Scared Selfless

by Michelle Stevens, PhD

  Obviously, one act of violence can create a lot of fear triggers for a victim, triggers that will cause anxiety and phobias down the road. In cases of long-term trauma, there are multiple acts of violence, often in multiple settings. Unfortunately for the victim, this means there are exponentially more fear triggers to contend with.

  The chronic anxiety that I began to notice in college was a direct result of such triggers. Having been abused by so many different people in different ways in different places for such a prolonged period of time, my brain had learned to fear just about everything.

  The sound of a TV made me panic, for instance, because johns often used them to drown out sounds while they raped me in motel rooms. I was similarly panicked when I heard highway traffic (which could be heard in motel rooms) and stereo music (which played during sex parties). I felt anxious every time I entered a motel room or a shopping mall. Worst of all, I suffered a panic attack every single day at dusk because that’s the time of day Gary usually molested me.

  With so many subconscious fear triggers in my head, it’s no wonder I was in a constant state of panic. Having complete amnesia for the abuse, though, meant I didn’t realize the anxiety was being triggered by external stimuli. On the contrary, I had no idea why I felt so jumpy all the time, nor did I have any idea how to control it. My solution was to block out every stimuli I possibly could by having complete control over my environment. This is why I chose to live alone off campus. It’s also why I needed so badly to live alone in my barn that summer.

  What I am describing—distress at exposure to traumatic stimuli followed by frantic attempts to avoid such stimuli—is the very definition of post-traumatic stress disorder. Having no conscious memory of being traumatized, however, I had no way of connecting my anxiety to the abuse I had suffered. Instead, I attributed my trauma symptoms to inherent character flaws. I thought of myself as high-strung, overly sensitive, and a control freak. These negative assessments were also used by my family to describe me. Because I had frequent emotional outbursts that were triggered by trauma stimuli that appeared innocuous to others, I was also labeled as “moody.” My desperate attempts to regulate my affect through external change, such as demanding to sleep in the barn or insisting that a TV be turned off, got me branded as “manipulative.” Believing myself to have all of these innate negative qualities, it’s no surprise I suffered from feelings of shame, guilt, and deep self-loathing.

  Psychologist John Briere calls these unwarranted negative perceptions “cognitive distortions.” They are nearly universal in those who have been abused as children and, because they form our subconscious belief system, are notoriously intractable. In addition to having cognitive distortions about myself, I entered college with cognitive distortions about others and the world.

  Due to my repeated victimizations at the hands of men, I assumed all men were dangerous and generally felt threatened every time I was in contact with them. My view of women was not much better. Based on my experience with my mother, as well as the female teachers at school, I believed women were, at best, heartless and, at worst, backstabbing bitches just waiting to throw me to the wolves.

  Needless to say, I entered adult life with a severe distrust of all people. I was incredibly sensitive to the slightest sign of aggression, betrayal, manipulation, criticism, or judgment. I assumed the world was a dark and threatening place where human beings existed only to hurt and exploit one another. This made it impossible for me to form intimate relationships, be they with friends, sexual partners, or therapists.

  Perhaps most damaging, the abuse altered my perception of God. Before meeting Gary, I’d been raised in a Christian church that was warm and inviting. In Sunday school, I’d been taught that Jesus loved me and would always protect me. I took these lessons to heart and had held an unflinching faith in God. But when Gary came along, we stopped going to church. He mocked Christianity and said it was for idiots. I didn’t believe him.

  I still prayed to God every day. First, I prayed that my mother wouldn’t move in with Gary. Then I prayed that we would move out. I prayed for the abuse to stop. I prayed for my mother to be nice to me. I prayed for all kinds of things, but none of my prayers were ever answered. Surprisingly enough, this did not shake my faith in God. It just made me think He had it in for me. For some reason, I’d been forsaken. This led to a deep and lasting belief that no matter what I attempted to do in life my plans would ultimately be doomed.

  Psychologists refer to this perception of impending doom as a “sense of foreshortened future.” But words cannot really describe the insidiousness of this particular symptom, this deep-seated belief that one’s life will never work out. When one truly feels that their life will end in ruin, every relationship, every career move, every endeavor is tainted before it starts. The worst part for me was an enduring belief that I would never achieve happiness—that happiness was simply not in God’s plan for me. Because this belief was so ingrained, anytime happiness approached, I would start to panic. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting, though, was uncomfortable and felt too much like being a victim. So I would usually find some way to sabotage my happiness before God could do it for me. This made me feel less helpless. But it also made it impossible for me to build any kind of satisfying life.

  —

  MY LIFE FORCE, though, remained inexplicably strong. I survived my suicide attempt, and while still in the CCU, I had an epiphany. It came to me as I was lying in the hospital bed—a strong, clear thought that I knew was not my own. I didn’t know if it was God speaking to me or what. All I know is: The message was very authoritative and very wise. It said, “You keep trying to get your parents to love you, but they will never give you what you need.” That’s all the message said. But in that moment, I understood. It was absolute truth. A great shift immediately took place in my psyche. Everything seemed clearer. A giant weight lifted off my soul.

