My Story

First, I am fascinated by the etymology of names, and mine is a good one. Caroline means "woman," and Elizabeth–as in the mother of John the Baptist–means "blessed by God." One of the things my parents did right with me was in choosing my name.

Secondly, the story I have to tell is a dirty and shameful story, riddled with guilt. It involves a strong need for secrecy and silence and non-disclosure. But it is not my shame, is not my guilt. I am not dirty. Silence is not my need, but that of those who hurt me. It is my story, and I have the right to tell it. I have the right to own it.

But probably the most important reason I want to use my own name is that on Christmas Day, 1971, the Reverend John Strickland held the infant that I was in his arms and demanded of my mother (Daddy was in Viet Nam) and Godparents, "Name this child." They did, and then, in what I believe to be the most powerful ritual of the Christian faith, he bathed me in grace, with the words, "Caroline Elizabeth, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Then he anointed my head with the oil of the chrism, with the words, "Caroline Elizabeth, you are sealed by the power of the Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ's own forever." Not sometimes, not when I behave, not when God feels like it, not if I obey all the rules. Always. Forever. No questions asked. AMEN.

My name is Caroline Elizabeth, and you may call me that.

I cannot even begin to tell all the details of the abuse I suffered as a child. But I can provide an outline and I can discuss where I stand in my life right now. These are the things I remember...

Whatever else I must say about my eldest sister, first I must say that she loved me when I was little. She held me. She taught me to sing. She taught me to read. She made sure I ate and bathed and got to school and was dressed. My eldest sister took care of me when I was little. My eldest sister loved me as well as she knew how.

I remember the lamp on my bedside table. It was a Bicentennial commemorative lamp. I got it in Boston during July of 1976. I remember every detail of that lamp, but I only vaguely remember my oldest sister lying next to me in bed and the things she had me do. I remember the books she read to me. I remember the sound of her voice....the gingham dog and the calico cat side by side on the table sat. ‘Twas half past twelve, and what do you think? Not one nor the other had slept a wink...I am Sam. Sam-I-am... That Sam-I-am, that Sam-I-am, I do not like that Sam-I am...Do you like green eggs and ham? But the feel of her hands on me is only a shadow in my memory.

I was no younger than 4, and no older than 6.

I remember the summer my little sister was born. I was not quite 8 years old. She arrived in May, and my grandparents came from Florida. They decided that it would be a good idea to take the middle children back with them to spend the summer with Grandma and Grandpa. I remember that summer with great fondness, the last summer I was the baby in any respect. My grandparents owned an RV, in which the children were allowed to play or sleep as we saw fit. I remember the night Todd-from-down-the-street came into the RV with me to play two-handed-Spades. My youngest aunt was 15, and I thought she and her friends were so cool. Most of them put up with me most of the time, but only Todd would really play with me. We got tired of spades and began to play cops and robbers, which is how I ended up with my hands handcuffed behind my back. I do not know how far he got, but I remember the sound of my uncle's voice and turning to see him standing in the door with a cigarette (probably a joint) in one hand, and a large metal pipe in the other. He chased Todd away, and then he LEFT ME THERE...or so I thought, but in a few minutes he returned with shears that would cut through the cuffs. He picked me up without a word, carried me inside, bathed me, made sure I was not injured, wrapped my naked body in a blanket, and put me in his bed where he held me safe and warm and tight until morning. But he never said a word about it.

I remember being slightly older than that, probably 8, the time that same older sister and her boyfriend were discussing whether or not to have sex while she was menstruating. They thought I wasn't old enough to understand the discussion, but they were wrong, and I told them so. I remember when they decided that if I was old enough to understand, I was old enough to experience. I remember the weight of her arms against mine as she held me down and he raped me. I remember vividly the smell of pot and the heat of their bodies. I remember being unable to breathe, but I do not remember any pain. I remember knowing that I could not tell, but they never told me that; it was something I already knew. And when the memories come to haunt me now, it is the weight on my arms that I cannot handle. Because whatever else I must say about my oldest sister, first I must say that she loved me when I was little. My oldest sister took care of me.

I remember that when I was 8, my parents became less than satisfied with the school I was attending, so they put myself and one of my older sisters in a Catholic school. They pulled me from the third grade and put me in fourth. I remember that I was required to attend Mass every morning, but not allowed to receive the sacraments. I remember that I would not say the Rosary, and when confronted by my teacher, I informed her that I am not Catholic, and MY priest told me I didn't HAVE to say the Rosary. Not knowing how to handle such an insolent 8 year old, she sent me to Father Ray. He was a gentle and soft-spoken man, and he knew exactly how to handle brats like me. He taught me to perform fellatio in the name of absolution, assuring me that what we did together was not a sin, because I am not Catholic. This system of discipline worked; I quickly learned to not do things that would get me sent to Father Ray. And Father Ray was half right...what we did together was not MY sin.

