Memories of the Desert

Although I had been raped twice in Fallon, I did have realitively good times in the dessert; or as good as they could be. My first detachment I spent most of my time working with my shop until I was caught in a shipmates room attempting to avoid the sex acts taking place in my own. I was only twenty and mostly stuck around to those I knew decently but I left base every chance I got. 

I went shopping in Reno, ate the casino buffets, went skinny dipping in Lake Tahoe and then rode around the entire lake with our van door open to dry our clothes before going back to base, and watched a friend fly a kite over the shores while we picked fresh sage to take back to our homes. I marveled at the scenery and majestic landscape the dessert provided. One day, as was customary for many sailors to do, we decided we wanted to visit the local brothel.

I had been sent on a mission by a roomate to get a menu, and I had every intention of fullfilling it. I was the designated driver since I was underage, and the only female. We drove to the outskirts of town and finally arrived at the front of a trailer park. Right off the side of the road stood the famous Bunny Ranch. I immediately parked the van in front of the entrance and we hastily made our way inside to get my elusive menu.

I made it about two feet into the door when a very obese woman in a blue bra with the most enormous breasts I had ever seen called out to us. I quickly realized she was calling out to me, asking me if I had a permit to be inside a brothel. Baffled and embarrassed I stammered I didn’t as my face became a bright cherry red inferno. I shrugged my shoulders and said I would be making sand castles out by the van until my shipmates were finished. 

Defeated, I left the brothel, but was quickly greeted by my shipmates who also wanted to return to town. We decided to stop at our favorite local stop, the birdfarm, and finished off our night badly singing to the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn and figuring out how a silver dollar would go in the juke box. I attempted to play darts but struck a local man in the head and quickly surrendered in exchange for remaining in the bar until close.

We cooked on the grills outside the barracks and played spades and other games to pass the time. The base had a go cart track and small cafe and bar to spend time in. I believe there was a bowling alley as well. The second detachment we finally convinced master chief to give us the van one day to go for an adventure. We all wanted to go somewhere different so we went to Tahoe for the obvious, Sacramento to see the capital, San Francisco to eat in China Town and cross the Golden Gate Bridge, and Reno for late night casino dinner all in our one day off. 

While people were wild and crazy and bad things did happen, it was a time of bonding for me and many of my shipmates. We learned to have loyalty and respect for one another that continued to grow the more time we spent on the ship after we left the dessert. We bonded over dessert buggers, pigs in space, the insane things you only do if you are in the military, the close quarters of sweaty kitty litter covered techs farting bad grilled food, and the never ending inside jokes that would follow us for years. As our final jets took off and the remaining Skelton crew members boarded our flight to head back to Virginia I watched the setting sun go down on both a place I learned from tremendously​ but also as a place I knew I never wanted to return to.

Legal Hold: What Did You Do?

Christmas leave seemed like a dream, and for two weeks I pretended that I had my old life back. I dreaded returning to base and facing the results of my impending legal hold, but even worse I had to leave my love, Andy behind in Little Rock. The day after Holiday leave was over me and my friends were called into the legal office. We nervously made our way to see our Petty Officer in Charge. Upon arrival he called us into his office with a stern look on his face. He sat us down and asked us if we had anything we would like to say and it was our last chance to confess. Horriffied, we started back at him and stated we had nothing further to state.

He pulled out a huge manilla envelope with the results from our breathalyzers and drug tests and the moment I thought I was going to expolode with anticipation, a smile broke across the petty officer’s face. He said, “Congratulations, you all passed. You’re off Legal Hold!” He signed our papers that were legally binding us to the base and we were free to get our orders upon sucessfull graduation of A school. Graduation came and went uneventfully and we were placed back on barracks watches until time for us to ship out. About a week or so after graduation we got our orders and begin the sign out process; I was headed to Virginia Beach, VA.

I had already been to the base because a former flame had been stationed there the summer after I graduated from high school and I spent my funds to go see him for a week with my mother in tow, as my parents were not going to let me drive to meet a sailor alone at the age of 18. I was looking forward to my new home, but I knew I would miss Pensacola and the friends I had made while I was there. I decided to drive my car to Virginia with a buddy and we were finally off! We drove all night to get to Virginia and arrived about two the following morning.

