Back in the 1990's when I first started to deal with the abuse from my past, they didn't have a whole lot of support groups and the internet did not exist yet - yes, I'm that old. If it wasn't for the psychiatrist I had, I'd have been left to deal with all of this on my own. That would have been tough, because my family and I were at odds. Having just come through brain surgery and suffering from a brain injury and trying to adjust to not having any medications to balance me out for the first time in my life and struggling with flashbacks, nightmares and memories of sexual abuse, I had emotional issues left, right and centre. Nobody seemed to understand that. My parents had their own issues to deal with as my brother, my only sibling was getting married and we all know the stress a wedding can bring between different families involved.
My parents tell me my mood was all over the place. I remember the same about them. I think we were all very stressed. I knew one thing - If I was going to emotionally survive, I needed to get out on my own and deal deeply with the wounds of my past with someone who could focus solely on them and me who could help me work through the mess of memories and emotions I had.
In the Fall of 1994, one month after my nephew was born, I moved away from home to the same city I had brain surgery in. I went back to school at G. A. Wheable Centre for Adult Education to upgrade my education and obtain some courses I always wanted but could never get in regular high school.
A friend recommended a Christian Psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Lockhart, and I started to see him in 1995. He was a godsend. I started to share my history with him and unload the pain I was bearing. He tried me on various medications to see what would work to ease my nightmares, to ease my flashbacks and intense emotions. Sometimes I'd be really angry, other times I'd dissociate, and other times I'd be a crying mess, but he didn't seem to mind whatever mood I was in. He was kind, caring, and compassionate, and he understood my Christian lifestyle, because he also was a Christian.
Likely the hardest time he saw me through was when I was raped in 1996 by my former superintendent, John D.
I can see it now, but back then I couldn't see how he was grooming me. He'd ask me to go and lock the boiler room with him. I didn't know the boiler room locked itself. I was really super naive in my 20's. I had not be well-prepared for life, but had been highly sheltered because of the severity of the epilepsy I'd had.
In late October around 10:30pm my door unlocked and opened. Thinking it would have been my friend Sherry, I wasn't startled, but it wasn't her, it was him.
He came in and sat in the pink chair, snapped his fingers and pointed to a spot on the floor in front of him. At that moment, I knew what was going to happened and I feared for my life. I knew to survive I would do what I was told.
I went and sat in front of him. He started by massaging my shoulders but eventually put his hands down my shirt and started fondling my breasts underneath my bra. I was so uncomfortable and so afraid. He removed my top and my bra and laid my flat on the floor where he proceeded to kiss me. He undid my jeans and proceeded to try and fondle my private parts. I didn't have a chance to say anything because he kept his mouth over mine. He removed my pants and underpants and then took his own pants off, telling me to pleasure him. I didn't know what to do. I'd never been with a man. He had to tell me what to do. "Tug, pull, squeeze." So I did all three, but then he told me to be gentle. It was okay for him to be rough with me, but he didn't like it rough. But being on the floor for a half hour to 45 minutes wasn't good enough for him, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the bedroom. He tossed me back onto the bed and readied himself to enter me. That's when I found my voice. I said, "Please don't." He growled in frustration and thrust his fingers, all 4 of them inside me. Boy did that hurt. I was a virgin after all. I didn't want any part of this and here he was thrusting his fingers in and out of me. I never orgasmed, never climaxed, never felt pleasure. It was a foreign thing and something I hate to this day.
When he was done having fun with me and had had his fill of me, he took me by the arm and led me to the bathroom where he told me to shower. He wouldn't leave until I got in the shower. Once I was in the shower, he left. And once again, I was preyed upon by a sexual predator, somebody I knew, somebody I trusted. Does it never end? Thank God for Dr. Lockhart and his wisdom, compassion and understanding. Because for a short while after this, I really struggled.
I contemplated suicide, was admitted to the psychiatric ward, was forced to talk to the police who did nothing about it - BIG surprise - and started to steal small, insignificant things, being arrested two times for it. I really struggled with my identity after this rape. To this day I do not enjoy intimacy, and I struggle with self-harm at times because of this one incident on top of the others. That and how my family responded to me and their accusations of whose responsibility it was and still is.
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