INNOCENCE TURNS TO SHAME

I walked slowly toward the house. My heart was broken and the world had become a fearful place in the blinking of an eye. Tentatively, I placed my right foot on the bottom step leading up to the porch. When it held my weight, I was surprised. I had expected to it dissolve beneath me the way life as I had known it had. My mind was whirling as I tried to grasp what had been done to me by someone I loved and trusted. Why had he so betrayed that love and trust? Approximately 30 minutes ago,I had been awakened from a deep and peaceful sleep as I lay on a quilt in the yard to escape the suffocating July heat that made the house unbearable. We didn't have air conditiioning. As I slowly awakened, I felt hands groping my body. I opened my eyes to protest and was filled with horror and unbllief as the bright moonight identified the person who was violating both my body and soul. Filled with shame and fear, I closed my eyes and pretended to stil be sleeping. I was too ashamed to even let him know that I was aware of what he was doing to me. Eventually, he quit and went on his way. I was left feeling dirty, used, and, most of all, confused. It was in this state of confusion that I made my way into the house and to bed. When I awoke the next morning, I lay there with a vague feeling of uneasines until the experience of the night before once again filled me with a pervadng shame. I didn't realize it then, but shame was to become so ingrained in my heart that it would be my constant companion for the next 45 years. I became so flled with it that it affected every aspect of my personality. And it was shame that made me keep that vile secret to myself. Sadly, the same silences many children today and has done so through the years. It was the knowledge of my silence that gave my abuser the opportunity to continue violating me. He knew his vile acts were "safe" with me. I learned to be on constant alert for his presence and tried to avoid ever being alone with him -- without success. But, living in a state of hypervigilence took its toll on my emotional stability. After a year, I began having long, uncontrollable crying spells. Mom tried for weeks to find out what was wrong and finally took me to our gruff family doctor of whom I was afrad. After Mom told him what was happening, he demanded to know what was going on. The only response he got from his questioning was my pesistant "Nothing,". He finally became angry with me and left his office. I was never able to share with my mother that I was living a life of hopeless desperation. The human mind can only stand so much until it must find an outlet for the torment, shame, fear, and guilt that filled every tense moment of my concious thoughts. At age 15, my brain found that outlet in the form of grand mal seizures. My seizures were uncontrolled for the next twenty years. In 1975, I entered the hospital for a hysterectomy. I asked the nurses if they would tell Dr. Segarbarth I would like to see him while I was in the hospital. He was the doctor who had diagnosed me as being an epeleptic twenty years earlier. It was surely God Who had led me to ask to see him, for after an EEG he told me there was no reason for me to ever have another seizure if he got my medication regulated. In tbe 40 plus years since then, I have suffered one seizure. The doctor had put me on a s strong antidepressant when I was hospitalized in 1988 for severe depressiion. It caused the seizure. I had always believed my seizures were the result of the sexual abuse, but because I took so long to confide in my doctor, my belief wasn't confirmed until last year on the day I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. I told Dr. Cox, a neurologist I'd known for many years and who knew of my history of sexual abuse, that I had read in a book several years ago that when a teenage girl started having seizures and no physical cause could be found, that her family dyamics should be checkd. He repled quietly, " We're taught that in medical school." For a few days, I was saddened that I had spent so many years on medication and suffered numerous seizures, yet no doctor had ever asked about my family dynamics. Then it dawned on me that even if they had, they would have probably concluded that we were the "perfect family" that I'd often heard my mother say we were, for I realized that I could never have overcome my shame to let them know the truth. Gradually, I figured out a way to make my abuser leave me alone. I would go into a violent rage and he was afraid of my anger. This helped to solve an immediate problem, but eventually became a problem itself, for i used anger as a tool to solve most of my problems. Anger can become an addiction of its own, and that's just wnat nappened to me. And it affected every relationship in my adult life. I began dating a boy my Sophomore year in High School. He was fun to be with, and I was not above pulling an occasional trick on him. One Sunday we stopped at the restaurant in the small town about three miles from my home. We each ordered a Coke. Before they arrived, my date had turned around and was talking with the couple in the booth behind us. I started drinking my coke and waited for him to turn his attention back to me. I waited......and waited.......and waited. Finally, I thought he needed some punishment for ignoring me, so I carefully emptied quite a bit of the salt shaker in his coke,wiped it clean and waited. After a few more minutes of being so neglected, I picked up the pepper shaker and did as I has with the salt shaker.... and waited. At last my patience was rewarded when he turned around and took a big drink from his coke. I'm not sure which bulged the most--his eyes or his cheeks. But, his eyes told me I was in trouble, so I grabbed his keys, ran to the car, and locked the doors. I wouldn't open them until he promised not to hurt me. I was sick the next day and he sent a note home by my sister. At the bottom was a picture he'd drawn of my childish prank entitled, "The Peppering Princess". We dated for a couple of years and I began to realize that his family was a bit higher on the social ladder than ours. Besides, I felt dirty and beneatb him. I sabotaged our relatiionship and began dating a boy I felt was more on my level. I was too hard-headed to listen to the warnings from teachers and others that it was a mistake. I had to learn that lesson for myself.