My first step to help others is sharing my untold story.
I was born in 1969 and grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts. My life as a child was not without tribulations but it was rich in memories of playing outside, spending the summers on beautiful Cape Cod and spending time with family and friends. I live now in Canton, Georgia with my husband of thirteen years and four beautiful children. Anyone who sees me and does not know my story would not see me as a victim or a survivor of anything, but I am a refugee from nearly two decades of the Hook-Up Culture. The ideology of the Sexual Revolution, the belief that casual sex is harmless as long as you
use a condom, the notion that it is empowering for a woman to be free sexually, nearly killed me. I am moving into the realm of being a survivor. This is my untold story.
Despite the bright and shiny veneer, my life for nearly two decades prior to meeting my husband of now 13 years and prior to us having our four beautiful children, was wrought with an ever-increasing darkness, degradation and hopelessness. For two decades my life was marked by alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct and sexual abuse. This dark time, while not my fault, is my responsibility to share with others to expose the deceptions at work in my life through the culture.
What really crushed me spiritually and physically were my college years. Already partying and abusing alcohol in high school, I set off to Penn State “the party school”. At Penn State, I completely abandoned my faith and any notion of a spiritual life as I delved into Women’s Studies and other liberal
academic pursuits. I learned that hooking up was not only acceptable but expected. One particular Frat Party during my Sophomore year marked the beginning of my spiral downward. I met a cute guy who really took an interest in me. We talked and I remember he had a great sense of humor, one that matched my sarcastic New England humor. He kept giving me beers and the sad thing is that his “generosity” did not even register as a “red flag” for me. That night he raped me in his room. I was intoxicated almost to the point of my usual black out. The next thing I knew a Rape Crisis team was whisking me to the ER or somewhere where I was given a physical exam.
The doctor attending to me said that I sustained injuries and that this was no act of love. I met with a kind campus detective who showed me different pictures of suspects. The man I identified was in fact a serial rapist soon to be on trial from another victim. After that trauma, I became more sexually promiscuous. I blamed myself for the rape, living in shame and self-hatred. I slept with so many men I lost count after thirty.
My journey into survivorhood came when I met my husband. My husband was a devout Catholic who introduced me to the best and most highly skilled healing doctor in the world, Jesus Christ. My husband loved me into wholeness with acts not just words. He did sacrificial things for me that I never knew or even understood until after they were completed, things like fasting 40 days for my sobriety, praying over me in my sleep. You see my husband’s faith allowed him to see me as Christ sees me: spotless, without blemish. Then I began to see myself as being worthy of love. But the secret of my
story is that his love brought me to my greater love: Jesus Christ. Only through Jesus Christ was I able to discover my true identity as an overcomer, a redeemed, beautiful, chosen, renewed, temple of the Holy Spirit. My one prayer is that God will use the transformation of my scars to help women
reclaim the truth over their bodies, their lives.
Submitted on July 14, 2015.
Have you been harmed by sexual choices you made? Have you been harmed by the sexual, marital, or reproductive choices somebody else made? Please consider sharing your story. Go here to learn how.
