The further we get in my story away from my abuse, the more I wonder why some of this matters. But through my recent years of counseling, I've been able to look back and understand why I behaved the way I did, what coping mechanisms I used, how I tried to find healing the only ways I knew how at the time. I can see now how some of my behaviors are direct reflections from being abused. If I were to see some of them in others now, I would know they likely have trauma or abuse in their background. It has been important for me to give myself compassion for the girl I was, just doing the best I could with what little resources I had at the time. It's also important for me to understand why it took so long to come out from the layers and layers I'd built on top of myself and face what was underneath. So we continue....
What self-gaslighting looks like, one of those “Oh hey, it’s me” things I found:
I spent spring semester my junior year studying abroad in Bamberg, Germany. To be honest, I hadn't wanted to go at all, but I was a German major, and it was almost required of me. I had been to Wittenberg, Germany for a month between my freshmen and sophomore years of college, and I was had been so miserable on that trip, so I had no desire to go back to Germany for even longer. But those 4.5 months in Bamberg ended up being some of the best of my life. I traveled around Germany and to 5 other countries, some with friends but also much on my own, and I kept everyone updated through a blog I had. I learned so much, I grew so much, I became more independent, and I had experiences I'll happily carry with me forever. But it was simultaneously some of the hardest months of my life. Not being able to drive an hour to see my parents was immensely hard. Just being so far away from everyone was really hard, especially since this was a time before smart phones. Fortunately I had internet in my dorm room and could communicate online, but the physical connection was missing. It was not nearly as easy to get in touch with people as it would be now, especially half a world away with a 6 hour time difference. My mental health was really bad, and I felt even more shame about it. "Amy, you're in Germany, why can't you get out of your room, enjoy every second of this!" Sometimes I just couldn't, but I still didn't have the language for it. Mental health language is like another foreign language, only that one I didn't know yet. Studying was brutal in Germany. It was hard enough in another language, it was worse because my anxiety was also so bad. It was there that a friend told me that what I was struggling with wasn't normal and that I likely had anxiety. It would take years to face, but I'm so thankful she pointed out at least one thing I couldn't name.
The most noticeable thing to others about my studying in Germany and traveling Europe (outside of my new nose piercing and hidden ladybug tattoo) was that I lost a lot of weight. Most days, when I was traveling, I walked most of the day, and often would forget to stop for meals. Even in Bamberg, the city was set up to walk and bike, so I did. The weight dropped quickly. By the time I came back to the states, my clothes hung off me. It was the first thing everyone noticed, and I begun to revel in the compliments.
Less than 2 weeks after getting back to the States, I moved back to campus for my 4th year and moved into an apartment on USC's historic Horseshoe. I was out of the dorm I'd spent the first 2.5 years in, but still very close. Xavier, Meira, Leighton, Frank, and the rest of that friend group were no longer at USC. I finally had my own room in the apartment, and took the luck of the roommate draw (or God's provision and protection over me) and ended up with an incredible roommate. I looked different because of all the weight I'd lost, and I had gained a lot of confidence while away. It felt a bit like starting over. Campus felt like mine, I could be completely done with Xavier and Frank and that entire toxic environment. I could put it behind me, start fresh.
Only it's not that easy. I looked different, I acted different, but it didn't matter how much time passed, there was rarely a day I didn't think about Xavier and what had happened between us. The people around me no longer even knew who he was, much less what had happened between us. If I wanted people to know, I would have to tell them. The prior years my identity felt wrapped up in him. Now no one even had to know. My identity could be whatever I wanted it to be, but what was it?
I was afraid to gain the weight back that I'd lost in Germany, and I thrived on the compliments I was getting. I started counting calories, trying to see how little I could eat. The weight continued to drop. And drop. It would start to become a challenge for me, could I eat even less? Maybe if I lost more, you'd be able to count my ribs, or maybe I'd finally be able to put my hands around my stomach and have them touch. Maybe my hip bones would poke out even more. Maybe I'd be able to touch my fingers if I put them around my upper arms. I had ridiculously unhealthy expectations to try to be noticed, to get attention, really as a cry for help. The more I lost, the more compliments I got. It was a high for me. I felt put on display as such a success story for how much weight I kept losing. Suddenly I was being treated like I was worthy again. Over the next year and a half, I just kept losing weight, trying to see what it would take to feel approval again, or to see if anyone would notice that it was quickly becoming really unhealthy for me.
End of my 4th year outside my apartment building
At one point I started noticing bruises all over my legs. I went to the clinic on campus, and the doctor completely dismissed me, almost embarrassed me for even being there. She asked what I even wanted her to do. I thought it was likely something was low, potassium levels or something, I didn't know, I just knew something wasn't right. But the doctor was so dismissive that I just left. Fortunately I had a doctor in the women's clinic on campus who was very compassionate and non judgmental and was everything a campus doctor should be, but I didn't know I could go to her for something like bruises on my legs. So I chalked it up to just not being heard, again, not having a voice, again. I’m fairly certain it was just an indication that what I was doing to my body wasn’t good.
