rewriting the history books

today I realized the most amazing and beautiful thing about surviving abuse and moving forward to a full and free life: I am rewriting my own history.

much as you may wish it was, history is not about the facts. the history classes that I remember from high school were – the teacher wrote the dates and the names on the board, and we wrote them down. he told the stories, too, sometimes, but we didn’t write those down. for the tests, we crammed those numbers and names into our heads using all the tricks we could, right up until the moment the tests were passed down the rows and our cheat sheets hidden beneath our desks.

but those history books only told one side of the story. they told the side of the conquerers, the people who won, the ancestors of the people who wrote the books. every story has multiple sides. every character in every story has their own viewpoint, sees what happens and remembers details in their own way. actually, the same person can remember the same story in multiple ways. (read Hermans’ Dialogical Self.)

I never could have imagined as a child or teen that those history books could be rewritten. I couldn’t have imagined that the history I was learning wasn’t factual. after all, what were all of those dates and names if not facts? I couldn’t have imagined that others may have seen a different view of a historic event. I had no grasp of why learning history was even important, except that I needed that A on my report card.

and that’s the beauty of my life – the history of my life can be rewritten. not the facts – not the names and the dates – but how I view them and the meaning I attach to them can be changed. I can’t change the fact that I was abused. I can’t change that before I was 6, I was being abused – people knew, and no one helped me. I can’t change all of those days that my dad has etched into my brain. I can’t erase the tapes that he made of me in my own bathroom as a teenager – I can’t erase them from my memory, anyway. The day of May 17, 2005 will never go away. Just like I can’t ignore any of those facts – any of those things that happened to me – I can’t ignore how they made me feel or what they did to me.

step one: remember the facts and acknowledge their effects on me.

moving forward is painful, I won’t deny that. sometime around the age of 10 or so, my dad forced me to have a kissing lesson of sorts with him. I think that this is one of the most painful memories because I TRIED to say no. for once, I tried. but he wouldn’t listen.

the first time I kissed a boy, at age 16, I had a flashback to that day. I WANTED to kiss this boy, but somehow I still got scared. I got overwhelmed and scared, and my brain threw me back into that day when a figure much older than me kissed me without me wanting him to. I was against the wall of our pool when the boy kissed me, and I felt just as trapped as I had as a child.

I didn’t like kissing, but I kept trying. with each boyfriend, I kept trying. with the fourth boyfriend, at age 19, I invited him out to visit my family on the lake. we were out on a paddleboat, and he had a pepsi next to him. we had been dating for several months, so it was no big deal when we kissed. it was romantic, though – kissing on a paddleboat in the middle of a lake in summer. lovely! I couldn’t do it, though. the taste of his mouth – the taste of the pepsi – drove me back to that day as a child, and the disgusting taste of my dad’s mouth. suddenly, being in the middle of a lake on a boat was terrifying – I had no escape, yet again. it was easier to come out of the flashback that time, and I think I was even able to tell my boyfriend.

last week, I kissed my new boyfriend for the first time. I had been terrified to kiss him. he has a beard, and my dad always had a mustache. I can’t escape how disgusting his mustache felt against my skin. I was sure that this new boy’s beard would send me spiraling back into childhood with no way to escape. it didn’t.

I have rewritten history. finally, finally, the facial hair of a boy does not close a door. it no longer automatically means a frightening and oppressive older man. this boy’s beard is simply part of what makes him as adorable as he is. it’s part of what makes it so sensual to feel him against my skin.

one of my earliest memories of my dad abusing me was in the form of a game – simon says. it was his way of getting me to do things and move my body in ways that got him off without me knowing what was going on. I only knew that it was a game – I wanted to play, I wanted to win, and I cherished that I had a special game with my daddy. one of the things he had me do was squat on the floor. I remember him sitting in his recliner in the living room, me standing before him. he told me to squat, and I did so, wearing my nightgown with nothing underneath it. I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to make this pose, and I was really confused when he kept telling me that I was doing it wrong. he got angry, and he forced my knees apart. his anger scared me. but he just sat back in his chair, said nothing else, but looked at me.

I later understood what he was doing, and that it was wrong. for the rest of my childhood, I never squatted like that. I never squatted down in the dirt to play. I didn’t like to read the word in a book, I didn’t like to see any character sit like that in a movie.

maybe it took becoming a teacher in child care classrooms to change the meaning of this word. these innocent kids squatted to play whenever they wanted, and thought nothing of it. as a rule, I always get down at the children’s level to talk to them. there are only so many ways to do so, and as a teacher must move very quickly to balance a classroom of young ones, squatting is the fastest and most efficient way to get down to a child’s level, stand, and move to the next child. that’s probably how I became comfortable with it again.

now I practice yoga. one move in yoga that shows up from time to time is a deep squat – it opens your hips in a beautiful way and stretches and strengthens those inner thigh muscles. the deepness of the move shows you how flexible and open you are both in your body and in your life.

tonight, I popped in a new hanson DVD to watch, and I squatted down on the floor in front of the tv. I noted that once upon a time I would have done anything but this, and noted how good the position felt in my body. it was comfortable for me, and it had nothing to do with the terrifyingly tricky sexuality of my early childhood.

