in my childhood has come.  I was repeatedly sexually abused as a preschooler by my beloved Grampa Eldridge while he was drunk.  I have very painful memories and a number of anxiety-related physical concerns because of this abuse which I have spent years and thousands of dollars addressing. 

Some of you I emailed years ago, but expressed that I was unwilling to talk about it at that time.  I appreciate the great respect you showed by not asking.  Now I am ready to talk about my experiences. 

I am sure of what I remember and am not willing to discuss whether or not "I'm right" or "how could this possibly have happened?"  One out of every 5 women on the planet are sexually abused, often by someone they know.  Pedophiles find a way, people, even in the best of circumstances, which alcoholism isn't. 

Also, I want to offer an apology to you all for remaining silent so long, for collaborating with evil, for allowing the craziness to go unchallenged, and for not sounding the alarm earlier.  It grieves me deeply that in addition to the ways my choices have affected me, that my lack of strength, courage, and honor may have compromised some of you, especially any of you who were abused or caught in the dysfunctional craziness.  I am deeply sorry.

Please feel free to forward this to other family members.  I don't have everyone's email.  Also, this is not a secret, so please feel free to discuss it among yourselves and with me.  I'm not up for 15 strong emotional reactions from people I love, so do me a favor and connect with me after you've worked through your initial shock, ok?

May God's grace rest upon us all,
Amy