***Trigger Warning – mentions elements of sexual abuse against a child/teenager which readers may find graphic in detail
Coping With More Trauma
Although my mind had closed me off from reliving the trauma of the sexual assault I survived at nine years old, my body kept the score. By the time I experienced sexual abuse at the hands of the martial arts instructor, I was already coping with posttraumatic stress.
I already had great trouble sleeping because of recurring nightmares and night terrors. All I wanted to do was sleep, but it was difficult at best. I battled racing thoughts, paranoia, and high anxiety. I worried all of the time, and although I was far too young to be so stressed, life circumstances did not have it any other way for me.
Outside of the issues I was already dealing with concerning a narcissistic family environment, school stress, friendship dilemmas, menstrual cycle issues, and other stressful circumstances that kept me the black sheep of the family and community, I was constantly having to deal with ways to avoid the instructor and his malicious antics against me.
The Stress
On top of the post-trauma effects I was already dealing with, the circumstances with the instructor created additional trauma. The stress of it all exhausted me. Martial arts class required all of my stamina, and I already did not have very much at all from the start. I was physically battling with the loss of a lot of blood throughout my menstrual cycle. How I had the physical capacity to withstand some of the exercises and routines baffles me.
By the time I reached home, I was too exhausted to do anything, but I had no choice. I still had school work to do. By the time that the sexual abuse had progressed against me via the instructor, I was a high school ninth grader and taking advanced courses. I was coping by splitting off into what I called other selves. There was a “me” for the main three aspects of my life – school, home, and martial arts class.
In school, I learned to make every moment of the day count. Unlike middle school where I dazed and dozed my way through classes in a complete brain fog, in high school I was determined to use every second of the time I had to dedicate to my studies. So, I worked by butt off to maintain high scores, but working my butt off often meant staying up past a decent bed time and getting very little sleep or rest.
I do not remember how I compensated, but maybe that was the strength of my brain. I suffered insomnia because my brain would not shut off. The selves that split off within me because of trauma had frequent conversations into the wee hours of the morning. Mainly, it was my thought processes about how to handle the terribly difficult situation with the sexual abuse I was suffering.
I was an insomniac mess. My brain would not allow me to sleep. My drive to do my best in school would not allow for sleeping in class anymore. My narcissistic parents would not allow for sleeping in on weekends because of chores. Basically, my life lacked the joy of sleep. In other words, sleep was a major struggle. I longed for the days of kindergarten and wished I had taken the required naps instead of staying awake to muse and play around.
Coping Mechanisms
On top of worrying about the sexual abuse, I still had to battle the issues of frequent and heavy periods. Even though I had been prescribed birth control pills, my cycles were still erratic and extremely heavy. I clotted heavily all the time. I had already cycled through different trials of birth control pills, and each time I thought I found relief, breakthrough bleeding would occur at random moments. The doctor did not know what was wrong, and other health professionals reasoned that my body had just not regulated itself. I was not further examined again because of the extreme trauma that the first gynecological exam had put me through.
I coped with the heavy periods by just keeping myself extra prepared for accidents. I lived my life on edge all the time. High school was a different arena, and even though I had gone to school with most of the same people, there were even more new faces because of other schools from other areas that fed into the high school because it was the master hub of the area. Being embarrassed about menstrual issues was not something I wanted to handle even though I did have a few accidents I was able to conspicuously hide.
Interestingly, martial arts was never in my mind during school hours. The fractured self that dealt with school did not ever think about martial arts until the end of the school day. Otherwise, thoughts about the instructor were nonexistent. I did not even ponder over elements of the sexual abuse I experienced either. In fact, my school life was just that … school life. I left all of the cares about home and other issues behind so that I could streamline my focus on my studies. Because of my drive to escape narcissistic abuse by the time I was able to graduate, I excelled in school.
“If only the middle school teachers could see me now,” I thought. In fact, the married couple that had come to work at the middle school I attended transferred to the high school. So they were able to relay the news about how I had dramatically changed to the point that I was unrecognizable. Teachers in high school put me on “the student to watch” list because I had mastered passing one of the hardest advanced English classes from one of the toughest teachers in the high school. They also believed that I was a gifted student who had unfortunately fallen through the cracks in elementary and middle school. No one knew I was autistic.
I would say, that high school became my refuge and not even for any significant social aspects. I was still very much a loner, and I never truly found a place to belong, but my life was drastically better in school because I tuned into learning for a purpose. My purpose was to escape the hell flames of narcissistic abuse. I find it odd now, in retrospect, that the fragmented self that dealt with the sexual abuse was buried as soon as my time in martial arts ended [but more on that later].
My life was lived by coping for what was needed in the moment. Everything about home life, martial arts, and school was kept separate, and if I saw there was any possibility that the three lives would somehow intercept for any reason, I paused, revamped, or freaked out. The fragmented selves only spoke in my head at night. Strange, right?
Although I tried keeping a journal to record my thoughts, I found it always to be an unsuccessful measure. My mother frequented my room and searched through my belongings for such things, and when she found my diaries/journals, she would read them. She did not care about my boundaries. What was my business was somehow automatically her business even if that business involved my private thoughts. Fortunately, I never recorded anything about the sexual abuse. I say fortunately because I doubt that my recordings would have been believed, and I would have still suffered.
Once, I took the journals to school and left them in my locker, and a supposed best friend had learned from my mother that there was a section that pertained to my thoughts on her when we were going through a friendship struggle. Since we shared a lot of things, she knew the combination to my locker, and took my journals out while I was in a class and read them. After that episode, I never journaled again until I was about 30 or 31.
Needless to say, I lived in my head much of the time, and I attempted to make do the best that I could. My mind was terribly fractured by trauma, but I made my life work the best that I could during a difficult time. All the while, however, ideation with suicide was constant, depression drove me to the brink of tears, which never fell in public places or even at home, and anger simmered just beneath the surface. There was far more trauma to come, but there was also going to be a mixture of relief.
My refuge came in the form of a vehicle.
Stay tuned for the next post about The Instructor.
My Voice Unchained 