  In all the days I was in the CCU, my parents never came to visit. But after the epiphany, I didn’t care. As I’d done five years earlier after my last suicide attempt, I made a decision to block out everything negative in my life and focus on moving forward. Suddenly, I forgot all about my crappy family, depression, and anxiety. Even the bulimia that had dominated my life magically disappeared. This was not a gradual remission of symptoms as a result of therapy. I’m saying that I went into the hospital a total wreck and came out a changed person. All the doom and gloom wafted away, and suddenly, I could enjoy people and activities in a way I never had before. My motivation and ambition returned in spades. My head and life path were instantly crystal clear.

  A miracle? Yes. Absolutely. A miracle of the human mind.

  Once again, in the face of grave danger, my psyche used dissociation to help me survive. This time, of course, the “danger” came from within; I had nearly killed myself. So my mind did what it was wont to do. It kept me safe by blocking out all the icky thoughts and feelings that were making me suicidal.

  In order to do this, a new personality emerged. The Student was a responsible, even-tempered adult who was driven by duty. Utterly sensible, she didn’t succumb to self-pity or indulge in fanciful daydreams. She is what is commonly referred to as an “administrator” alter, an emotionless identity who can cross off the to-do list, stick to the schedule, and get the job done.

  The job, at that time, was getting through college. My heroic feats of truancy had nearly tanked freshman year. The Student decided she would never miss another class no matter what. She also resolved to earn outstanding grades. A survey of my past academic performance, though, suggested that the Student was nuts. I mean, I’d rarely taken school seriously and had the piss-poor grades to prove it. In high school, I’d stopped taking science and math as soon as I could, opting for easy classes like choir. (This was in the days before weighted grades.) My SATs pronounced me painfully average. Even my guidance counselor, in attempting to sell me to colleges, could
say only that I had the “ability to work hard” if I felt like it.

  Exactly where this straight-A-seeking student came from, I don’t know. I can’t recall a popular image that grabbed my psyche the way the Preppy or the Writer did. The Student seemed to spring forth from my subconscious with an edict to get real and get on with it.

  And get on with it she did. Just days after being released from the hospital, I found myself a full-time summer job, earning enough to return for sophomore year. I chose to live back in my original dorm and was blessed with a roommate who hated TV as much as I did. Naomi and I became good friends, and I made lots of other friends too, many of whom remain friends thirty years later.

  I kept my promise to never miss another class or assignment—sticking to the straight and narrow for the remaining three years of undergrad as well as all eleven years of my various grad schools. For the first time in my life, I actually read the novels and plays and textbooks that my instructors assigned and found that I liked studying. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that doing homework and showing up for class could improve one’s grades. Before the Student came along, I had no idea that hard work and effort were directly related to success. The realization was empowering.

  The Student opened me up intellectually the way the Writer had opened my creativity. But the Student, built only to complete day-to-day tasks, didn’t feel like a full identity. She had no image of herself, so she didn’t prefer certain clothes or have an elaborate backstory. She didn’t have interests or hobbies or long-term goals, feelings or memories. The Student lived entirely in the present moment, ever ready to accomplish the work at hand. She was more like a robot than a person.

  —

  BEING A ROBOT has its advantages. Mostly free of depression, anxiety, or any other negative emotions, I truly began to flourish. My work at school was such that NYU gave me a special scholarship and award for academic achievement. One of my plays was chosen for a run off-off-Broadway. I was offered a job as assistant editor of a theater-themed newspaper where I churned out countless articles and reviews. Within two short years, I’d not only conquered the school thing but also seemed well on my way to a career as a writer.

  My personal life was also flourishing. Sophomore year, I began dating a film student who lived in my dorm. By senior year, Steve and I were sharing a studio on Jones Street. It was right in the heart of the Village and had hardwood floors and a fireplace. I absolutely adored waking up in the morning and going for coffee at Patisserie Claude. Steve and I took long walks around the park and explored every inch of the neighborhood. In the evenings, I spent hours writing at the Washington Square Diner.

  By the time I turned twenty-one, I felt like life was right on track. Good job. Good boyfriend. Good apartment. My old life in New Jersey seemed a million miles away.

  Gary? My mother? My past? I hardly ever thought about any of it.

  That all changed in the fall of 1989 when my past suddenly came back to haunt me via a medical crisis called AIDS.

  —

  IN 1989, THE AIDS EPIDEMIC was still in its infancy. The disease had first been identified in 1981, and by 1983, researchers figured out it was caused by HIV. Both Rock Hudson and Liberace made big headlines when they died of the disease in the mid-1980s. So I, like everyone else, was aware of it. But despite a lot of press, AIDS remained a niche issue. Most of the reported cases involved gay men, drugs users, and hemophiliacs. For a straight woman who didn’t do drugs and didn’t sleep around—even a straight woman in Greenwich Village—AIDS didn’t seem like a threat.

  That is: I was oblivious until I heard that a childhood friend had contracted it. It was Madeline, the girl Gary had courted after me. When I heard the news, I took it hard. That old sense of impending doom returned with a vengeance, and I became gripped by a panic so thick I could hardly breathe. The anxiety continued unabated for weeks. Suddenly, I was imprisoned in a soggy dark cloud. The thought running through my head night and day was I must have AIDS too. I must have AIDS too.