We were granted entry by the gate gaurds and then given directions to each of our commands. We made our way across base and I dropped Stephanie off at AIMD and made my way to VFA-87; home of the Golden Warriors. I was escorted to the ready room by the hangerbay watch and introduced to the second class standing watch. After a few minutes of instructions I made my way back across base to pick up Stephanie and to the berthing office to check into our new home. We lucked out and were granted a room together but that only lasted for about a week; she moved to her commands barracks across base and I stayed in our room.

The next few days we were basically expected to get checked into our new commands. I arrived at the ready room at 0630 after Stephanie and I had lugged all of our belongings to our third floor room and finally settled in for sleep about 0400. I was so tired and groggy but trying to stay alert for all of the new and incoming information I was recieving. I was assigned a third class petty officer in my shop to get me aquainted and signed into the command and we began our task. One of the first introductions was to the Maintenance Master Chief, MC Henderson. He asked to see my service record and immediately started combing through it.

My friends had instructed me to rip out my sheet in my record suggesting I was placed on legal hold as to not be labeled a troublemaker, but I assumed it was already recorded somewhere else on some other record and I would end up getting in trouble for altering a government document. As soon as the page flashed before his face his entire demeanor changed. “Why were you on legal hold,” he asked? I replied that I had been a witness to an event down at the beach, he muttered, “hum,” signed my paper and sent me on my way. What a relief I thought, he didn’t seem to be too worried about my being on legal hold. I finished checking into the command with no other inquiries to my legal hold and I believed that all was well in my world. If I had known the target that was placed on my back that day, I may have followed my friends advice and ripped that sheet out of my service record, but that was a lesson I would not learn for a very long time.

The Day the World Changed

My decision to join the Navy was not a very complicated one; I simply loved the ocean and everything about it. I had vactioned in Pensacola Beach, usually semi-annualy because it is my absolute favorite place on earth thus far in my life, and I fell in love with the life of the sailors I met each time I went. I contemplated going in right after graduation from high school, but my mother convinced me to use my state funded scholarship for at least a year first, and if I was still unhappy, I could revist the option. I did follow her wishes, and used my scholarship at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, but I had some bad experiences while enrolled and choose to go to school the following semester at a community college in Mississippi that my mom was working at.

My semester there was going fairly smoothly, I was taking eighteen hours and making good grades, working side jobs, and spending time with my friends in Little Rock. As spring break approached, my mother found out I had been sneaking around with my then banned first boyfriend and my best girl friend and really freaked out. We had a huge argument as I was leaving the house with my father for Florida. I spent the week in Pensacola Beach really contemplating my life and where it was going. I knew what I needed to do for myself, but I was scared. I met a few sailors, including females during that trip, and became more intrigued in entering the military. I returned from Florida still confused, hurt, and very lonely.

A few days after my return from Florida and school for the week I was laying on the couch in the back den of my parents home. The phone rang and it was a Navy recruiter; he wanted to know if I still wanted to join. I quickly stated I was interested and within a week I was a pledged memeber of the delayed entry program, as an Aviation Electronics Technician. I finished up my semester in Mississippi and spent as much time with my friends and family as possible. I went to boot camp and finished my requirements to perform in pass and review, and was shipped out to Pensacola for A-school. We arrived to Pensacola late in August of 2001. I had no idea the day I joined the military that my first official Navy watch would be the morning of September 11, 2001 or that the world as I knew it was about to completely change.

We spent the first few weeks of A-school waiting to class up and we were basically cleaning or standing watches during the day. My first scheduled watch was the morning of September 11. I was supposed to ask everyone entering to show id, grant them permission to come aboard, etc. A first class petty officer came whirling through the front door of the barracks about thirty minutes into our watch. He was carrying a television and did not saulte the flag or ask permission to come aboard. Fearing I would be in trouble for not standing a proper watch, I hastily asked him for his ID. “Shut the Fuck up,” he screamed at me. I was shocked so I shrunk back behind the podium in horror that I was going to be punished. He ignored me and plugged in the TV.

All we could see were that one of the twin towers had been hit by a plane. As we watched with intensity, a second aircraft came into view and slammed into the other tower. Cursing and frantic screaming began to take place. Our base was quickly locked down as we heard reports of bombings at the Pentagon, parents were calling the phone lines with such intensity they never stopped ringing. I finally got to talk to one of my parents that afternoon on a payphone as I did not have a room phone. He wanted to know how I was and that I was safe, but he had other news to share as well.

