Mama, if you're reading this....

It's strange to me that Traveler's Insurance has embodied human nature with their commercial about a dog and his bone... with "Worry" playing in the background.  Seems that the dog wrestles with his bone-- and his need to protect it at all cost.  Isn't that how we are?  Trying to hide so many of the things that keep us awake at night, keep us on edge, just hoping that no one will find it?  So if I'm reckoning, I've been hiding.  The commercial ends with the bone sitting in plain site.  So here goes; my confessions.  (Mama, if you're reading this, please stop)

 Where did the turmoil start?  Summer.  The year I turned 21, so that'd be 2001.  I was spending the summer at home to prepare for the Miss Georgia competition.  I was the intern for my church back home, Dublin FBC.  The youth minister was one of my closest friends; we just... had a connection.  I was naive to the point of stupidity, even though I was 21.  We weren't allowed to watch *kissing* growing up.  I had broken up with every boyfriend that didn't respect my boundaries in the physical aspect of our relationship.  Now, I feel so stupid.  I feel so... stupid.  My youth minister-- my boss, my friend-- was also my personal trainer, getting me ready for the pageant.

I should've realized immediately that something was off when he asked me to bring my swimsuits to work (church) so that he could do a 'spot check'---- without my other coaches around.  I should've refused to change with him in the room-- but he said he'd close his eyes.  I should've walked out and quit my job when he tried to put his fingers inside my swimsuit.  I didn't.  I sat there.  Moved his hand, told him no, but I just sat there.  Stunned.  Embarrassed.  Ashamed that I didn't punch him and leave.  Then he said, "I'm a man, I just want to make you feel you good.  I know how to make you feel good."  And idiot me, I changed in the room with him again, too ashamed to go anywhere else.  I asked him about it.  He had recently admitted he had been sexually abused as a teenager and he said he was I was helping him deal with it.  He said he felt like we had such a connection, that he wanted intimacy without sex-- something he couldn't get from his wife.  He just wanted skin on skin contact.  To this day, the phrase will make my skin crawl.

The summer continued.  He'd take me to the bride's room for make out sessions.  He hid in the storage closet one day when the cleaning crew came through, told me to tell them I was just in there clearing my head.  I was doing anything but.  That became our room-- we would, of course, have to go there at separate times (a few minutes apart) from different directions so no one would be suspicious-- because 'they' just couldn't understand real soul to soul intimacy.  ...I couldn't have my wedding at my hometown church-- which, before that time, had my most precious memories.

The summer just kept going.  We went to Maine with the youth group that year.  He made me sit with him on the bus... and massage his groin which he says he pulled.  Funny, it didn't bother him while he was digging, shoveling, hauling dirt as we rebuilt a church.  He tried to get 'some us time' as he called it while we were there, but there were always people around.  And I just kept believing that I was helping him work through his abuse.  We talked about his thoughts, his plans, his life... but never his abuse.

And still, the summer didn't end.  It culminated with him creating a room in the gym (where our offices were), upstairs, inside one of the storage closets.  He brought beanbag chairs, blankets, and candles.  He asked me if we could just lay there, being intimate, without sex, skin on skin.  He asked me to go get sexy underwear.  Then he asked me to take it off.  I never did, but I might as well have.  The damage was done.  He told me that I'd know if he was aroused, he was a man, he was just enjoying the intimacy that only the two of us could share.  Truth is, I wouldn't have known.  I honestly had no clue what sex really was.  I had heard the word erection, but I didn't know what it really meant... I mean, I'd never seen it, felt it, or even really had it described in detail.  God I was stupid.  I was humiliated, even though no one knew for more than 2 years.  I was almost 21 for crying out loud, I should've known.

He asked me to go with him on the youth council retreat--camping-- a few weeks before I left for school, not in my duties, not getting paid. He needed me, he said.  He needed another female adult.  He still tried to make some time for us-- away from everyone else-- to be alone.  With his wife there.  It never happened.  Thankfully.  My friend Britt-- who had no idea what was going on, and only really will if he reads this eventually-- made sure that we were never alone.  I have never loved him as much as I did that weekend.  Because despite the mantra of "I'm helping through his abuse", it felt wrong.  It felt wrong.  *tears*  It felt so wrong and I just kept letting it happen.  God I'm so stupid.

I left for Valdosta shortly after that, after changing schools--now that I think about it, that reason was likely a reason I left UGA.  Valdosta was farther away, more reason not to come home.  About 3 weeks in, he called and asked if we could meet in Moultrie.  He had just bought a motorcycle.  He said he couldn't drive his truck in case someone recognized him, so he'd have to take his motorcycle.  He'd park it at a camping site and I could meet him there, pick him up and then we could go somewhere-- at this point I don't remember where he said, but it was 'out of the triangle of Valdosta, Dublin, and Moultrie.'  It was only then that I listened to my gut.  It was only then that I was so suspicious of what was happening that I made up something I had to do.  I was so stupid.  I was so weak.

I had lost 70 pounds without any help from anyone.  By sheer determination and hard work.  I was top of my class in high school.  I had read the Bible, studied it profusely.  I had won two pageants that the poor farm girl wasn't supposed to win.  I was the leader of almost every academic club available in high school, I was leader of my youth council at church.  I was Senior class president.  I was the go-to girl.  What a colossal failure I was that summer.

I didn't tell anyone for 2 years.  I let it rot me, from the inside out.  I let it steal my joy.  I let it destroy the confidence I had in myself.  I let it consume me to the point of self loathing.  I went on a destructive streak with men, with alcohol, and I left God behind.  I was too ashamed to pray about it.  I was too ashamed to TRY to go back to church.  I was too ashamed to read my Bible.  I was too ashamed of my stupidity to... move forward.  I wallowed in my shame, in my guilt, in my stupidity.  It was easier to 'stay dirty'.  It didn't feel good, mind you, but it felt like I deserved it.

That summer stole my ability to see physical touch as a language of love.  It is the summer I went from BEING a 'toucher' (hugger, arm-in-arm walker, etc) to avoiding it, to using touch a weapon of sorts.  If I ever had a shot at believing sex is more than a man's base desire, it was blown that summer.  If I ever had a shot at trusting a man when he said "I love you" AND touched me, it was taken away.

So much of me changed.  Because of that summer, though, I am where I am today.  Because of that summer, I was at the dog park.  Because of that summer, there will be many more confessions.  Because of that summer, I'm writing to heal.  I'm putting it all out there in the open.  So worry doesn't keep me up anymore.  So hiding what was and is doesn't consume my thoughts, cloud my mind with failure, destroy my confidence with shame, and doesn't dismantle my marriage.  I'm putting it all out there so that I can walk away and leave that life, if you can call it that, behind me.