Discovering My Scars: Chapter 10 "Dear God"

Steph and Beth continue to listen to the audiobook version of Steph’s memoir, Discovering My Scars, and discuss what is revealed in chapter 10.

In this chapter, God reveals to Steph that she was sexually abused  when she was a young child. Steph shares that truth with people she trusts and she finds both common ground and grief.

At the end of the episode, Steph and Beth offer you these Questions for Reflection:
(1) What do you think of how God reveals truth to people?
(2) Have you ever shared a hard truth with a friend and found common ground?
(3) Do you need solid proof to believe things in your own life (like the videotape Steph found), or do you trust your intuition?
(4) Have you discovered someone in your life was not a safe person? What was that reveal like for you?

Buy Discovering My Scars
Audiobook: https://amzn.to/2XCe9a3
Paperback: https://amzn.to/2O4U5dh
ebook: https://amzn.to/2r8mPsA

Steph: https://www.stephaniekostopoulos.com
Beth: http://bethdemme.com

Transcript

Beth: 0:03

Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars podcast.

Steph: 0:05

Were we share personal experiences so we can learn from each other. I'm Steph and I'm Beth. I've been in recovery for 17 years and am the author of Discovering my Scars, my memoir about what's done in the darkness eventually comes to light.

Beth: 0:16

I'm a lawyer turned pastor who's all about self-awareness and emotional health, because I know what it's like to have neither of those things.

Steph: 0:22

Beth and I have been friends for years, have gone through a recovery program together, and when I wanted to start a podcast, she was the only name that came to mind as co-host.

Beth: 0:29

I didn't hesitate to say yes because I've learned a lot from sharing personal experiences with Steph over the years. We value honest conversations and we hope you do too. On today's show, we're going to have an honest conversation titled Discovering My Scars Chapter 10. And the show will close with questions for reflection.

Steph: 0:45

We'll invite you to reflect on the conversation in your own life.

Beth: 0:48

Maybe a quick summary what's happened up to this point.

Steph: 0:52

Why don't you give a quick summary, Beth? That would be great to see if you've been paying attention.

Beth: 0:58

So at this point in Steph's journey, as she is telling it to us in the book, she has had a really misunderstood experience with NSSI, which is non-suicidal self-injury, and she actually was taken to a mental hospital for a few days, which was a traumatic experience and resulted in PTSD. And so she's in treatment with Dr Jill and she had been let's see already in the book you've worked at Apple and you've taken time off to go home from Orlando, to go back to Tallahassee to really work on your mental health and kind of get I don't know if stable is exactly the right word, but to get clear to get healthier, to get well, and yeah, that's kind of where we pick up.

Steph: 1:48

Good job.

Steph: 1:49

Yeah what a great review. All right, so we'll get started with chapter 10. Chapter 10, dear God, one thing I still had not fully addressed in my recovery with Dr Jill was why I use NSSI as a coping strategy. Because of this, six years after being released from Nicole's place, in a year after working on my PTSD, the thoughts were still there. They were always there when I was upset, sad or just doing normal everyday things. When I needed any solution or resolution, my thoughts would still turn to self-injury. When self-injury didn't work, I just escaped my life.

Steph: 2:28

One of my favorite pastimes was watching a good movie or TV show. I had a great collection of my favorites on DVD and would pop one into the player when I needed an escape. As technology changed, my DVDs turned into digital copies living on my hard drive. Then the world of streaming came along and Ben's watching TV shows became a new world for me. Streaming made it so easy to escape for unknown hours into countless shows I would have never seen before, as I did my normal Netflix search. One day I came across Felicity, when it was originally on TV. I had seen maybe one episode, but that's it, because the show hadn't interested me. But now, as an adult who had graduated from college, it seemed like an interesting show to watch and not too much of a commitment. At four seasons Over a long weekend I watched it non-stop During the super binge. I even dreamed of the show when I slept. That's how I knew I had watched too much, but since I was really depressed, I couldn't stop myself.

Steph: 3:26

Now, so many years later, I don't remember much about the show. I remember it was about college and that it brought me right back to my college days. It was triggering and it frustrated me. It frustrated me because six years after my college days, I was still stuck in college. I hadn't grown past my unhealthy coping habits. I spent so long dealing with my PTSD. Why is self-injury still such a part of me?

Steph: 3:52

I thought I had done therapy with Dr Jill. I had talked to my family and friends about the hospital and about what I had been going through. I was done. I was mad. I was mad at me. No, I was mad at God. I yelled and prayed to him. I have done all this work. I was tortured in a mental hospital. I was treated like dirt. I went back for treatment and learned that I have PTSD and I worked through that. I have done everything, I have tried to become healthy and whole and still I deal with NSSI. I wasn't on my knees when I said this. I was flat on my face, lying on my bed with my head where my feet would be when I sleep. I was getting no godly answers through my anger and tearful prayer.