On September 10, 2001 my cousin, Brooke and her son Dylan were involved in a fatal car accident. Brooke died on the sceen and Dylan died earlier in the morning on September 11. My heart felt like it was exploding as I talked to my Nana on the other end. Her sobs are a sound I will never forget. My first thoughts were, I have to go home. I have to hug my Nana. I have to tell my cousin goodbye. As I made my way back to my room to figure out my next move, I had no idea it was already figured out for me. We classed up the very next morning; they were pushing us through school and getting us out to the fleet to prepare for war.

As we lined up for class that morning and began to make our introductions and  I was informed that I would not be able to take any leave until after my time in school was over. That was day I learned for the first time that the government owned my body, my freedom, and everything about my life. As I walked around base with my ID card above my head in the prescribed uniform of the day as to not get shot by the marines gaurding the sidewalks I thought what is the outside world like now? We were locked down for two weeks, and the only people coming and going from base were our instructors.

Things finally started to calm down a bit as parents realized their kids had to finish their A-schools before they were going anywhere near the fleet and the military realized our nation was no longer at great threat to be under attack. We began to get some freedoms, but I still was not allowed to come and go as I pleased. There were so many rules, and so many ways to get into trouble. I began to drink to cope with my depression of being physcially separated from my family during our time of trauma and attempted to cover it the best I could by pretending everything was ok.

My friends began to get disillusioned with the military and had began to be counted as UA from school and the barracks. Because I often signed out with them, the command constantly harrassed me to tell them my friends’ whereabouts, but I did not even know where they were staying at the time, purpousfully, so that I had no information to give to the those questioning me. As Christmas time came near, I met with my friends one night before they were going to be processed out. We were with some civillians, but I was also spending time with some military friends on the other side of the hotel.

As per the norm, a sailor got out of hand in a room, and the Escambia County Sherrif’s Department were called to the scene. Upon the end of their investigation, they knocked on the door my friends were staying in. There were two UA military members, civillians over and under 21, and they had alcohol and drugs in the room. My bag was still in there, although I was visiting sailors on the other side of the hotel. They began searching for me and as I was walking back towards my friends room to see what was going on, they grabbed me and started questioning me and my other sailor friends.

They blamed us for having drugs and drinking underage and called the military police. We were scared out of our minds, but knew we had done nothing wrong. They loaded us in the Paddy Wagon and escorted us back to base; and let all of the civillians and my UA friends go. We were given breathalyzers and drug tests and placed on legal hold. I freaked, mostly because I had just been told school would be shut down for two weeks and we could take leave if we wanted to and had the days on the books. I wanted more than anything to go home and being on legal hold meant I could not put in my leave chit without special permission.

I told my story to our chief and he aggreed I was not a flight risk and allowed me to go home. Once I made it to my house, I was so relieved to be away from base. I got to hug my Nana for the first time since Brooke and Dylan died, and I got to participate in family tradtitions I had always taken for granted. I knew my decision to join the military would impact my life, but I had no idea how drastically the nature of the military and the climate of our country would change overnight. I knew then at 19 I was preparing to head to war, and that was something I never thought I would have to face.

People tried to tell me, Bush was going to be our president and we would be going to war most likely. They all begged me not to join the military, but of course I thought, what do you know? The Vietnam Veteran catfisher pleaded with me not to go, but not even he could talk me out of it. I was a true patriot back then, as far as following the constitution. I felt that my decision to join the Navy was something that I was supposed to do, and I planned on fullfilling my contract, but for the first time in my life I really felt as if I had absolutely no control and I didn’t. I thought I had little freedom living with my parents, I had no idea how little freedom I truly had in my life until I joined the military and it frightened me beyond belief.

Letting Go in the Midst of Silence

Letting go of relationships has always been terribly difficult for me to do, be it a friendship, lover, family member, and even some acquaintances. I read an article this morning about letting go while keeping and remembering the good parts of the relationship as well as the bad and most importantly remembering what that specific relationship taught you. For me, it seems most of my relationships with others end abruptly with little to no closure. This is a huge trigger for me as it seems that all of the significant relationships in my life have ended on this note. Even now, if we are back in contact with one another, communication is stifled. It seems funny to me that humans seem to have such a problem with communication when we are the one animal on the planet that has been blessed with a gift that is relatively easy to use, even if it is complicated at times. I’ll admit I am one of the worst at this myself but as I grow older I cannot explain how it makes me feel to be able to be brutally honest with someone for them to not respect me enough back to give me an honest answer when asked.