I remember the weekend before my twelfth birthday I went to church camp with my youth group. We were at the recreation pavilion listening to the jukebox. 1999, and Little Red Corvette, and Babe...remember Styx? There was a member of the camp staff who told us he had all the albums that included the singles to which we were listening. Four of us went to his cabin to listen to music, and he was so cool, he even let each of us have a beer. When the dinner bell rang, the other three went to Eppes Hall to eat, but I did not. I had not yet resigned myself to the fact that I am always going to be a big woman, and at that age I was in the habit of skipping a lot of meals. Once we were alone, he began to touch me, caress my hair, and he asked me how much older I was than my friends. He refused to believe that I was not yet 12 years old. He became insistent in his touch, and when I tried to leave, he looped a rope–which he already had prepared–around my wrist and tied me to the metal cot and locked the door. While he was raping me, he told me repeatedly that he could tell by looking at my eyes that I was not a virgin, so I might as well just quit playing innocent. I might as well relax. He knew what I really wanted. When he was done I returned to St. Michael's Cabin and showered until the hot water was gone. But I did not tell.

It still amazes me that child predators know by looking which children are vulnerable, yet the other adults in that same child's life seem to have no clue.

I remember the weekend after my twelfth birthday when we (me, my mother, my baby sister, my aunt and her children) had gone to Florida to visit my grandparents for their 40th wedding anniversary. Everybody got drunk, and almost everybody also got stoned. My mother lost it, got really mad, packed me and my baby sister up and got us on a Greyhound to go home. We had driven there in my aunt's car. There was a guy who got on the bus in Daytona, and got off in Birmingham, sitting in the seat behind me. He seemed nice enough. It was the middle of the night, and he told me I could lean my seat back so I could sleep. I did, and he proceeded to allow his hands to wander. He did at one point ask me my age, and was astonished when I told him. But he did not pull his hands away.

I remember that when I was eleven I was babysitting my cousins while my aunt was at work and my uncle was building the house in which they were to live. There were hammocks set up in the back of their lot, and I would take the children there to play. One day it had rained, and I was lying in one of the hammocks, and the fabric split. I fell and landed with the bone of my hip against a root that protruded from the ground. I have recently gone back to that place to check, and the root is still there. I was badly bruised. My uncle took the kids and me back to the house where they were living, put me in bed with an ice pack and some baby aspirin, put the children down for their naps, then returned to my bed. I remember how gently he checked the swelling. I remember how warm his body was as he lie down next to me. I remember the horror I felt when his embrace changed. And I do remember the pain of the first time he raped me.

That "relationship" continued until I was 19 and a sophomore in college. I bit. Then I stabbed him with his own knife. He approached me only one other time, when he was dying of pancreatic cancer. I was 22. He died quickly, diagnosed in mid-October, dead on December 2. He died a horrible death. He suffered excruciating pain. If I could change any one thing about the way he died, I would only want for him to have known he was dying for more than six weeks.

At the age of 13, I found myself carrying his child. I do not know now how I could have handled that situation at that age. But at the time I did the only thing I could do. Having stolen the required $250 from my uncle's drug stash, I walked into the Women's Health Clinic, lied about my name, address, and age, and told them I did not want to be pregnant. I told them to fix it, and they did. I then walked back to the public library, where my mother had left me, thinking I was going to work on my summer reading for advanced English.

You would think I would have figured out what causes that, but that is neither here nor there, and at the age of 15, I found myself carrying my uncle's child again. Only the laws regarding teenager's options in that situation had changed since I was 13, and I discovered that I could not just have an abortion without either parental consent or proof that I was at least 16. I was very close to being 16, so I waited. Only by the time I hit the magical age, I was no longer in my first trimester...I had not realized that would make a difference. So instead of going to the WHC, I utilized the services of a man who is probably not licenced to do anything. I bled for weeks. But my secret was safe. And again the money came from my uncle's drug stash. I am certain that he must have noticed, and I am certain that he knew I took it, but he never said a word about it.

At the age of 18, I found myself YET AGAIN in that unwanted state, by the same means. And at 18 I could have probably cared for a child. At 18, I could have handled my parents' response. At 18 I chose not to terminate that pregnancy, only to discover that the experience at 16 had left me unable to carry. That time, I went to a private doctor, and my father's insurance payed for what was probably reported to him as a diagnostic D&C. My father never asked me about that insurance statement. I have since had surgery to partially repair my reproductive organs and remove scar tissue, and there is a 25% chance that I will be able to bear children when I become ready to do so.

