by Ashley Judd
On Friday, I sat knee to knee with loved ones while they each told me five things each one “liked and loved” about me. My God, after having each pitched in seemingly inedible and rotten ingredients, we were actually partaking of that corny stew that had simmered and boiled all week, sharing in a rich meal love, laughter, and fellowship.
I kept the papers on which, in easily recognizable handwriting, were itemized some things each one liked and loved about me. What a far cry this “inventory” is from the old letters, faxes, and interminable voice mails they used to send me! They are gems that consecrate special moments, memories, and connections I share with my loved ones, positive aspects upon which to build with those who also choose to recover. What they describe about me runs the gamut from the way I dance as though no one is watching, to my smile, to the way I make a mess when I cook, to my casual indifference about my appearance, to how beautifully I keep my home and entertain, and my zeal for Kentucky basketball, and the way I smell like violets just as Mamaw did. But one poignant theme repeats and is mentioned by everyone who was present: “Your strong sense of right and wrong; the way you help people; your service work; your ability to still love; your empowerment of others; your commitment to fairness; your unbreakable spirit; your integrity; your respect for your fellow men and women on this journey; the strength of your convictions; your fearlessness in advocating on behalf of others; the way you embrace those who are sick; the way you fight for those who have nothing; the way you hold orphans.”
Yeah. I like and love that about me, too.
For my outing, we had lunch at a beautiful local café. It was my first time off the Shades of Hope property in more than a month. As Dario and I took a nap later, I listened, as I was falling asleep, to the everyday sounds of this beautiful and heartbreaking world: the sound of my husband breathing; a family checking into an adjoining room, the distant sound of traffic, a dog barking. Nothing in the world was different, but I sure was.
I spent my last week at Shades debriefing from my family week, completing follow-up assignments. This included dealing with a newly revealed round of childhood incest. There wasn’t time to unpack it completely, and take advantage of the resources Shades offers for survivors, but we made a good start.
I had considerable codependency with a family member who attended family week; an important, valuable relationship, but one I had idealized, yet others could see was troubled and strained. During one summer of my early adolescence, when I had stayed with her, her husband had molested me. In finally having the courage to share the details with someone, I learned the chillingly accurate term, “grooming,” as well as the typical stages and when I heard it, the visceral feelings of repugnance and shame confirmed that was indeed what this trusted adult man had done: groomed me, to set up the pattern of sexual abuse in such a way that I would be compliant and even flattered. First, he began by hanging out with me when I watched late-night TV after everyone else went to bed (the isolating phase). During that time, he sat a little too close to me on the sofa, telling little jokes that created our own insider relationship, talking just a little bad about others but building me up to gain my trust and confidence, initiating the secrecy phase. During the day, just before others entered a room, or after they left, he would give me a wink, a lingering touch on the arm, doing things to “invest” in our “special” relationship—the desensitizing to inappropriateness phase. He exploited my vulnerabilities and neediness for attention and validation. He would quickly volunteer to drive me wherever I needed to go. He took me to special places, involving me in his life, saying his wife wasn’t interested, and how much he appreciated me (the “our relationship is unique and special” phase). Soon, he made the relationship sexual. When we were alone in the house he came into my guest room at every opportunity. I was so slow in realizing this had been a classic, highly abusive pattern of incest committed by a scheming and clever sexual predator because in his very success as a perpetrator, he convinced me we were having an affair. He insidiously made me believe that I wanted the relationship, even though it revolted and scared the hell out of me. In what could have been a disastrous turning point in my life, my family member and he, aware of my dubious living conditions at home, briefly discussed taking custody of me, having me live with them for a school year. Oh, my god, I shudder to think how much further the molestation would have gone, how much worse it could have been. Even though my next school year was a typically difficult one, I think, But for the grace of God go I.
Even after I left that house, the man continued to write me, and begged me to write him letters in return, giving me his friend’s address to which I could send them without my family member knowing. Completely freaked out, I told one of my parents about it, and their response was, “Well, is he your boyfriend?” I managed to avoid him and his attempts to contact me, and then I proceeded never to talk about it. This was one of the many reasons why my after-care plan included a commitment to ongoing trauma, adult child, and abuse survivor work.
I moved on to the other end of the treatment exercises, which, for me, included making a collage of what life had looked like as the depressed Lost Child in my family, and in recovery, what my role in the family might look like. I created my after-care plan and processed it with staff and peers. My minimum commitment to myself was to spend time every day with other recovering people, to read recovery literature every morning with my prayer and meditation practice, to apply the principles and slogans of recovery in all my affairs, to reach out to others on this journey by phone, and to give away what had been given to me so freely. “We cannot keep what we have, unless we give it away,” Shades stresses. I also committed to do an intensive six-day family-of-origin, and survivor-abuse and trauma workshop every calendar year, to continue the deeply healing process of “uncovering, discovering, and discarding.” I made a promise that were I ever to relapse, I would return to inpatient treatment. Simply put, I committed to continue to go to any lengths for my recovery, to clean house, trust God, and help others.
