Shamed 

But I did have a relationship: I had a boyfriend "back home." After the assault, I broke up with him, believing I was no longer worthy of such a decent man.

I blamed myself for that man raping me, not realizing that a new layer of shame was beginning to take hold. I didn't talk about it, but deep inside, I kept wondering, "what on earth was wrong with me?" 

I learned many years later that what was “wrong” with me was part of a known phenomenon in which people who have experienced abuse are about 50% more likely than the general population to experience abuse again. Many of them find their way into the military.

I was a living statistic.

In the months that followed, I was subjected to a series of manipulative, predatory scenarios by different men who outranked me. They always ended in a sexual encounter that I didn’t know how to avoid or escape and believed would result in trouble if I did.

I continued blaming and shaming myself, continued wishing things would change, but I simply didn't know what to do.

Struggling

I didn’t have the tools to solve my problems, and I had nobody to talk to except the (unhelpful) military therapist I was seeing. I began drinking and misusing the sleeping pills and anti-depressants he had prescribed.

Even after a near-suicide attempt, the abuses continued, although with different circumstances and faces. Eventually I did tell someone and was offered an immediate and honorable discharge. I couldn't take it fast enough.

I left the military emotionally devastated; so filled with shame that I would not even identify myself as a veteran. And I was still without healthy boundaries or coping skills.

As I transitioned from military to civilian life I continued finding myself in strange-seeming and uncomfortable situations with male co-workers and bosses where I felt off-balance or threatened, as though there was flirtation but not.

Each event contributed another layer of self-condemnation, until I was emotionally buried in shame and self-blame. Why, I wondered, did these things keep happening to me?

I became increasingly depressed, increasingly perfectionistic and controlling, and drew farther into my introvert shell. I dated some nice guys and didn’t appreciate them, and some real creeps who further advanced my experiences of trauma. 

Nobody knew how hard it was for me to get up every day and go through the motions of my life. I continued in therapy while displaying the façade of a successful, high-functioning young woman who had it together. 

Behind the façade, though, the collateral damage included unhealthy relationships, marriage and divorce, hurt family members, lost career opportunities, disordered eating, some substance abuse, and a boatload of credit card debt.

Changing

I was in my forties when I found myself in counseling once again. The conversation turned, as always, to my past abuse and all that had followed.

This counselor was, like me, a Christian. She offered many of the same solutions as others before her . . . but she also offered something else, and it changed my life.

But this counselor completely shifted that paradigm with a single sentence I hadn’t heard from any of her predecessors: "Let's see what the Lord has to say about that."

Whether “that” was a situation, an experience, a thought pattern or attitude, or any number of other things, applying God's Word to "that" rocked my world.

It changed me. Not my behaviors or my attitudes but something deep inside me that my previous recovery efforts had not touched.

When my season with that counselor came to an end, I told the Lord, "I want to do that someday. I want to be able to help others like me apply the Word of God to their problems."

Healing

A few weeks later, I was driving home from a counseling appointment where we had been talking about my military sexual trauma, and I felt a strong urge to drive to my church rather than heading home.

Even more unusual was the feeling that I should talk to the new associate pastor, a young woman who, I knew, was also a military chaplain.

Initially, I sat in my car arguing with the Holy Spirit that this new associate pastor might not even be there and that I didn't have an appointment, and so on.

When I arrived, she (of course) was there, and she (of course) was available. She called it a Divine Appointment. I called it "uncomfortable." I think God might have called it, "exactly the right time."

Whatever it was, for the first time in 25 years, I told someone the whole story of my abuse in the military, even the parts I'd held back from my previous counselors.  Every stinky, shame-filled bit of it.

When I finally finished she was silent. Eventually, I looked up, and through my own tears I saw hers.

"You know, it wasn't your fault,” she said.

“What?”

She repeated herself. Slowly. "It. Wasn't. Your. Fault."

She paused to let it sink in, but my mind was busy reminding me of all the well-rehearsed reasons that it was my fault:

• I was almost an adult. I should have known better.
• I could have left. Or fought. Or screamed. Or something.
• I was raised better than "that."
• I shouldn't have been there in the first place.

As the auto-responses droned on in my mind, she talked over them, explaining that I'd experienced abuses of power. Those men had overstepped their positions of authority to set me up, lie to me, and take advantage of me.

They were, she said, completely in the wrong.

She could tell I didn't quite buy her version. What she said next floored me.

“In my current military position, I outrank all of you. Not only you, but all of your abusers.”

As she spoke, I noticed her tone had completely changed. She had changed.

Until that moment, she'd been a compassionate, knowledgeable pastoral counselor. She was nice.

But as she made this statement about her rank, her demeanor shifted. She became ‘military.’

Anyone who’s been in service knows what I mean. It was like she wrapped herself in a cloak of authority and strength. Like she stood straighter and taller.