Beth: 4:34

That sounds like a truly low moment as you hear yourself reading back the audiobook. Do you remember that moment Emotionally? Do you remember that moment?

Steph: 4:46

Yeah, it was definitely one of my lowest moments and all of that frustration I can feel. It's not something that I think too much of now, all these years later, but definitely just hearing the words and reading back, I can remember exactly where I was, all of the things that happened in that moment.

Beth: 5:11

Were there other times in your journey where you hit a low point and you called out to God like this None that I can remember specifically this intense.

Steph: 5:23

I think I addressed it in the book, but I feel like I was connecting with God during these low moments. I was having a dialogue, but not to this degree. I would say yes, and I feel like that's what kept me from anything worse. What happened in this one time was bad, but I do think I was connected throughout my whole journey. Even though it was really hard and it seems like I was left and lost, I still felt like that is. What kept me here was that I still did have that connection to God.

Beth: 6:00

Yeah, you do talk in the book about a mustard seed space faith. I know that even even a little granule of faith can sustain us in the hardest times and I think that that's that you're turning to that, to that seed You're turning to that. You know reality in your life, in this moment. Okay, let's see what happens.

Steph: 6:23

In the silence. I began a Google search for answers. I typed in why do I struggle with self injury? Google brought me to pages about the disease. Then I saw it. I kept seeing it and couldn't stop.

Steph: 6:37

A common reason for coping with self injury is having been sexually abused. I had read this many years before. It was always in the back of my head. I never told anyone and I never let myself think about it too much. I just told myself that that did not happen to me, that I must be dealing with NSSI for other reasons. But that day it struck me like a punch to the gut. It stayed there and it's all I could think about. Then the pain and tension went away. In that moment I knew that sexual abuse have resulted in my NSSI.

Steph: 7:16

The room fell silent. I couldn't hear the cars driving outside my window. My brain emptied. My body lay flat on the bed. I felt like an empty vessel, all the junk filling my brain and body. Pains were gone Just moments before.

Steph: 7:31

I had truly been at my lowest. I had done every human thing I knew to deal with my mental health and still I had been at a loss. That's when I had come to God, when I had nothing left. I had yelled at him because I had nothing left to lose. I yelled at him because I, a human he had made, was made so flawed, and he wouldn't tell me why. Yet now I was open to anything. I threw out my human fears, doubts and speculations. I was open to whatever the truth might be. In that moment my faith was the size of a mustard seed. Nothing was impossible.

Steph: 8:08

Then God showed me my truth. There was baby Stephanie in her crib, around two years old. My point of view was a high angle, as if from a security camera. I saw a close family member, a column person, see, walk into the room. His face was very clear to me. I knew it was him right away. He walked up to baby Stephanie and put his finger where it didn't belong in a child or non-concepting adult. Baby Stephanie was still asleep and after this act he left.

Steph: 8:41

In a flash the scene disappeared from my head. Then there was just silence. I was back in my head and I thought was that real? Did that really happen to me? Am I seeing a memory? How could it be a memory with me so young? I wasn't even awake and then I heard a voice in my head, which I knew for sure was not mine. It was God's voice. This is your truth. This is the truth behind your in-SSI. In that moment it all hit me. My life hit me. Everything became clear. I traced moments of my life and it all clicked. Thoughts and feelings I never understood before all made sense with this puzzle piece in place.

Beth: 9:24

Wow, I'm conflicted over whether God revealing that to you is a gift.

Steph: 9:33

Hmm, interesting, I think it is, because I mean, it's taken a lot of time and perspective and everything, but there was always something dark inside, and I mean at age 14, I was diagnosed with depression. On the surface, I had no reason to be depressed. There was no reason. There was nothing in my life that I should have been depressed about, and I could not tell you why I was depressed. And there was just always this darkness, this cloud, that I didn't understand, and so it's so painful to have the truth revealed, but in reality it was so freeing.

Steph: 10:17

So, as much as no one wants hard stuff, hard stuff is hard, like it's in the name. We don't want to deal with hard stuff, but having gone through this, I know the importance of it because it released me and it was allowed me to explore every trace of my life and of my existence and of the things that are dark. So when good stuff happens, like oh God made this happen. And when bad stuff happens, we just can't rationalize like what happened, but, like for me, I feel like God is part of all of that, and as much as we try to look at bad stuff and we don't want to deal with it, like that's just part of life and being human and stuff that we have to go through, because bad stuff happens in this world. Really, bad stuff happens all the time in this world and we have to look at it. We have to look and we have to understand it so that it doesn't keep getting pushed in the darkness and then not addressed so it wouldn't be in your way anymore.