Perhaps most saliently, I wrote a goodbye letter to depression. I had witnessed other clients reading powerful goodbye letters to diseases they had come into treatment not even knowing they had, or denying had been killing them. The work had been exhilarating merely to witness, and so it was perhaps this assignment more than any other that let me know I was completing something, dying to an old way of being, being born into a new life of freedom. I was moved and surprised by the words that effortlessly flowed from my pen. It was an ode, a farewell, a thank you letter, and most important, a triumphant statement of “good riddance.” It said, in part:
Dear Depression,
You have, indeed, been dear to me. You were my way of life, and such a natural part of my existence, I hadn’t even known you were smothering me, so completely and thoroughly were you my companion.
I remember night after night of lying in bed, and you coming to me in the form of those dark, negative thoughts, and how I’d collect them, each one a precious chink in my armor. I’d draw those thoughts to me, turning them carefully into the poisonous refrain, and when they settled deeply enough in my brain, and the much-needed chemical relief came, I’d let it evaporate. Another one would instantly materialize, much like the subsequent waves in the ocean—the tide draws the form back into the sea, where another has been simultaneously prepared. And so these thoughts would collect relentlessly until I got what I needed—proof I was wrong, proof I was unloved, proof everyone chose the words and actions they did to disregard me, their desire to let my needs go unacknowledged and unmet an indictment of my very existence being wrong. I could review the day with your devious help and reframe it to my most severe disadvantage.
The effects of this were numerous. I could make sense of moments earlier I had not understood. I could pull into the cocoon of my bed and avoid the dangerous man whom you lied about to me, telling me he had all the power to hurt and save me. I could connect the thoughts within my body and freeze, go idle, go m
ute—oh, the pall you cast on my solar plexus! You could trap with your vicious cycles of thoughts, the endless, rampant loops that somehow never became tedious, in spite of the same hurt being replayed ad infinitum. I could watch the reruns; speak the words in my head, and get the same hit of worthlessness and despair, over and over and over.
Living with you has been torture. My resiliency has tried with poignant courage to kick your ass out of my body, and such wholesome tactics, craving a cup of tea to set the tone for my day, another person’s love to refute your antic in my soul.
It was said here at Shades you were my first love. What a peculiar thought. You did isolate me, like a greedy lover, you distracted, soothed, and absorbed me totally. How very odd.
But all that is over now. I have a husband, a Dad, and a Pop. They aren’t perfect, but they’re mine, and I’ve learned I can be mad at people and still love them—that was perhaps the sharpest double-edged sword of all your lies. I needed to protect myself, but I also needed to trust. You kept me from doing that. You had me convinced that anger excluded love, both in me and in others.
Which has been worse? Assuming what I’d received was tainted and fraudulent, or not giving at all, especially to my mother?
But now I have a plan, and I have other thoughts with which to replace you. Where you once took up residence, affirmations now live. Where you fed my tissue and cells and immune system with toxic messages of self-hatred, self-acceptance now ripples and shines. Where you dropped heavy stones in my heart or put the elephant on my chest, I now have the gentle presence of God as I surrender.
Where you told me I was worthless and unlovable and that all was hopeless, I have recovery and Steps and fellowship. Where you told me there was hatred and dysfunction, there are miracles and reconciliation.
Where I once had only you, my beloved friend, I now have Hope. And so to you, loyal depression, I bid farewell. Rest in peace.
I do not give you permission to move on. I do not send you to another being. I bid you transform, composted by Mother Earth, dispersed by the universe, energy neither created nor destroyed, but transformed from negative to positive, shadow into light. I harness the energy, the lesson, the benefits of the journey, to the betterment of all and the harm of none.
I am free.
In the Dallas airport, I bought a large hot cup of jasmine tea and savored every sip. I held my cell phone and giggled while sending texts, laughing equally at how very little I had missed while secluded from the world. I accepted without bargaining my business class seat, and felt my Higher Power reward me for accepting life on life’s terms when I was upgraded to first class without having asked. On Dario’s bus, I sprawled legs out and arms akimbo on the bed, an enormous smile on my face, feeling free, joyful, empowered.
“What’s that yoga pose called?” he asked, amused by me.
“Goddess,” I said without missing a beat.
I taped a Shades of Hope pass to the wall on my side of the bed, on which I wrote out permission to myself to sleep late for the first time in forty-eight days. Near the racetrack where Dario was competing that weekend, I found a dilapidated but wonderfully cheerful old clubhouse where recovering folks gathered, and I visited with them every day, enjoying my new cohorts enormously. I practiced making “reach out” phone calls and bringing into my daily life (and especially my relationships) the solution, the practical plan of action, and the spiritual principles I had been taught.
Back at home, I was grateful to see the redbud trees were still in bloom, I hadn’t missed the dogwoods, and plenty of my daffodils were still showing their happy yellow trumpets. I happily reunited with our animals, whom I had not even missed, so focused on and committed to the task at hand had I been, and I settled into my beautiful new way of life. Soon, I was ready to reengage with the wider world and what gave my life such purpose and meaning: service work. I was eager to see how what I had learned about myself, and the new tools with which I was empowered, would show up in this part of my life. Having finally become an advocate for the beautiful little girl who lived inside of me and who needed a healthy adult on her side, I predicted I would now feel even better equipped to advocate on behalf of others with more usefulness, compassion, and integrity.
