Do you feel like it’s too late to change or heal? I did. But not anymore. Here’s why…
About this episode: This is the fourteenth in a series of episodes that are just the start of where I plan to take this podcast. These initial episodes will give you a backstory on the journey I went through to recover from childhood sexual abuse at the age of twelve. The purpose of this backstory is to help you see how trauma affected my life and art, and to learn some of the things I did to begin healing.
I do not give any graphic details of the events.
A Date to Remember
On March 19, 2019 my husband and I got sober. It has been 3 years as of this writing and recording (April 2022). Truly it’s a miracle. I hadn’t gone more than 11 months since I was 12 years old! It feels like a long time because it’s the longest I’ve gone. But it also seems short because the gratitude I have for being sober has not worn off. Everything feels new! I am experiencing life more fully than I ever have. I love sobriety! But I admit it’s challenging at times, too.
The first year sober was hard. I was not used to having to feel my feelings. It made me realize my comfort zone was to be disconnected. I was so used to altering my state into artificial happiness. So, I didn’t like all these feelings. The first year had a lot of ups and downs while learning how to feel.
All the Feels
I used to think that some emotions were “good” and some were “bad”. For instance sadness and anger were bad. All I wanted was to feel happy all the time. I thought that living life well meant you were always happy. Which is kind of ridiculous, right? The artificial happiness of being high all the time gave me an unrealistic look at life.
I don’t think sadness and anger are “bad” anymore. In fact, I would rather feel them than distract or numb myself from them. Because I used to think that numbing or distracting myself from those emotions protected me from pain. Now I know that it just caused more pain. I find a lot of value in feeling sadness, grief, and anger.
Fears and Doubt
Sobriety also affected my art. I associated being high with making art so much that I thought I needed weed to be more creative and let loose. So when I got sober, I suddenly had all these fears and doubts around making art. I questioned if I could make art at all.
It made me realize I had been hiding behind the drug. For example, if somebody said they didn’t like my art, or didn’t like the color I chose, I could just say, “Well, I was high.” So I could blame being high rather than take accountability for my art and that I chose colors with intention.
Breaking Free from the Lies
In the early days of sobriety, it was too vulnerable and too exposing of myself to make art. So I didn’t create anything for an entire year. When I did start making art in 2020, I found that all my fears were false. I was more creative, free, and able to let loose better when I am sober.
Another lie I was believing was that I had to be high to quiet the inner critic. But I found I can quiet the critical voices better when I am sober as well. My inner critic takes the form of people I know looking over my shoulder. Sometimes they like what I’m making, and sometimes I don’t. I would have to shush! them while I was painting to get them to stop. It was a constant battle. It takes practice to quiet those voices. But now I am able to do it much easier than before.
There is still a lot of vulnerability in creating for me. I still care what people think. What a lot of this comes down to is: I am more confident in myself and my art when I’m sober.
EMDR – Disclaimer
Sobriety also played a role in why I went to EMDR therapy.
I have a short disclaimer about this section.
- It is specific to sexual abuse. I don’t get graphic or detailed.
- You may still relate to some of this even if you haven’t been through sexual abuse. Personally, I don’t know anyone that has a perfect sex life. Do you?
- Also keep in mind, this is just my experience with EMDR. If you are interested in learning more, do your own research and ask a professional.
- What I share is from my memory and from what I wrote after each session.
The Wet Bandaid
In the episode “My Story: Coming of Age (with a Dark Secret)” I talked about feeling like I was at war with my body that started in my teenage years. That was also one of the first times I said the line “I’m going to talk about what no one wants to talk about”. I mentioned how there were times when I was aroused during the abuse. I carried a lot of shame from that.
The feeling of being betrayed by my body continued over all these years. I used to tell my art therapist that getting in the mood to have sex felt like climbing a mountain. I hated how hard it was! So, we used weed a lot to help make that mountain easier to climb. It did help me relax, but it wasn’t a cure. If anything it was more like a wet bandaid that’s falling off. It didn’t always work. It also gave an expectation that because I was high, I would be fine. But that wasn’t always the case.
