Steph and Beth originally met at work where they did a step study, working through all 12 steps together. In this episode they listen to and discuss chapter 13 of Steph’s memoir, Discovering My Scars, where Steph talks about the revelations of abuse that came from working the fourth step, making a searching and fearless moral inventory.
Use these Questions for Reflection to apply this episode in your own life:
Buy Discovering My Scars
Audiobook: https://amzn.to/2XCe9a3
Paperback: https://amzn.to/2O4U5dh
ebook: https://amzn.to/2r8mPsA
Follow: Steph & Beth
Steph and Beth originally met at work where they did a step study, working through all 12 steps together. In this episode they listen to and discuss chapter 13 of Steph’s memoir, Discovering My Scars, where Steph talks about the revelations of abuse that came from working the fourth step, making a searching and fearless moral inventory.
Use these Questions for Reflection to apply this episode in your own life:
Buy Discovering My Scars
Audiobook: https://amzn.to/2XCe9a3
Paperback: https://amzn.to/2O4U5dh
ebook: https://amzn.to/2r8mPsA
Follow: Steph & Beth
Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars podcast where we show 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: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:Beth and I've 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: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 13.
Steph:In the show, we'll close with questions for reflection. We'll invite you to reflect on the conversation in your own life.
Beth:So we're diving back into your memoir Discovering my Scars. Maybe we could do like a summary of, in case you maybe haven't listened to all the other 12 episodes that have been directly about the book. Where we've we listened to the audio version of the book and then we pause it and we talk about it. At this point in the book we've talked about your okay, incarceration is not the right word, but you're like oh my gosh.
Steph:No, I was not incarcerated.
Beth:But you were like held in a mental hospital and they wouldn't let you leave, and so it's like it has that feel to me of like an involuntary stay. So you've been in and out of a mental hospital, which in, and then out in one time out one time and that traumatic experience left you with PTSD Correct, and we've talked about that in the book right.
Steph:And then the story basically goes into what happened after I got out of the mental hospital five years later, discovering the PTSD and then going through the healing and recovery of that process. And the last chapter was about celebrate recovery, where we met and was a Christian centered recovery. And then this chapter is going to be kind of a continuation of what happened next in celebrate recovery. Perfect Chapter 13 inventory. With my sponsor by my side, I move forward in my step study. Each lesson had its own challenges and tough questions, but the main event is the inventory. The CR four step is this we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. For a lot of group members, this step is a make or break moment. It's so emotionally challenging that many people leave their step study. At this point I did not want to be that person. No one in my group wanted to be that person. So we all pushed through and completed it promptly.
Beth:Okay, I'm sorry to stop you already, but I totally wanted to bail at this step. So I appreciate that you say no one in the group wanted to be that person. It was totally the peer pressure that kept me in because this step was so hard and uncomfortable. And this step is the thing that, when I think about, maybe I could, maybe I could or would do a step study again, this, this step and the next step, steps four and five are the things that made me go. No, I think that that's not going to be right for me right now.
Steph:Do you think? The writing, the inventory or sharing?
Beth:the inventory was harder. I think it was the sharing. But you know, as I was writing it I knew I was going to have to share it. Yeah, and so both of them together, just really, man, you know, it's been years and I still remember not wanting to do it and I remember having a hard time with it. You know, just, whoo, that was hard. I mean, just think about that. A searching and fearless moral inventory. It's like everything that has been done to you and everything you have done to others, and searching and fearless, which means you do not hold back, you have to put it all out there. That's hard.
Steph:It was very draining and yet cleansing to write my inventory. It involved me examining my life and writing down significant events that had affected me, such as what had happened to me as a baby. Most of the items on my list were things I knew about, but as I started prodding, new things came to light. As far back as I can remember, I have hated sticky things. Stickers, tape, bandages, anything that can stick to one thing and then stick to something else. It's okay if I'm the first person to touch it, but if I see something sticky on the ground or a kid put something sticky on me, I'm not having it. I even cringe a little writing about it. I know this is a little weird. So I dug deeper to see if I could find the root of this phobia. I prayed about finding the truth and, with mustard seed faith again, god showed me the way.
