At Age 17, I Set My Life on Fire

the brave vulnerability of the personal timeline posts (TW: abuse/assault, dv, drug use, mental illness, rehabilitation, institutionalization)

“A woman will return, looking for the girl she was.” Louise Gluck, “The Myth of Innocence.”

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Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen on Unsplash

Some of you Substackers have chronological stories so inspiring and admirable, I find myself thinking, how can I match up to their personal experiences? My milestones are not impressive. I never left the town I grew up in. And external forces shaped my life more than I did. I feared my timeline would look a lot like finger-pointing, and I was raised to keep my mouth shut.

Which is one of the reasons I have a Substack. To break my silence, to identify and unpack the external forces.

It’s a lie to say I don’t like follows, subscribers, comments, likes, pledges. I’m a writer who measures myself against other writers, so any encouragement I get makes me feel like I’m floating around in Glinda the Good Witch’s bubble…until it pops.

I want to be read. I want to reach and to connect. We write because we’ve got something to say.

I’m here on Substack because I can only make sense of things if I write about them. I resolve things by opening up this laptop and waterfalling my emotions onto an impersonal blank screen. For the last two years, I’ve been compiling a list of topics which my therapist and I discussed, topics I felt required more exploration. Or, things that occurred to me in the course of my everyday life that I couldn’t write about, then and there. I have almost seventy of these topics in my notes app, and I plan to write a Substack post for each of them.

But this Substack Notes trend of: At age 13, I…. it vexes me. I think the reason is this: why would I scream my deepest secrets, most personal details into the void? Spill my life story…with less than 100, less than 50 subscribers? That feels so pitiful. Like I’m trying to get attention, like I’m trying to make more of my story than it is. These words were told to me by my family—beginning in and throughout my formative years—and became the insidious origin of my inner voice.

Like I’m trying to get attention, like I’m trying to make more of my story than it is.

This inner voice, this damaging mindset are trauma responses. Because that’s what my story is. If you’ve read my other posts, you know that I write about traumatic events. I write about healing from those traumatic events. I write to catch up with passed time. I write to grab the opportunities lost to trauma. I write because it’s all I ever fucking wanted to do, and no one is going to do it for, or take it from, me.

And as much as I want to chronologize that at age 22, I graduated from Berkeley, at age 25 I met my husband in law school, at age 30 we got married, at age 35 we sold all of our shit and moved to Italy, at age 40 I wrote and released a best-selling book on living your dreams…(no shade to people with similar stories—seriously, I love that you didn’t back down and made your time in this crazy ass world count)…that is not what happened for me.

God, I wish.

This is when the child trapped inside a woman begins to cry. Because my trauma didn’t manifest as perfectionism; straight A’s, a prestigious college, an impressive career. My trauma manifested as a death wish; partying to self-medicate, a series of bad relationships, instability in every dusty corner of my existence.

There’s just no getting around it. The only (non-fiction) story I have to tell is the one I lived, for better or worse.

Not because I want attention. Not because I can’t bounce. Not for clicks and likes.

This post is not just for me, but everyone else who had a big fucking hole blown in the side of their ship, that sank what would have been a normal childhood and healthy development. Those who survived the torpedo attack, came up for air, battled mountainous waves and years of turbulent waters before we found a life jacket that didn’t weigh us down.

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At age 3, an immediate family member (hereinafter referred to as “the abuser”) showed up in the same city my parents and I had just moved to, from Washington state. The abuser became a regular presence in my life. I began making a hole in the screen of my bedroom window—which I used a rusty nail to enlarge each night in secret, after bedtime—so I could run away.

At age 4, the abuser went into an explosive rage at me. My parents told me it would never happen again.

At age 8, the abuser took something from me without consent. On a multi-colored velvet couch that is burned in my mind until I die. Afterwards, he told me I wanted it more than him. I sat in the bathroom for almost an hour, looking at blood and wondering what had just happened to me. My first memory of dissociating.

At age 9, the first dinner table incident happened. Another rage explosion, and I wasn’t able to get away from him. The abuser beat the shit out of me, spun me around until I landed on the same velvet couch where I was first violated. When it was over, we all sat back down at the table like it didn’t happen. The abuser and the rest of my family finished their dinner, I was hyperventilating and did not. This is the first time I remember my parents saying “You never have to see him again.”

At age 10, I cast my first spell from a book. I didn’t love the religions being forced on me, and witchcraft didn’t judge. Magic was a sweet dream for a child living inside a nightmare. Magic was a tapestry that covered the ugliness, it wrapped loosely around me, no restraint.

At age 12, I started saving my own life. I began creative writing.

