For most of my childhood, I grew up with the sense that I was worth something. I had created a worldview that I was worth what my performance said of me. So long as I performed well, I was worth something good. And I did perform well. I did well academically, always making straight A’s on my report cards. I started golfing around age 11 and showed some natural talent for the sport, but I also worked hard at it to ensure I could attain worth through my efforts. So by the time I made it to high school, I had pretty much secured for myself a sense that I meant something to this world. It didn’t last.
I began dating a boy my freshman year. He seemed edgy to me, and I liked the idea of that edginess. He was everything I wasn’t. He was the wild to my tame. The reckless to my security. It thrilled me to no end that he liked me.
I stayed pretty busy with extracurricular activities at this point in life. I sang in the choir, played on the golf team, was a representative on the Student Council, was involved with the Interpretive Dance Team and Praise Team at church, and went to Youth Group. So my time to date was significantly cut into, to say the least. As time went on in our relationship, he started coming to church with me so that we could hang out more often.
There were warning signs that I ignored as the “bad boy” image that he was cultivating. I remember one sign in particular. He came to my Interpretive Dance rehearsal one evening, and I caught him grinning at his phone screen. As it turns out, he had used his new camera phone to take pictures of my backside while I was bent over during the dance. I brushed this off, despite how uncomfortable it made me feel. He was only teasing me, I was sure.
The teasing stopped, however, as the night that changed everything hit. We were working an event where the youth group was serving a meal to adults in the congregation. If memory serves, it was a fundraiser of some sort. Each of the youth members took turns eating their own dinners back behind a makeshift wall in the gymnasium of the church. When it came time for he and I to take our break, he decided he didn’t want the meal that was already prepared at the church.
“Let’s walk down to Krystal’s. We won’t be gone long,” he said. I agreed, as I always did, and we walked the short walk down the street to Krystal’s. We brought our food back to the church, and I expected that we would go back to the event area to eat. Instead he suggested, “Let’s go somewhere quiet.” So I took him to the loft in the church where the youth typically gathered.
The room was dim. The lights didn’t work due to the construction going on, so the only light entered the room through the big triangular window at the front. The smell of fresh wood emanated from the boards lining the edges of the room. There were a few chairs scattered here and there in the room, remnants of the Wednesday evening Bible study which took place earlier in the week.
After we had finished eating, I sat in the floor with my back to the large window in the upstairs loft. He spoke, and suddenly, my legs felt like those wooden beams in the floor. The pit of my stomach fell. My mouth went dry. Words dripped from his lips like honey, sweet and thick. Had I heard him correctly?
I’ve since learned the technical, psychological term for what happened. I experienced the “Freeze Response.” I didn’t know or understand that at the time. All I knew was that I went numb all over. I was paralyzed. I wasn’t afraid, per say. It seemed like I was as numb emotionally as I was physically. I was in shock that this was happening. That I had let this happen. That he would be the kind of person to do this.
I barely felt it as my shirt was unbuttoned and fell from my shoulders. A body that suddenly seemed foreign loomed over me, threatening to engulf my being. I had heard correctly, and I could do nothing but sit senselessly as action was taken against me.
To this day I don’t know what happened to startle me out of my Freeze Response. But something did. Energy and animation jolted back into my body as terror struck out from the core of me. I pushed and shoved and kicked with all my might. In the few moments of separation that I accomplished, I grabbed for my crumpled shirt. I bolted for the door and hurried down the creaky staircase toward the party happening below. I entered the room with eyes wide and heart racing. Not seconds later my attacker, my boyfriend, loped into the room looking cool and collected. His eyes warned me not to tell anyone what had happened. And I didn’t.
My sense of worth from that point on was shattered. I spent the next two months still in relationship with him. He spent the next two months verbally abusing me almost every day. When I cut my hair he told me how horrid it looked. When I spoke, he told me what I had to say was stupid. When he saw me, he took the time to degrade me. He spoke the message of worthlessness to me, and I began to believe it.
It’s been years since I was that little 14-year-old girl in that dim upstairs room. But sometimes I still feel like her. Terrified of people finding out the truth. That I am soiled. Tarnished by the weight of violence and injustice done against me.
If you have been where I was or someplace similar, I am sorry. It hurts, I know. But please know that you are not the damaged goods that you feel you are. You are made in the very image of the Divine, and no amount of violence can take that away. You carry within you so much worth. I know it’s hard to feel the truth of that when you are told otherwise by voices in this world. But hear this voice instead. And if my voice isn’t enough, listen to the Divine Voice.
Luke 12:6-7
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.