Steph:The scene I was five years old, in the playroom at my grandparents' house my brother and I were visiting for a few weeks without our parents. The playroom, really more of a building, was separate from my grandparents' house and I was in there alone with two older boy family members who were six and eleven. My brother, who was nine at the time, was not with me. I continued to watch as God showed me what happened. The younger boy started poking fun at me, while the other boy just stood and watched. The younger one started calling me names, pushing me around and using me as his plaything. I fought back. I was a pretty strong little girl. I told him I was going to tell Grandma he was being mean to me, but this only seemed to fuel his fire and he became more aggressive. He grabbed my whole body so I could not move my arms or legs. He pinned me to the ground with my back on the floor. I was screaming and panic and he tried to shut me up. He grabbed a dirty roll of duct tape from the ground and put a piece over my mouth. He seemed pleased with himself, but I was still in a desperate fight to get away. He taped my legs together to prevent me from running. Then he taped my arms together, pulling them behind my head and taping them to a piece of old exercise equipment. He then sat on me right below my torso so he could look right in my face. He had a look of pure evil, full of aggression and power. I was still struggling and he was not satisfied. He slapped me a few times in the face. Then he banged my head a few times against the floor. Then I was silent and he was satisfied with his work. Breathe. This is a lot to take in. This is me, 32 year old Steph, writing on my computer. This is a lot to put on digital paper. I don't write it to blame, I write it for healing.
Steph:This violent scene has been shown to me by the power of God and I'm the first to question it. How was any of this possible? How could I not remember? But God can show it to me. I spent days, months and years wrestling with these questions. But where does my peace and reassurance that this is the truth from God come? From Faith. My faith grew to the size of a mustard seed years before, and nothing is impossible when it comes to my Father. God is my one and only truthful Father. Because of that, god also showed me what happened after I passed out.
Steph:As I lay unconscious, the younger boy did a few more things to me. Then the older boy started to get a little nervous. He told the younger one to take the tape off and leave, as someone might come and see. My abuser begrudgingly removed the duct tape and left. When I came to, I didn't know what had happened. I didn't know why I was in the playroom. I had gone there many times to get grape soda from the big fridge. I assumed that was why I was there. So after I regained consciousness, I got my soda and went back to the main house.
Beth:Steph, that is so heavy.
Steph:Yeah, and it all came out of being annoyed that I don't like sticky things, which is so such a weird quirk really that I had had my entire life that I can really remember. And it's such a thing that most people that know me know this about me and even my nibblings children to play with stickers. People give stickers to kids all the time. We have raised them, all the parents have told them to not put sticky things on me and if they do forget or something, and then like I'm like don't do it, they like they don't try to like play with Right. It has like been such a thing in my life that and it was like I never really thought too much about it. I brought it up once in therapy and we never really like examined it closer, but I just felt like this nagging feeling when I was writing my inventory, like there's something more here, it can't just be this, and that's what came out of that.
Beth:I mean it starts out as like oh yeah, kids play. You know kids, yeah, you know you had a relative that was like, because you're related to the boys, right, like you had a relative who was bullying you, and then it just takes this turn where you're like that is way beyond normal child's play and it is abusive and awful.
Beth:And it pretty much happens in an instant and no one's there, no one did anything, and your heart and your mind are going to protect you, which is why you didn't remember this for so long.
Beth:I will say one thing that I learned when my kids were little that was really impactful and transformative for me is the tendency and maybe it's not this way anymore, because it's been a long time since I had little kids but the tendency back then, and the tendency when I was growing up and probably when you were growing up, was just when you would pick somebody up or you would like go to pick them up from a grandparents house or even from a babysitter, like, oh, were you a good boy? Were you a good girl? No, the question is how are you? Did you have a good time? Yeah, right. And then and you don't ask it in front of the other grownups you ask it when you're alone so that they can really tell you what happened. Yeah, very small shift, but it's actually a big shift in what you're communicating to your kids about what you expect of them.
