Story -- Five Minute Friday

Write 31 Days Day #6

A good story is full of engaging characters, a solid plot line, and some juices plot twists, and unexpected shifts. I love reading a book and being completely caught off guard.

We talk about our lives as stories. It's less enjoyable when our lives shout, "Plot twist!" at us.

That's what mine did a couple of years ago. I was going along on my usual trajectory, thinking I knew what was coming. We were heading into empty nest, possible weddings, maybe grandchildren. A job shift and ultimately retirement when things went off the rails.

I can't really say I didn't see it coming. But I just kept believing it would get better. We'd get back on the track I saw -- together. That didn't happen.

So now I'm writing a new plot outline. I'm introducing new characters and uncovering aspects of my main character (me) that I didn't know existed. Or at least I'd forgotten about. 

I'm choosing to see the plot twist in my story as a good thing. Can't wait to see what happens next.

Blessings!

linking up with Five Minute Friday

Telling Stories

Write 31 Days #2

You are both the main character and narrator of your life. You may not have control over all your circumstances, but you can choose how to tell the story. 

-- Jonathan Adler

I've been asked to tell my story. Again. 

In reality, a friend offered me the opportunity to participate in a study and the form begins with "Please tell your story". 

Let me start by saying I hate the word "story" in this context. Adler's quote resonates with me because of its truth, but that doesn't mean I have to like his choice of "story". 

"Story" implies fiction to me, and I've  spent far too many years trying to convince myself of the veracity of my memories to let them be written off as a "story" at this point in my journey. Semantics. But I do get caught up in words.

I've used humor frequently when sharing my experiences, which is perverse given that there is nothing humorous about any of it. We all have our coping mechanisms. Humor isn't all bad, but it does create a wall around me that implies to the listener that I am fine. I am just fine. Which is not true. I am never fine when recounting my history.

Frequently I rely on what I like to call the Quick and Dirty version. Just enough detail to get the point across, but not enough to completely overwhelm my listener or reader, or to send me into fast-talking panic mode. It goes like this -- "I was sexually abused by 5 different people as a child, and raped twice as an adult." There that wasn't so hard, was it?

All of it has never been written down in one place or told in its entirety at one time. It's just too much for me to do, and I don't want to impose on anyone long enough to get it all out. It was real, real bad, okay?

Here is what is true -- I want to write it all done in excruciating detail. Every episode with every gory detail. I want someone to listen to me no matter how long it takes or how much I ramble. I want to watch them react in sadness and horror and grief. I want them to tell me it's not my fault, was never my fault. 

But there will never be enough assurances that it wasn't my fault. Not really. Because it happened, and I really don't think I'll ever completely erase the idea from my soul that I could have stopped it -- or kept it from ever starting -- or continuing. At least not this side of heaven. 

What I can do is be a listening ear or reading eyes for other people's "stories". I can keep telling my experiences as a way of reminding others that to be human is to have a need to make sense of what happens to us and around us. And it is in the telling that we make sense of our lives and connect with one another.

Blessings!

linking up with Write 31 Days

Story

Stories are meant to be grandiose. Full excitement, promise, romance, and happy endings.

Or are they? That might be the definition of a make believe story, but a real story is the story of real life and real people. And most real people don't get a make believe story or life.

My story is messy and vile, at times filled with evil and horror. But it's also beautiful and full of love now.

I was abused repeatedly in horrible ways by a variety of people when I was young. I was raped twice by the same person as an adult. And it's taken me years of therapy and crying and praying to realize that, sadly, I am not alone.

But it's not my fault that my life doesn't read like a Disney fairy tale. And truth be told, I'm glad it doesn't. Fairy tales end once everything is as it should be. But I'd rather live the whole story -- warts and all -- than have my story just be "happily ever after".


linking up with Five Minute Friday

A Story

I want to tell you story. It's a story about a little girl who survived so very much. But it's also a story about a little girl who is still learning to acknowledge her own survival.

I want to tell the story neatly. In chronological order, with explanations for why each horrible episode occurred. I want to package it in a way that will make you understand her pain and silence and fear. I want you to know that it wasn't her fault. That it is true, and that I am telling it because I have to tell.

But I can't do most of that. 

I can't tell the story neatly, because it's a messy story. It's full of anger and fear and confusion. It's full of really bad people doing really terrible things.

I can't tell it in chronological order because memory doesn't work that way, especially traumatic memory. I think that if I could organize it and get it in order, then I would be able to understand it. But that's a fallacy. Just like I'll never be able to explain why it started, or what triggered each episode of abuse, or what would make anyone do such terrible things to another person, especially to a child.

I can try and explain the pain, silence, and fear, but it's likely you won't fully understand it unless you've been there yourself. And I really hope you haven't.

Another flashback a few weeks ago in the middle of what was supposed to be a relaxing massage. A place on my body touched by the masseuse sent me reeling back to an episode of pain and terror. So much pain and terror that in trying to talk about it later, I found myself recoiling from hands extended to help. I was convinced again that I would die, and so I curled myself in and tried to get away. But it was only the memory of the pain and fear. And yet it was so palpable, so visceral. 

How do I tell that story? Who wants to read that story? Why do I want to tell that story? These are all questions that race through my mind, along with thoughts of worthlessness, and the words of abusers telling me that no one will believe me -- of a family member accusing me of "upping the ante". 

A little girl stands in a barn with one end of a wire wrapped around her wrist. The wire pulls her arm up behind her back, and the other end of the wire is wrapped around her neck. Which is worse -- to have the arm pulled from its socket, or to be strangled? Which is worse -- to endure that torment, or to withstand the sadistic, sexual assault while held in that trap? 

I know I survived it, because I'm sitting here typing these words. I'm glad I survived it. I just don't know how to feel (trust) that anyone out there believes me.

linking up with Write at the Merge and imperfect prose on thursday

Day 3 of 31

Today Lisa-Jo said write the story you know. And I think about how I've been trying to do that for a long time. Not that long ago I shared about it here.

When I think of the stories, fiction and nonfiction, that have moved me the most, they are rarely the stories of great beauty and romance. Stories that move me are gritty and tough, repetitive and full of struggle. Perhaps because they are so true. The human condition is not a pretty story, but a story of perseverance.

I keep trying to visualize the end of my story. When it's over and the abuse doesn't effect me everyday any more. I think that may be part of my problem. That's not the ending that will come. Maybe the end is more about me taking control of and accepting the impact the abuse has on my life everyday. 

My husband tells me not to feel bad for feeling bad. To get angry at the people who did this to me and toss all the crap right back on them. 

I'm just not sure how to do that. I don't want to do "confrontations".  I tried that approach with one and it didn't go well. One of the abusers is dead. Another I tried to contact, but she won't communicate with me. Honestly I don't want to talk with any of them.

So I think and write about my experiences to clear my head and I hope (and I pray) that by being open and honest about my own struggles someone out there is being helped to move beyond their own pain and seek help. 

And #&*% the abusers.

linking up with Lisa-Jo and Ann Voskamp

Story

Stories are supposed to be big and glorious and inspiring. But what if my story is small and sad and messy.

People say "Share your story" and then others share stories of romance and babies and mission work. When it's my turn, I stand up and say, "I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse" all the while twisting my hands as my stomach twists in my body. All the while wondering why I am saying these things out loud, ducking my head and only glancing up occasionally at some one person who looks as if they care, and wondering what will happen when I stop talking. 

Story. It's who we all are and if my story isn't accepted, then I'm not accepted. 

If you hear my story, will you still hear me?

linking up at 5 minute friday and Write on Edge and imperfect prose