Steph: 11:21

Exactly, yeah, but it all came at the right time, like I think through, like when I was struggling with depression and in a society if I had turned to alcohol or drugs or you know, being going to parties and things like that, like I feel like this kind of thing could have been revealed in a much worse way in time in life that I wasn't ready for and then could have just continued to more destructive actions. So, ultimately, like it was the perfect moment. Now, looking back at it, and I had done so much work that needed to be done before I could even understand this part of it too. There was a point where I was like mad that I didn't know about it before. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm like in my 20s. This was like when I was two like why did it take this long? But it took this long because I had to get to the place to truly be able to cope with it. That's a good point.

Beth: 12:16

And you had, you had some of your toolkit in place, you know, you had your support structure in place, and so and so the timing of when this truth was revealed to you was actually grace filled. Yes, yeah, yeah. It's hard to tell, it's hard to say out loud. Let me just speak for my own experience. Even as a pastor, it is hard for me to say out loud God has said this to me, or God has revealed this to me, or this is a truth that I know because of the Holy Spirit. So I wonder if it was hard for you, as as you were writing the book and as you, you know, as you have released the book into the world, to to kind of be on record saying God showed me something.

Steph: 13:07

Yes, uh for sure, that was definitely something that I struggled with when it happened. You know, explain it to people. When I wrote it, when I publish it, yeah, every step of the way, even hearing it now, like I'm like, oh no, oh no, you know. And there are, there are different, um, like recreational drugs and like mushrooms and things like that, like, or ayahuasca or something. There's like these different kinds of chemicals, reactions that can happen when we use, you know, different kinds of substances and people go on journeys to learn these things about their life and when they take these drugs and get into these other states, they and I'm not, I've never used anything like that I'm not actually like, I don't have a full opinion on really any of it. I do know a lot of those things are are being tested in a mental health capacity by professionals for a tool for, you know, mental health recovery and learning about these things, because it puts you in a different state to be able to, like, discover things. I've seen programs about these and things like that, and when I hear it I'm like, wow, look what was revealed. And I don't think anything that they are crazy for late, these reveals and things like that. But when I hear someone, when I hear someone say God told them this or that, you know, even I, having gone through the experience, even I am like, okay, right. So it's definitely a weird spot to be in because on one hand, it's literally happened to me, so I believe that it can happen, but then, on the other hand, I'm like if I had just like discovered this in some kind of like ritual setting or something, I feel like people would believe it more than more than this. So, in my experience, I do believe. Well, all I can do is speak for myself. I do believe I can get to the place of this kind of thing happening without, like, the assistance of drugs and stuff like that.

Steph: 15:06

Is it, was it freaking hard? Yes, would I like recommend someone to get this depressed in her life so they can read? No, I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, everyone is different and all I can do is share my journey. But it's not I don't share my journey to say you know, this is the path. Everyone's path is different. I feel like there is no, no path that looks the same. But all I can do is encourage people to explore their lives and to try to understand. You know what has made them who they are today and if they want to make changes in that. That's really what the story is about. It's not like God will tell you these things when you get really really depressed Right.

Beth: 15:46

But I do think that there is. I do think that it takes courage, because there is a risk of people saying, Steph, this experience is not verifiable, Therefore, this is not reliable.

Steph: 15:59

You know, this is something that that your, that your mind has invented, which is easy to go to because you already know I have mental illness and so it's easy to say your mind made this up 100%. I've, I've said it all to myself. I've said all of that like what I think people might say about it. But ultimately it doesn't matter, because I know this happened, I'm secure in it, I'm confident in it. So you can say whatever you want to me, but I've done a lot of work to be secure in my truth and to not let other people tell me this or that. But yeah, I mean, does God tell you stuff, reveal stuff to you?

Beth: 16:38

Yes, I've not had any past experiences reallumined. I don't think none are coming to mind off the top of my head, but I do feel like I get guidance from God and I, you know, I have an act of prayer life and actually wish that I would spend more time in contemplation because I think that's where I really feel a sense of God's direction. But yeah, I definitely. I mean, listen, I would not be a pastor if I did not think that's what God wanted me to do. I would, I would be happily unemployed. So I definitely feel like God has, has talked and does continue to talk to me.

Steph: 17:20

Do you feel like you have to be in a conscious prayer setting to hear from God?

Beth: 17:26

I think that's when I am aware of it, and sometimes I mean, really, hindsight is a beautiful gift, right, and so sometimes there'll be a series of things that will happen. And then in hindsight I can go oh, I see it now, right. Oh, I see how God was directing me or inviting me or nudging me in a way that I didn't really have an awareness of in the moment.