Chapter 16
PROJECT LIFE
Kate, Salma, and me at one of our many press conferences.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
—H. W. LONGFELLOW, “A Psalm of Life”
fter a very late arrival in Guatemala City, I woke up early to dash out of bed straight to a waiting helicopter. It was a Eurocopter, the same kind that Dario flies, and I was pleased with how familiar and comfortable it felt to jump in, use the five-point restraint, and grab my headset. Our destination was Coatepeque, a small city in southwestern Guatemala, near the Mexican border, where we would be meeting a military escort to accompany us to a clinic. I’ve always been grateful for governmental cooperation and protection, which supplements Papa Jack’s service, and I knew that the need here was non-negotiable. In the aftermath of decades of civil war, where two hundred thousand civilians died, mainly at the hands of U.S.–backed military dictators and their death squads, Guatemala is now a democracy, but it is also one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, with 75 percent of the population living below the poverty line and a dangerous, heavily armed postconflict zone. We had been instructed not to travel long distances by road, even in broad daylight. I was grateful that a wealthy supporter had donated the use of his helicopter, while I internally saluted and admired the humanitarian and aid workers who regularly make perilous overland journeys without protection, risking their lives to be of service. It isn’t fair I have such assistance, and they do not. I would be meeting two such intrepid and unsung heroes at the end of this flight.
As we flew over sharp volcanic peaks and hillsides checkered with bright green coffee plantations and pastures, I pulled my eyes away from the stunning scenery to write for a while with my nondominant hand. I’d been up a good bit of the night with anxiety, and I needed to process a lot of emotion. Ever since I left Shades of Hope five weeks earlier, I had faithfully followed the after-care plan that included fellowshipping with other recovering folks, morning meditation, recovery and inspirational readings, and other exercises—even when I had to do them in the backseats of cars or on an aircraft. I realized now that I was freeing a lot of fear about the feelings that would inevitably come up on this trip, as I ventured into areas of our global reality that can be agonizing to acknowledge and witness. On previous trips I had felt such pain; I wondered if I would now feel even more.
It would have been wonderful if six weeks in treatment could have magically erased all my difficulties, but it doesn’t work that way. Recovery is a process, lived one day at a time as a reprieve, not a “cure.” It does not promise me perpetual, emotional equanimity (what sort of life would that be, anyhow?). It does guarantee me a design for living that works under all conditions, a process I can count on always, and healthy ways to feel all my feelings safely. The lived effects of abuse and trauma do not vanish overnight, and neither do the coping behaviors developed over decades in an attempt to manage such deep wounding. I had already noticed that a few of my old stress-induced cleaning habits had reemerged during my flight south. At least now I could do a spot check of my behavior and self-correct.
I was intrigued, curious, and open to observing the changes in me, witnessing my new self in the context of my work. My three previous activism journeys were fixed points, frames of reference against which I could compare how I now functioned and responded. I didn’t expect to be invulnerable; I most certainly wouldn’t even want to be impervious. I did want my turn at this powerful work in such a way, as Mother Teresa said, that still allows me to have a smile on my face. I was already feeling more joy in my work than ever before. Interestingly, the quote in one of my
devotionals today was from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “People only see what they are prepared to see.” In spite of my fear, I chose to be prepared.
I knew I would need all my tools on this trip, which promised to be every bit as challenging as the previous ones. As always, I would be visiting the at-risk, vulnerable populations, situated mostly in slums, brothels, and hospices. In the spring of 2006, there were an estimated four hundred thousand HIV/AIDS infections in Central America. Our goal was to prevent an explosion of new cases, understanding that migration patterns put large numbers across borders at risk of contracting HIV. In Guatemala, a key aspect of the challenge was cracking a taboo against condom use by men who thought it was somehow unmanly to use protection. This dangerous belief was reinforced by the Roman Catholic Church, to which 60 percent of Guatemalans belong, which officially condemns all “artificial” and modern forms of family planning, including condoms. Here and throughout Central America, the Catholic hierarchy is entwined with a macho culture that enforces gender inequality and severely constrains a woman’s reproductive autonomy. But, as I was about to witness, there are outposts of the Church, far removed from the decision makers in Rome, on the front lines of the battle against AIDS and the impoverished conditions that facilitate its spread.
Our military escort was waiting as our helicopter landed in a cow pasture on the edge of the town of Coatepeque. So were two Maryknoll nuns, Sisters Dee and Marlene, who were waving wildly and looking so sweet and gentle standing there next to soldiers in camo fatigues with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. But it turns out they are indeed warriors as fierce as any soldiers in a munitions army. Their weapons are love, compassion, service, devotion, hope, and faith, and I believe they are mightier. I have to. My own hope and sanity depend on it.