Steph:This event got buried. The trauma was too great for a five-year-old to process. It lived in my subconscious, coming out in my aversion to tape. Duck tape has always been particularly hard for me, and now I know why. When this new revelation was shown to me while writing my inventory, it was hard to digest. It was even harder to take than the truth from when I was a baby. Sticky things have been such an issue for me for so long. After learning where this came from, I became extremely angry. The fact that this boy did such awful things to me and an older boy just watched infuriated me. It was pure evil.
Steph:I spent a lot of time working through this one. This abuse from my family was the hardest part to accept on my inventory. Although I tried, I couldn't forgive them at the time. After adding this trauma to my inventory, it reminded me of something more, something I had never shared with anyone because I never saw it as significant enough, but now it seems so important when paired with the above trauma. I can still vividly remember all of this.
Steph:I was about 10 years old and at my grandparents' house again, but this time with my whole family. I was alone in one of the bedrooms and the younger boy slash abuser walked in and shut the door At 10,. I did not consciously remember what he had done to me five years prior in the playroom. All I knew was that I had strong negative feelings towards him that I didn't understand. When he walked in, I felt strange. I felt uncomfortable being alone with him, but I assured myself that everything was okay, since my whole family was right outside. I don't remember the turn of events, but I do clearly remember that he pinned me to the ground and sat on my lower torso with his face looking down at mine. Then he slapped my face as I struggled. He held my hands down. His face was filled with personal warp delight as he remained dominant. I didn't scream, but I told him to stop. I didn't want to scream and have my parents see me in that position. I didn't want them to think I was silly for not wanting to play with the young boy. I also did not want everyone to think I was freaking out for no reason. I was a physically strong girl, so I thought I could handle him myself. It annoyed me when I couldn't get my control back and then I was scared. A few minutes later, someone walked in the older boy. Now I know him as the boy who watched my abuser attack me so many years before. He opened the door, laughed and said "'You guys look busy'". Then he left, closing the door behind him. I stared at the door for a few moments. I felt abandoned, alone, scared, discarded like rubbish in a trash can.
Steph:Next, the abuser found more evil entertainment. He started bouncing on my torso, which forced me to fart. He got so much delight out of forcing me to make this noise. I was so ashamed and embarrassed. As a kid, farting in public was funny. It was something I had control over and could make light of. But this this was nothing I had control over. This boy forced my body to betray me. I went numb. Eventually, my abuser got bored and left Alone on the bedroom floor.
Steph:I felt shame. I felt taken advantage of and powerless, but at the same time I saw myself as a strong girl who could take care of herself. Some of the shame came from not being strong enough to get him off of me. I was always able to hold my own when wrestling with my brother, but wrestling with this boy felt much different. At 10 years old I knew what was inappropriate and what was not. I knew not to let people touch certain parts and do certain things, but I couldn't say for sure if the stuff this boy did was inappropriate. He's family. I wrestle with my brother. Is that what this boy and I were doing? I didn't wanna wrestle him and I told him no, but maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing. I thought At the time my 10-year-old brain could not process this kind of psychological trauma and I didn't understand how to interpret my feelings. After he left, I went back to the living room with the rest of my family and acted as if nothing had happened.
Steph:I didn't tell anyone about this event until now, as I write this book. Looking back, it was 100% inappropriate. Even if it had been my own brother, it would have been inappropriate. I said no and he didn't stop. I didn't wanna play and he wouldn't listen. He used his strength and power to physically dominate me to get what he wanted. He disrespected my body, used it against me and disregarded my feelings completely. That was wrong.
Steph:What would I say to 10-year-old Stephanie who didn't know what had happened to her when she was five? I would tell her everything, big and small. Even things that seem silly and unimportant need to be talked about. Tell a parent, tell a trusted adult. If they don't listen, tell another. We're only as sick as our secrets. You will learn that important lesson in 17 years during recovery.
Steph:What happened to you was 100% not your fault. You are not responsible for those horrible events. You are strong, and strength comes in many forms. It takes a lot of strength and courage to talk about this and I know you have that strength. You've been told not to talk to strangers and not let anyone touch your personal places. Well, this boy is not a stranger and he technically did not touch those places.