Steph: 17:49

I mean, hindsight is good, but isn't it, wouldn't it be better if we could see hindsight in the moment Like, instead of having to see it after and then like, oh man, I could have been like way less stressed about that if I had realized it in the moment. Yeah, I mean, wouldn't it be better if we could just like understand it just instantly?

Beth: 18:08

It would probably be easier, yeah, but it would probably be less human.

Steph: 18:11

Yes, that would be more robot and that's not us yeah.

Beth: 18:16

So in the book, god has revealed this to you and you immediately felt relief. Yes, interesting.

Steph: 18:25

I think it's because it had been, you know, 20 something years of draining on me without realizing what it was. So it's, finally I was able to see the source of the drain.

Beth: 18:36

Yeah, you know I often have. I often will say to people that grief is one of those things that will wait for you, but until just now I had not made the connection that it's not just grief. Everything that we need to work on waits for us and weighs on us, ways on us and can erode our well-being as it waits, and so as soon as you had this important piece of the puzzle, it wasn't draining you anymore because it wasn't waiting. Yeah, Interesting.

Steph: 19:18

As long as I can remember, I had an obsession with person C liking me. I wanted him to think I was cool and want to spend time with me. I never understood why I didn't have these feelings toward other family members. Now I saw that I was the victim of trauma. My brain had rewired itself and had sought approval from my abuser. Almost two years before I learned of my truth, my mom and I were out of town staying with person C. Since the musical Wicked came out, my favorite singer has been Adina Menzel. I'm a fan of everything she does Love her, love her voice, love it all. In 2010, I saw that she was going on tour and would be on tour with me. I saw that she was going on tour and would be in person C's town.

Steph: 20:01

This was the first time I was old enough to drink with person C, so he was excited to teach me to drink tequila. We had a couple of shots at his house with my mom and person C's husband. Yes, person C is gay, not partaking. We were just having our own little party, carefree and really careless. He had the bright idea to walk the streets at night, so person C filled us each a full cup of tequila and we were on our way. My mom fought this, but he convinced her we were fine. Person C said don't you trust me? Deep down? She did not, but she couldn't stop us from leaving. I should mention that I had never done a lot of drinking, but I was excited to be with person C and he was cool, so I wanted him to think I was cool too. I never drank when I was under age or got drunk with my friends, but all my common sense went out the window when I drank with him.

Steph: 20:51

We were walking the streets, made a few stops and then everything went blank. I don't remember anything else. The next thing I saw were police officers, feet. My head was on the concrete and person C was in my ear, yelling at me to get up. Still to this day I can hear his voice right up in my ear with force and anger Get up, get up off the ground. I struggled to stand. It was so hard because I felt unbalanced and my legs didn't work. Then I heard person C say to the officers she's my family, she's fine, we're headed home. The officers left. I half walked, half held up back to his condo. When we arrived I collapsed in the middle of his floor on his rug. I threw up most of the night and my mom looked after me. She later told me how scared she was and that she feared I might have alcohol poisoning.

Steph: 21:39

The next day I felt like death. I'd never felt so weirdly sick before. I could hardly move. I felt so embarrassed that I drank too much and sorry my mom had to take care of me the whole day. I couldn't do anything but just lay on the couch. Then it came time to go to the concert and I didn't feel any better. But I got enough strength to get on the subway. When we got off at our stop I ran to a trash can to throw up. Not a proud moment, not proud at all. The concert was great.

Steph: 22:09

Adina was charming as ever, but it was a rough day when I was fully sober and could process what had happened. It struck me as also strange. I want a person C to like me, so I had drinks with him. He kept giving me drinks, so I thought he knew what enough would be for me. I trusted him to keep me safe and not let me drink too much, just as my friends had done for me in the past. But he didn't stop me. This was the first time I realized person C might not be a safe man. And now, two years later, I was learning the truth of what happened to me when I was two years old. He didn't keep me safe at two and he didn't keep me safe at 24.

Beth: 22:47

What do you think happened? Where did the police officer come from? Why were you on the ground?

Steph: 22:54

I must have passed out, I guess I have no idea. And isn't that crazy like that in that moment a police officer would be there too. Right Like so. How long was that amount? Of time Right.

Beth: 23:05

Yeah, I mean, was this the kind of neighborhood where police officers were? Police officers were just like walking a beat.

Steph: 23:11

It was a major city, so I would assume they were just kind of around. Yeah, I don't even really know where we were, like he lived in a city, but I don't know where we were in the city Interesting, ok, and you don't remember where you went, right, or how many places you went.

