When I first told my story, I didn’t know how to feel about it. But that all changed in an instant.
About this episode: This is the eleventh 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.
The Timeline
It’s now 2 years later, in January 2016 and I’m 37 years old. The last two years had both highs and lows. Such is life, right? I went back to college in 2015 and was working toward a degree in Psychology, with the hopes of becoming an art therapist. I was still homeschooling and doing my best to handle the roller coaster of trauma recovery.
A Chance Encounter
I went back to Wisconsin in January 2016 to celebrate my Dad’s 70th birthday. Only an important celebration like that could bring me back to Wisconsin during one of the coldest months of the year. While I was sitting in a restaurant with my family, I happened to see the person who abused me.
From Overwhelmed to Disconnected
The instant I saw him, a rush of emotions surged through me and my heart started racing. You know how a lightbulb will suddenly glow really intensely just before burning out? It’s kind of like that. Then it was as if all my senses became dull. I didn’t have a word for it then, but I was dissociating. It’s like my mind’s way of reducing the overwhelming feelings was to mentally separate from the physical world around me. Actually it was similar to how I felt when I first told my therapist about the abuse, but more extreme. It’s like I was there, but I wasn’t.
Ghostly
So I’m standing in this room full of people like a ghost, observing them talking, laughing, and acting like nothing ever happened. Because, as far as they knew, nothing had. There were only two people in the room who knew about the abuse. So of course everyone was acting like nothing happened. This is how it’s always been, but it never affected me like this. Revealing the secret of my abuse made it feel fresh, like it happened yesterday. But I wasn’t ready to confront him or talk to anyone there about it. So I kept it all bottled up and went home.
Angry and Confused
Now I’m angry. I was mad at him, at myself, and everyone in that restaurant. I was so angry that I just became angry at everything. And I finally understood what my therapist meant when she said she was “just waiting for me to get angry”. It was in there, it just wasn’t ready to come out.
Then I wondered, “If I’m angry, did I really forgive him?” This was an important step to my healing because it helped me see that I had some other work to do first. So I don’t think I “did it wrong” because knowing what it feels like to not have forgiven, or be confused by it, helped me know what true forgiveness really feels like. But kind of like staying sober, forgiveness was a long-term goal. The anger that was boiling over needed attention first.
You Don’t Have to Hide
I felt sick for months after that trip. My entire abdomen felt bruised and inflamed. This one time while giving myself a massage, I had a really strange and fascinating experience. I closed my eyes and deepened my breath while massaging my sore liver. And I saw myself at the age of about 3 hiding behind my liver, which was more like a cartoon shape of what I think my liver might look like. She looked at me with fear in her eyes. I told her it was ok, she was safe, and she didn’t have to hide. And she stepped out in the open toward me.
Then I massaged my stomach. This time I saw myself at about 12 or 13. She was also hiding and giving me the same frightened look. I spoke softly and lovingly to her and told her it was ok, she was safe, and she didn’t need to hide. She stepped out in the open toward me.
A Step Toward Healing
This happened a few more times and I saw myself as a teenager and in my early 20s. I realized that each version of myself came from pictures I have seen many times. So I don’t think that the ages were significant, I think it was just images stored in my memory.
Normally, I am really critical of myself. So speaking so lovingly to these young versions of me was really healing. It didn’t end the internal pain, but it started to mend the relationship I had with myself.
The Spark that Inflamed Me
Here’s what happened that sent me back to therapy. Do you remember the Brock Turner case in California? He was a student at Stanford that was accused of sexually assaulting a woman who was only known anonymously as “Emily Doe” during the trial. In March 2016 he was convicted on 3 charges of felony sexual assault.
On June 2, 2016, Brock Turner was sentenced to 6 months in jail and 3 years probation. He also had to register as a sex offender for life and complete a rehabilitation program for sex offenders. I was frantic when I heard about the sentence and read parts of his defendant statement and her victim impact statement. So I started darting around my house and circling my kitchen island at warp speed. I was so wound up. I couldn’t stop moving and yelling.
Eventually I “rage cleaned” the kitchen. You know the kind of cleaning where you scrub so hard you almost take the finish off of things? Actually, cleaning the kitchen helped me feel a little better. I didn’t know what else to do with all that energy! I went for a swim that night to release some more of it.
