Metamorphosis

One of the things I’ve discovered about myself in therapy is that my brain can put up amazing walls at protecting myself from past trauma.

 
This confession isn’t about a sex filled romp. I think it’s more of a cathartic post for me and how I ended up gravitating towards the types of things that attract me sexually. It also ties together some reasons that I am the way I am in my personal, professional, and private life.

I started therapy in my late 20’s and never told anyone why, I’d just block my schedule for a couple of hours and disappear. All anyone knew was that I was going and that was good enough, no one ever questioned it. I wish I would have started going earlier in life because it probably would have saved me from a lot of misadventures. The positive is that every experience leads to a greater sense of self and helps you become better in strange ways even if it doesn’t seem like it at the moment.

I suppose I should put a trigger warning here: If your sensitive to sexual abuse and other sexually traumatic events, skip this confession please and read any other post I have.

What happened to me in the past that molded me into the person that I am today came down to three events: My boyfriend, a family friend, and my brother. I’ve never told anyone about these events except my therapist. Only the participants in those events knew what happened. It’s not something I think they’d brag about or share and it’s certainly something my brain has kept locked in the deepest corners of my mind for several years. Going through 2018 with the height of the #MeToo movement drove me nuts and I had unwarranted anxiety and panic attacks during the most mundane of moments. Then my therapist suggested a type of therapy that unlocked a whole lot of bad things that I spent the remainder of the year coping with, while trying to maintain somewhat of a relationship with a wonderful woman who was very supportive of my physical and mental wellbeing at the time.

I’ll briefly cover the events enough to get the point across, but I won’t go into specific details like I have done in the past in other posts.

The Boyfriend – When I was 16, I went to spend some time with my boyfriend at his house while his parents went out for a dinner on Valentine’s Day. We sat around, snacked, played Nintendo and then got intimate. Things got hot and heavy and we ended up having consensual sex. At one point during the act, he was sitting on the couch, feet on the ground and I was riding on top of him facing a wall with only his upper body in front of me. That’s when his best friend entered the room out of nowhere and suddenly I have this crazy amount of pain in my butt. I tried to get off but my hips were held down by someone (either it was my boyfriend or him) and when I turned around I just know I screamed louder than I can ever remember before having my mouth muffled by a hand. There was some panic all around and then laughter followed by no apologies and the only justification mentioned was that it was a joke or a prank – Ha-ha on me. Apparently this was a thing in High School at the time? Mystery partner enters the room and three ways all around. I never heard of it and none of the other girls I hung out with ever mentioned it. Anyhow, the event probably lasted a few minutes but it seemed forever because in the end I was all cried out and sore all over. Needless to say, I have an aversion to Valentine’s Day, More than twosomes, and actual rape. We broke up that night. I didn’t laugh it off, and when I entered my house I snuck straight into the shower and tossed the bloody panty away. My brain told me I had washed myself of the event and after a sleepless night, I awoke as a very different person inside while maintaining who people would expect me to be on the outside.

 
Family Friend (The Mechanic) – I had my drivers license for close to a year and my first car for six, maybe seven months. My father had a lot of clients in a lot of different industries so it was always easy to find someone who did quality work. It was time for an oil change and my dad had an arrangement where I could simply drive into his friends shop and I’d be the next in line for anything I needed to have done. On this day, I had arrived for an oil change. I’d come to the shop a few times before for things like getting a headlight changed or tires adjusted, and other trivial issues without running into any problems. Today when I came, I was in a time crunch and the check engine light was on so I stopped by the shop. My usual contact, the owner and family friend, was out at the time so I had to deal with someone new. I gave them all of my info and my keys and took a seat. There’s a window where you can see the cars line up and usually they’ll take my car and switch it out with whoever is next. I sat for about thirty minutes and noticed two cars in line went before me. I went up to the counter and quietly mentioned my arrangement with the guy who tells me it’s going to be a while since I’m still 8th in line. I’m quite upset because I don’t have the time for this so I ask him if I can take the car and come back another time. He says sure, he’ll get it from the tech. Another twenty minutes or so go by and he calls me into his office. I enter and he closes the door. I’ve never been back here and the fact the door closed sent red flags up all around me. This office is not near the customer area or near the working area, it’s off to the side down a hallway. I hate picturing it even as I type this. I’m there, he’s there, doors closed and he has the keys in hand. He tells me he can get me in next and have my car out in 15 minutes. I think to myself “Okay, that’s great” and then he throws in his proposition: Jerk him off and the car is next. I’m blown away at this point and honestly scared shitless. He’s taller and stronger than me and looks creepy as hell and is also between myself and the door. Fast forward and I end up giving him a hand job just so I can get out of there, but that hand job turns into a forced blowjob with all of the groping and fingering he could get in. I took my keys and I wiped my face off on my sleeves, ran to my car and almost killed someone while they were crossing the street as I drove like hell out of that place. I never went back there, never told anyone, and never felt so helpless. Hindsight came up with all sorts of scenarios where I could have fought, screamed, or even clawed or bit his dick off, but when it’s happening in real time, there’s not mental processing happening and all that I could have done was just survive.