At the age of 19, the summer after my sophomore year of college, I apprenticed to an oboist in another state. It was the first time I could ever remember feeling safe. My uncle did not even know where I was. I began to have nightmares...horrible images invading my sleep... pictures of things that could not be true. I called my pediatrician. I informed the receptionist that I was calling long distance from a pay phone, and that I would hold for the doctor. When he came to the line, I introduced myself, and his response was, "I remember you, and I have your chart from March 12, 1976." He had sewn me back together after the man next door had violated me. My mother knew. And she did not stop it. My mother knew, and she sent me back there. My mother knew, and she still does not know that I know.

That was when I became cognizant of the fact that none of my abusers had ever told me not to tell. I had just always known that I could not tell. I knew that telling was not an option. At that point I realized how I had learned that lesson.

That was when I wrote to my best friend from childhood. She and I had reached a point where we had little in common, and few reasons to contact each other. I had not spoken to her in close to a year. But we have been and still are very close friends. We share a common bond in that we can each say of the other, "She was THERE." I wrote her three words. "I was four." She knew exactly what I meant, and three days later I walked out of the dormitory in which I was staying to find her on the front stoop. She was there for me once again.

That is the sketch. But it is far more important to say where I am now.

Every morning of my life I begin my day by forcing myself to confront my own unwashed image in the mirror and convince myself that I am beautiful and blessed and cherished child of Christ. I have the right to be here. I deserve to be loved, protected, nurtured, nourished, honored. I deserve to live. I am saved, redeemed, washed clean, and made whole.

I fight that battle every day, and I see little sign that believing those things will become less of a struggle for me. I fight that battle with passion and vigor, because I have lost that battle before, and at least once it almost killed me. I fight with the tenacity of a person who knows that she can never lose that battle again, for if I do, it might be the last time I fight it. And I believe that someday I will not have to work so hard to convince myself of the things that we all know when we are born.

I have a lot of problems with DID. I have not been present in my body for most of the time I have been typing this. But I have forced myself to keep typing. (Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will break my heart...) I am dating a wonderful, gentle, and patient man, and I have a hard time staying present in my body when he touches me, but–and this is important–he is willing to wait, and he is willing to help me learn. I AM learning. I black out, do and say things I don't remember later, "lose time," and sometimes find it very difficult to do the things required of me as I try to be a functioning adult.

But I am not psychotic. I am not schizophrenic. I am depressed, but not manic-depressive. DID is a FIXABLE disorder, and I do hold hope that I will someday be whole. I shall be well.

I sometimes do not trust my own perceptions and judgements, but I have learned which of my loved ones I can always trust, and I have people I can ask to reaffirm my ideas.

So about my own life--YES, I was violently and horribly abused as a child, but I am not a child anymore. My parents did not nurture or protect me, but I'm an adult now, and I can do those things myself. Some days are better than others, but I do have those better days. And there is an awful lot in the world that is tragic and melancholy. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that we aren't allowed to see what is beautiful and humorous and blessed.

I have a wonderful, if demanding, therapist. I have a spiritual director who has said magic words–she said she's been there. She said she feels for me, I'm in a horrible place, she knows, she's been there. She said she's been there. I have a priest who is gentle and understanding, but also knows how to call a spade a spade. I have friends in real life who are loving and supporting. I have friends on the internet who respond to the not only the words I say, but also to the words I am unable to say.

I am truly blessed.

Sometimes I can feel words forming in the back of my face, and there's a sound like the world as it ceases to turn. I cannot breathe. And I have not dredged to the bottom of it, but I know that I must if I ever hope to soar again. It is hard when the pit is dark and deep, and I am not sure that the bottom will hold. I have been told that it will not kill. It may hurt, but it will not kill. It sometimes frightens me that I would much prefer that it might kill, but it would not hurt. But I keep on and keep on...

I know now that I have already done the hardest part; I survived the abuse. I am only starting on the journey of healing, but I HAVE BEGUN. And I will finish. I am not healthy, healed , or whole, but I know that those things are possible in my life, and I am working to attain them.

I am not done with the journey, not even close, but I HAVE come to believe that there is both a purpose and a destination. I have come to love the journey itself. I have learned to be patient toward all that is unsolved in my heart, and I try to love the questions themselves.

I have made the important decision; I have decided for my SELF.