After my first boyfriend broke up with me we went back and forth multiple times in my attempt to get back together; I am still uncertain as to what his expectations were. We would get back together for a weekend, and then not speak for months at a time. This fueled my anxiety by making me wonder what I did wrong, or what I had done to make him ignore me. The silent treatment is probably one of the most cruel and disrespectful actions one could take against another, in my opinion. It leaves the other person completely invalidated that they were ever even meaningful in your life to begin with. It does not matter how long the relationship lasted or in what capacity it was in, if I am left with nothing or no explanation, I automatically start to blame myself.

During the turbulence of the aftermath of my first breakup, I began speaking with a man I met on vacation in Pensacola Beach while on Spring Break my senior year. He was stationed in Virginia Beach not long after we began communicating by phone. I fell pretty hard for him, and even used my graduation money to drive out to see him that summer. My parents would not let me go alone, so my mom went with me and we spent a week on the oceanfront and I fell head over heals for my AT (Aviation Electronics Technician). We talked daily for hours at a time, wrote letters back and forth, and sent each other gifts. I left to go to college in August of 2000 thinking I was in a relationship with him so when I left my hometown and got settled down in my dorm I tried to give him my new information for contact. I attempted to call his phone for days with no answer. About a month or so went by and I finally got his barracks mate on the phone. He informed me he had been in the brig for attempting to fail a drug test to get kicked out.

His father was an officer and pulled some strings to instead send him to the brig and forced him to finish his enlistment. Evidently during this time, he met another woman and had begun a relationship with her. She was pregnant and in his command, so they both got in trouble for fraternization and he was sent to another command on the west coast. Eventually she followed him and they were married. The funniest part of this story is that he never once told me any of this, I found it all out on my own after months of attempting to call and his roommate make excuses for him. Finally the roommate was tired of covering for him and told me everything. I never spoke to him again, but it was not by my choice, it was his.

Later that semester I had joined a sorority although I had not been through recruitment or anything like that. My friends ended up pledging after they went through rush and then brought in the rest of us later in the semester. We had a dance coming up and we were all expected to bring dates. I automatically flashed back to high school and the torment I went through trying to find someone to go with back then and my anxiety immediately began to raise. We were working on a float with another fraternity for the Holiday parade and I ran into a man I had previously met on a trip to Washington D.C. I had been nominated to be a delegate to National Youth Leadership Forum my senior year in high school and I had met a few other people from the state during that trip. I thought, well, I know him well enough, I should ask him to go with me to the dance. I did, he accepted and I was shocked.

We went to the dance that night and my friends also had dates from the same fraternity. Afterwards we all went back to their fraternity house to finish up the evening. We played card games and watched television and eventually we all split off into the couples we went to the dance with. I had sex that night with my date and I believed it was because he actually liked me. We left the next morning and from that point on they no longer would speak to us. This went on for over a week when we finally learned from another fraternity member that they had used us as part of their fraternity initiation. They were supposed to all have sex with a girl and then not talk to her again. Me and my friends felt like the biggest idiots for having fallen for such a dirty trick.

The dehumanizing feeling one is left with after being silently discarded is immense. It is something that can stay with someone for a very long time, I know because those events took place in the year 2000 and they still hurt to write about them now. I have never really told those stories before, and while it feels good to let it out, I am amazed that at this point in my life, I have had many more than the above leave me with the silent treatment, I even did it once to one of my very best friends, which I wrote about my regrets in an earlier post.It is hard to explain what exactly the silent treatment does to another human being if you have never experienced it, but for me, I can assure you it is agonizing.

I’m going to try to stop torturing myself with those who choose to employ this tactic against me. They do not deserve my time or attention if they can not give me the simple respect of an honest answer, even if the answer is “I don’t know how to answer that question at this time.” My experiences have left me with a person that cannot be anything but honest, as I know the damage that lies and dishonesty cause in all relationships. As children we are brutally honest with one another with little repercussions for our communication skills, why do we loose so much of this as we age? I hope if you have read this far that you too will commit to being more honest in your daily interactions. I wonder what the world would look like if we stopped being afraid of effective honest communication instead of the holding onto the bitterness and isolation a lack of communication seems to cause. It is a world I will strive to create, and I will not apologize for it any more.

