Triggered

Occasionally I write a post about myself. Here's another one:

The Brett Kavanaugh hearings are dominating the news. Some people only see it through a political lens and, I must admit, if certain Democrats said and did what they’ve been accused of I find it reprehensible. But that aspect of the proceedings is so far down my radar that I can’t even begin to process the political implications of his appointment to the Supreme Court. For me, it’s not about the politics. Not at all. What I heard yesterday from his own mouth and from that of his accuser had a much greater impact on me than how his political and philosophical worldview could affect me in the future.

I’m triggered. It feels horrible. It’s debilitating. I’m reliving a horrendous event which I thought at this point in my life was nicely tucked away in the past. Of course, obviously (I’m realizing now) being tucked away isn’t the same as being forgotten – it never has been and it will never be forgotten. But I thought I was to the point where it no longer had a hold on me. I was wrong. Given the perfect storm of current events my experience came back to me through a cloud of overwhelming darkness and is raging. And it’s not just the visual images that I can’t seem to get out of my head, it’s the emotional response that feels more elevated than ever.

If you’re bracing yourself for an account of sexual abuse let me ease your worries right now. There’s nothing like that to see here, folks. The last thing I would ever want to do is equate my experience with someone else’s sexual trauma. Sexual abuse, I imagine, is something else entirely. But not every kind of heinous, sexist abuse is sexual in nature. All I can do is tell my story as I experienced it without any comparative implications attached.

It was the late 1960s/early 1970s. I would have been in Jr. High School. It was back when the LDS church was central to an active member’s life in every single respect. Not only was it a spiritual home, it offered many cultural, physical, and social outlets as well. I lived in Lubbock, TX where the church membership was relatively small. Our once tiny branch had grown into a thriving congregation and was split into two wards and one Spanish speaking branch. The vast majority of the youth ended up in the other ward. I, however, was separated from most of my friends due to ward boundaries (an ongoing problem in my life), and our youth group was extremely small. Within our ward boundaries lived several families who were on temporary assignment to Reese Air Force Base for pilot training. Most were very young couples, childless or with very young children. The vast majority of the established families with teenagers were in the other ward. I found this to be extremely unfair.

There were three LDS families with kids my age that did happen to live quite near us. One family, who lived one street over, had a daughter, Robin, two years younger than me and a son, Jon, one year older. Another family lived right down the street. The husband served in the stake presidency. The wife and my mother would routinely exchange baked goods and sit down for nice, long gossip sessions. They had five sons, Scott being one year ahead of me in school. The stake president lived a few blocks away. His two youngest sons flanked me in age. There were one or two others who would move in and out, but for the most part we made up the entirety of the Lubbock 3^rd Ward youth during my early teenage years.

It’s important to understand the dynamics of our group. I was the only girl in my Sunday School class. Tim, a pilot in training (or maybe a pilot instructor, I can’t remember) and a recent church convert was the teacher of our small class. Often he would abandon the lesson manual and read the “what would you do” scenarios from the New Era magazine in an attempt to engage a class discussion. I can’t tell you anything about the gospel-related discussions. All I remember is that virtually every Sunday I was the brunt of more than one joke, being perpetually and consistently poked at and made fun of by all my male classmates. It was the laughing I remember the most – I was singled out and being laughed AT week after week after painful week. At first I probably found it endearing – being the center of attention in a room full of boys – but it quickly escalated and got out of hand. Tim (because that’s what my older sister called him so that’s the name I used as well) did virtually nothing to control the situation. Occasionally he would offer a smirky “C’mon guys” and roll his eyes a little, but there was never any censure or attempt to stop the behavior.

I remember one particular Sunday (the boys’ commentary must have been especially brutal) Tim approached me after class. He said something like, “Y’know the only reason all the boys say those things to you is because they like making you so upset. If you would quit reacting to it the way that you do they would stop doing it.” As an inexperienced teenage female, I thought that was very good advice. However, the things they said to me did, in fact, get me quite upset. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was honestly going to be able to control my emotions and reactions to get them to stop. Of course, looking back, the obvious solution would have been for Tim to put the responsibility on them – where it belonged – and call out their abusive behavior. The boys were 100% accountable for their words and actions, yet, the responsibility to change it or deal with it was placed solely on me.

But Tim didn’t do that. Because that’s not how things worked back then. Because “boys will be boys”. That’s how boys behave. That’s what boys do. That’s just how it is.  

Why didn’t I go to the bishop or my parents to stop the verbal abuse? I don’t really know for sure, but probably because I honestly believed (because it was what I was taught to believe through the words and observations of others) that boys could do pretty much anything they wanted to do at the expense of girls. That was just how the world worked. And that was, after all, how things worked within the walls of my own home – my dad’s needs and desires were always at the expense of my mom – so who was I to question anything or try to change the status quo.

Which brings me to the incident in question.

We had a new Sunday School teacher. I don’t remember his name, but he was stationed in Lubbock for pilot training. He was young, physically fit, and very handsome despite the fact that he was missing a lot of hair on the top. He had a beautiful blonde wife who was expecting their first child. They lived in the Casa Linda Apartments at the intersection of 4^th Street and Slide Road.

It was not uncommon at that time for a youth Sunday School teacher to host a class party. The teacher, I’ll call him “Stan”, and his wife, “Jen”, offered to host a party for the members of our class at their apartment complex pool. There would be swimming and the grilling of burgers. It sounded like fun and I was excited to go.