My Brother – It was a few days after graduation and I had a few months before heading out for college. These months were the worst months of my life. My brother is 2 years younger than me and before this, we got along fairly well. I would have never imagined that he thought some of the things about me that he would say to me during these months. What happened was simple, I had done something that I shouldn’t had done and he basically blackmailed me into one sexual encounter. From that one encounter, all sorts of sexual acts with him throughout the course of those few months took place until I moved out to start college. I actually moved out sooner just so I could get away from him. Family get togethers were never the same and we are only on the bare minimum of speaking to each other. This also brought unnecessary grief and drama during the funerals of our parents when they passed away a few years ago. Looking back, I should have never let myself be coerced by him. I should have just taken the fall and admitted to what I did because in today’s world it’s nothing at all. Instead, the first encounter led to a horrible series of continuous events that snowballed into worse ones. He had caught me masturbating in the shower and took some pictures to blackmail me with. During the first encounter he took more, which lead to more afterwards, which meant he’d do pretty much whatever he wanted to me. It was horrible and once I had the first encounter, I couldn’t very well tell anyone what was going on and the reason why it was going on. I had turned 18 and believed that I was an adult and I should be able to handle things on my own. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the reasoning skills that I’d get later on in life along with the clarity and self confidence that I needed back then to own my mistake and not be taken advantage of. It was an awful period of time in my life where I was supposed to be independent, starting out life on my own and here I was with this awful thing that happened and I didn’t have anyone to turn to.

Again, hindsight is something I’d beat myself up over and over again until I entered some group sessions and found out that what I had done and the way I reacted to each of the things that happened to me was quite normal and not beyond what others in similar situations to myself had done. It’s easy to hear/read about someone else’s trauma and say, “Should have left/kicked/punched/screamed/ran/called the cops.” Honestly, it’s still what I tell myself some nights but I was also there and lived through it; at the time those options, choices, and decisions weren’t available or easy to make.

To tie these events to the journey I took to become how I am, I think it’s reasonable to correlate a lot of my self defense mechanisms and career path were a direct result of these events. I am a product of my experiences in order to control those events. I chose to have a profession with a position of power to try to assert control any and all events and their outcomes. I’m gravitated towards positions leadership and power in order to keep control of those around me and keep others at an arm’s length distance. I’m always in charge of what happens in my relationships and in my bedroom. The moments where I succumb to someone else’s wants and needs is rare and only because I cede control momentarily only to take it back when I want to. Things are always on my terms based on events that occurred that weren’t on my terms. My therapist suggests this is why I take risky encounters in hotels and keep short relationships, because I’m seeking to relive my trauma and trying to correct the past. In short, “I’m a fucked-up woman.”

When I look back at some of my past posts, chats, and things I haven’t posted yet, I’m starting to put the pieces together with who I am, why I am, and now I’m coming to terms with who I want to be.

I know this wasn’t a typical post and it was probably as difficult to read this as it was for me to write this. I do want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to do so.

Hey 2018, #MeToo
 

Respectfully, Kara

–xoxo