On Being Known

One of the hardest parts of my healing journey has been learning to share myself, learning to be comfortable with being known.

I suppose it first started, in my memory, with Nikita in the fourth grade. Niki was a boy I went to school with. When I first moved to his school, he began following me. First a little, then a lot, until I wasn't comfortable being out on the playground. Teachers intervened, but barely. He was told to give me more space. I was told it was harmless; he just liked me a lot. After that, it was no longer a problem at school, during school hours, but I felt uncomfortable every time he showed up somewhere that I happened to be.

A few years later, there was Chester. Chester was a local, known child abuser. When I was in seventh grade, Chester had been seen at a school band concert (don't ask me why he was even there, as a known threat to children). Someone sitting behind him noted that he had circled my name and the name of one other girl in his program booklet. My male principal called me into his office the next school day to notify me of this, and that he hadn't been able to reach my mom on the phone yet. So I sat there and took in this information on my own. Later, all the girls in my class had to take a r*pe self-defense course led by our male principal and another male teacher.

From then on, for several months, I wasn't allowed to be or go anywhere alone. When they (whoever 'they' were) decided it was safe enough for me to walk home from school again, a police car followed a block or so behind for a time. By this point, a theme was emerging: that there was something about me that caused too much or too deep a liking in other people. And that I just had to deal with it.

Less than a year later, we moved to a new school in a new town, with a new issue. Enter Colin. Colin was two or so years older than me, but he became quickly obsessed. He would follow me around day and night. While my family was temporarily living in a camper, he would lurk, walking circles around our home all day. One day after school, he stole my shoes and told me I could only have them if I kissed him. I walked home shoeless that day. No one asked me where my shoes went. While I was scared, I was told repeatedly over the next 1-2 years that Colin was harmless and that he just liked me a lot.

By now, the pattern was clearly evident: there was something in me that was causing these men to become this way or to feel this way towards me. Worse, it was clear to me that this was going to keep happening, and I'd just have to live with it. Unfortunately, there were more incidents to come.

When I was 16, I was sexually assaulted at a party. It took months for me to understand that I had even been sexually assaulted. But once I realized, I didn't tell a soul. See, I knew two other girls my age who had both been assaulted under different circumstances, and in both cases, there was no justice and a whole lot more harm. With that in mind and heart, it would be a whole year before I told even one person, and then five more years after that before I told anyone else.

Why would I speak up when I knew the response would be the same: that boy just liked me a lot and [insert excuse here].

The first person I told would be my first long-term relationship, Tanner. Our relationship started like any other in high school, we met at prom, got to know each other through innocent hangouts and board games, bonding over our shared nerdiness. In the beginning, all was well, and why wouldn't it be? He was a stand-up young man, beloved by all in the community who knew him. He was a kid who was Going Places, and he knew it.

By the time we had been together for a year, Tannur was off to college and broke up with me. I was sad but not too concerned. Within a week, he called me begging me to come back. Looking back, I think of that as the turning point. Starting then, with that first reunion, things began to deteriorate, first slowly, then faster.

Suddenly, one day, I woke up and found myself in a confusing place, with this partner who was deeply concerned with Owning me and having full control over my life. With someone who wanted to Have me not to Love me. I had no friends of my own, my sense of worth was tied up with a boy who, in turns, obsessively loved me or obsessively hated and felt threatened by me. At times, these intense swings of his obsession had become physical. The second time we parted ways, I left him. But, as a classic manipulator, he kept me in his coils by threatening suicide if I left him. So we got back together, something that I felt deep inside was not right, even in the moment. One night, after four years of this, I again told him this wasn't working. Prepared for his usual suicide threat, I was shaken when he said, "if you leave me I'm going to kill you, your next boyfriend, and then myself". It was such a specific threat that I felt the realness of, having lost a friend in high school to a double murder suicide of these exact conditions.

That night I hardly slept, and the thought that kept me awake was this: if death is on the table (which it now was), I would rather die trying to get out of this relationship than die because I stayed in it. By the good graces of my only friends - my college roommates - I got myself out. Again, though, I didn't tell anyone what I had gone through with him. I knew the story that I would be told, "he's harmless, he just loves you and doesn't know how to deal with it."

Unfortunately, though, this pattern in my life was not yet done. After our breakup, our mutual advisor, seeing me in a vulnerable state, apparently saw his opening. He began texting me, just friendly at first, checking on me. Then he was texting me more often, and later in the evening until he began drunk texting me about how obsessed he was with me late into the night. We'd be in groups of people, in public, and he's send me sexually explicit texts. I won’t even go into the terrible (and I mean TERRIBLE) process of working with my university’s Title IX office, as I attempted to navigate this.

By the time I had extricated myself from my ex, and this advisor, and began building a solo, independent life for myself, I hardly even knew who 'myself' was. But what I did know was that whoever’ myself’ was, I did not want to share them. Being myself and letting myself be known had only brought me trouble for my WHOLE LIFE. While I might have looked outwardly like an extrovert at this point in life, the fact is that for years, no one really knew me because I refused to be known. I became adept at learning about others deeply without letting them learn anything about me. It was safe that way, I felt protected. Secure.

It was safe that way, I felt protected. Secure.

That's how I spent much of my twenties. Within myself. Sure, I still met new people, made new friends, and even did some light dating. But it was always from behind a veil, a curtain that I felt blurred my edges just enough to prevent the risk of piquing someone's attention too much. Now, at 31, I'm finally fully myself all day, every day. I'm no longer afraid to share myself, and have come to learn that nothing about me caused these events in my life. I've learned that sharing myself is the most beautiful and wholesome thing that I can do in this life. Perhaps most importantly, I've learned that the world needs me and all that I have to share of myself, that my spirit and my essence are vital not just to me but to those who find themselves around me. Now,

being known is a beautiful and liberatory practice that I try to practice every day.

Now, being known is a beautiful and liberatory practice that I try to practice every day.

Endless gratitude to the deep love of my partner and best friend, to the connections that I've grown with my closest beloveds, who helped me practice sharing myself all along the way, and to the amazing work and team of We Are Her. For all of you, I have nothing but love in my heart.