I never knew when my body was going to react. It felt like being betrayed all over again. This time, in my body not feeling safe when it should.
EMDR – The Set Up
Getting sober meant it was time to take care of this and stop trying to put a bandaid over something that just needed to be healed.
So it took about 5 or 6 sessions before I did EMDR. First, I told her my story and the therapies I had already done. Then I told her what I was hoping to get out of EMDR. For me, I wanted to break the connection that my body had to the trauma. Next she helped me pick a memory that was related to that. She also had me choose a “safe place”. It was somewhere I could go to feel safe if the therapy ever got too overwhelming.
I chose a bench in Milwaukee with my favorite view of Lake Michigan.
A Step Toward Freedom
In the Podcast, I read straight from my journal of my first EMDR session. I even put music behind it, so you should definitely listen to it. (and save me all that typing.) 😄
In summary, I got a lot of healing from the sessions. Each time I revisited the memory, it was like I was rewriting what happened. It was a strange, dream-like state where I was in control of myself, but not other people. By the end of the 4th session, I felt renewed and free from that memory.
The Big Surprise
Now it’s time to talk about the next big event of 2019. I kept it a secret until now because when it happened, I kept it a secret from almost all of my friends. All because I was worried about what they would think of me.
My husband and I got baptized on Father’s Day in June 2019. This might seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, because I just briefly talked about reading the Bible with a friend a few episodes ago. What happened was, we read the Bible together regularly for several months, but then it became less regular. I was sober, and then I wasn’t. So my husband and I had started to go to church and meet people, but then we fell back into our old routine and stopped going.
I’m the Jerk
So when we got sober, we reconnected with the church. I started to feel convicted to get baptized. But I had so much anxiety around it because I was worried I would lose friendships. That sounds like I think my friends are jerks, right?
Really, I was worried they were going to respond how I would have responded years before. So I thought they would think I was stupid. Or, I would get that condescending reaction like, “Oh, yea. Well, you know, someone like you who had addiction and abuse – I can see how someone like you would need to believe in something so obviously made up.”
Even with those worries, I still went through with it. My reason for not wanting to get baptized wasn’t because I didn’t believe. It was because I was worried about what other people thought. I realized that’s not a good reason not to do something.
I’m Going to be Honest
So I had a lot of similar thoughts in telling this story on the podcast, too. I guessed listeners either turned it off as soon as they heard the word “baptized”. Or you were hoping that was part of my story and responded with, “Praise God!”. Perhaps you’re sticking through to the end of the episode and wondering, “Does this mean you’re going to be talking about God all the time?”
I realized I had to be ok with whatever your response is. One thing to know about me is: I’m going to be honest. I’m not going to hide parts of myself just to get someone’s approval. Obviously, there is a time and place for being open or withholding information. But with this, I’m ok if we have different beliefs and views. If you can still listen knowing that I see life with a very different lens than I did in the beginning – then I think we are going to be ok.
So Much to Learn
Becoming a Christian at 41 years old has been interesting, to say the least. I think if I wrote a book about it I’d call it, “No one told me it would be like this”. I’ve had so many questions and so much confusion.
When we first got baptized, my husband and I were like, “What do we do now? Sell everything we own and live in third world countries?” I questioned if I should leave the communities I was already in. In being baptized I said I submitted my life to God – without really knowing what that looked like.
Art as a Tool
So these last few years have been learning what that looks like. Part of it for me is in sharing my story and my art. I want to connect to other people who have also gone through pain and suffering and have a connection to art as well. For me, art has been a tool to help me heal. It can be a tool for all of us, too. Art can help us all connect to our emotions and release them. That’s what this is all about.
Do you use art as a tool for healing, too?
Share your thoughts below. 💬