Easter weekend was a blessing. Good people with big hearts welcoming this loner into their lives, homes and hearts. Love those people.
There was a twist, however, to my time spent in my hometown of Kingston. It was Saturday night and time for a walk. I followed the path presented to me. We talked casually about this and that, but my mind wandered to a time long ago. It was like walking into an old vision of a young me. We were both there. Calm yet very focused.
I knew the first time I visited Sandy, at Christmas, that she had found a place to call home in the very area I wrote about in Unlock The Door-Beyond Sexual Abuse. My perpetrators neighbourhood. On this walk I felt we were being lead to the house I watched in my chapter.
At one point, Sandy continued to walk straight and I said, "This way." Left we went. I could feel it-that knowingness that just is. It's beyond understanding and reality . You already know, but you still need to go get the proof.
The corner house. It was a big lot. I remembered the corner, the lake down the road off in the distance. The garage, old even thirty years ago-gone. My eyes fixed on what I knew would be, we rounded the side. There was the door. The door he had once lead an innocent me into, the door I had refused to enter, the door I watched from the locked car-for what seemed a very long time. The door, left side. The door. That was the door-that was the house. The apartment behind the door-dirty, nasty, confusing. That was where Alan Stoneham lived.
I don't think Sandy knew what to make of it all-but she held the space and I appreciated her listening.
Nothing. Nothing else. That was the house. Nothing. No feelings. I knew I would see it one day-and there it was. It's the same as the picture imprinted in my mind for a lifetime.
I am so very different than that little brave girl. She amazes me. She was so afraid, yet had the courage beyond her years.
My journey today is a result of my experiences- mostly a result of my actions afterwards. I gained a lot of strength and determination because I said "No." I had a voice, even in silence.
I was silent for a long long time. Now, I am not and will never be silent again. There's too much work to do. Too many need a voice to follow-to believe in.
What is healing? I wondered for years if I was okay. Really? Even in writing UTD and participating in group work, for people who had experienced sexual violations as children-was I headed? I thought so, most days.
I think I reside somewhere between what Sylvia Fraser and Dr. John Demartini said in UTD. Sylvia said, she was in a place of 'benign indifference' and John said there is nothing but "Gratitude, love and Thank you."
What happened to me as a child happened. It's my story, but it's not something that comes with a ball and chain. It's there, but I feel overall pretty healthy. I don't often think about what happened-I think a lot about serving others and helping them think as little about their abuse, as I do of mine.
John's beliefs, are tricky to navigate, unless you have spent time with him. I would not change what happened to me. Not because I condone it or minimize it, but because I would not have so many amazing people in my life in the absence of it-not to mention I would not have lived much of my life as I have....I can't change my past. I don't want to. Who would I be? I like who I am/becoming... I can say "Thank you" (asshole) (ooops, that was my other self). I love my people and would endure it all over again to keep you in my life.
All this does not mean I would ever wish the violations I experienced on any child. It's disturbing - abuse. Turns my stomach to think that another fifty year old child is looking for their house of closure.