Jessica

Carol:

When Jessica was going through her life she felt like an object, not a person. She wrote her story in the third person until the very end, which expresses her current acceptance of her personhood.

Jessica:
            She was 7 years old, and remembers it clearly even now. The first time her Father called her a cu*t. She remembers when he told her—well he really spoke around her. He said “Cu*t, you have a cute little a** even now. Can't wait to see it as it grows----da*n.” She remembers feeling awkward and her face burning. The girl remembers the white hot sting the first time he touched her and raped her. Why? Well she was focusing on the Hannah Montana poster on her wall. So, yes, everything is exquisitely clear. But that wasn't the first time he talked to her like that. And it wasn't the last time he touched her like that. But you knew that part of the story. You guessed that about the girl didn't you? You ARE pretty and SMART aren't you, Reader? Yep.
            Anyway-- The girl would later get raped by her father close to 100 times before she left home at 19 years old. Leaving home, she thought, would save her, but it didn't.
            When does it get better? Not yet.
            The girl drifted in and out of existence. Breathing, but not quiet. Living, but barely. It felt as if someone constantly was holding something firm, shutting her mouth, keeping her from speaking up. She found solace in her pain. She found solace in how she could get men to treat her. She could get men to hurt her. And that, Dear Reader, is what the girl felt like she deserved. She deserved to be hurt. She had boyfriends who beat her and abused her. The girl was made to feel small and made to feel worthless. She never felt like anything she did was worthwhile. She was nothing and no one. The girl was afraid nearly all the time. She had been hurt so many times it was like at times she was just putting herself in these dangerous situations to remind herself that she could feel.
            I know that sounds silly, Reader. But think about it. It’s a “I will hurt myself before you can, type of thing.” So this was how it worked for a long time. She would always approach danger and pain, and almost step off the final edge, but not quite. Because she knew if she stepped off, she would fall deep. But she always fell just far enough to have it hurt. She was 18 years old and she carved letters into her skin. She wrote SLU* across her stomach because that’s how she felt on the inside. Why shouldn't it show on the outside? The girl was 20 when her boyfriend urinated on her calling her “a filthy cow” and then he informed her that she liked it.
            She always felt like her mouth was sewn shut in these situations. That she wasn't there anymore, that “Girl” wasn't around and that she would rather pretend to be anyone else for even a moment. Fear ruled her life, and it continued to rule her life.
            The girl still struggles. Every day she has to recognize that she is Jessica. She has to give her life back to her Lord and Savior. But it’s getting better. She is finally breathing. She is speaking her name out loud. Because now she isn't just an object, now her womanhood isn't in her father's arsenal. Now her heavenly Father calls her “brand new”. She's had slip ups, but every time He has welcomed her home.
            She knows that the road back to feeling like a person is a long one. I know that I won't always be like this and the moments of being afraid will get shorter and shorter. The more I grow, the more I will feel safe. Because my heavenly Daddy sings lullabies over who I really am, -- Jessica.

Dear Reader,

            I want to be real with you about something. It’s important. Being raped stinks. And I know that might seem like a ridiculous way of describing it, but honestly I'm not quite sure what to say. It feels like everything you ever knew changed. Like somehow, someone suddenly decided that the sky was green when it was supposed to be blue. Everything is muted and yet loud all at the same time. Being violated feels not only like you've been broken, but maybe like you weren't there to begin with.

            Everything changes.

            Suddenly who you are has to work around what happened to you. Things and situations are filtered through a new lens. Every male person in your life becomes a possible threat and you are always a possible target, even in the silliest of scenarios. Logic doesn't matter anymore. You are suddenly an expert at everything, and you know the five escape routes out of the local supermarket in case that one stalker gets a little too close.

            But with all of that is a dose of reality: there is a difference, thankfully, between healthy fear and unhealthy phobia. However the world fools us into thinking there isn't. A healthy fear is a respect or a concern of a likely event that could happen. A phobia is an illogical and unrealistic fear of what probably won't happen. But, in the moment, it makes sense and in the moment, it seems right . . . and you can't be talked out of it. That, Dear Reader, is a phobia.

            It took me a while to give my phobias and my fears to Jesus. My stubbornness and hard-headed behavior kept getting in the way. Please, Dear One, learn from my mistakes.