  On the surface, this made no logical sense. As far as my conscious mind knew, neither Madeline nor I had been abused. I’d only slept with a few boys in college, most of whom were virgins. This meant my chances of contracting HIV were practically nil. But my subconscious mind knew better. It knew about all the various men I’d been forced to have sex with in the late ’70s and early ’80s when AIDS was silently breeding.

  The life-and-death nature of the AIDS threat put so much pressure on my psyche that my rock-hard denial system began to fissure. The truth of my past was oozing through the cracks. It told my conscious mind that I must get tested.

  Back in those days, the HIV test was fairly new and available only via a blood sample. Appointments had to be made weeks in advance, giving me plenty of extra time to panic. When the day of the test finally came, I was so terrified that I fainted as the nurse thrust the needle into my arm. When I came to, the nurse informed me it would take several weeks to get the results.

  Those weeks were some of the darkest of my life. I was sure that, like Madeline, I had AIDS and was destined to die a horrible death. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely speak. Believing my risk was nonexistent, my faithful and trusting boyfriend tried to reason with me. But I couldn’t be reasoned with because my subconscious knew my risk factors were through the roof.

  Once again, my justifiable anxiety appeared to be completely unjustified. Once again, I looked and felt nuts.

  Finally, I was called in to receive the results of the test. To my great surprise, I was HIV negative. Miraculously, I had dodged death. (Although at the time, I didn’t yet realize what a true miracle it was.) At first, I was immensely relieved, but the cloud of doom soon reemerged. AIDS or not, something felt terribly wrong. Bad things were going to happen to me. I could feel it in my gut. I walked around in a constant state of terror. But terror of what? Everything was the same as before. Same job. Same boyfriend. Same apartment. Underneath, though, a great change had occurred.

  —

  AIDS MAY HAVE SPARED my immune system, but my denial system was now compromised. The Cloak of Invincibility I’d been wearing since the last suicide attempt suddenly had holes in it. Through those holes, tiny bits of feeling and memory started to escape.

  In a recurring dream, for instance, I stood naked on a busy street corner. Then Gary came to me, and we had sex in the gutter as people watched. For my senior thesis, I wrote a play about an adult daughter who returns home to seduce her father, oust her mother, and claim her rightful place as the family wife. Pretty on the nose, I know.

  But the crazy thing is: I didn’t realize my play was autobiographical! My subconscious memory was feeding my conscious mind lots of sick and twisted plot ideas and characters and dialogue that I thought were coming from my imagination. God only knows what my professors thought of me!

  Senior year, I also experienced my first body hijacking. For people with DID, body hijackings are a common occurrence as one identity takes over the body from another. If a person is in complete denial about their DID, this switch happens outside of the person’s conscious awareness. But when the mind can’t or won’t hide DID, the hijackings sometimes feel like out-of-body experiences.

  My first one happened while Steve and I were having dinner at a restaurant. We were having a mundane conversation when I suddenly felt light-headed. It was as if I were floating up to the ceiling. Steve seemed far away, and all the restaurant noise hushed. Then I heard someone say, in a barely audible voice, “I think my father molested me.” I was aware that the voice was coming out of my mouth; I could even sort of feel my lips moving. But I had no connection to being the source of the information or even having the intention to speak. It was crazy body-snatcher stuff.

  It was the first time I had ever acknowledged being sexually abused. Steve, who had spent time with my parents and disliked them, did not seem surprised by
the revelation. But for me—a person who believed a fictional version of my childhood—the admission was shocking.

  Why would I say such a thing? Why did I feel so weird when I said it?

  Disturbed and confused, I thought it might be a good idea to get help. Dr. Taylor, now in private practice, was out of my price range. So I went back to Bellevue and played shrink lotto, the fun game where poor people are forced to go to clinics and bare their souls to whatever trainee flies out of the machine.

  This go-round, I got a fat, balding psychiatrist who was doing his residency. Unlike Dr. Taylor or the first guy I’d seen in New Jersey, this one didn’t have a soft, empathetic, Free to Be . . . You and Me vibe. Instead, Dr. A. Hole reeked of old-school psychoanalysis: aloof, judgmental, chauvinistic, arrogant.

  I can give this assessment now because I’ve been around the mental health block and know what makes for a good or bad therapist. At the time, though, I was just a mixed-up girl looking for some direction. On the surface, I was confused about what to do after college. I had always planned to stay in Manhattan, but Steve was from Los Angeles and wanted to move home. When he left, rent would become a burden, but that wasn’t the real problem. The dilemma between New York and LA came down to a fear of being alone.

  I had no siblings, hardly any relationship with my parents, and no other family to rely on. Steve was the only person I could count on in the whole wide world. If I lost him, I’d have no one to call in an emergency, and any tiny crisis was sure to leave me shaking a can on Sixth Avenue. Most people, thank God, don’t ever know what it’s like to be that alone. Most people have some family somewhere who will bail them out in a pinch. Former foster kids, runaways, and others estranged from family because of abuse or homophobia, though, are at terrible risk because they live with no safety net. That’s why so many end up living on the streets.