Go Ask Your Mother
An excerpt from the story Go Ask Your Mother on page 47 of my memoir “The Great Unlearning.” This story is about an excruciating and brutal experience that convinced me the world was unsafe and that I was unworthy of any relationship.
Excerpt from Go Ask Your Mother
“…I was intercepted by a boy who had already graduated from high school. Without saying a word, after staring at me for just a moment, he lurched toward me and flipped me over his shoulder. Reeking of wood and leather, most likely his father’s cologne, he carried me into the orchard, running the entire way. I laughed for the first few jostling steps, until his shoulder started digging into my stomach, with my giggles quickly turning into screams when some low branches from several orange trees clawed at my back.
The young man threw me down onto the hard ground, and I landed flat on my back with a thud, losing my wind. As he jumped on top of me I grappled for air, the stench of his stale beer breath punching me in the face as he fumbled with the zipper on his jeans with one hand and ripped off my panties with the other.
Without the emotional will power to fight…”
You can listen to me read Go Ask Your Mother and other stories from my memoir by visiting my podcast on Spotify. Or support me by purchasing a copy of “The Great Unlearning” on this site.
Author reflection
After a sequence of events like these, I handled my shame for a couple of decades by swallowing it whole, which only gave it time to fester in my gut, hold me hostage, gain power over me, and color my self-image a yucky vomit brown. I was incredibly disappointed with myself and terrified that if I shared what I let this guy do to me, and then him dying as a result, I would be judged and rejected so harshly that I may never recover from it.
How the heck did I move through the mortifying shame of this event? It was not easy, but like I mentioned in the story, I started talking about it. First casually to men I became intimate with, then sincerely with women I trusted, and finally wholeheartedly with my beloved partner Grant. By sharing my story out loud, I did risk the chance of judgment and rejection, but the absolute opposite happened, I wasn’t ridiculed or ousted, a pathway to self-forgiveness was opened for me. I received only empathy from those people who care about me.
I also had to separate who I am with what I did. I had to replace my thoughts about being a terrible person with I did something bad, not that I was bad. What was the “bad” something I did? For me, it was the decision to let that boy rape me and not fight him off. I allowed him to physically assault me, I perceived myself as a weak coward.
I then dug deep to the root of what my motivation was for what “I did.” And, found it was two fold; I didn’t want to get hurt worse than I already was, and mostly, I was living from that dysfunctional mindset of not wanting to disappoint anyone or make anyone mad at me for fear of rejection. I valued keeping the peace over my own emotional and physical well-being.
To listen to me read Go Ask Your Mother, and more stories from my book, head over to my Podcast on Spotify.