Steph:Life is pretty simple at 10 years old and I wish it could have stayed that way for you. But everything is not black and white. What he did to you is physical and psychological trauma and it's not okay. The overwhelming emotional scars will not go away until you start to talk about it. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Go tell mom. But if you don't do that today, that's alright, we'll deal with it together in time. Love, 32 year old stuff. You might be wondering if I ever confronted this boy. No, as the victim, I don't need to be in the presence of his face ever again. You might be wondering if I forgave those boys. At the time of my inventory I thought I had, but as I wrote about these events in this book I realized I had not More on that later.
Beth:So I have some questions. Was there ever another time that you had to be alone with them? It's hard to say.
Steph:I don't remember a lot of my time at my grandparents' house and I think we can kind of figure out why. Yeah, I probably. Since I was 10, I've probably seen them maybe five more times. Yeah, my grandmother passed in 09-ish and I went back for the funeral. I saw the older boy who was married with a kid or two. Now I don't remember seeing the younger boy. I don't think I've seen him in person. It's been forever. Yeah, yeah, and I haven't been back to my grandparents' house since I didn't go to my grandfather's funeral.
Beth:Do you have any insight into, maybe, why they acted this way, because it seems to me that they were probably being treated this way in order to treat others this way. Do you know what I mean?
Steph:I mean, I obviously have no insight into what happens behind the closed doors of families. I know their parents. Obviously. I don't know them well because we never lived in the same state so we never spent a significant time together. I would never call them friends. I don't think we're even Facebook. I know I'm not Facebook friends with them. Actually. Maybe at some point I was.
Steph:So I don't know, but I do know a lot of school shootings happen with young white angry boys. Yeah, why, why is that? I don't know Exactly, and I know they're white angry little boys. So I don't know. I don't know why this continues to be a thing in our society as these young white boys and use violence in this way and think they can treat women in this manner. I don't like it. I think if we knew the answer, we probably would have less of this happening. So I don't know. Do I suspect something within that family? I don't. I never saw again. I spent very little time with them, but I would not jump to say that this was happening behind closed doors for them.
Beth:Well, and it happened to you and you didn't turn around and do it to others. So it's not always a direct correlation. I'm just curious about it.
Steph:Yeah, I mean, I do think you can create an environment where, well, I do think there is an environment where white boys feel a certain privilege in this country and a certain domination that they're allowed over women. I do think there is that in, especially in the 90s, that was being presented to these young boys that this is okay, they can do what they want. There's obviously a lot of good white men out there.
Steph:So again, I don't want to pigeonhole every little boy from the 90s, obviously, but I do see how this could come out of where society was at and where society still is at in a lot of ways, sadly. We have made progress, but as much as we make progress, we also go back a lot, as we've seen. As we get older we see, oh wait, we've dealt with this already. Oh really, we're back there. Okay, great Much of my inventory was about the ugly stuff in life and examining my part, if any, in it and making amends where needed.
Steph:But it was also about the positive side of life. I learned that it was just as important to list the good people in it. This was more challenging than I thought it would be. When I think of the good, I tend to brush it off as some good stuff happened. But look at all this bad stuff.
Steph:When I sat down and allowed myself to look at my life in this way, so many names came to mind Megan, sweet Megan. My college roommate, showed me so much compassion when I needed it the most. Daniel and Jason from Apple helped me learn to trust men. My nephews showed me what pure love looks like. The women who were there for me in middle school and high school and still in my life today. My Girl Scout ladies helped me so much, as has my aunt, uncle, mom and so many more. I had spent so much of my life focused on the bad that I forgot to balance it out. Fortunately, my CR inventory helped me take a long look at the good. So this is something I still struggle with in life is there's a lot of good in my life and then I tend to focus on the bad, and I focus on one bad one bad one death, and then I spiral. Is that something that you've struggled with?
Beth:I'm probably more the opposite, that I think A little bit of bad happened, but look at all this good.