I Will Become; a Year Later

I originally made this post at this time last year to my Facebook wall in an attempt to let go of some of the anger and resentment I continued to hold on to from the last time I was in an abusive relationship, which thankfully has been eleven years ago now. I haven’t written about these stories on here yet, but I felt it was important to reflect on where I was a year ago and to document  where I am now. At this time last year the person that I wrote this poem about was on my no contact list. Although he is very much still a part of my life through family, I went for several years with no contact with him in an attempt to heal myself. From 2013 until this past August we did not share a word, and after some pressure from other family members who were not knowledgeable of our past began to pressure me to speak with him again, I decided I could compartmentalize enough to handle a person to person interaction if it were to manifest itself.

I started speaking with him again through Facebook messenger and by occasionally commenting on posts that I passed in my news feed. One day, right after Thanksgiving, which he did not attend, I commented on a post he made about how much simpler life was if one told the truth. I responded with “you don’t say ;)” in my attempt to show that our past was something I was working on healing. He took it the wrong way and deleted my comment which immediately triggered me into my past belief that nothing I say matters to anyone, my opinions, thoughts, dreams, etc. I asked him about it and we discussed it for a bit, and then he left the conversation with “we will talk about this soon.” We never did. I just decided he was never going to give me the validation I needed or wanted from him and I have not talked to him through messenger since. I do occasionally comment on posts I find relevant  but I will no longer have emotionally charged conversations about our past.

I will never get the answers that I want.I do not know if it is because he cannot or does not want to give them to me, but that is out of my control. Just like my current situation with my friend and suddenly being blocked, I have done all I can do. I have reached out and said and made my peace. I have no idea if he has read it, I have no idea if he will ever respond to it, but it is absolutely no longer in my control. I am still working on becoming the person I am today, but everyday I get closer to knowing who she is. I learn more about myself, my behaviors, and why I choose to behave that way. I am absolutely not ashamed of my past anymore, and I do not have any more secrets to hide.

I have learned that my secrets are not ones that everyone wants to hear, and I never expected that they would be. I simply want those that want to be in my life to accept me for who I am, all of my battle scars, regardless of where they came from or who gave them to me. I spent my entire life trying to fit into the lives of others, and all I have ever gotten from that is misery. I want to continue to grow with my husband and family in whichever lessons life throws at us, and I want to keep moving forward with my goals and dreams. While I may not have “become” last year, I know that I am still working on becoming her, and so far, while I still make mistakes and have insecurities, I like her–a whole lot.

*The following was written last January 14, 2016

January 14, 2006 I walked away from what has thankfully been my last toxic and traumatic experience in my life. The next 7.5 years were fueled by self-medication, denial, and not really knowing why I thought and acted the way I did. When I finally started to understand that my experiences had greatly effected the person I always thought I was, I finally was able to ask for help. Since then, my life has gotten better. I am learning who I am and I am able to accept that had my past experiences never taken place, I would not be the person that I am today. If you or anyone you know are in an abusive relationship of any kind with anyone, please encourage them to ask for help.

I can honestly say that the longer you deny and hope that it all just goes away, it doesn’t until you work through it. It is hard, it sucks, but it feels a hell of a lot better than being stuck. I debated making this post because it exposes me and some of my past, but as of this time in my life I have decided that I can own my past, I don’t have to be embarrassed or ashamed, and I take my responsibility in creating whatever problems I created for myself and others, and I do what I can to be the best person possible.

This year my resolution was to not visit my past unless it was necessary for healing or growth and not denying my emotions when they arise. My goal this year is to face my intrusive thoughts and work through my traumas as I re-experience them instead of continuing to ignore them. Because of that I am sharing a poem I wrote. It is significant to me because the last time I wrote was when I was living in the above mentioned situation. It took me almost a decade to write anything for pleasure because I shut myself down for ten years of my life. I am ready to live again.

I Will Become

I see you; everywhere.
I erased you for so long.
Myself too.

Radiantly beaming; seemingly with ease.
Flashing the smile I used to long to see;
Strangely always a comfort.

The love you give and show now,
So effortlessly and free,
Stabs me to the core.

Like thorns from the decade old rose,
Unbelievably still in my possession.
The only symbol of beauty or love in which you did not destroy.