Steph: 23:28

We I think we weren't, we didn't go in anywhere. And he also brought more alcohol too. Like he like poured like a big cup full and I think it was just tequila that he put in it. And my mom was like, no, don't bring that, Just bring water or something. And like he like pretended like he poured it out, but he just like kept alcohol in it. That's all we had with us was alcohol. So someone that never really drinks and then is just purely drinking alcohol I mean now as a like full grown adult I know I can have like one drink. Then I'd have to drink like a whole water than one drink if I was to. But I really have like, if I drink I have like one drink and that's it.

Steph: 24:08

And.

Beth: 24:08

I don't drink tequila, obviously. Yeah, I mean also like part of me, and then maybe this is just the adult in me, but it's like, why would someone think that was a good time? Like let's leave the house, where we're safe and comfortable, and go walk on the streets to drink some more, but not go to any like bars or clubs, I don't know, it just doesn't sound fun to me.

Steph: 24:31

Well, he sexually abused me at two years old, so he doesn't seem like the most stand up smart person that there ever was. Yeah, so this happened and a few I don't remember how long it's been, maybe like a few years ago I was processing like sometimes these things that have happened to me in my past, so like something will happen in my life currently, and then I'll have like flashbacks to these moments but like process other things that happened. Like at this time I didn't have this, this was all I knew. But like a few years ago I like process this and I had another one of those God moments where you know he just talking, talking, talking and I'm sorry to interrupt because I know that you hate that, but are you saying God's a verbal processor and that God interrupts?

Steph: 25:28

No, I'm saying that God will. I feel that God will speak to me at different times in different ways. So there was other things that happened during this too. I kind of cut it down. Like he called one of my good friends, like when we were like, oh, we were sitting on the steps of a church at one point and he called one of my good friends and he I had never talked to this friend before and he was just like, hey, man, keep her safe, just always, keep her safe. Like really, just, you know, whatever you do is keep her safe, like something like that. Like I don't remember this, but my friend told me this. It was a male friend of mine and he told me that and he said it was really weird because he obviously was coherent and on the other end of the line, so he didn't know it was going on, but he just heard like this person saying these things and he thought that was really weird. And so what I believe happened when I passed out or before I passed out is, I believe that person C told me what happened when I was two. He was drinking and was trying to finally like get it off his chest and like make amends in some capacity so that he could like move on. And so what I believe is he told me, maybe on the steps of the church, I don't know, that would be wonderful. And then I passed out after he told me because it was like too much for me to take. And then but I don't have any conscious memory of that, but I do believe that's what happened and that also sets the stage of why he thought it was a good idea to get us really drunk and then walk the streets, Because that might have been, that may have been. His plan was to finally tell me this so that he could like move on and feel like he's like done his part. And so I do think that makes the story piece together a little bit more.

Steph: 27:34

In the darkness of my bedroom, after life had become so much clearer to me, I spoke with God. This talk was nothing like I'd ever experienced. When I say talk, I mean I could hear his words in my head and knew they were not my own. When I talked back, I formed the words in my head. It was not audible, talking like with another human. As he spoke, he sounded like me, he used words I use and talked on my level. I asked him why. He told me that he speaks to me like this because it's the most comfortable way for me to understand. He didn't sound like a booming voice from above or use language like thou and thee. He talked like a friend so I could understand every word. This was the first time I had experienced a conversation with God. I had never heard his voice this clear before.

Steph: 28:23

I asked him questions about my life, about where he was at certain points and about the future. I asked him where he was when I cut my arm so many times. I was there. I was always there with you, holding the scissors, making sure you didn't cut too deep. I cried with you when the pain was too much, God told me.

Steph: 28:43

Growing up, I was always skeptical when church people would say they had talked to God. I had thought there's no way. That's a thing. It's never happened to me, so it must not be real. Once it did happen to me, I knew that it was very real. Since that night I have had conversations with God on many occasions. It's real and mind-blowing. Every time, After the reveal of my truth, I had to tell someone.

Steph: 29:07

Through therapy I had learned that I couldn't just leave things like this inside. At the time, the closest person to me, both physically and emotionally, was my Apple co-worker, Jason. We lived in the same apartment complex and had developed a long-time friendship. I walked down to his door and knocked. We sat down on his floor and I talked. I told him everything and as I shared all the emotions started to hit me. I started crying more and more as I tried hard to get the words out. When I finished, Jason was quiet. I could tell he cared deeply and believed everything I had said. He was just trying to find the right words.

