(Trigger Warning: This post discusses sexual abuse.)

What a week. There was a time when any one event of last week would have sent me into pure panic mode. Anxiety, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rushes of adrenalin over my entire body, dissociating, destructive behaviors. That’s how most of my life has been. But the last sixteen months have been different. Lots of prayer. No sugar, no preservatives, no caffeine, weight loss, exercise, meditation, journaling, Noom, and RYZE mushroom coffee. 

I first noticed the difference when something happened that normally would have caused me to crash and burn…and it didn’t. I had a call from my brother’s group home that he had been taken by ambulance to the ER with chest pain and his blood pressure dropped precipitously. I felt the smallest surge of adrenalin which was immediately followed by a thought. 

“That’s information.”

I surprised myself. I didn’t have to talk myself down or do anything, really. All I had to do was tell myself I just received information…from my body and from the nurse. Information itself cannot kill you. It speaks to you. What you do with that information is what counts. Instead of focusing on what I was feeling, I listened to what I was being told, asked the questions I needed to ask, and the adrenalin backed off as fast as it came. It was the weirdest feeling.

I think all my body needed was ONE successful experience with coping appropriately to the fight or flight response. Since then, I’ve rolled with the punches regularly and I cannot tell you what utter relief that is to me. Full on panic attacks are awful. And they affect you for days afterwards. My whole life has been spent riding the rollercoaster of my emotions. Knowing I can deal with whatever comes my way has taken a huge load off my mind.

When you have an anxiety disorder, you spend your life trying to control every possible scenario of every possible circumstance to try to avoid that out-of-control feeling you get. Now that I’m not feeling anxious all the time, I am functioning like a normal adult. And it took till 70 years to get there.

This was one heck of a week. In one day, I found out my dear high school chum had died. My brother made another ambulance trip to the ER. And someone I care about deeply is suffering a severe health crisis. Every day since, it’s been one thing after another. And I’ve rolled with the punches. Then yesterday was the funeral. My friend and I shared a very deep bond. Not just the bond of friendship. It went beyond that. We were both victims of sexual assault by the same person…a family member. My episode with him (other than verbal) was just that once, but hers lasted years…repeatedly, brutally.

I stuffed that information down deep inside and convinced myself it wasn’t really sexual assault if there hadn’t been penetration. It wasn’t till I was 35 and in therapy for depression and anxiety that I discovered I couldn’t just brush it off by downplaying it. What had happened was real and it was sexual assault and I needed to deal with it.

As I began to unpack that information, a thought crept into my mind that I couldn’t brush away. If he had been so brazen as to do what he did to me in front of my friend…what must she have been going through in the privacy of their home. The internet was new, and I found her phone number. I called her up and was like, “Hey…voice from the past here!” After a few pleasantries, I told her I had to ask her a deeply personal question and if she told me to go to h***, I’d hang up and never call her again.

“Did _____________ molest you as a kid?”

She went silent. Then in a softer voice she said, “Why do you ask that?”

“Well….because he molested me, too.”

We both cried. We had so many conversations about this. We helped each other heal. She had an amazing countenance. Her faith in God was the absolute center of her life. Without Him, she would have never survived. We talked a lot about the power of forgiveness. My dear, sweet, strong friend led a support group for women who also walked that path. She invited me to speak to the group in her church and I could see how much it helped to know they weren’t alone.

So, that was my week. One thing after another then walking through the past one more time in honor of my friend. She will be missed and many stories will be told. I felt a sense of closure after the funeral. I know she’s in a better place because the Healer…has healed her for all eternity.

As she would say… “I love you more…”

🙏🏼

“Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.”

Luke 13:10-13 ESV