I rewrote history.

when I make out with andrew, I can feel his penis pressed against me. though we don’t take any clothes off (yet), it feels amazing to have his penis between my legs while we make out. I like knowing that his penis is erect, and I’m not afraid of feeling it against my body.

I don’t remember specific days, but I do know that there were many times when dad would press his body against mine, and I would feel his penis pressing into my back or stomach. he would hug me incredibly tightly – so tight I couldn’t breathe – and I would feel it. urgh. I hated it.

it recently occurred to me – once again – that I can’t actually remember what happened to me when I was 12. I know that my mom turned in my dad, and I know that she eventually dropped the charge. I know that e

ach of us had new “rules” and therapy to deal with, as imposed by child and family services. I don’t know what my mom knew, why she turned him in, or what he did that would warrant a charge against him.

I do remember a day – maybe it was more than a day – that probably occurred in the summer. dad was self-employed then, and he was having a hard time finding work, so he was home a lot. I remember dad coming into my room to wake me up. I didn’t want to get out of bed, and it was always fun to play games with dad. I remember him tickling, pretending to pull me from the bed by my feet. I remember laughing. he was wearing his pajamas – pajama pants and a bathroom, maybe. or maybe just pajama pants. I can’t remember. I remember suddenly seeing the tip of his penis sticking out of his pants. he tucked it back away, but it terrified me. I was just playing around with my dad – I had no idea what I was being sexual. I had no intention of turning him on, and I was afraid to realize that I had.

maybe it was another day that we were on the couch, playing a game in our pajamas. somehow flexibility came up, and I said that I could get both ankles behind my head. he insisted that I show him. so I did, and I saw the tip of his penis sticking out from his pajama pants again. I hadn’t realized that flexibility was sexual, either, and I was scared again. I never liked being flexible again, and I never showed off my flexibility to my friends again. I remember days when miranda would, but I never did.

it was so hard, so very many times throughout my childhood, to suddenly realize that something I did just because I was a child, just because I was playing, just because I liked being with my dad was actually something sexual. it was terrifying to arouse my dad, someone that I knew shouldn’t be attracted to me. no one should be attracted to me – I’m a child. I’m just playing. other kids get to play, why can’t I? my brother plays the same games I do, but no one thinks it’s sexual for him.

anything I did that turned him on got shut down in my life. I squatted because you told me to; it was part of the game. it turned you on to look at my 6-year-old vulva beneath my nightgown? fine. I’ll never squat again. it turned you on to play games with me in the pool? fine. I’ll stop playing games with others in the pool. it turned you on to see my flexible body? fine. I’ll only stretch my body when alone. and on and on.

and now, I’m scared to do things that turn on guys. I’m afraid of the change in his breath, the tension in his body, his erect penis. it’s terrifying and something outside of my control – what if he is so turned on that he can’t control himself? what if he changes – like my dad changed? I hate the very sound of the breath of an aroused man.

I enjoy when a boyfriend turns me on – when he kisses my ear, my neck, my stomach. I’m not afraid anymore to show that I’m aroused – to allow my breath to change, my body to tense, small sounds to escape from my mouth. but when it’s my turn to kiss the boy’s ear, neck, etc – I’m too scared.

this weekend, I finally overcame it. it REALLY turned him on to feel my teeth on his ear, and I REALLY enjoyed knowing that I had this effect on him. it didn’t make me want to withdraw and shut down, but to do more for him instead.

I rewrote history one more time.

I’m changing the meaning attached to all of these things – all of these things that took on terrifying meanings in my childhood. it’s slow and painful – things don’t change just because you want them to. it’s difficult, but that’s where the satisfaction of changing one more thing comes from.

today, I have hope. I am moving forward and rewriting my history. my history doesn’t go away, and the pain of it can’t be ignored. BUT – the pain and the memories don’t have to invade my present and my future. I have hope because now know that I can change, so I know that I can also help and see others change.

I have hope because I know that narrative theory / narrative therapy is real and it works. it is an incredibly useful theory – it makes so much sense, and I see it in my life and in therapy. why, then, would I not see it in the lives of others? I find my passion here.