Counseling is a specific tool that has many misconceptions surrounding how it can be utilized. Finding a specific strategy like EMDR may work for you, like it did for me if the reason you’re avoiding therapy is due to not wanting to be given advice.
Why it took me 17 years to go to counseling and why I shouldn’t have waited so long
In 2001, something bad happened to me. Something traumatic, life changing, life altering. I was in eighth grade; an innocent, barely interested in boys, totally quintessential “good girl,” in every way possible. New Years Eve of 2000, I went to sleep a trusting soul, when I woke up, I wouldn’t quite ever see the world the same again.
*warning: this is a potential traumatic trigger story written in the most gentle way possible
The moment I woke up, I knew something was very seriously wrong. I felt pleasure but fear, disoriented and afraid. I didn’t know what was happening, but as I slowly came back to consciousness, I realized I was being sexually assaulted by a family friend.
He was one year older than me, our families had grown up together. We played in the backyard together, his sister was one of my best friends. My brother, his sister, him, and I all slept on the floor of the basement together, in their Pennsylvania home where we were visiting. It was thousands of miles from home, but why wouldn’t that have been the safest place in the world to be?
It wasn’t though, not that night, it was the most life altering traumatic event to have ever taken place in my world, then and since then. This was before fight, flight, or freeze was a well known thing. At that time, it was fight or flight only, and I froze.
I froze because every fiber of my being on the inside told me that if I dared to scream, I would die. I had no data to support that, but from an instinctive place likely bread into my genetic code I knew I could not make a sound. I pretended to turn after awhile, like I was “waking up.” Then after an eternity I crawled upstairs and hid in the bathroom for hours, crying by myself.
Eventually, the next day, I would tell his sister, my parents, we would leave immediately. I would black out the next four months of my life as I cried in the basement under the stairs, alone. I would still do well in school, I would talk to my parents, I would “turn out ok.” I’m so grateful for that. My parents would ask if I wanted to go to counseling and I would always say no. They did the best they could and I will never, ever fault them for that. I think in some ways, their experience was even harder than mine. While I was focused solely on healing, they were focused on a million different options and ways and fears all mixed into one. The unknown of how I would be after this traumatic event, had to have been the most terrifying experience for them.
If you’re a parent and you’ve had to make these decisions, please know, that no matter what, we know you just did the best you could. If you’re in the middle of the unknown, with your own kiddo, please know the best healing you could do, is to love them, to remind them they’re loved, and to simply be there. My parents did more healing with their love, than I think they will ever realize, and for that I’m eternally grateful. Mom and Dad, I’m so proud of you for just trying to make the best choices you could, with the information you had, and loving me through every decision.
Thinking back, I’m honestly not sure if it would’ve been better or worse if my parents had forced me to go to counseling. In the place that I was, I think I just needed them to let me have control over my own healing, and I think it would’ve been worse, if I felt like I didn’t. I needed to trust that they trusted me enough to have some control back. We’ll never truly know though, since we cannot go back in time, and I would encourage everyone to make the decision that’s best for them or their family. Because I think, in the end, the fact that I’m able to still trust people is reflected in the way they loved me back to life.
As I grew up, I was more open about my experience. I talked with my girlfriends in high school about it, after leaving a class crying after watching a documentary on the subject. I talked with girlfriends in college and since then, understanding on some deep, messed up level that there are so many more of us than there are not. Learning that we all heal in different ways: rebellion, avoidance of sexual behavior, escalation of sexual behavior, timidness, grades slipping, becoming obsessed with control, overachieving and hustling for our worth or becoming depressed.
The number one thing I’ve discovered, is that we all feel that WE are to blame in the beginning. I felt that I should have screamed, I should’ve fought back, and because I didn’t it must mean that I’m weaker than others. My whole life since then, I’ve been the one to take on more than anyone else to prove to myself and to others that I am the furthest thing from weak. I am strong, but in ways that exhaust me and not in ways that fill me up.
We strive for years and decades to prove to ourselves that we are stronger, more resilient, we are not victims. Yet if we continue to strive forever, we are not actually healing. We are pushing and proving and being all the things to all the people, but never the things we need in the deepest parts of ourselves. We need to be loved, to feel worthy, to accept, to forgive (ourselves the most), to believe, to trust, to honor the girl who experienced the traumatic event, but to let her go because she cannot be the girl we are in our most healed version of ourselves.