Hi Anger, Meet Rage
When I eventually calmed down, I tried to figure out why I reacted so strongly. Then I realized it wasn’t just the sentence, which to me seemed inappropriately light considering the charges, but it was because Brock Turner didn’t take any accountability for what happened. And it was a mirror to the lack of accountability in my own story.
My anger boiled over into rage and I couldn’t contain it anymore.
Interview with a Therapist
So I obviously needed some help. Since I was working toward becoming an art therapist, I decided to try art therapy.
This time I approached choosing a therapist differently. I used my first session with them like an interview process. So I would tell them some of my backstory, what I was struggling with presently, and what I was hoping to get help with. Then I asked them, “What does art therapy look like?”
Get Me Out of Here
So, here’s a funny story about that. I was in this therapist’s office, which was a little building in the backyard of her house in Central Austin. I told her my part and then asked, “So what does art therapy look like?” She said, “I let you lead the way. You can choose. So you can play in the sand table if you’d like, go into the “pillow corner”, if that’s what’s calling, or color mandalas. Whatever you feel you need to do.”
I could feel this inner simmer come to a low boil. And I was thinking, “Color mandalas? Are you serious right now? I need some real help here!!” How about you can give me a black Sharpie and I’ll color that mandala – out of existence!”
And what’s funny is that if I had worked with her and actually did that, she would’ve been like, “Ok. You have anger issues. Let’s start there!”
What’s ironic is I normally would have liked her approach. “Let’s just see how I feel and we’ll take it from there” is pretty much how I lived life. But when I was in this level of suffering, I wanted a clear path. Give me a 10-point checklist, so when I’m at point 8 – I know I only have 2 more to go. I needed to see a finish line.
So I left there and was like, “I’m never talking to her again.”
Learning to Feel Safe in My Body
I told the next art therapist I went to that story. She laughed and said, “Ok, I’ll never bring up mandalas.” I ended up working with her mainly because I liked her. She couldn’t give me a 10-point checklist. But I felt comfortable with her from the start.
So now I’m at this place where I’m just overcome by a tsunami of emotions that I can’t control. It was like all my feelings were put into a blender and turned on high with the top off. It was a chaotic and overwhelming mess. At one point my art therapist diagnosed me with PTSD.
She was also the one that gave me the word for “dissociating”. She helped me understand what it was and identify when I was doing it. I then realized I dissociated a lot in moments of intimacy. So she helped me with ways to stay in my body and feel safe there.
Where’s the Big Release?
She also told me about Mayan Abdominal Massage to help with my abdominal pain and reconnecting to my body. She mentioned that some people get an instant emotional release during the massage. To me that sounded like a checklist item! I thought, “Ooh! One big chunk of healing all in one! Sign me up!” So I went and had it done. It was a wonderful experience! I even went home with instructions on how to do it myself. It’s something I still do to release tension.
I told my art therapist what a lovely experience the massage was. But I also told her that I didn’t have a big emotional release. And she said, “Oh. Did you want one?” I was like, “Uhh…Yea!! Just get me to the finish line here!”
Worse than I Thought
This last one (for this episode) was hard, but good. So I told her how for the last 3 years I would have this thing happen in the car while I was driving. It was usually when it was quiet and I almost always had a kid in the car with me. Suddenly, I would break into a sweat, my heart would start racing, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I always kept going, but I would think, “Should I pull over?” I just hoped we would get to wherever we were going safely.
And she said, “Angie, that sounds like a panic attack.”
When she said that, my heart sank into my shoes. Up until that point, the one thing I thought I had going for me was that I’d say, “Well, I have high anxiety… but at least I don’t have panic attacks!”
She shattered this illusion of control I had in that one statement. And I wasn’t ready to hear it. I actually went home and looked it up because I was convinced she was wrong. But, she was right. Even though it was really hard to hear, it was good to be able to identify it. But it took me a while to accept it.
Another Artist Speaks Out
So as I close, I want to go back to the Brock Turner case for a minute. I mentioned that the victim was only known as “Emily Doe” during the trial. That was true until 2019 when she revealed her identity as Chanel Miller. She wrote a memoir about the assault called “Know My Name”. I recently found out that she’s also an artist! Apparently she has been drawing since she was a kid, but after the assault a therapist suggested she take some art classes. Now she uses both her voice and her art to heal and help others heal, too.
Do you relate to any of this?
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