Steph:So how do you focus on the good without really focusing on the bad?
Beth:Well, I don't know that it's necessarily healthy to focus on the good, because I think when I'm doing that, when I'm like, oh, a little bit of bad happened, I'm really practicing denial and I'm really stuffing it away, and then it just waits. You know, it just waits and it grows. So I don't think that that's necessarily a healthier approach.
Steph:I guess for me it's not necessarily like that I'm dealing with the bad stuff, but sometimes I focus on the stuff that there's really nothing that can be dealt with. Like there's a situation going on in my neighborhood right now and it's really been stressing me out and like really like making me, like I'm like, well, if this happens and this happens and this happens, then I'm in a cardboard box you know, and it's like a spiral and that's not helping because I'm not really working on it.
Steph:Yeah, so I guess that's really what I'm talking about is the catastrophizing of things. So how do you do that? Or do you think what you do? Because you're saying what you do is not healthy, but I don't. It's not healthy to catastrophize, which is what I do.
Beth:I don't tend to catastrophize and I'm pretty good at spotting it because Steve and my husband does. Okay, Every gift has a shadow, has a shadow side, and like he has this gift for ordering things and like being able to look ahead and kind of see the pitfalls that will come so that he can navigate around them, which is a tremendous gift. The shadow side is you see all the freaking pitfalls before they even happen, which means you have you're in a frame of mind where all the pitfalls are gonna happen. So he does tend to catastrophize. We've talked about it a lot. We're both you know, so we were both aware of and working on.
Beth:So in general, I don't do that. However, however, when it comes to church things not my congregation but when it comes to, like, denominational things that are completely out of my control, I do tend to go there. So it's like the more control I have, the less I tend to think about the bad things. Like the more the more control influence I have, the more that I'm really focused on the positive, and when things are out of my control, I tend to focus more on the negative.
Steph:And I don't know if this is like a personality trait, but like I can easily connect to bad over connecting to good, and maybe that's kind of what Stephen has is he connects to that bad. Like that, like think through the process Instead of like, does he focus on good. Does he like recognize good? Or to me, good is like, of course, yeah, that's there, but the bad? Like that's how my brain works.
Beth:I think he would say I don't have to prepare for the good.
Steph:Yeah, it's just there.
Beth:Yeah, of course. Of course it was good. I don't have to think about the good. I have to think about the bad, because I've got to prepare for it, I've got to adjust for it, I've got to work around it, I've got to prevent it. So the good doesn't need to be thought about.
Steph:Well, I guess that's how I am too. It's like, well, but it's so important to look at the good, even though it seems like oh frivolous. I guess to me it almost seems frivolous to like think about good stuff because it's happening, whatever, but this stuff, this is what we need to be stewing up.
Beth:So I'm so interested that your CR inventory helped you look at the positive, because I have no memory of that being part of it. I only remember stressing out about the not positive.
Steph:Yes, I think that's the overarching fear of writing the inventory. Is that negative stuff? But I do remember specifically like really focusing on the negative and then talking to my sponsor about it and her really pushing for me to look at the positive and to be conscious of that, because that is as much of the inventory, as much as the bad stuff. It's just like and again like, my personality is like bad, bad, bad, good stuff, of course, good stuff, but bad, bad, bad. So you don't remember thinking about the positive.
Beth:I do not remember, and maybe it's because I kind of fudged the sponsor part right Cause I just had our step study leader like be the person I gave my but you didn't really talk it through before you wrote it with her Right. So maybe that's why I only remember the stuff that scared me.
Steph:When I neared the end of my step study, my leader said that in the last step a miracle happens. I know Jesus performs some crazy miracles, so I kind of thought I might be able to turn water into wine at the end of the study. Well, that didn't happen, but I did feel a huge sense of a release, gratitude and power. I felt in control and powerful, with my past no longer controlling my life. So what did I do with all of these new feelings? I started another step study. I waited a few months. Then I co-led a study with my previous leader.
