We were huddled together on the top of a lifeguard tower on a beautiful beach. It was late at night and superbly dark. The only light available to us was provided by the moon and stars. We were all alone. I leaned over to my friend and asked her mischievously, “Have you ever been skinny dipping?” “No!” She replied hesitantly. “Me neither! Do you want to?” “Yes, but we shouldn’t.” She rebutted. “Why?” I asked perplexed. “Yea, why not?!” She quickly changed her mind. We looked around to confirm our solitude, stripped down to our birthday suits, and skipped to the edge of the water.
I remember this moment feeling like an initiation, like an end and a beginning simultaneously. This was the last time I would inhibit myself from what I wanted and the first time that I would allow myself to be so vulnerable and so free, so publicly. The sea felt crisp and fresh on my feet. I saw the reflection of my naked body on the water. It felt risky to fully submerge, but not doing it didn’t seem to be an option. The sea was calling me loudly. I had to go under, I had to swim fully naked, I had to have this first experience. So I did. I grabbed her hand, we ran into the deep water, dove, submerged; then came up for air, ecstatic, laughing, and free.
We enjoyed ourselves for a mere moment before we heard a strange noise above our heads. We looked around to try to name it only to see a light coming from a distance. “Uh oh!” We thought, maybe we weren’t as alone as we had expected. Immediately, we remembered that the beach we were on was at the bottom of a US Marine Base. A helicopter had seen us from a distance and come over to take a closer look. We squealed, ran out of the water, quickly dressed, and scurried back to our tent hysterically laughing while feeling accomplished, safe, and ready for rest.
Today, I feel a lot like I did at that moment naked by the water: alone, mischievous, and ready to risk and to rest. For the past 31 years of my life, the question that has most often riddled my psyche has been, “Why me?” Why was I sexually abused by a number of men since childhood? Why did I have to suffer through grand maul seizures for the first 5 years of my life that had detrimental effects to my memory as an adult? Why did I have to undergo numerous digestive surgeries just to function? Why have I had to spend my first 20 years surviving all of the above and the last 11 desperately trying to recover? Why me? I built an identity around this question and a life trying to discover its answer.
It took awhile, but eventually I found that the answers to these questions were disappointingly simple: I was abused because people in my family system didn’t have control or the resources or will to find it. I was sick because my body and brain couldn’t sustain the abuse I had to go through at such a young age. I’ve had to devote years to recovery because I was abused for years and that’s what it takes. These basic answers helped me to let go of the question, Why me?; but letting go of the identity and the life built around the desire to answer it has been a much more complex process.
I desperately want to hold onto, Why me? I want to hold onto the identity and the life of the child and young adult who asked it because I know her. She is familiar to me. I have spent years learning to understand and to love her so that she can heal. But now this same child, this same young adult, has grown up to become a very strong woman, she is the woman I see in my reflection. Now, I must divest myself of the identity of victim, of the fight for survival, and claim my true self and my new life. For the first time, vulnerable and free, I must accept my power and my mission and allow my life to be a driven by a new question, “Why not me?”
Why not me? Why can’t I live the life that I have always imagined? Why can’t I be healthy? Why can’t I pursue a career in writing and speaking? Why can’t I share my story and educate others to understand sexual trauma and recovery and inspire survivors to seek it? Why can’t I have a partner and children and travel? Why can’t I live in my favorite city on the sea, always ready to dive in?
I have no more reasons why I can’t do these things. I have no more excuses. There is no helicopter coming to cut my uninhibited moment short. My life is all sorts of beautiful now: my health is quickly improving, I have built a supportive community who loves me unconditionally, I am writing and being honored for my skill, I am educating and inspiring others about sexual abuse and recovery, I am living in an apartment in my favorite city by the sea, I am ready to risk meeting someone and to consider a family. I am ready to rest from the violence and the effort of recovery that has riddled the past 31 years of my life. This moment is my initiation; this is my simultaneous end and beginning.
Today, abuse and illness free, I am being called to dive in, to mischievously submerge myself in the life and the accomplishments that will be created on the other side of my new question, Why not me?