Epiphany
By: Cary Bach Donahou
Tags: Sexual Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Metoo, Sexual Abuse Survivors, PTSD

I write in my affirmation journal every morning. I’ve been doing this for over a month now. I write something good about myself, then copy it out ten times, and then say it out loud. It has been truly insightful. Some days feel easy, and others down right hard. I do it anyhow.

This morning I wrote, “I am dedicated to my healing”. Then I had an epiphany. I have always been dedicated to my healing. Ever since I was a little girl. I have always searched for ways to heal, even before I allowed myself to know what my dad had done to me, really done to me.

I can hear my mom’s voice telling me I was dirty and disgusting. I can hear her asking “what is wrong with you”. I was a toddler, a child, when it started, and it never stopped. I took all of that and internalized it. I believed with every fiber of my being that something was wrong with me, that I was bad. I was bad because my dad sexually violated me. It was my fault, I deserved it, I was to blame. I had no choice but to take this in, I was utterly defenseless.

I have been trying to heal my whole life, because I thought I was a bad person. I thought that in order to be healed, I would have to no longer remember what happened. If I could wipe that away, then I would be healed. I would no longer be a bad person.

I can remember wanting to be healed in church. I can remember praying to god that I would never be bad again, please save me, please take away the bad. Please heal me, I don’t want to be bad. How is that even remotely okay? I was 7, I was sitting on the stairs looking out the window and I prayed this.

I truly believed that I was a bad person. I was dirty and disgusting. I had no self worth, but I tried. I tried so hard. I wanted to be good. I wanted love. I wanted to be worthy. So I tried all the ways I knew while growing up to be healed.

This belief that I was bad, opened up all kinds of abuse for me in my life. Particularly from Harry (ex narcissist abuser of 10 years). He and others preyed on me my whole life, because I believed I deserved it.

I came to a point where I realized that healing didn’t mean I could no longer remember. That healing meant the past no longer had the ability to hurt me. I thought I must still be bad, because it was still hurting me. This is the first time in my life, I made the connection that I have been trying so hard to heal, because I think I am bad. I am 42 years old, and I have carried my dad and my mom’s shame, guilt, & self-disgust, my whole life. I believed there was truly something wrong with me. I believed I was bad. There is nothing wrong with me. I am not inherently bad, and therefore unworthy. Those were lies. Lies that I had no choice but to believe.

Over the last year I have been working so hard on my healing. I have made so many connections and realizations, I am finally understanding what all has been done to me. I have a lot more to go. The abuses I have endured, are a tangled web that I have to unravel. But this… this is something central, something at the core of it all. This is a breakthrough! I am not healing to become a good person. I am a good person. I am healing what was done to me. There is nothing wrong with me, I am not inherently bad. I am not stained from the abuse. I am a good, strong, loving, and resilient woman.