Steph: 29:46

What he said next I could have never imagined. He told me about the sexual abuse that happened to him when he was around seven years old. He had let it drown from his brain when it happened, but when he was a teenager his abuser came to him to apologize. His abuser, also a family member, was going through recovery and needed to make amends with Jason. Jason forgave him. My words brought all this back for Jason. Jason told me about the event, his emotions and his abuser like in my case, it was a man. We were both crying. Now, realizing this huge revelation bonded us even closer as friends. He ended by telling me he had never shared that with anyone else. He had kept it all locked inside.

Beth: 30:30

This is probably the same obvious, but you had permission to share this information. Jason remains a good friend in your life.

Beth: 30:39

I see this as another. I see Jason's presence in your life in that moment as another moment of grace that you had somebody who was not only safe to process it with, but somebody who could relate to what you had experienced and help you share it without any sense of shame or responsibility. It's one of those things that sometimes, when we're mistreated, we think that it's our fault, and you had somebody with you who, because of a similar experience, understood that no, this is no child's fault.

Steph: 31:23

Yeah, I mean and that's part of the mental toll that sexual abuse takes on someone, though is the blaming yourself and all of that. Yeah, but it was so. I mean it was just such a powerful moment like that. He had gone through very similar things and had the abuser actually talk to him and we've talked about it since and things like that, and it was still hard, even though the abuser apologized and that's still that trauma happened to you and he, I believe he didn't remember it happening, but it all flashback when the abuser brought it up to him, like that it was revealed and he never I don't know if he ever told anyone else about it and it was just kind of something like he stuffed away. But yeah, I mean, I think and that's also showed, it's like, whether your abuser admits it or doesn't, it's still hard.

Steph: 32:22

I didn't wanna lock my experience away. I had locked away in a cold place for too long and it had too much power over me. I was not gonna give my abuser any more power. So shortly after I went to Tallahassee to tell my parents. They were very respectful and listened intently when I shared my truth. They were both trying to figure out the timeline, as they didn't remember a person see ever visiting me in Florida when I was a baby. I didn't have all the answers and I didn't need solid proof to know the truth. I could tell that my dad was trying really hard to not say the wrong thing. He had enough training to know you don't blame the victim and call them a liar. But to this day I can't tell for sure what he really thinks or if he truly believes me. I just needed them to know and I accomplished that.

Steph: 33:09

The last step was confronting my abuser. I had many unanswered questions. How will I react when I see him in person? Will he ever admit to me what he did? Can I forgive him without him saying sorry? I didn't wanna wait and I didn't wanna put much thought into it, so I bought a plane ticket to see him. I arrived and met him in the food area of Amal. I didn't accuse him of anything or bring up the past. We just talked for about two hours on various topics. I can't even remember most of them now.

Steph: 33:39

At the time I was 26 and working my first real job at Apple. He talked about himself in his 20s and how confusing and hard that time was for him. He told me of his first big job in 1985. He also told me about coming out to his friends and family in 1986, my birth year. As he talked, I started to do the math and realized he was the age I was now when he abused me. It was a chilling realization. Ultimately, my goal for the meeting was to see how I would react when I saw him and if I could still be in the same room with him. I learned that I could, but times had changed. I was not seeking his approval anymore. I didn't see him as special anymore. I saw him as a sad, aging and angry man. The meeting was over and that's the last time I saw him. I have not made any effort to see him and he has done nothing to reach out to me. After all that, I have forgiven him, not for him, but for me. He has no control over my life anymore.

Beth: 34:41

I have to stop you because I have so many questions. Okay, I know that you are a person who thinks through things before you do them, and so I know before you bought that plane ticket, you thought about what is this conversation gonna be like? Why did you tell him you were coming into town?

Steph: 34:59

I had a friend that lived nearby that I stayed with, and so that was my line is I was going to see that friend and I just wanted to catch up with him while you were there.

Beth: 35:09

Yeah.

Steph: 35:10

It was only for like a day or two, like it was very short amount of time. I don't remember actually doing much when I was there, because that was the sole reason of going was to have that conversation, but the conversation never turned to what happened when you were two.

Steph: 35:25

No, because I gave space for that conversation.

Steph: 35:29

If that was something like, I kept the conversation kind of specific to you know life conversation, not just like how's the weather. So the space was there, like I set the stage for that to come up if he wanted to, but it wasn't as a victim in this. I didn't need to have that moment of me bringing it up and him denying it because that wasn't going to do anything to help. For you know, I didn't want to get to a place where he's like oh my gosh, you're a liar, do all of those kinds of things, because I know I'm not, I know you did this, but I also like forcing someone to say something. Like even if he was like I'm so sorry, I'm the worst, even if he had like completely apologized, it still would have been hard.