Steph:We had another small group and it was just as hard and emotional as the first time. But at the end of the second one I had a huge realization, miracle moment. It's gonna sound so obvious and dull, but it was almost life changing for me. My miracle moment was realizing the recovery is never over. Life happens every day, meaning that I will always have emotional and painful stuff to deal with. I'll never be fixed. The PTSD, self-injury, depression and abuse will never be erased from my life. Like an alcoholic who's in recovery their whole life, I will also be in recovery my whole life. But day 300 looks way different than day one. My mental struggles do not control me. I recognize them faster and deal with them promptly. End of chapter 13. That was so positive and happy, right, Don't you think?
Beth:That ended so positive and happy. And the thing about the miracle. It reminds me like there's a whole, there's a little phrase about it, right, like don't miss the miracle, like don't give up because the miracle is coming, yeah.
Steph:Which I think is like kind of a big oversell, like the miracle. Like oh my gosh, that's like that's asking for a lot.
Beth:Right, that's like walking on water or, you know, being able to spontaneously heal someone of an incurable disease. That's what you think, yeah.
Steph:But I think that's what I learned, though, is like ultimately, a miracle is not those like big, huge things that we think of. It's. It's something as subtle, as I'm always going to be dealing with recovery, and that's not a sad thing, and I still am. I'm still dealing with these things, it. These are not the things that swirl, the bad things I've been talking. These are not the things that I'm like stressing about. I don't stress about when I'm going to have a flashback to, um, you know, the mental hospital, or when I'm going to have to deal with sticky stuff, but when I, when it comes up, I deal with it, I live in it for a moment, and then I move on and um, and in a way, in a way that is miraculous, that it doesn't control you anymore and getting to a place of being able to accept our own individual journeys.
Beth:That has you know, maybe miraculous isn't too big of a word to put on it, because it's not something we should take for granted. I remember, um, when my kids were still I think they were both still toddlers and I was really struggling, struggling with anger, and I was just. It didn't like myself as a mom and I didn't. I felt like God had made a mistake to let me be a mom, like I was really in the thick of it and I went to to some event. The speaker said something about how we would always be on a journey and that we would never get to the place, like we would never get to the place where, where we had finished our journey, and I wept because that was so disheartening to me, because I just thought this is, this is too hard, I don't, I don't want to be here forever.
Beth:Now I understand that she was trying to communicate what you've communicated in your book. Right, that you're, you're not always going to be here forever. You're, you're not always going to be in this place, in this hard place. This hard place is going to be one one piece of your journey. Something about the hard place will always be with you, but you're going to. You're going to heal and you're going to going to be able to release some of the power it has over you so that you can move on and get to the next part of your journey. You know, when she said it, for some reason I felt like it meant I was always going to be stuck.
Steph:Yeah, I was going to be in the same place, yeah, which is actually the opposite of what she's saying. She said it's a journey, and if you just visualize a journey, you continuously are moving and you're seeing new locations and you're and you're going forward, and so it actually. It actually is like that beautiful thing of like this will not be, as you will not ever be as close to this thing as you are right now, because you will continue to put one foot in front of the other and you will get farther from this thing. It's still going to be there, it'll still be behind you in that path. So you still have that. That you'll need to. You know, process but it won't be. You know, with that distance though it won't be as hard as it was when you're right next to it and that's exactly how I feel about the stuff is, it gets easier to deal with. It's not completely ever just going away and sometimes, you know, sometimes there'll be a year where it's like I didn't even think of self-injury or anything. You know just like, oh man, I forgot that that was a thing, and then it will come back and that'll be okay and I just, you know, process it and continue my journey.
Steph:At the Indie Beach episode. We end with 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, or you can find the written in the description Number one have you ever taken an inventory of your life?
Beth:Would you consider it and where would you start? Number two do you have a quirk like Steph's, aversion to sticky things? Where do you think it comes from? Number three have you ever been harmed by a family member or someone you trusted? Number four do you tend to focus on the positive or negative things in life. Do you want that to change? And number five reflect on a miracle moment you've experienced in your life.
Steph:This has been the Discovering Arts Grows podcast. Thank you for joining us.