So here I am, the morning of my 1pm counseling appointment that I swore I would never make. That I told myself over and over again, that I didn’t need. And that is part of the problem. I can see that now, because doing everything on my own doesn’t make me stronger, it only makes me more tired. It’s ok to ask for help, to be open to seeing if something works even if you’re skeptical and cannot see through the fog.
It took friends having an open conversation with me about their own counseling experiences. It took Batman, my boyfriend of seven years, to plead with me to learn how to be content with where I am and what I have. My striving is exhausting and it worries him. I am learning that I hustle for worthiness, my addiction to achieving and being the best at all the things I try, is like juggling ten balls at once and never putting one down. Year after year adding another ball to the mix. I cannot ever stop, because then all the balls will fall and who will be standing there when the world stops moving?
I’m not sure who I would be if I did less instead of more, but I’m willing to find out. I know, now, that stress is cumulative instead of passing. It builds and builds and builds if you do not have purposeful strategies to dissipate it. I had always thought that stress would come and then it would go, so learning that it was cumulative was a “mind blown,” moment for me.
It makes sense though, why each deployment was hard in a different way. Why the third one in three years (ranging from 6mo-1yr) had me on my knees with a fever every other week. I had learned to protect myself from feeling those hurtful emotions (fear of something bad happening to Batman, missing him, lonely away from family living in a state I didn’t super enjoy) to numb by overworking, taking on more than was necessary so I couldn’t feel. My body; however, gave out.
After that, it was my minds turn. I became addicted to audiobooks, in the sense that I wouldn’t allow myself silence, in the car, in the house, anywhere under the guise of constantly “bettering myself,” through learning. Truth is, I was afraid to be left alone in silence, because then I would have to feel all the things I’d ignored the past three years. In an effort to try to fix myself, I learned meditation, an amazing way to calm down, fill back up, but it’s really scary to sit in silence for me, so I haven’t been consistent with it enough to help me. I know I feel better when I do it, but to get myself to that place where I am actually sitting down with my eyes closed is chaos.
The thing is, it all builds on itself. The daily nightmares from my assault, mixed with the every 2-3 years of moving, starting new jobs, making new friends, deployments, paying off six figures of student loan debt, and trying to be a good friend and partner can at times, just bring you to your knees. In our relationship, because Batman is under his own epic storm of stress that the military brings, he cannot be my person to fix my emotional trauma. And honestly, I do not ever want him to have to be. It’s healthier for us if I fix this myself, but not by myself.
If you’re in a military relationship or have been sexually, physically or emotionally assaulted (once or multiple times) I would lovingly nudge you to start having a conversation with women that you trust on whether they’ve ever considered going to counseling. Ask their experiences with it. Having a conversation about counseling allowed me to see myself in their shoes (the ones who went) and surprisingly I heard 80% good, helpful things. Most women wished they could go back, but for one reason or another they haven’t been back yet. I would gauge even if you’ve been to counseling, it’s still tough to spend money on your health: physical, mental, or emotional.
Let’s be the group of women who refuse to live under tons of anxiety, fear, and overwhelm. Let’s instead be the group of women who are vulnerable enough to ask for help, talk about receiving help, and being empowers of other women to seek their own help in whatever way that looks like for them. Let’s applaud women who seek help, instead of perpetuating the stigma that we’re only strong if we do everything ourselves.
If you’re a military wife or girlfriend or mom or sister, know that I still see you as brave, I still see you as strong, I still see you as a pillar of unstoppable power, an amazing force of nature to go through a deployment or PCS (move) or the military lifestyle in general. And if you choose to seek help by talking to someone to gain strategies and insight so that you can be a calmer, more clear, more loving version of yourself when your military member comes home, I will see you with even more grace and love and compassion. Because we have to be the strongest version of ourselves, we have to be willing to receive help, to dissipate the stress that will never go away on its own. We have to be willing to open our arms to trust others with our souls, to build up a sacred reserve of strength, so that we can support them when military life asks more of us than we have to give.
The only way we do that though, is by practicing filling ourselves up daily, learning how to rest, and realizing that intentional practice of accepting ourselves, our limitations, and our lives require us to be at our very best. And to do that, to be that, its ok that it takes a village.
