"Monsters Under the Bed"

[Facing the teenage sexually abusive event that changed my life ]

Silence. Dazed yet surprisingly numb, he valiantly fights the urge to rest his weary eyes for but a brief moment. Helplessly slipping in and out of a non-consensual state of consciousness, the world twists and turns into a cacophony of high pitched ringing of the ears, intertwined with bouts of intense nausea. Although the current setting appears to be quite foreign to him, a peculiar air of familiarity hangs in the balance of his subconscious mind. Silence. Succumbing to the heavy laden compulsion to close his dwindling eyes, once again, he slowly drifts off into a seemingly empty state of disassociation, free from the chains of darkness which now shackle him to the evils of this world that hide in plain sight. Silence.

[Apartment, now abandoned, where abuse took place]

Traumatic dissociation , although usually referred to in a negative context, is a blessing in disguise especially when experienced as an adolescent. Amazingly, it’s our brain’s last ditch effort to protect us from such overwhelming stress, whether physical, mental, spiritual, and or emotional, which would otherwise lead to our demise. In my opinion, what’s so fascinating about it is the fact that it’s an innately natural occurrence in the progressive mechanism of our brain's ability to process traumatic experiences. It’s not a learned behavior, nor requires any maintenance, it’s simply there for such a time as this, waiting for that crucial moment to protect us at all costs, preserving any last possible shred of humanity within ourselves in order to give us a fighting chance for survival after the fact. To me, upon closer examination, after navigating beyond its extravagantly obvious negative, frightening connotations, at a purely psychological level, it is difficult to perceive traumatic dissociation as being anything other than a vital lifeline. Naturally this begs the question, “Who or what threw it to me, and why do they want me to survive?” Enter a power greater than myself.

Suddenly, as if awakening from a thousand year hibernation in the purgatory of silent, recessed nothingness, he jolts back to life, much like the falling sensation one might experience during a restless night’s sleep. Dazed, and thoroughly confused, he doesn’t remember falling asleep on his bedroom floor, nor does he remember going to sleep naked. Come to think of it, the more he racks his scattered brain, he doesn’t remember much of anything. A growing sense of alarm and discomfort begin to overwhelm his central nervous system. Rising from his resting place on the cold bedroom carpet, he doesn’t recognize the landscape of his current surroundings. “What the fuck is going on,” he says aloud to himself. Upon turning to peer out of the bedroom, his stomach drops as a sick realization washes over him. He doesn’t recognize his surroundings because he’s not in his house.

[Long term effects of PTSD Dissociation]

Naked, standing in the doorway of a bedroom which is not his own, seemingly all alone, he eyes a bottle of sprite on the kitchen counter. Without warning, fractured flashes of the previous hours of his existence flood his frightened, teenage mind. Although foggy at best, the writing was on the wall. The veil which separates the “real world” from the world that every child deserves to know, live, and believe in, disappears without a trace, revealing all the monsters under his bed and ghosts in his closet, which for the longest time, until now, were supposed to be nothing more than a bad dream. Silence.

I will never understand why God would allow a child to be abused by a serial pedophile. According to God’s word, we are his children, and he is our Father. The Father that is supposed to protect us, and cherish us. The Father that “desires” us to put our faith in him, pledging our unwavering allegiance to his purpose for our life, trusting that “the plans he has for us, plans to prosper us, not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future,” can be relied on. Being all of the tender age of 16, limited in emotional fortitude, mental capacity, and spiritual understanding, its hard to fathom how a loving God, who expects so much loyalty and devotion from me, could forget to “pick up the phone” the one time when I needed him to answer the most.

A large part of my healing resides in the prospect of being willing to accept that I don’t know the answer to certain painstakingly dubious questions such as this. The closest I have gotten to any semblance of a true “answer” is that evil exists in the world, and people have free will to act whichever way they choose, which I surprisingly have held very little contempt for over time. If anything, the majority of my contempt laid not in the question of “why people are evil,” but “why did God allow this?” I will never know, nor do I want to know. So far, on my journey down the road of recovery, the one positive aspect of this devastatingly tragic event which I have been able to cling to has been that I am now in a position to not only empathize with other victims, but also share my experience, strength and hope with them as well.

If you are a victim of sexual abuse, especially if you are a man, I want you to know that you have a long, arduous road ahead of you towards healing. However, healing is possible. I have found that talking about it not only disarms the monumental shame which is associated with the abuse, but also brings a sense of acceptance and peace to the soul. You are not alone.

[Spencer Brooks Otto]