This blog is me sharing everything you should keep secret. If you ask any of my closest friends, they'll tell you I'm a big believer in "open" conversation. This means discussing everything that lies upon your heart you're told to keep quiet or society has trained you to shove deep down inside of your soul. The one thing most people don't know or realize is, it's where disease truly starts. That would be in the mind. I urge, encourage, and annoyingly try to get the ones I love (and strangers for that matter) to talk about everything they don't want to.
I do this with knowledge of just how hard it is. For me to unveil what was heaviest on my heart I had to realize I wasn't alone. I had to realize everyone has hurt like me at some point in their life. Somewhere along the way, every person has been touched with a sadness that has never left. Our hearts feel, but also forever absorb the experiences we go through. Like I try to encourage those that come into my life, I'm going to try to encourage anyone reading this. Please, I beg of you, recognize those deep rooted hurts that lie dormant inside of you. Unleash them into your hearts and feel every emotion that may come with it. After every storm, the sun shines a little brighter. I'm not lying to you. I know. I've been through a hurricane.
Enjoy. Embrace.
Take flight, free your heart.
This is me. In the raw.
Being honest with you. Being honest with myself.
My storm came at the age of thirteen. Well, I was twelve turning thirteen. Bluntly, I was sexually abused by my twenty nine year old horse trainer. Immediately, everyone's reactions are "I'm sorry." or they question it and want to hear all the details. Well, I'll tell you this, there's nothing I haven't heard or have been asked pertaining to the situation.
I actually had a family member of mine ask me, "Well, did you like it?" As a thirteen year old child confused and lost in the entire situation, words wouldn't come out of my mouth. To that, there's was nothing to say. Why? Because I was a child, who had never had attention from a boy, let alone a man. I was coming into my teenage years. I was manipulated down to the core. So, as twenty-two year old me I answer that question, with full understanding of the situation, and say yes. Of course. How could I not like the attention, the special treatment, the whirlwind of bullshit that was feed to me making me feel like the sun shined out of my ass. He promised me things. He told me he loved me. And, I believed it all.
My saving grace: Oprah.
After school one day, I happened to turn on Oprah to watch with my sister. The show was all about sex offenders. She even had a convicted offender on there to interview. As he began to explain the process that occurs in every sexual predators agenda, the tears began uncontrollably falling from my eyes. Silently I escaped to my bedroom to sob, I didn't want my sister to ask what was wrong. It was in that moment I realized I had been being sexually abused. The realization sparked a feeling of freedom. However, this was only me stepping into the roller coaster ride I was getting on.
Detectives, District Attorneys, & Court.
Going to the police station to deliver a statement felt like I had fallen into a black hole after smacking my head on a rock, blacking out. Dazed and confused. Scared and sad. I was plainly lost. In my heart and mind. In my statement I left out a major part, feeling like I was betraying my abuser even though I had full knowledge of the wrongness and severity of it all. Even though I voluntarily confessed it all to begin with. Being manipulated for months and months, there was a feeling of guilt I had for "telling" on him. I later confessed that portion of my abuse to my mother, which was all that mattered in my heart.
I'll tell you what, having to leave ninth grade early for court hearings wasn't fun. The worst part was explaining or trying to think of an excuse to tell my teachers. (They always managed to ask why I was leaving the days it was for court.) Court, for me, was the worst part about the entire situation. My character was questioned. I was screamed at by his lawyer in the court room. I walked out of there feeling like a puddle of nothingness. He was found not guilty. This, I feel was due to the fact that my case was combined with another girls and we had a DA, not our own lawyer. I've seen him at horse shows the years following, around his young daughter and wife. That is life in full effect.
The Aftermath.
My mother is simply a guardian angel. Throughout the entire process she caught my tears, fought for me like a pit bull and, sadly, felt every emotion I was feeling. Until the day I die, I will forever appreciate how she stood by my side. If it wasn't for her, I might be half alive right now due to emotional stress.
My Family. A love like no other.
Therapy: My Mom encouraged me to seek therapy for everything I had went through. Once the first appointment was made, I sat through class all day anticipating the moment I'd have to sit in a chair across from a stranger to spew everything I didn't want to tell anyone. Once we arrived to the therapist office, I sat in the car to cry for about ten minutes before regaining courage to walk through the doors. After getting used to the sessions, I looked forward to getting it all off my chest. The issue I was having the hardest time with, was feeling like it was all my fault. It took me a while to get passed that.
The After, Aftermath.
Here I am, years later living life. Cleared from therapy years ago. Here I am, living this life feeling just fine. Then last fall I found myself at an emotional, almost breaking point with life. Needing an escape, answers, anything, I asked to go to Hippocrates Health Institute for my Christmas present. There I found my wounds re-opened, only to come out feeling better than I ever had about my sexual abuse. I didn't go there to heal from it, I had thought I'd done that already. Through unsafe conversations with strangers going through any and everything you could possibly imagine, it began to seep out of my heart. There I got to go through regressive memory therapy. During this, I got to go back into my bad memories to turn them into positive ones. That day was the day. I had found freedom. I could soar.
So Here I Am.
I ask this of you strongly. Do not feel sorry for me. Do not wish it never happened to me, because I don't. Living an experience of such has supplied me with tools to help others I may never have gained without going through it. I am thankful for every piece of it. If not for it, I may not have been on such a hunt to free my heart and in return form it into what I am now.
So when I speak of healing, I come from a place of knowledge. When you feel like life can't get any worse, appreciate those bad times because I can guarantee you life will only be more beautiful after your storms. My friends call me rainbows and butterflies. I haven't always been rainbows and butterflies. It's taken me years, tears, and a shit ton of "seeking" to become who I can say I am proud to be today.
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Most of you are probably thinking, "Why would you tell everyone all this? The real question should be, "Why wouldn't you tell everyone this?" I don't anyone to ever feel alone. I want everyone to realize a few things.
The Lessons In All of This:
Keep no secrets.
Speak to yourself, friends and family from your heart. Secrets will only fester, to make you literally sick one day. This is fact.
Don't judge anyone, ever.
At the end of the day, we all hurt, love and want to be loved. Take your meaningless judgements you want to put on someone else and ask yourself, "What is it I'm judging them for that is actually my personal issue?" You NEVER know the journey a person has been on. Be kind with your words and thoughts, please.
Feel whatever emotions you may have.
When you feel an emotion in it's entirety as it comes, it makes it easier to accept it and leave it behind. You then can smile. Your feelings are there to feel, so do so. Embrace what's in your heart. (Especially the pit of your heart, where you SHOVE everything.)
Above all, know you can come to me. My heart and ears are open to whoever may need them. Once I realized I wasn't alone, it was easier to feel alive again. You are never alone.
SIDE NOTES:
My Goddaughter is being born on Thursday! I've been waiting for this for months. (Obviously) I'm honored, nervous, and extremly excited!
The parents. Vito and Sandra Russo.
(Who I went to Italy with!)
Went White Water Rafting with friends Sunday. (HIGHLY RECCOMENNED)
Took a few pictures:
Corey and Jorge.
These sunglasses. :)
Forever Love.
