I wanted to leave the campground immediately after opening up to my friend, but for some reason I stayed. I tried my best to brush off the incident and was determined to pull myself together and act as if everything was fine. I was used to spending time around my abusers, pretending nothing had ever happened, so it was easy to do. What dirty old man?
The four of us played cards later that night. As I was waiting for my turn in our second round of Crazy Eights, I felt a hand slither up my leg and stop below the end of my zipper. It was the grandpa. Okay. That’s it. Enough is enough. Still not wanting to make a scene, I got up and said I wasn’t feeling well and was going to bed. I didn’t want—or rather I didn’t know how—to handle the situation any other way. I would just take myself out of the picture, and no one would be the wiser. What was I going to say, anyway? “Your grandfather’s trying to cop a feel again. See? I told you I wasn’t lying.” No one would have believed me, and there was no way I was getting involved in a he-said, she-said argument.
So I did what was most comfortable—I retreated.
I think that happens a lot with abuse victims. Instead of using our voice to speak out, we keep quiet. We hide. We ignore. We pretend. There are so many different reasons we don’t tell others. We don’t want to rock the boat. We don’t want to make anyone mad. What if they think we asked for it? What if we look stupid? What if they think we’re lying? It’s such a difficult and delicate thing with which to wrestle.
Though it feels like talking carries too much of a risk, in the process of keeping silent, we dig a deeper grave for ourselves day by day. By shouldering the burden alone, we are forced to find other outlets, usually unhealthy ones, to help us deal with it. Most times they lead us further down a dark road, making it harder to find our way up.
As a teen, I envied people who could be unguarded, unafraid. I even wrote about that in my journal: “I think [I’m getting] more open with my feelings. I wish someone could understand what I’m going through. In drama class, everyone is so open. Girls told the class how they got abused sexually and a couple raped. It was so sad. Everyone was crying.”
Yet in the next sentence, I made a sharp U-turn from writing about being vulnerable and wrote, “I hate how people are popular because they are pretty.” It was a stark about-face. There was no transition. I was so removed from the pain in my past, not even my diary was privy to the deep waters.
Not long after the camping incident, I was drinking and doing drugs every day. I was getting into even more trouble at school and going to parties almost every night. I rarely ate dinner at home, and I never made curfew. Some nights I even stayed out until the early hours of the morning.
Getting drunk and high for fun turned into a means of self-medicating. I couldn’t get through a class at school or a holiday function with my family without being stoned or drunk. By the time I was sixteen, I couldn’t function at all without numbing myself in some way.
I stuck mostly with pot, my tried-and-true friend, though at times I had a feeling the joints I smoked were laced with angel dust or cocaine. I also did LSD. My trips were racked with paranoia and fear. I would feel unrelenting anxiety during the twelve-hour high. If I took a hit before school, I was a goner the entire day. I’d sit in class and try to follow what the teacher was saying, but I’d forget everything two seconds after she said it. Same thing with reading. I’d run my finger along a sentence, and by the time I got to the end of the line, I had no clue what I’d just read. If I was walking down the hall at school and saw the principal, I was convinced he was walking past me straight to my locker. He’d open the metal closet, find my stash of drugs, and have me arrested. The police would then drag me kicking and screaming out of the school and throw me in prison, where I’d spend the rest of my life. A little extreme? Sure. Welcome to the world of LSD.
My mom wasn’t stupid. She noticed my strange behavior. Though she would get upset if I came home drunk or high, she didn’t press the issue. She would occasionally question me about using drugs or alcohol, and I’d always lie and say I wasn’t doing that stuff. She’d let it go.
Though my mom and I didn’t see each other much because I was either out partying or holed up in my room, when we did, World War III tended to break out. All the pent-up emotions that had been building in me since I was a little girl spewed mini volcanoes during these arguments. My rage came out in bits and pieces, and unfortunately my mom took the brunt of my temper. Once it even got physical.
I can’t remember what we were arguing about. It kept escalating at a pace neither one of us could stop. Heated words were exchanged like a ball in a Ping-Pong match. At one point I got in my mom’s face, my small features contorting with rage. It was too close for comfort. She took a step back and slapped me. The blow made me even more livid, and I threatened to call the cops. I even grabbed the telephone and with a menacing look on my face yelled, “That’s it, I’m dialing!”
My mother wasn’t one to back down. She called my bluff and grabbed me by the wrist, pulling me toward the front door. “I have a better idea. I’ll take you down to the police station myself.” And she did.
Down at the station, I had a sit-down with one of the police officers. He talked to me about the importance of respecting my parents, respecting myself, and getting good grades. He was nice, though I can’t say his talk made me change my ways or even scared me, as my mother had probably intended.
That was my first experience with the police, but it wouldn’t be my last. It wasn’t too long before the police started showing up at my house when things like car stereos went missing. They knew the kind of friends I hung out with and the kind of stuff we did.
My mother and I had such a volatile relationship that we tried counseling a few times. I loved those meetings. I was able to talk to my mom about how I really felt with the support of a therapist. I also felt defended when the counselor would call my mom out on a few things. Of course, she also did the same with me. It was clear that my mom and I both had our issues, which made it difficult for us to relate. And while counseling didn’t lessen the tension between us, at the very least it gave me an outlet.
