R.I.S.E. Together: Bailey's Story

This is a story shared by one of our members. This is Bailey's Story.

There are things that lie hidden beneath the shadows of our minds, tearing and whispering and hating and loving simultaneously. Not many people can understand that this division of emotional sectors within the heart are the reasons some of us find ourselves weakened by a pretty smile, a kind touch to the forearm, a soft laugh at a joke we know very well isn’t funny. Not many people can understand that it is also that very division of emotional sectors within the heart that makes us strong and unbreakable… but those that do and are broken regardless of that knowledge fall so far and so fast that when they hit bottom it’s unexpected and they shatter totally.

I’m not here to pretend I’m not one of those very worthwhile people that were strong enough to overcome the obstacle that so sexily threw itself happily in my general direction hoping to latch on like the proverbial leech and just start sucking the very life essence from my veins. I was. I hit rock bottom in a matter of six months and but it was made all the worse that within feet of hitting bottom I came to my senses and tried to scramble for something to latch onto to stop my fall or at least help me brace for an impact I was not entirely expecting. Only my attempt failed and when I hit I was aware and awake, watching as the pieces of my Self shattered, broken into a million sparkling pieces that went in all directions. Some lodged into the ground around me, some flew to the top of the hole that had been dug for me, my own personal, happy little circular grave that was far too deep for my understanding or liking. And the rest pockmarked the rest of the distance between top and bottom.

It took me four years, thousands of attempts, some successful, others not, to escape that hole, that grave, and when I did it was only the beginning of a long journey that I began alone. After all, for four years no one knew the depth of the depravity I suffered at the hands of a man who had promised to love me, who said he’d never hurt me and when he did he promised he would never hurt me again, and who would believe me? None of his friends who supposedly knew him so well. Surely not his father who was barely sober enough to even stand up straight. Hell no to the thought of convincing his adoring mother and older sister who’d been around the block almost as much as I had when it came to being jaded. I was too ashamed to tell my mother, to afraid of what it would mean. If I spoke of it to anyone but my friends, it would make it real. It would mean admitting that I, the strong foundation for so many of my friends and family members, was actually weak. That I allowed some pipsqueak bastard to destroy the very essence of who I am. To think me weak, stupid, fat, and ugly and not just think that, but make me believe it as well.

Don’t think that I’m to the point of pretending that if certain people hadn’t seen what was happening, and stepped in that I wouldn’t have given in to suicide. I’m not naïve enough to try and allude myself into thinking that. In fact, the night I fell in love with my fiancé is the very night when everything came to a head and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. It’s been proven that those that have suffered any type of trauma like a rape or physical abuse, even something as simple as mental and emotional abuse (called “simple” merely for the fact that it is the easiest abuse to overlook and easiest to pass off as a figment of the victim’s imagination), that they are more likely to commit suicide if they don’t find help. I was to that point, and farther.

My friends, brothers, and sisters, were all very understanding and supportive. But what they, nor I, ever expected was a childhood friend professing his love, pulling me in, me who was at the time desperate for attention, for someone to tell me that everything my ex-husband had told me was a lie, and when I fell too hard and too fast, he freaked and pulled away. But he did it swiftly by cutting all communication, ignoring me, and thinking I’d be there when he came out of it. No one knew just how deeply it cut me, how it had started the vicious cycle of depression and self-hate into motion. I was been dragged back towards that hole, that fucking grave, inch by inch, ankles held in a death grip by the demons of a past I didn’t want and didn’t deserve. And when I flashed back for the first time that anyone was witness to, it was bad enough that it opened their eyes. They started watching me like hawks, afraid of what it meant, what it would reduce me to, not knowing that them doing that only made it that much worse for me.

I was raped. I was abused mentally and emotionally for four years. It started when I was sixteen and ended when I was 19. I left my ex-husband on our four year anniversary of being married. Got up that morning, left like I was going to work after giving him a hug and a kiss and telling him “I love you, happy anniversary, sweetheart.” Only thing is I came back two hours later in jeans and a t-shirt, with my aunt driving my mother’s car and loaded all my shit into both vehicles and drove away. It was hard. I couldn’t tell him to his face that I had had enough, that I was leaving. My aunt had to do it for me because I started sobbing when I saw the anger flash across his face. The anger that usually preceded me being left bleeding, torn and sobbing on the floor for hours, unable to move for the pain was far too much and heaven help me if I made a sound that he could hear. That would only make it worse. My ex did things to me, made me do things to myself or to him, that if I even mentioned it to authorities could have me face criminal charges. I still can’t talk about them even now, nearly two years later.

I’ve suffered so greatly, but I escaped. Yes, I could have left at any moment… or so some of my friends who don’t know anything about being in that type of situation tell me. I could have… I had every available avenue of help waiting for the word to be said to charge into battle at my defense, but I didn’t have the ability to speak that word. I still don’t. I’m silent and try to make it until something triggers it, or nothing triggers it, it just pops up on its own. And when the dam breaks, all hell breaks loose and there’s nothing I can do but ride the wave out, holding desperately to the hands of my fiancé and my brothers and sisters, praying that my head doesn’t get sucked under in the fast, deadly current of my own memories.
You’ll heal, I won’t lie and say you won’t. Nor will I tell you everything’s okay because that’s an obvious, blatant lie. It’s not okay now but it will be and that’s all that matters. I’ve been at this for two years now and I have a long way to go ahead of me. But you can love again, you can be whole, you just cannot give up. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how afraid you are of making the same mistake again, no matter how much you still believe what that sick fuck told you, you cannot give up because if you do then they will win. They will have beaten you in the worst possible way, they’ll have stolen who you are even without being there to see it happen. Don’t allow that. Don’t give up, don’t stop believing there is a better place at the end of the long tunnel of recovery. I know there is, I’ve glimpsed it. Actually, I was lucky enough to have my light walk into that stupid tunnel, take my hand, and walk right beside me. He hasn’t left yet.

Will you find someone like I did? I won’t say you will or will not. I’m not the Goddess or God, I don’t have that Divine ability. One thing I do know?

You are strong, beautiful, kind, loving, intelligent, and everything that your abuser/rapist told you that you weren’t. They only said those things because they are the ugly ones. Not you.
Don’t give up, my brothers and sisters, don’t ever give in. It’s hard and it’s a long, long tiresome journey. But it’s worth it in the end. I promise.

~AGAA Stewart, Bailey; USN