Steph: 36:20

So just like it was for Jason, you know, when his abuser actually told him it's still Although that trauma was still really hard. So I was giving him the space to say something. But even if he didn't say something, I was going to be able to let it go and I just needed that last seeing of him, cause the last time I had seen him. Well, the last time was the drinking Um, and so I just needed that like final moment to make peace with You're no longer in my life and you no longer have control of me.

Beth: 36:56

Yeah, it's really interesting and, I think, great that you were able to get closure without giving him the opportunity to victimize you again, I denying what he had done again. I mean, I I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I just see grace all over this, you know, because there was something about that moment with him that was closure for you that you needed, even if it, even if it isn't what somebody on the outside would say oh, what you needed was for him to admit you know and apologize.

Steph: 37:32

No, you didn't actually need that, that's a luxury that most of us don't get, and I think that was something that I had to learn. The hard way is, or just it was a hard reality is like the world is not a perfect, wonderful place and the things that we need and we deserve and we should have don't happen. And so how can I forgive someone without them? You know apologizing, and I have learned that through these things in my life that I don't I can let you go without you apologizing or even admitting any of this to me, because it's pretty rare that you get that.

Beth: 38:13

Well, and like you say, you did it for yourself. It was all yeah, I mean there's no, there's no need to give him the gift of forgiving him, but you needed to let it go for your own mental health.

Steph: 38:27

Yeah, and I wonder, you know, I think I don't have no idea where he is, what he's doing, any of that, if he's ever been sorrowful, anything like that. But I do like, as we're talking, I wonder like what if he's actually went through recovery program one day and he needed to make his amends, because that's part of it, you know we've gone through recovery program and that's part of it is you make amends, you actually recognize the bad that you've done and apologize to people. I wonder, like if he came to me one day and said I'm sorry for this, ta-da-da-da-da. Um, I think it would be a very easy conversation for me because I had already let it go and him apologizing would actually not change any of the progress and work I've done.

Steph: 39:14

Uh, it would be for him Really. Yeah, it would be for him, and I would be able to tell him all of this work that I've done and how long I've known and all of this, and let him know that I had already forgiven him years before. But that would be for him. All of this was for me, was for me to let go of it, and if he finally one day realizes the importance of admitting the whores he's done and wants to make amends, I'll be there to let him know. I've already done that.

Steph: 39:41

But also, I've never had someone like tell me something like like that, that kind of like well, I have I. Um, when I was in high school early high school, around a Christmas time, my dad told me that he had a daughter that was older than us, that he had before he was married to my mom, and so he was trying to share this with us. And, you know, be open and honest, which is great but when you're on someone else's timetable, then it just kind of that just derailed my life. That news like that just changed everything I knew about life, and so I had to deal with that right in that moment when that person chose to relieve that stress in their life, like he chose that he was tired of keeping this a secret so he was going to tell us. But then that becomes a burden on the person to have to then deal with that right then.

Steph: 40:41

And so, in actuality, if person see had told me this before I was ready to to take it on, that would have really done another derail in my life. But the fact that I've already dealt with this and cause it was really about me and letting go of all of this. It wasn't really about person see. But if they, if, if one day they are like I'm going to admit it to them, I need to apologize, then I won't be derailed because I've already dealt with it. I mean, I probably will still have some processing, but I've already dealt with it and it won't derail my life like a bombshell would if somebody just Well, and that's that's why, in recovery you, you admit what you've done and you make amends in a way that is not harmful to someone else.

Beth: 41:27

Yes, make amends wherever possible, except when to do so would cause harm.

Steph: 41:34

Yeah, A few weeks later I drove to Tallahassee and talked to Dr Jill about all the realizations and actions I had taken. When I was finished, she told me that since our very first session she had suspected that I had been abused. This shocked me. How did she know? Why didn't she bring it up before? She shared that many of my struggles signaled that I had been sexually abused. She didn't know by who or at what age, but she had always suspected it. This was very interesting to me and I was glad she hadn't said anything before. I believe the truth was revealed in the right way at the right time.

Steph: 42:12

While I was in Tallahassee sharing with my parents, my mom had given me some old pictures for me to digitize in a VHS tape. She didn't know what was on it or where it came from. Years prior I had collected all our home movies and spent weeks converting them into digital files, so it was strange that I had missed one. I took the tape back to Orlando, assuming it had gotten misplaced from all the other home movies. When I began to transfer it, I saw some old random footage from when my brother and I were young. I watched as it transferred in real time toward the middle of the tape I couldn't believe what I saw. It was a one and a half minute clip from 1988.