I didn't have the language for it then, but now I know that the borderline eating disorder I was going through was a way of finally feeling like I had control over my body again. Sexual abuse takes control away from you over what is happening to your body, and that feeling can last for years, especially if you become disconnected with your body like I had. Counting calories, losing excessive weight, was a way for me to control something happening to my body. If I couldn't control anything around me, at least I could control that. It felt empowering at the time. Also, it got me a lot of attention from guys, and I had a hole in my heart I was looking to fill with whomever would give me any attention. Suddenly I was the "hot" girl again, and I was going to prove everyone wrong who had prior made me feel like I was undesirable. I also had heard Xavier’s lies for so long about who I was going to be if I wasn’t with him, they’d become my own internal monologue, and I just sort of succumbed to those lies spoken about me. I still didn’t think I deserved anything better or deserved respect from others.
The year and a half from the time I got back from Germany until I graduated, I looked the happiest I'd been in college. In many ways, I felt like I was. I flaunted my new body. But I was also only learning different ways to mask my pain and different ways to fill the holes in my heart. I still didn't feel I had the power to say no, I still didn't have a voice. I still had no respect for myself. The farther it got from my time with Xavier, the more I felt like I needed to be "over it," whatever "it" had been. When I wasn't, I punished myself more and more, the things I said to myself and did to myself were extremely damaging. I learned to numb myself more and more, wear a mask more and more. "Oh yeah, that's in the past now." No it wasn't, it was never in the past for me. Still I didn't know why. Still I blamed myself. Still I tried to "fix" it, whatever fixing it even meant. I accepted the attention of almost any guy interested in me. I was often juggling multiple guys at once, never officially dating any of them, only using them or letting them use me. I still had not gained my "no" back that Xavier had taken 4 year prior. There were a lot of guys who were good guys, but I also ended up in a lot of situations that were really harmful, and I wasn't even present enough emotionally to realize how harmful they were. There were so many awful things that could have happened to me when I was being so naively promiscuous, and I'm so thankful nothing worse happened. I didn't even have alcohol to blame, because I wasn't drinking, I was making all my decisions sober....drowning in pain instead of booze. The shame I carried from that time was different than the shame I carried from my trauma, this I knew I'd done to myself.
I also held this extremely toxic belief that I needed to find a guy to rescue me, to show me how I should be treated, to nullify what I'd experienced prior, as if that was even possible. It put every guy on an unhealthy pedestal, and even the good guys couldn't stay on it, it was too much to ask. No other person could "rescue" me, it was no one else's responsibility to nullify the trauma that had been done to me. It ended up causing even more hurt when guys who wanted to be that for me couldn't be. My expectations were unhealthy and unrealistic.
Getting ready to go see Rocky Horror Picture Show a few months after getting back from Germany, with a “look at me now” attitude
As an example of my inability to use my voice and say no, I made friends with a guy in one of my classes, we'll call him Ricky. He was weird, but I felt drawn to the people who seemed like outcasts and wanted to see the good in them. We became friends, there was never any attraction on my end, but over a few months he became very possessive. I just brushed off the red flags from the beginning, wanting to be a friend to someone who needed a friend. I also didn't know how to put up boundaries at all. He'd come to my apartment whenever he wanted, but I didn't know how to tell him to stop. He made weird requests of our friendship, nothing sexual in nature, they were possessive requests. He started trying to take up way too much of my time and getting mad too frequently when I didn't do what he expected of me. When I finally tried to tell him I needed space, he escalated into threatening me. It got to where I was afraid to leave my apartment. My amazing roommate, who very much did have a voice and know how to put up boundaries, would do a walk around the apartment to make sure it was safe for me to leave. I would hide in my room, sometimes under the covers, completely frozen and afraid to do anything for fear he'd know I was actually there. She had no problems telling Ricky to leave, and I am forever grateful for her during that terrible time when I couldn't stand up for myself. I spent days, weeks, months, with completely paralyzing anxiety. It got to the point that I had to go to get help from a place on campus with getting a restraining order. Once it was issued, Ricky immediately tried to find a way around the restraining order, and I had to get a lawyer involved to create a permanent, more secure restraining order. Even that only took the anxiety down a notch. Had I been able to use my voice, known my boundaries or even what boundaries were, and felt like I could say “no,” it likely never would have escalated to that point. But I was a completely broken and voiceless person then.
I started seeing a counselor on campus at some point during that time, but from the beginning it was a terrible experience. I had specifically asked for a female, but I had been given a male counselor. I didn't have the voice to speak up for myself and say that a male counselor would not be a good fit and demand that I get a female. So I just went to him, and it was a waste of time for both of us and money on my end. I don't even remember his name now, and I saw him weekly. At that time I simply couldn't feel safe enough with a guy. He at least finally sent me to the psychiatrist on campus, and she prescribed me Zoloft for my anxiety and depression. I was so numb and so disconnected from my emotions that I never knew if it did anything, so she just kept upping the dosage. I took it, but to this day I have no idea if it did anything. I was still paralyzed with anxiety and in a dark pit of depression. But by that point, it had become such a part of me, and I had become so numb, that I couldn't access those parts of myself for the medicine to do anything. My counselor at the time noticed the weight falling off me and just asked if something was wrong, but he never pushed. He really turned me away from counseling, but had I been assertive enough from the beginning and tried to find a good fit of a counselor, maybe the experience would have been completely different. There were just too many layers over my pain at that point that I don't know if even another counselor could have helped at that time in my life. You have to be willing and ready for counseling. I seemed like the thing to do at the time. I thought I was ready then, I thought I wanted to be ready then, but I wasn't.