I used to love visiting our neighbors next door because being in their company brought me a sense of comfort I needed at the time. It was a respite from the drama at home. They were Christian people, or as my mom liked to call them, “religious folk.”
Though Mom would roll her eyes at their Jesus talk, I didn’t mind hearing them talk about God. I was intrigued by the Bible verses that hung on their walls. I asked questions. I wanted to know what the verses meant, what the Bible was about. This couple embraced my curiosity and never hesitated to spend time sharing with me what they knew. They also often prayed for my family and me, prayers I have no doubt made an impact on where I am today.
But despite the testimonies of this couple, I had no real personal connection to God. He wasn’t on my radar outside of the kind of desperate prayers we pray when we’re at the end of our rope. Like the times when I was drunk to the point of being violently sick. As I’d puke my guts out into the toilet, I’d cling to my porcelain friend for dear life. “God,” I’d cry out as my insides felt they were being mashed through a meat grinder. “If You make me feel better, I promise I’ll never drink or do drugs again.” I can’t tell you how many times I found myself in front of a toilet bowl, sick as a dog, convinced I had alcohol poisoning. And I repeated these prayers more times than I can count.
Of course, I felt better eventually. But I never stopped drinking or using drugs. Were those prayers simply a desperate measure for a desperate time? Mostly, they probably were. But I also think I held on to an iota of hope that God was real. That He existed. That far beyond the four walls of the bathroom where I was disgustingly sick, there was Someone out there. Someone who even actually cared.
I do believe that the bits and pieces of faith I picked up along the way, however small, made lasting impressions on my heart. Though invisible to the naked eye, God left behind His finge
rprints, evidence that He was there. That He was real. But I didn’t know that then. I only knew pain and emptiness.
I hadn’t a clue what God was like. Without a spiritual foundation, I imagined Him to be someone He is not. I forged an image based on lies. I didn’t know any better. When God is referred to as a heavenly Father, our earthly perceptions of what a parent is like (based on our experiences with our own parents) often taint our view of God.
Because my parents were distant, I imagined God was too. Because my father left, I imagined God as one who could, at any moment, decide to walk away. Because no one rescued me from my abuse, I imagined God as sitting on the sidelines, unable or unwilling to rescue me from injustice. It certainly didn’t seem as though He cared.
CHAPTER
Five
When your true self—who God created you to be—is broken into unrecognizable fragments, you become fertile soil for lies. As those untruths get buried deeper and deeper into your heart, it’s almost impossible to get rid of them. They are so securely lodged there that they become a part of you that you cannot imagine living without.
I was bound by so many lies by the time I was a teenager. At best, I had a skewed idea of love, worth, and self-respect; at worst, I had none. Instead of believing in myself, I knelt at the merciless feet of deceit, hanging on to every negative word spoken to me and entertaining every taunting thought of my own that surfaced in my mind.
I recently read journal entries from my teen years, and I can’t believe the things I called myself. Lazy. Fat. Ugly. I even concluded someone must have been brain damaged to like me. When a boyfriend called me a loser or a slut, I had no truth with which to defend myself against the verbal assaults, whether they came from others or me, so they stuck like a mosquito in honey. I was so used to being taken advantage of as a little girl, I didn’t know how else to be treated. I wouldn’t have known true love if it socked me between the eyes.
When it came to guys, I was always trying to find “the one.” But I couldn’t seem to make up my mind. I liked Guy X one week, Guy Y the next, and so on. I especially gravitated toward the boys who liked me first; they were the ones who would pretty much guarantee me some kind of affection.
I didn’t flip-flop from one guy to the next simply because my teenage hormones were out of control, though. I was always searching, trying to find love. Trying to find something real. Trying to find the person who would love me back the way I thought I needed. Getting that from a guy seemed the easiest solution.
I fell in love—or like, or whatever it was—easily. And when it didn’t last, I was crushed, nursing those wounds for a long time. When I was fifteen, I found a boy I thought I was going to marry. I’ll call him Joey.
I liked this kid a lot. One night after everyone left a party at his house, we sat and cuddled for hours. In the still of the early morning, he started saying all the things a girl wants to hear. “Pattie, you are so beautiful.” “You’re so soft.” “You’re so amazing.” I swallowed his sweet nothings hook, line, and sinker. I was a hopeless romantic, and his words made me weak in the knees.
We started kissing and ended up in his bedroom. I was nervous. I didn’t want this to end the way it was obviously going. Despite the amount of abuse I had endured, I was still a virgin. That part of me was precious and innocent. I wasn’t ready to give it up yet, not even to Joey.
As we fooled around on the bed, he started trying to take off my clothes, slowly and inconspicuously. My body tightened. I squirmed around to get his hands away from certain areas on my body, but it was no use; he was much stronger than I was.
“No, Joey,” I said, still fidgeting in the mesh of our intertwining legs and arms. “I don’t want to do this.”
He whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I kept repeating “No,” and Joey kept saying, “It’s okay.” I didn’t yell. I didn’t scream. I didn’t beat him off me. But I said no. I said it so many times I numbly reverted back into abuse mode. I was still. Silent. Detached from my body. Detached from Joey. Detached from time. I just wanted to get the inevitable over with.
When it was over, I reconnected my body with my mind. I plugged my emotions back in. Though I didn’t know it at the time, delusion set in. I repainted the scenario in new colors. In reality, I’d just lost my virginity in what was by definition a date rape. But in my new, improved version, I had just made love with the man I was going to marry.
I had myself so convinced of this that I walked home on cloud nine. Floating on air. Head over heels in love. I was sure Joey was “the one.” I was so excited that I’d finally found the man who was going to make my dreams come true, the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
The most traumatic thing about that night for me wasn’t even that I’d been raped; it was what happened the next day when I called Joey to say hello and to see how our “relationship” was going (remember, I was only fifteen). My dream guy was curt. Nothing like the night before. Joey immediately cut off my babbling and quietly said, “Please don’t call me again.”
Click.
The dial tone buzzed in my ear.
I was beyond devastated. I cried my heart out that day and for weeks afterward. I decided I hated Joey and I hated men. The rejection hurt me on such a deep level. It was another notch in the belt of abandonment that was squeezing the life out of me. It broke my confidence. It shattered my hope. It scarred my view of love.
Not long after the incident with Joey, I met a guy named Jeremy at a party. I walked into a room where a song by 2 Live Crew was blaring on the stereo. As I sipped beer and dangled a cigarette from my fingers, my eyes landed on a guy doing the “running man.” I thought he looked ridiculous doing the dance; I’m sure he thought he looked pretty cool. I took my beer and cigarette to the other room and didn’t see him again until a few weeks later.
We crossed paths off and on for a while, usually at parties clouded by lots of alcohol and a ton of pot. One time we climbed onto the roof of someone’s house and talked about nothing and everything for hours. I thought he was a good-looking guy—he had a chiseled body, dreamy eyes, and a handsome face—but I still wasn’t totally into him in the beginning. The more I got to know him, however, the deeper I fell. Before I knew it, Jeremy had become my life.
It was almost impossible for me not to fall madly in love with him. And it was equally impossible for anyone not to like him. He was a cool guy, adventurous and spontaneous. He’d pick me up and take me on long walks by the railroad tracks. We’d hitchhike to the city of London, an hour away, to get away from Stratford. I always felt safe with Jeremy, no matter where I was. He had a natural instinct to protect, though many times he took that impulse too far.
On the flip side, Jeremy and I were young and immature and didn’t have much working in our favor. We both came from broken homes and didn’t know how to love ourselves. As much as we tried, we would never be able to figure out how to love each other. We were doomed from the start.
Only a week after we started dating, Jeremy went away for his birthday. Somehow I found out that he had cheated on me while he was gone. I was livid, but he justified his actions by saying he didn’t think we were in a committed relationship. It was an easy out. Then he offered a string of seemingly heartfelt apologies (a pattern I would soon grow accustomed to) and reassured me that he liked me a lot and wanted to be my boyfriend. I forgave him, just as I would many more times.
The cheating that happened during our on-again, off-again relationship wasn’t all one-sided, though. I played my own part. I even betrayed Jeremy with one of his best friends. I was hurt and confused by our toxic relationship and felt compelled to get back at him.
Just as I had my own issues, Jeremy had his. I believe a lot of his demeaning and disrespectful attitude had deep roots in his own life. His dad was an alcoholic. Jeremy followed suit. By the time he was sixteen, he too had a drinking problem. I went to a few Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with him. We look
ed like babies in a sea of worn, tired faces that had lived at least twice as many years as we had. Jeremy didn’t last long in the twelve-step program, and his drinking problem got worse.
There’s no way to sugarcoat the truth: Jeremy was a jerk when he drank. I think he would agree with me on that today. He took on what I liked to call his evil alter ego, Jack (his middle name). Every word he spoke while under the influence was offensive and confrontational. Then there were the fights, most of which intensified when he had a few drinks in him. A natural born fighter (and a very good one, I’ll add), Jeremy went to extremes when someone so much as looked at him the wrong way. It was worse when I was with him. We’d walk hand-in-hand down the street, and if a guy looked at me, even for half a second, he’d flip out. He’d grab me closer to him and possessively say, “Mine.”
The majority of our on-again, off-again four-year relationship would be unhealthy, suffocated by mind games and distorted by insecurities. We danced to the tune of breaking up and getting back together so many times that a lot of those four years have smudged into each other. I can’t even remember anymore when we were actually together and when we were on a “break.”
At home, my fights with my mother continued, one after another. It didn’t seem like there was any downtime, a time-out when we weren’t at each other’s throats. Finally, when I was sixteen and when Jeremy and I were “off again,” I hit a breaking point. I decided to move out.
You’d think it would have been a big moment. I mean, I was still a minor. But I don’t remember any drama surrounding my exit. Things had gotten so bad that I think when I left, my mom was more relieved than anything. She and Bruce could finally have a peaceful, calm, and quiet house. Frankly, they deserved that much. In retrospect, I’m sure my mother worried about me, though. How could she not?
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