She spoke now from this military persona. In her soft Southern drawl, she said, "I am telling you, as a superior officer who outranks all of you, that it was not.your.fault. It was theirs." 

It was theirs.

Believing

That’s when my miracle happened. In that moment, I could almost hear God's voice telling me I was seen. That it was time.

After 25 years, after all the counselors and all the struggling to heal, to recover, God brought this woman, with precisely the right bundle of qualifications for my particular bundle of needs, to work at this church, and to be present on this day when I was finally ready to face this part of my past.

She even served in the same branch of the military!

God gave her the words—the wisdom—that changed me. She wasn't counseling me about the military; she was the military. And God used her to set me free from the shame and self-blame of those experiences.  

I think most anyone would agree that from a human perspective, it was amazing. But for me, it was more than amazing; it was a miracle.

And it re-ignited my desire to bring those kinds of moments to others.

Healing

I spent many years in the emotional roller coaster of good days/bad days that are part of the healing journey from abuse.

I experienced much healing—from counseling from applying the 12-step methodology to my issues, from participating in small groups and workshops, and especially from my faith.  

But it was more than two decades into that journey that God gave me a miracle that broke the chains of shame about what I'd been through in the military.

I had no idea there was even more healing ahead of me.

In my early 50s, I went back to college for a graduate degree in trauma counseling. This proved to be another huge step in my healing. As I worked through class after class, I had epiphany after epiphany.

I learned how the brain responds to a traumatic moment—and gained freedom from the "why didn't I fight back" guilt I'd carried most of my adult life.

I learned about vicarious trauma—and finally understood why the stories of someone else's abuse had affected me so deeply as a child.

I learned that long-term uncertainty and fear of what might happen next can be as damaging as more obvious kinds of abuse—and was set free from my habit of minimizing my abuse compared to what I knew of others' experiences. 

And I learned the crazy power of words—the devastation wrought by verbal abuse (both spoken and silent), which leaves no bruises on the outside, but stains the very soul, stripping the hearer of every shred of their God-given dignity.

'Miracles' can take many forms. They may show up as a life-altering shift in perspective, such as hearing a military chaplain tell me that my abuse wasn't my fault.

Or they can happen slowly and steadily and barely noticed as we take one step after another toward healing.

By the time I'd finished my grad program in trauma counseling, I realized I'd integrated many of my life's challenges with a newfound understanding and compassion for myself. My past was (mostly) in my past, and I was looking forward to a future free of my shadows and helping others walk away from theirs.

Hoping

Living with a history of abuse and trauma is hard. It's heavy. It's dark. And the heavy darkness clings.

My approach to helping you discover your best self after trauma, can be summed up in two words: 

sunlight and hope.

I want to help you turn your back on the shadows and look for the sunlight. And while I'm drawing your attention to sunlight, I want to offer hope.

Not some woo-woo drifty thing that we've imagined. Not some toxic positivity that causes more hurt.

I want to offer hope that we can count on.

As a Christian, my hope is in Jesus Christ. 

My hope is anchored in my relationship with him. He is the ultimate hope; rock-solid and never-changing. 

But if you don't believe like I do, that Jesus-hope is the best hope, I still firmly believe that

there's hope to be found in counseling, in life-coaching, and in friendships (even online ones).

There's hope to be found in groups designed to support those who share this struggle, and there's hope

on the other end of a phone call to a mental health hotline.

There's hope in making a decision to change, even if you have no idea how to do it yet.

There's hope in not giving up. Every sunrise introduces us to a fresh start, simply because it is a new day that has not yet been written into.

Helping

And, just FYI, I bring more than my story about coping with abuse to the table.

I'm a certified Master Christian Life Coach specializing in trauma recovery with two master's degrees - one in pastoral counseling, the other in human services with an emphasis in trauma counseling and crisis response.

I've enriched my education with many classes, workshops, and certifications over the past 15 years or so, to even better equip myself with the knowledge and skills needed to provide informed, practiced, and compassionate support to help you to face—and overcome—your struggles.

That said, I'm just like you. I started where you started: hurt and scared. Doubting and ashamed. I've walked that rocky, uphill path. It hasn't been easy, but as I've said before, I've found hope and healing - and so can you.

There is hope in making a decision to change, even if you have no idea how to do it yet. Every new day gives you a new opportunity to write the story that you want your life to tell.

Even on cloudy days. Even when the path is rocky and uphill all the way.

Beginning

Is today the day? Will today be the day when you write the first words of your new journey?

Shall we walk that new path together for a season?

Look. I feel called to help others (others like you, perhaps?) dig out from beneath layers of trauma because of what happened to me.

I've been telling my story.  But it's for you.

It's for you because I have the hope—the faith—the certainty that you can heal, that your life can change, and you can trade those shadows for sunlight.

Get in touch with me today and let me know where you are in your journey; there's a contact box below. Let's begin a conversation about how I can come alongside you as you begin to write that new, brighter, and hope-full chapter of your story.