From the outside, that last year and a half of college looked like "new me, who dis?" Much of it was just a mask, another layer of numbness to cover my pain. But I am thankful for the freedom I felt during that time. Freedom from Xavier and Frank and the toxic group of friends I'd been around. I'm thankful for the good experiences and new friends I made, although some of them were also toxic in different ways. I'm thankful that there was part of my college experience not completely overshadowed by Xavier, that at least I can now go back to the Horseshoe and remember happy times and get excited to show people where I lived. There has been some healing in that.
I was able to get back into the same apartment for my final semester of college. I'd pushed off graduating as long as possible, also I had a senior thesis with the Honor's College looming over my head, and Germany had put me a little behind. That last semester I was able to get back into the same apartment, the same room, only with another random roommate, but one I made no connections with like I had with the prior year's roommate. That was fine, I was so occupied with this giant thing over my head - graduation - that I wasn't even worried about who my roommate was. No one seems to tell you how scary it is to graduate from college. Especially with a German degree during an economic recession. There was this giant "What Now" that seemed to be in flashing neon lights everywhere I looked. I was in no way prepared for life after college. I'd been in school since right before my 3rd birthday, what the heck was I supposed to do when I wasn't in school anymore, how in the world was I supposed to find a "real world" job? And I wasn't planning a wedding like I thought I was supposed to be during my last year of college. It was all terrifying. I felt like a complete failure. I was suddenly supposed to be an adult? What the crap was that all about? To be fair, I'm still confused about this whole "adulting" thing 14 years later, but at 22, in the emotional place I was in, I was definitely unprepared.
I finally tried to start settling down a bit that last semester, or at least what I thought was settling down. I started going to a "spirit filled" church on Saturday nights with some friends from my prior high school youth group. That church believed in healings and miracles and intense worship and didn't focus as much on reading the bible and listening to teachings from the bible. It was a very emotional church, many would label it as Pentecostal, and it had very little structure. The belief was that you went where the spirit led you. Turns out that's not my kind of environment, but at the time, I thought it was. I spent so many Saturday nights being prayed over, sitting in the middle of people worshipping, and just sobbing and begging God for healing from the wounds of Xavier. I just wanted it gone in miracle fashion, in an instant. I am now so thankful God didn't just "take it away," because I would not have learned all that I learned years later when I went through healing the hard route, straight back through the pain. But at the time, I was so angry, it felt like God was ignoring my prayers. Throughout the week I'd try to numb my pain through whatever guy I was focused on at the time, and on the weekends, I was begging for healing from the pain and forgiveness for the life I was living.
While at that church, I met a guy who was the youth leader of the church, although everything was so unstructured that even that wasn't an official or actual title. We'll call him David. We got to know each other, I quickly shared my story, and he immediately wanted to be my "rescuer" and show me how a guy should treat me. I was excited that he was a big part of the church, and I felt he would finally be the one to heal the wounds I was carrying. We quickly started dating, and just as quickly, I realized it was going to be no different than many of the other guys who had said the same things, only we'd also be going to church together. Turns out David was also a very wounded person, and he, too, was just hoping God would heals those wounds miraculously. He put himself on a pedestal as a "church leader," and wouldn't let me or anyone else in emotionally. It was extremely unhealthy from the start and extremely damaging. But again, I was so desperate, so broken. I was 22 at the time and graduating from college, if I'd thought my clock was ticking at 18, I was certain it was ticking loudly at 22. He came across as this overly nice guy, and I fell in love with his family, especially his sisters, but our relationship itself was toxic, and David saw himself as above me and treated me as below him. Which, looking back, was what I had signed up for. It was never right for me to put that sort of healing or rescuing expectation on another person. Once again, I thought I just had to accept the relationship and settle, accept the miserable fate I thought I deserved, and for a time I did. Fortunately, a few months after I graduated, I realized I just couldn't do it anymore, and I ended it with him. I told the church leaders the truth of our relationship, thinking he shouldn't be in any position of leadership after all I knew. But nothing changed that I could see from the outside, and I felt like I wore a scarlet letter from that point on. Looking back, I actually don't know what went on behind closed doors, what conversations were had, and the scarlet letter was probably only obvious to myself, but still, I was wounded from all of it. It just became weird going to the same church, watching him pray over people constantly, being known as his ex, and feeling like what I'd said to the leaders hadn't mattered at all. I soon left that church extremely wounded, and it took me many years to even want to try finding a church again.
Me on graduation day, excited to be finally done, but absolutely lost and terrified of what was next
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