Hard, frail, dead;
The way you left me,
Huddled in a tearful mass on our apartment floor.

Memories constantly pulsing through me;
The good and bad torment my soul.
Electrifying, intense, impulsive; just as you were.

I miss you, I love you, but the person I love was only an illusion.
No heat, no phone, coins to survive; seeking death.
Abandoned by you, I had to save myself.

My control an attempt to resist your demands.
Your power, isolation, fear; my ultimate savior.
Betrayed; you took all I gave you, everything.

You left me with scraps of a life,
I will never know again.
Shocked and hopeless; my light smothered.

Broken, destroyed, weak; invisible.
Denial, trying to make the pain stop.
Cover it all up and bury it deep.

Exploding rage, grave mistakes;
A silent plea for help
Before deciding to overcome.

We will never be the same again.
I can’t.
You nauseate me, yet I grieve for you.

Frozen, paralyzed; numb.
Was it real?
Was any of it ever real?

So fooled by you and jaded by the rest;
Hopeful for a fresh start, but stabbed in the back,
Night, after night, after night.

Your evil; masked by my love and gullibility.
Lies, deceit, chaos;
I died a little bit each day.

Stomach growling; my heart devouring itself.
Curled in the red chair; alone.
I just wanted someone to love me, but I banished the true.

I had so much to give and share;
It was never wanted or appreciated;
Taken for granted.

You didn’t want me, but you didn’t want them to have me.
Lonely and miserable;
Always steadily idle.

Hoping for the slightest hint of affection;
But only able to give you what you wanted, until someone else offered more.
Discarded like the trash I ate for food.

My passion and intimacy stripped; raped emotionally.
My ability to know real love long forgotten;
I cannot feel.

I fight myself daily.
A chameleon in my own skin; hoping not to be revealed.
Judged, ridiculed, rejected again.

Sick of hurting.
Sick of thinking and re-thinking.
It’s all so stupid-you didn’t care, never did.

But why should I?
Why should I still care?
Because they tell me you’re different now;

You’re sober now; happy.
Rebuilt your life to your liking.
I’m choking and stumbling to make it through the day, and every day since I left you there.

Never even the slightest hint of an apology;
Not one.
“Mutual partners in crime” was the stated belief.

You’ve been out of my life for so long, but I still hold on to every single memory.
Do I want to?
Is it because it is all I have left of you?

The thought of you invokes panic.
I wouldn’t know what to say to you.
I have nothing left to say.

You can’t torment me anymore.
I have to let you go; from my thoughts, my dreams, my life.
They are mine.

I can forgive you.
I can wish you happiness.
But I can no longer be a part of you.

“I’ll always have you,” you said, “You’ll be there forever, I already told you bye.”
Final words muttered to my desperate pleas.
Your anchors can’t drown me anymore.

I will heal my wounds and become;
A lover he deserves, a mother they hopefully cherish,
The person I desire to be, the dreamer I was.

The one I’ve been hiding for so long;
From myself, them, the world.
No longer ashamed.

I will rise above.
The names you made me believe, the lies you told, the fear you instilled;
The trust you stole, the loyalty you shattered; the hurt.

You never gave me your time.
Why do I keep giving you mine?
I will set myself free; I will become.

“It’s like making out with a bull dog,” he said to anyone who would listen.

Overcoming words and actions others say to us and are responsible for can be a very hard thing for many to do. One small phrase changed my outlook on how I viewed myself and society. In a moment of clarity I flashed back to a time when I started laughing hysterically in a restaurant while coloring a kiddie menu at the age of twenty and telling him, “Who cares, we will never see these people again,”and immediately wished that girl would be able to return one day stronger than ever before.

My first romantic encounter with a guy was, well, less than fulfilling. My best friend was dating a guy from the next town over, so automatically I started spending time with his friend when they came to town. Eventually this lead to my first kiss, and short term relationship. We dated for a very short time, no more than three weeks before parting ways. I had become to recognize he moved to fast for my 16 year old taste, especially since I was a virgin.

A few weeks later rumors were going around my town and his that he had taken my virginity and left me because “it was like making out with a bull dog.” I was mortified and already had low self esteem as it was. I started to become more reclusive and gave up on the thought of boys as I had never even had a date to a dance that I didn’t basically beg for as it was. My first love had moved away the year before and I pinned for him until I started dating my first boyfriend my senior year, but those mean words still haunt me to this day.

