In some ways, this is a reflection inspired by this article on Slate. It does offer a little bit more hope than I'm able to right now. Still, at the end of the day, I long to live in a world where sexual misconduct is universally condemned and where survivors don't have to relive some of the most difficult times in their lives in order to make a change. If you have the energy to read it, that's what the post below is trying to express.
Listen, I had put my demons in a box. Sure, they had carried with them safety and intimacy and a whole host of emotions, but at least they were gone. I had locked all of this away as a matter of survival and on the whole, I wasn't all that upset with my life. I had good friends, I had aspirations, I had opportunities for travel. My world was sufficient.
And then I went to a training on preventing child abuse, both physical and sexual, and I couldn't understand why all I could do was stare at the table as the statistics were read and the presenter tried hard to get the people in the room to understand how widespread the problem was and how urgent the need to address it. My hands clenched into fists under the table, grasping tight to the lid of my demons' box, but by the end of the training, I had resources and I had plans for action and I grasped those as tight as I could. By the end of the year, I would be pushing for an update on my church's Safe Sanctuary policy and running a short training on the policy and on recognizing abuse. The demons might have rattled the box, but I took courage from it. I chose to confront as much of my past as I was able to at the time and it galvanized me. I made a difference.
From time to time over the next few years, the box would shake, but never burst. There would be tremors, but the world would always right itself again after. Sometimes, I'd walk over to the box, because I knew that I had locked away good, important things in there too, things that I needed, but anytime the chance came to open it, I ran away. I'm very good at running away.
Up until the day that I wasn't. That day, I felt secure in myself and buoyed by the possibility of new and good and exciting things, and I walked up to the box and opened it up, standing still and strong in the face of what might come. My demons, hungry for fresh air, rushed out and away and I could gather the good things from my box and close it back up, empty. For a time, I waited for my demons to come home, but days and weeks passed and it seemed like maybe I was free.
And then #MeToo happened. Then everything was story after story after story of abuse and assault, affirmation upon affirmation that women should be believed, that all survivors regardless of gender should be believed, article after article of the horrors of surviving, reporting, being disbelieved, being retraumatized, putting yourself back together and getting torn apart again and again. The conversation around sexual abuse and assault was everywhere and it was important and I felt that I had to participate, so I did. And as I did, my demons came home to roost.
Now, I'm strong. I know this. I know that I am loved and that I am valuable and that I did not cause my demons. I know that I am worthy of feeling powerful emotions, of safety, of intimacy. I know that I can't box all this back up again. But the demons go after these strengths. The demons use old lies and speak them again in new ways. The demons take the breath out of my lungs and the thoughts out of my head and leave me trapped in this vacuum chamber with no light, no sound, no life. They're only in my head but somehow they paralyze me. They are ancient and have worked against stronger people than me. To fight them seems impossible. Better to let them do what they're going to do and hope there's something of me left when the air comes back. So far, there has been.
But I don't have time to be fighting demons. I have so much else that I need to do. I want to hear the stories of survivors who explain #WhyIDidntReport, want to sit with them in their grief and pain, the pain that I know so well, but I can't. I want to pay attention to Dr. Ford's testimony on Thursday, but I can't. I want to share posts that say that I stand with survivors, but I can't. Every time I turn my attention to this conversation, my demons pound at my door, at the barriers I've put up, and they tear at me until I can't stand being in my own head anymore. Demons are fed by this world we're living in right now. They are strong and they do not keep to the shadows. And I do not have much hope that that will change anytime soon.
God, how long will we have to do this? How long will people take another's body and use it the way they want, whenever they want, without consequence? How long will this fight continue? How long will I have to stand against the guilt and shame and fear that should never have been mine? God, why do you let us live like this? God, why do you let this hurt me?
Jesus, Lord, we need a change.
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