At 7:16 am, October 16, 1986, I was struck deaf, dumb and blind. That’s not entirely true. But it was a Damascus Road experience. A realization stopped me in my jogging tracks: I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse by my father. I sank to the roadside curb and gazed up at the black and blue sky. I was 33.
Massive rewiring transpired in the following moments. the new label replaced the normal male label. Simpler, cleaner rewiring replaced an overwrought, short circuiting system.
Now, in addition to being a white, heterosexual, college grad male, I was a sexual abuse victim. In my surrender to brokenness, I felt empowered. I had given my illness a name, and, in so doing, it no longer loomed over me.
My body sighed, finally understood. All these aberrant behaviors that shamed me all my life, like sweaty palms, fight or flight impulses during sex, relegating relationships to power dynamics, I could now acknowledge with compassion.
How did this moment arrive? The grace of God? Chance? Serendipity?
I had been in therapy on and off for years. While rummaging around the shadows of memory, I bumped into dad nibbling on my ear while I sat on his lap, unbidden late night massages with the bedroom door closed, comments about my body, leering looks, an envelope in the basement stuffed with photos of bare chested men. I recalled how he volunteered with the Cub Scouts long after me and my brother were gone, how he spoke fondly of working at boys’ camps when he was younger, how before he married, he shared a tiny apartment in the Village with a man, who when I met him, pinned my gay meter.
I kept those memories at a distance while I chased after normal. OK, so my dad had some quirks. Why should that stop me? I repeated unhealthy behaviors like promiscuous sex and drug use. l suppressed my panic to flee the bedroom. There’s nothing to fear, I just need to man up, the critical voice inside me said.
In reflection, I’m in awe at how the abuse shaped so much of me. I jumped at the smallest sound. I cried out if someone snuck up on me. I had recurring nightmares of a bogeyman coming into my bedroom at night and being so frightened I couldn’t cry out for help.
There were neurotic quirks that I know were connected. I couldn’t stay to the end of some movies convinced if I did, I would never forgive myself. I couldn’t finish the last bite on a plate, no matter how good the food was, again convinced that if I did I would be irreparably broken. Sometimes I couldn’t swallow. Whatever I had in my mouth just stayed there until I regained control of my swallow muscles. If sex was initiated by a woman, I would follow her lead, then later, overcome with shame, beat myself up for not stopping her, not being more in control.
I had no clear sense of right and wrong. Lying came second nature. I stole money from my parents. I shoplifted my school supplies. I eventually learned to ask others if such and so behavior was appropriate. My moral compass was made of bandaids, rubber bands and a wooden arrow.
The morning of that Damascus Road experience, I prepared for my run. I was in Boulder, CO, visiting an acquaintance who was a therapist. As I perused her book collection, I spotted a taped lecture series called Permission to be Precious by Pia Mellody. I grabbed the first tape and snapped it into my WalkMan.
She lectured about child victims of sexual abuse, codependence and self esteem. I was immersed in a new universe yet one familiar to me. I listened to a language I had never heard before, yet I was fluent.
And then came the Aha, and in that moment, I won the battle for my soul. I staked my claim: this body is mine, not yours, dad. I finally heard the ugly truth that my body could only whisper, as it slugged along, hoping against hope that someday I would hear her cry.
The artifice of normal male fell away. The broken man behind it was stronger, He stood on his own.
I stopped blaming myself, and placed the blame where it belonged: on my father. It’s astounding how much I attacked myself in order to preserve his well being. I was a weirdo; I was retarded; I wasn’t a real man. It was my duty, even my reason for being, to keep him happy. And if that meant being his girlfriend, so be it. And I wasn’t even his number one girl friend. I was the slut on the side.
In time, I rose up from the curb. I completed my run.
A few weeks later I confronted my father. Unfortunately, my righteous indignation had slipped out the back door. My voice quavered. I felt like I would puke. This was patricide I was committing. Despite his stooped shoulders, his sagging skin, in my mind, he towered over me. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. He added, “Why are you ruining your life to spite mine?”
White rage surged up from my bowels. “How dare you!” I said with full voice. I had never spoken with such authority in my life. To this day I am convinced that the clap of thunder that occurred in that moment was caused by my anger. “I am with every ounce of effort I have taking back my life!” I continued. I spit every word into his face.
In the aftermath, he wanted nothing further to do with me. My mother forbid me to bring it up again. It made her feel guilty, and if she truly believed me she would have to leave him. My sister had made her own peace with his transgressions, deciding he didn’t know any better, and he was, after all, our only father. My brother grunted and looked away.
Like Saul, I changed my name. I moved away.
My body grew stronger. I no longer saw myself as the crazy one in the family constellation. I no longer chastised myself for “failing” in sexual situations. I stopped punishing myself for quirks.
Sometimes I question my authenticity, still wonder if perhaps I am making this all up, that my leap to appropriate this label is wrong. But that’s my mind talking untethered. I would love to deny it. But I can’t. It’s an is. It’s there. It’s who I am. Pushing it aside is lying.
Or another shade of doubt is does my experience merit the label of being a sexual abuse victim? How does my experience of unwanted touching compare with another’s experience of penetration? It’s all on a spectrum of sexual violation. The responses also are on a spectrum. Perhaps mine are stronger than someone else’s. But they are what they are. I’m not going to talk myself out of them, again.