Maybe he was upset that I didn’t want to do the things he wanted me to do with him and lashed out? Maybe I really did kiss like a dog? Perhaps if I had done more, this never would have happened. While still a naive young person, I now realize how incredibly co-dependent I have been my entire life. I tried so hard to fix everything in my life, I think because I just wanted to fit in and always felt like I never quite did.

I have continued this trend throughout my life in college, the military, and in the employment sector. Trying to constantly fit in to situations where you can get by and go unnoticed are exhausting to keep up with and honestly stagnate you from growing in situations where you really need to grow the most. I was  constantly paranoid of others thoughts and social situations for years because I only wanted someone to accept and love me for who I was.

One day I read the most profound statement somewhere during an insomnia fueled night on social media that said something to the effect of what others think of you as being none of your business. I try to keep that in my head now when I go about my day and get discouraged or paranoid during my activities. It’s helped me to remember to be the carefree kid I was before I started worrying about how others perceived me more often than the hypersensitive paranoid emotional mess I have been all the years before. It gave me the strength to be able to tell my past and to rise above some of the shame and guilt I felt because of my experiences. After all the only person who can take away your worth and value is yourself, and the rest don’t really matter anyway.

Communication in the Social Media Age

There was a time when I was a young sailor that had seen many injustices to myself and to others. During this time in my life I began a relationship with someone I loved and valued deeply; as a friend. I had been raped several times by that point in my life and I was constantly being harassed by other members in my command for sex. I began dating this man because he was smart, funny, and made me feel safe-plus almost all of the harassment stopped as soon as it become known amongst us lower enlisted personnel that I belonged to him. We had a great time for about a year, but the closer I came to my separation from the Navy, the more I started to panic about his upcoming extension which was to be followed by a cruise with the rest of my friends I had made the last three or so years I had been in Virginia Beach.

He began going on detachments for training and when he was gone the harassment would start back up. Slowly at first, but always there lurking around the dark corner entrance of my empty bedroom. My guy was not very good at communication and hated talking on the phone even more. I began to feel isolated and panic even more at the thought of being alone and I began to seek a new relationship to fill the void.

I eventually reunited with a friend I had known since my mom and stepfather’s marriage at the age of seven. We decided we were going to attempt to start our lives over as we had both suffered tragedies during our short twenty-three years on earth. As my separation date encroached with warp speed, we grew closer together while my guy all but disappeared behind a computer monitor. I cheated on him and finally broke up with him after I left my command so I could not be charged with fraternization if things went ugly. We communicated on and off and eventually he left to go to sea.

Things with my destined roommate deteriorated quickly and before I knew it I was relying on coins to surrvive. After much turmoil, I left my latest home in Newport News and reluctantly come back to Arkansas, but a completely different corner than where I was raised. I quickly got a job and apartment but realized even in Arkansas and in an old one bedroom apartment my minimum wage job and unreliable hours were going to require me to have a roomate.

I started looking around work for possibilities and realized there were no real possibilities. I did have a new intrest in my love life at the moment and we ultimately decided to move in with one another. After my then ex-Navy guy got off cruise a few months later I found out he was still expecting to move to Arkansas for us to be together. I panicked and told him to keep in touch and we would see how things went.

He did not call many times the next couple of months, so I continued my living arrangements. One of my squadron mates was being transferred back to the west coast and stopped to visit on his journey across the country. He informed me my guy still had intentions of moving in with me but I needed to let him know what I was planning on doing. I got mad. I never answered his calls again. We finally were on each others MySpace for awhile but he eventually deleted me, as I rightfully deserved. I never got to apologize for that series of terrible treatment, but I hope he knows I am truly, very sorry for it.

Since that time I have been treated the same way by many people. I always thought I deserved it because karma was paying me back. I have vowed since then to try to be as honest and open with others as possible, avoid the silent treatment when I really want to use it, and try to meet each person with respect where they are currently at.

If you do not want to do, say, answer, dress, come, go, just say so. People can handle the truth much easier than they can handle being lied to and then finding out about it at a later date. It seems like the more invested we become in social media and technology the easier it is to block others from our lives rather than civilly discussing matters and continuing or ending relationships from there.