Ate age 13, another dinner table incident happened. I was the target of the abuser’s explosive rage again, but escaped to my grandmother’s bedroom where I used her rotary dial phone to call my friend. “Can I come over?” I managed to ask her before the abuser whipped me around, wrapped his hands around my wrists like a vise, with a crazed look in his eyes that resembled Tom Berenger’s red eyes in Platoon (iykyk). My parents and grandparents, all in the room with us, did nothing. They were in freeze mode, deers caught in headlights. But, I had boots on. I kicked him. I ran past all of my feckless family members and all the way to my friend’s house. “You never have to see him again.” Again. The next morning, everything was back to normal, no one mentioned it.

At age 14 (maybe 15), I staged a run away. I left a letter on the kitchen counter for my parents to find when they got home from work, telling them about the sexual abuse (they’d already witnessed the verbal and physical abuse). I was angrier than ever. ‘Fuck’ appeared repeatedly in my letter. There is no fucking way you can make me see him or be anywhere fucking near him ever again. I had no money, no license, no car. I hid out in my closet, where I was eventually discovered. The cop called to our house chided me about the strong language in my letter (and made me apologize to my parents), and didn’t address what I wrote about sexual abuse. “Fine, you don’t have to see him again,” my mother muttered, in her best I’m-the-real-victim voice. By this age, I had lost count of all of the incidents that led to this routine gaslighting by my parents.

At age 16, I was raped by the boyfriend of a friend. He was nineteen. It took me thirty-four years to tell anyone—my husband. I’d blamed myself, but (after his initial shock), my husband called it what it was. Rape. Now, I’ve learned that women who have been sexually violated as a child have a much higher risk of being raped than women who were not violated young.

At age 17, my mask of normalization shattered. I lost my mind, I cracked. I sabotaged good relationships, I set my life on fire. I attracted bad people, ran away for real, and ended up in a lock-down rehabilitation. I earned my GED there, learned the twelve steps, and met other teenagers who were sexually abused. It was a nudge to tell a counselor about my abuser. The counselor asked me for the abuser’s information so they could send the police his way. But my parents refused to corroborate, saying what happened was “too long ago and we need to move on.” I resigned any will to get better. I fucking give up. I became an increasingly better liar and deceiver. I wouldn’t quit the harmful shit until I was twenty.

At age 18, I told my mother that I was not okay and carried deep seated resentments about our family. I was a self-medicating simmering fury, I had a blackening heart. “Everyone has deep seeded resentments,” my mother said and dismissed me. I was on my second abusive boyfriend.

At age 19, the abuser confronted me about my alcohol use. I drew him in, baited him, and in my best, most dramatic, performative voice, I said “Fuck you, *****.” He lunged at and came after me. I was out the door and in my car within seconds, feeling triumphant.

At age 20, my third abusive boyfriend beat me, not for the first time, but someone came to my aid. I was able to escape, peel out in my truck and leave him behind. Except that after hearing I love you I’m sorry it’ll never happen again please come back, I returned to him. Because it’ll never happen again sounded and felt comfortably familiar.

At age 20, I met the only person who wanted to stop the abuse that I’d endured for sixteen years, and he became my boyfriend. My future husband. At the dinner table, the abuser raised his voice, his eyes began to twitch, and his face turned red—all tells for an inevitable explosive rage. My boyfriend, who was sitting between me and the abuser, looked at the abuser incredulously. A very if-you’re-really-about-to-lose-your-shit-right-now-you’ll-have-to-get-through-me-first look. My inner child and inner teenager stitched my soul to my boyfriend’s soul right then and there. The abuser’s explosive rage was impeded. The abuser never fucked with me again, but he lurked for years. Like he always had.

At age 25, I married my husband. The abuser, given the green light by my mother, wore a tuxedo. To my wedding. “Symbolically giving you away,” my quotable therapist says about it.

At age 25, I graduated from college. A little late, but still. (Then incumbent President Bill Clinton spoke at my graduation! It was pretty cool.) My mother had told me that her depression was keeping her from attending my graduation. She did show up, self-satisfied, and was championed by everyone for getting herself there. My graduation became about her, like everything else.

At age 28, I gave my birth to my first child. For reasons I still do not understand, my mother made pick up the hospital phone and call the abuser so he could personally congratulate me. My son’s birth was traumatic, he went straight to the NICU, I was breaking a high fever, but my mother insisted I call the abuser just hours after giving birth. The conversation was forced, distressing and awkward, and it knocked loose forgotten memories. Memories of his abuse and my family’s neglect flooded me. But I had a baby to care for. I reburied the memories and pivoted away to care focus on my child, to whom I promised I would shield from my family’s insanity.

