(Trigger warning: sexual assualt)
Last month I told the world, on a podcast, that I had been sexually assaulted and molested by a family member. I kept that secret for 20 years…for a lot of reasons. I now know they mostly come down to shame, my internalized white supremacy, and cultural stigmas that made me feel like this trauma was my burden to bear. And just a caveat, my parents are completely loving and supportive people that have never made me feel anything less than loved.
So you would think that I could open up to them. But outing an extended family member to your immigrant parents who gave up everything to come to this country and give you a good life? Well that would crush them. That would be selfish of me to risk their relationship with any of their family when that’s all we have in this country. And what would America and all my white schoolmates think if they found out there was a pervert in my brown family? So I buried it so deep that it would be impossible to dig back up.
This trauma caused a lot of pain that I channeled into what I called drive and ambition. I glorified my hustle to achieve things in life because if I slowed down, my brain would force me to think about difficult things like trauma. So my friends came to know me as someone who was a go-getter, an expert at “adulting,” and “good at life.” Because, I just never showed any “weakness.”
But after I turned 30, my body started to tell me that it was not ok physically. My back started hurting, I had acid reflux, I got headaches and shortness of breath whenever my train of thought would go anywhere near the mere idea of unpacking trauma.
It hurt my body to feel. If that isn’t poetic…
So I went to therapy for the first time in my life at age 32 because I just couldn’t get away from my brain spinning, my heart aching, and that pit in my stomach chipping away at me.
At age 34, I can confidently say that therapy taught me that it was ok to need people. That it was ok to go ask for help from people other than my family. I started small. I reached out to my best friend who became my warm up round before finally telling my parents. I defaulted to vulnerability in many social situations and that led to telling other friends. My therapist helped me find breath exercises I could do to reduce my anxiety around discussing my trauma. It became easier and easier to talk about this trauma as something that happened to me rather than something that defines me.
Therapy allowed me to free my body and mind from the trap of my trauma. I know this to be true because my husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for 2 years before I went to therapy and it just didn’t happen. 4 months after I started going to therapy and 1 month after telling my mom about what happened to me, I got pregnant.
So if you’re reading this and you feel trapped by something that has happened to you. I promise you you are not alone. Think about something you want really badly for yourself that feels impossible to get. Then try therapy and friendship. Those are my two bedrocks now. They gave me my little girl and solidified all of my relationships.
You deserve to get that thing. You deserve to feel without pain. You are loved.