THE TRIGGER WARNING
A personal five-part essay on the aftershock of childhood sexual abuse.
I. Introduction
II. Church
III. Sex
IV. Dear Body
V. The temporary bio
PART I. INTRODUCTION
I. Introduction
The first event took place on the living room floor. My cousin insisted I lay on her and as I reached for the toy truck in the corner of my eye I could feel myself leave my body. The second was in a bathroom at the hands of two visiting musicians from Mexico, one of which I was affectionately close to.
A blackout and an incomplete memory from the second event prevents me from painting a full picture, but it was enough to launch my ascent into a downward spiral for years to come. You don’t need the details of either event, but they happened. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view it, compartmentalizing has its perks. The evidence is written all over my past.
At ten years of age, sex had already interrupted my developing body. I call it sex because that is the noun we use to describe a vulnerable and powerful force of human expression between individuals. Where violence or pleasure can be derived depending on the context.
My experience wasn’t consensual or pleasant. It was early training in dissociation-as-survival for the permanent branding-of-abandonment on my body, mind, and spirit. The church, my family’s fifty-year spiritual and physical inheritance, have their own way of transforming transgressions into acts of redemption. The promise of salvation is enough to absolve you of your actions no matter who you inflict them on. Like the stories you hear about catholic priests transferred from parish to parish, the manipulation and sexual exploitation of children, were not out of bounds in my family or church but rather propagated by the deafening silence. I was a gay kid looking for love through inappropriate touch, awkward proposals, secret manipulation, and full rejection of my own body. As I got older I got fatter and I want to think that my body intuitively understood that the more weight I gained the better my shield of protection was.
My bumbling search for healing which began in the pentecostal church has led me down the dizzying road of male-survivor retreats, suicide attempts, cruel relationships, SAA meetings (Sexual Addicts Anonymous), meditations, a mental institution, yoga, chants, binge drinking, weight loss surgery, EMDR therapy, late-night cruising in the parks, violent encounters, nightmares, prayers, tears and rage that arrives in unexpected circumstances. The hand of covid isolation forces me to reckon with the pain and the reality in which these memories were triggered. You may express shock, embarrassment, curiosity, dismay, sadness, pity, disgust, anger, annoyance, or any variety of those emotions. You’d be correct to have these feelings bubble up especially if you have been on the receiving end of another’s demon and for that, I am sorry it happened to you too.
The cumulative events lasted about an hour. It’s the ripple effect over my life that has outlasted the events themselves. I stay in therapy because it’s become my support and my lifeline. I still have loads of unanswered questions but I press on and I have days when my body refuses to catch up to my mind — so I trip, fall, drop, break things and apologize all day. I’m not sorry anymore. I hope you will listen.