I loved the water – I still do – even though I never had any type of formal swimming lessons. I was kind of self-taught and, given my ample boobs and extra body fat (I was about 15 lbs. overweight), I was sufficiently buoyant. Treading water was a piece of cake. I never figured out how to keep water out of my nose, however, and anytime I went under I always had to pinch my nostrils closed with my fingers. With only one available arm this severely limited my swimming ability, but it didn’t seem to hinder my willingness to play and engage in water activities in the least.

We all arrived and the swimming commenced. I don’t remember if Stan ever got in the water or was just dividing his time between monitoring the pool and helping his wife with food prep back in their apartment. Jen was in her late stages of pregnancy, if I remember correctly, and never entered the water.

My lack of ability didn’t limit my use of the pool. I could “swim” in the deep end. Well, not really swim, but I was competent enough to stay afloat before dog paddling my way to the side of the pool or to a shallower place where I could touch bottom.

I remember I was in water over my head, somewhat centered between the sides of the pool, and I was attempting to propel myself to a place where I felt more secure. Scott approached me. He was one of my biggest tormentors. He was also completely out of my league. Being a year ahead of me in school and quite handsome I would have to admit I had a huge crush on him from time to time. (And if I remember right, Scott went on to be a champion competitor on the high school swim team.)

As is not uncommon, and is generally thought to be perfectly acceptable and playful behavior in this type of setting, he placed one hand on top of my head and pushed me firmly and completely under the water. I had just enough time to grab my nose before going under. It wasn’t a quick dunk as my head was pushed at least a couple of feet under. Since my feet still didn’t touch the bottom to propel me upward, it took several seconds before I floated back up to the top while I continued to hold my breath. As soon as I emerged he pushed me under again. I barely had time to grasp for air and re-pinch my nostrils.

He did it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

And again.

And a seemingly endless amount of times that I couldn’t even begin to count. I had water in my nose. I was starting to take water into my lungs. I couldn't breath. I didn't have enough time above the water to take in enough air. I couldn’t get away from him. I couldn’t swim away – I didn’t have the skills to do that. He was bigger and stronger than me and I was completely overpowered and utterly helpless. After I don’t know how many time of being buried underwater, and realizing that it was not within my power or ability to get away, I tried screaming “help” in between submersions in hopes that someone would realize this was not mutual fun and games and I was really in distress. I remember coming up, completely waterlogged, trying to get out a muffled “help” as best as I could while seeing Stan within a few feet of me walking beside the perimeter of the pool. He did not react to me at all.

I honestly thought I was going to die. Scott was relentless. I only existed for his amusement. I was surrounded by my male Sunday School classmates and my male Sunday School teacher, and no one would help me. No one. If they cared they would have helped me. They would have tried to stop it, right? But I was just a girl – the brunt of the joke. Girls only existed for the pleasure of boys. That stark reality, which I had finally come to fully understand and accept, was my God-given, God-ordained eternal role. Because that’s exactly what I had learned in Sunday School. (And no one can dare tell me now, at this point in my life, that I was wrong to think that. That I misunderstood. It’s too late for that. Because that was my take-away. That was my experience. That was my understanding. And that way of thinking went on to shape and influence every single aspect of my life and my choices and my worldview to this very day.)

Somehow, eventually, maybe because some of the times Scott pushed me under I was gradually being pushed a little further away from him, I was able to place my hand on the edge of the pool. When I came up for the last time, finally realizing I probably wasn’t going to die and he wasn’t going to be able to push me down again, we made eye contact. I must have looked like someone approaching death because initially, maybe for a split second, Scott looked at me in a way that led me to believe he might have realized what he had done. That he went way too far. That he honestly could have killed me. And maybe, if I read it right in the midst of my trauma and distress, his facial expression indicated that he might have felt just a little bit bad. But like I said, that only lasted a nanosecond.

Because then he laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

I turned, inched my way to the ladder, and climbed out. I couldn’t speak. I remember letting out several long, very un-lady-like belches as my lungs tried to expel water. I was hugely embarrassed. But no one really noticed.

I don’t remember what happened after that. I don’t know if I got back in the pool or if I ate anything. I tried telling Stan after the fact but he didn’t really listen…not really. He didn’t take it seriously. It was a party after all.

And if he didn't take it seriously and hold Scott accountable why would I believe that anyone else would?  

But if I didn’t know it before, that Sunday School party definitely taught me who I was, and it taught me about my place in the world.

It took decades, but the nightmares gradually became less frequent – nightmares about drowning because someone wouldn’t stop pushing my head under water while I was completely unable to stop it. The worst nightmare, though, was many years later when I was pregnant. A hand was holding my giant pregnant body under water and refused to let me up. The hardest part was waking up in bed and realizing that I hadn’t actually died. Because I died in that dream. I didn’t expect to wake up much less find myself in my own bed. It took me quite a while to get my wits about me.

Scott’s family moved to Utah where he finished public school. Several years later he came back to Lubbock for a visit. When he approached me at church to shake my hand, after testifying that he had  returned to faithful church activity following a stint of riotous living, I just returned his brief pleasantries and left it at that. As much as I wanted to tell him off for how he almost killed me that day in the pool, I knew he wouldn’t even remember it. It would not be on his radar. Not in the least. It was just another fun-filled day in the life of a typical teenage American boy.

But to me, it will forever be triggering.