At age 32 (ish), the abuser moved away for good. Finally, he was far away; sitting at another dinner table on the other side of the country. I had an intuitive feeling he would never be back. I was right.

At (my) age 35, the abuser died. “I don’t suppose you care, but [abuser’s name] has died,” my mother said in an inflicted tone. “I don’t care, actually,” I responded. I’m free! I thought. Not really.

At age 47, while on the phone with bestie waiting for my daughter’s school bell, bestie told me something that gave me an idea for a book. I wrote the shitty first draft of the novel in my head and took a part-time job to earn enough money for a new Macbook on which to write it.

At age 48, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. On top of high blood pressure, kidney disease, and asthma. My body had stopped tolerating excess cortisol and years of perpetual survival mode.

At age 49, covid hit. I was working full-time from home, my three children living at home doing remote schooling. That was sustainable; the caretaker within me had a mission and operated well at first. But my mother had been dead a few years, so I was caring for my elderly father who lived with myself and my family. The deep seated resentments returned, and they were more arresting and sinister than ever before. My father failed to protect me when I needed him, now he was more like the child and I was taking care of him. The juxtaposition of how I kept (and keep) my father from harm, against his passive back-turning when his own young, desperate daughter was screaming for help—nearly gutted me. A timely diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder ironically made me feel less crazy. I started taking anti-anxiety meds, which evidently impacted my amygdala and hippocampus; this facilitated another return of repressed memories. The velvet couch, the blood, more flashbacks, new downloads shut me down when my life needed me the most. I could not concentrate while working. I dissociated all day, every day. A diagnosis of major recurrent depressive disorder, more meds prescribed. I took temporary state disability. I started EMDR and ketamine therapy in addition to talk therapy.

At age 52, I finished writing the fourth book in a series, based on the first novel inspired by bestie. One book about friendship became four books about…surviving. Enduring bonds. Found family. Loss, grief, redemption, and what one of my main characters says; the only thing infinite is love. (Oh, also, my main character is a witch. A good witch).

At age 53, I began querying the first novel. I started a Substack. It took me almost a year but I started writing to heal, and to maybe inspire healing in others.

I told my therapist yesterday, all of the things I have now remembered seem so unbelievable to me, that I talk myself out of believing that they even happened. Or the insidious inner voice—forever lying in wait for a chance to poison the well—tells me again that I’m making it up for attention. “These are common reactions and emotions,” quotable therapist said. I have about 500 saved memes on Instagram that agree.

I will use this opportunity (if you’ve read this far, you should know that I love you, I truly do), to tell anyone who is suffering abuse, to tell anyone who knows or suspects that someone is suffering abuse/trafficking/violence, to please, do something about it. Please, try to help them somehow. Abusers thrive on silence and intimidation. Start with maybe one small thing, don’t hesitate take serious action if warranted, but consider the situational dynamics so no good intention backfires. When it comes to child and/or sexual abuse, trafficking and/or domestic violence, circumstances will vary wildly and stories will differ. But the victims and survivors all share the same metaphorical prison.

And don’t ever, under any circumstances, tell a violence and abuse survivor to forgive their perpetrator, get over it, move on. We would if only we fucking could, and we’re trying.

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

I have started a playlist for recovery and it’s well-suited to this post. I named the playlist Reclaim My Power. Music heals.

playlist link here!

Woman Down, Beth Hart

Leave the Light On, Beth Hart

War in My Mind, Beth Hart

Bad Love is Good Enough, Beth Hart

No Place Like Home, Beth Hart

Dirt Around the Tree, Candi Carpenter & Brandi Carlile

Cabin, The Secret Sisters

I Can Change, Lake Street Drive

Daughter, Pearl Jam

Rearview Mirror, Pearl Jam

Learning to Fly (Live, 2006), Tom Petty

Something Good Coming, Tom Petty

I Won’t Back Down, Tom Petty

A Moment’s Grace, Boy & Bear

There is a Light that Never Goes Out, The Smiths

I Am Here, Pink

Barbies, Pink

Funhouse, Pink

No More Drama, Mary J. Blige

Light of a Clear Blue Morning, Dolly Parton

It Comes Back to You, Imagine Dragons

Meet Me in the Woods, Lord Huron

I Shall Believe, Sheryl Crow

Battle Born, The Killers

I Remember Everything, Brandi Carlile (cover)

That Wasn’t Me, Brandi Carlile

The Eye, Brandi Carlile

Hell is For Children, Pat Benatar

Under the Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Fresh Start, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

River, Joni Mitchell

Blood & Muscle, Lissie

Photo by Vitalii Khodzinskyi on Unsplash