Steph: 42:52

In the clip my mom is in the shot. This struck me as strange because she was usually behind the camera. I saw and heard my mom talking about the day. I saw my grandma setting the table. Then my mom said this is person C, his first time here in a long time. She says this as he walks into the frame. Then I saw me walking like a two year old, with short hair and a sun dress on. Mom said this is the first time person C has seen Stephanie. The clip ends with him giving me a drink of juice, asking if I want anymore. Apparently I didn't and I walked away. This was proof that person C had in fact visited Florida. When I was a baby I already knew it was true. I didn't need the tape to prove it, but I sent it to my mom as she was skeptical he had ever visited me in Florida. She was very surprised to see the clip. I think it helped her to process my truth that I had shared with her.

Beth: 43:48

Roll the footage right.

Steph: 43:51

Here you go. You needed proof. Yeah, that was Just crazy. Like the fact that I had already transferred all the home movies, the fact that there was one random one that she found and that's the last one she ever found Like there's not been any tape since then and that that clip was on it.

Beth: 44:10

Yes, I mean, and that it came into existence the weekend that you told them what God had revealed to you. I mean, that's incredible timing.

Steph: 44:21

And some other things that have happened since I published the book. Like my grandmother read the book. Actually, my mom wasn't sure she wanted my. It was my mom's mom. My mom wasn't sure she wanted her to read it because she thought it might be upsetting some of the stuff, but my grandmother actually ordered it from my website and read the book and I was like so she got it and she read it and she was this was a few years ago.

Steph: 44:50

She's since passed, I think a year or two ago. She read the book and we went down there to see her because she was sick with something. She didn't that's not when she passed, but and so we went to see her in the hospital or urgent care or something, and she like came close she is like had me come close and she was like I read your book and I was like, ok, I'm like I'm nervous, I'm like oh gosh, and she's like she said I want you to know, and she's also always called me her girl. She's like you're my girl and she's always. She has a couple of grandchildren but and a couple of girl grandchildren, but she always like just like felt like a protective closeness to me over all the other ones. In that clip my grandmother was there. I even said it.

Steph: 45:41

And I wrote this book, obviously before she read the book. So the fact that I mentioned that my grandmother was sitting there, yeah, it's even crazy that I wrote that in the book, but my grandmother was there when this happened and she told me that she always felt like something happened to me. From personcy, she says she always thought that something happened and she had this nagging feeling but she had no idea what it was, how to bring it up Like, and imagine that. Imagine being an adult there and thinking something happened but having no clue, and see, and probably she probably had a feeling that something probably saw a difference in me, like from what before happened and after happened, then she probably saw something within person C2 and to have no, no proof in any sense, to have nothing to go on, but realizing she has no idea. You know how, what do you do in that situation? And obviously she didn't do anything and she told me that she had always just felt like something happened and just had always been, it felt protective of me because of that and just always felt like, convinced herself, like she was just over, like oh no, it didn't happen whatever. And so this actually gave her so much peace to know that she was right and that, like, that feeling was valid and there was no part of me that was upset that she didn't say anything, because what would she have said? What would, what would have been done? It just was like another, though, validation of the truth of this. You know, to have this adult say I was there, I felt like something happened, but I had no idea what it was, and for her to get the comfort in reading that and to see where I am now too, like she saw I mean she read the whole book, she saw that the progress I've done, and so she just had this comfort that she never had about the situation.

Steph: 47:38

So, yet again, another like just powerful moment that happened by sharing this, something that I would have never expected, that my grandmother would have been affected by this but, like I said, she passed away a couple of years after having read my book, maybe maybe two years after. I could see the relief like this understanding brought her. And you know, there's a part of me that's like if all of the work I've done and writing the book and all of this, if the only thing it did was to give a relief and a closer to my grandmother. You know it's worth it, but to not even realize like the impact that this has on more than me and why it's important. If I didn't understand it before, you know I understood it then in that moment. The importance of sharing, and especially the hard stuff. None of us want to share it. I don't want to. It's not like I was like, yay, this is going to be the best thing to write this.

Beth: 48:44

I'm so glad this happened to me so I can talk about it.

Steph: 48:47

Yes, and. But you just never know what sharing your story, how, what the impact of that will be, and you may never know. I may never know exactly what that is, but I just knew it had to be done At the IndieVee Jepposo we have questions for reflection. These are questions based on today's show that Beth will read and leave a little pause between for you to answer to yourself.

Beth: 49:16

Number one what do you think of how God reveals truth to people? Number two have you ever shared a hard truth with a friend and found common ground? Number three do you need solid proof to believe things in your own life like the videotape, or do you trust your intuition? And number four have you discovered someone in your life was not a safe person? What was that reveal like for you?

Steph: 49:45

This has been the Discovering Arts Gras podcast. Thank you for joining us.