I have vowed since 2006, when I did this to my friend, a friend I miss deeply and valued greatly, to speak my words when necessary. I take time off if need be, but I will always let whomever it is know that I simply need space. I hope that they know I will always hold space for them as well, and if they ever wish to return, I’ll give them back their space.

 

You are not alone

I decided to start this blog so that I would have a safe space for me and others to tell their stories of the past. I have learned that the more I open up to others outside my comfort zone, it only ends up leading to isolation. I hope that this blog will be able to offer a place of comfort, healing, and support for those that may have had similar experiences or just have never been able to let their voice be heard. The stories in this blog are all real, however names and other identifiers will always purposefully be changed to protect those that were involved. I hope through this blog I am able to bring more awareness to mental health and how it effects us on a daily basis. I hope that those that are seeking comfort or peace are able to find it here, and if there is an untold story that you bear inside you, that you find the strength to one day let it out. I held mine in for decades and I can promise you it did more damage to my physical and emotional states than I would ever like to admit.

I recently befriended another man, although I am a married woman, in an attempt to make a new connection outside of my comfort zone that I thought may understand me. I had a bad feeling about sending my message along with friend request as I did not know him, however there was something inside me that made me just hit the send button after I typed out my message. He accepted my request and told me that I could talk to him about my PTSD so we began chatting. As we continued I began to realize that when I spoke of my past, he never had any reply to my statements. I started to feel uneasy about telling him so much personal information, but I thought, well he is a veteran with PTSD as well, surely he would say if it bothered him. As the week progressed I kept getting the gnawing feeling that he was beginning to distance himself from me.  I tried to send him a message this past Friday to find I had been blocked. I thought, this must be a mistake.

I had just told him the previous day that the silent treatment and lying are two of my biggest triggers. We had just spoken a few hours before and it seemed as if things were fine, but he had become unusually quiet. When I went to send him a funny picture and my messenger told me that “This person is not receiving messages from you at this time” I thought maybe my messenger app was messed up. I reset my phone, and tried again, and got the same message. I then tried to go to his profile and it flashed “no content available.” I was shocked, as I had no real indication that things were that bad in our communication at all. I tried to text him to see if what I believed to be true was so. He got a bit accusatory stating that I was basically wrong and he did not have me blocked. I told him my reasons for thinking that I was and then I never heard from him again. I decided I am not going to waste my time opening up to people anymore that do not really want to be a part of my life or commit the time to understanding me and why I do and behave the ways that I do. This brought me to the creation of this blog.

This was the first person I have opened up to outside of my family since leaving the Navy for the most part and this experience has left me horribly triggered but I know its beyond my control. I had friends when I was out of the Navy but they were not knowledgeable about my past. I had attempted to tell my story once before to a friend after a drunken night of liquor and was confronted the next morning with “Leslie, please don’t drink liquor ever again.” I had remembered some of the subjects I had talked about the previous night, but not all. I took it that I needed to keep my mouth shut about it and deal with it in my head, like everyone had always preferred I do before. I shoved it down for several more years until I finally got a DWI a year after my sons birth in 2010.

I did not know who the person I was had become. I had always grown up with the thoughts that I would have children and a family. I finally had that, and I almost threw it all away because I was mad at my fiance about something that doesn’t even matter anymore. I realized there was something very wrong with me and my behaviors but I did not know what it was. I drank on and off for the next two years trying to fight to keep the bad thoughts away and perpetuate my life of denial until I could not handle it anymore. I was enrolled at Arkansas Tech in my last semester of my bachelor’s work and I was triggered by a discussion about learned helplessness and how women use this to get ahead in life, by acting like bimbos, playing down our intelligence, and these were the reasons that we were raped. I went off, and it was the first time I have ever stated to anyone that I had been raped in my life, and not just once.

I sat around for about a month after stewing on that conversation. I got mad about it every day and then I started researching rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, and finally I found it, military sexual trauma. When I read the description and symptoms of what the Veteran’s Administration termed MST, I thought immediately, “This is me!” I started therapy at the VA on Halloween of 2012 and have been in various groups and independent therapy as well as marriage counseling since that time. I also decided to obtain my Masters degree in Counseling and I am a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor. My hope is that others will see similarities in my negative behaviors and make positive changes to overcome them, as I try to overcome them myself. I hope you enjoy your time here and learn new ways to connect and heal with one another.