#metoo

I’ve considered writing my personal #metoo story for quite some time , but delayed continuously because there’s a part of the #metoo movement that doesn’t settle well with me. It’s the constant victimhood we like to relish in and the sentiments that come after when people give you that overtly sympathetic look and treat you like an injured kitten. For me, my #metoo experience eventually led me to Christ and forgiveness and really understanding the depth of brokenness in the world we live in...and the need to forgive and be redeemed. I’m ready for a #forgiveness movement. Some say the #metoo movement is empowering, I think the #forgiveness and #healed movement is even more empowering. Since the Kavannaugh accusation by Dr. Ford have surfaced, God has really laid it on my heart to share some of my life experience in this arena. For more than a week now, I've been revisiting something I was finally healed from 11 years ago. My purpose in writing this isn't to just to empower others or myself by speaking about my victimhood. My intention is to empower women and men with my story of redemption and forgiveness.

Here’s Part 1 of my story:

When I was 13 years old, my mom moved me for the 4th consecutive year in a row to a new school. We were poor compared to the families who lived in this new area. My mom wasn't a lawyer, a doctor, or business owner like many other parents, my mom was a meatwrapper at the local Farmer Jacks supermarket in West Bloomfield Michigan. We rented two rooms in a big house from my aunt; who also lived there with my two cousins. So we shared a house, five women under one roof. They weren't thrilled I moved in. I used to steal their clothes from their bedrooms to attempt to fit in with the other kids in the area. I was thinking my $100 annual Kmart clothing allowance might not cut it for me. I cannot stress enough that we were living in a very wealthy school district . My cousins were already established in the school system, a tight knit community of Jewish families. Although my cousins parents were divorced, they were still friends and coparented very well together. It was actually their dads house they grew up in when their parent divorced, their dad sold the house to my aunt so my cousins could remain in the house while they finished high school. I was the kid who came from Detroit with an afro, no money, no friends, who listened to Metallica , and stole their clothes. It was understandable why they weren't thrilled to have me.

The first group of kids who befriended me that first summer I moved in was a group of girls I met at the playground in my neighborhood. They hung out with a group of thrasher boys who lived in this new neighborhood I was in. For those wondering what on earth a "thrasher" is...its a kid who skateboarded in the late eighties, early nineties...They wore airwalks, chain wallets, had shaved hair on the sides and had long hair on top that swooped over one eye. The kids who lived in my neighborhood were actually a set of triplets. Their house was a constant hangout for a group of maybe 10-12 boys and maybe 5 or 6 girls. Their parents worked alot so the home was often parent free.

I met them in August. That fall season, there was an evening I was home alone. Two of the boys knocked on my door and somewhat forced their way in. They were only a few years older than me. I say "somewhat forced their way in" because I'm sure I was hesitant to let them in. I was so nervous and awkward and uncomfortable at that time in my life. They both came in, and eventually forced themselves onto me. Not "almost" sexually assaulted me, they actually did sexually assault me. To this day, I'm still foggy about which 2 boys it was....or if they both did it, or if it was just 1 who did it. I wasn't drinking, they weren't drinking. Yet Im still foggy about who exactly did it. If I had to say who it was, I might be able to narrow it down to 4 boys, but again I couldn't say if it was just one who did it or both.

I quit hanging out with that group and found different friends. I was headed into 8th grade that year so was able to stay away from the group of boys who were in high school. I think they had started some rumors about me that I was a whore, but I ignored it. I never told my mom, my aunt , my cousins, or anyone about the incident. I was deeply ashamed. The next year I was a freshman in high school. This group of kids tormented me. They were mostly sophomores and juniors. They kicked me in the back as I walked down the hallway, they called me a whore, and they threw food at me in the lunchroom. I was terrified of them. I earnestly "wished" for bad things to happen to them. I hated them. That hate lasted for 17 years. By the time I was a sophomore or junior in high school, I had a class with one of them...I was an anxious nervous mess every day in that classroom. I got to a point where I just got tired of it. I distinctly remember walking down the hallway of the highschool one day and one of them making some flippant nasty remark to me. I think for the first time I actually said to them "FUCK OFF" . Sorry to be so graphic, but thats what i said, and it actually felt pretty good, and it made the kid shrink back a little bit. I moved a few months after that encounter to another school district.

I had a fresh start again with kids who didn't know me. I did alot of drugs, I partied all the time, yet miraculously kept my grades up. I had a blast, I won't lie....for a few years anyways....eventually that stuff catches up to you too. I enjoyed the people I hung out with, the parties, the insane funny things we all experienced together. Looking back on it now as an adult, its evident to me I was running away from trauma I'd experienced in my life and was burying it using a few different measures. Fun (drugs/parties), control (making money I earned one of my Gods), and humor ( one of my greatest coping mechanisms). These things carried on into full blown destructive sins in adulthood for me. Oh and I still hated the boys...the thought of that group of people, even running into them filled me with anxiety and terror.

When I was 17, I was at a dance club in downtown Pontiac called "Industry"; some of you Detroit kids may remember that place. I saw one of the boys there , I cant even remember which one it was now...I do remember being filled with terror...that terror of running into them again remained with me until I was about 3o years old.

I was working at my first professional accounting job in Norton Shores Michigan. Our secretary was close to my age and kept inviting me to church. God was drawing me in. I laughed at her, I was arrogant, I told her I was a Jew. etc etc etc. The truth was I'd actually been to many churches in the area over a number of years living in Grand Haven. I gave up on them. I liked the message, I liked Jesus. I didn't completely understand Jesus' death on the cross. Actually I didn't understand it at all. I thought Jesus was just a moral teacher and a socialist democrat quite frankly. When I'd go to these churches, I'd always sit in the back and feel too dirty to be there. I'd look around at these clean happy intact families and just feel like I wasn't them. I was broken, and honestly it was hard for me to keep it all together at times. I felt alone, I believed that not one person there would be able to identify with my experiences in life. So I wouldn't return to them. But I visited many of them, one sermon at a time here and there.

But this gal kept inviting me, and I kept declining the offer. One day in the fall of 2007 and in the season of invitation to this church, I came across an obituary of one of those boys on the social media website "Myspace". He took his own life. One of his fraternal twin brothers wrote a lengthy piece about him. Through his brothers written tribute as an adult, I learned that this man suffered through depression most of his life. I learned that the brothers parents worked all the time and they were left home alone from an early age to their own devices. I learned that they had been exposed to pornography videotapes that were left in that home. I learned that day how broken he was. I truly believe that God gave me a window that day so I could see things from His vantage point instead of my own limited human one. This man was just broken, from childhood.....this boy who I'd hated and had "wished" for horrible things to transpire in his life..... He was just a broken person who needed Jesus....then it hit me... #metoo. I too, was just a broken person who needed Jesus. I surrendered that day to God...to Jesus, and I forgave all of them. I was grieved over the bitterness I'd held onto for so long. I would do anything to rewind this life and tell him he was forgiven before he took his own life. I was ashamed for hating him. My life was forever changed that day. Forgivesness, there is nothing sweeter and more freeing than it. That was the season where my clinical anxiety and depression left me forever.

As far as I know, and from what I've heard....one of the other brothers who may or may not have been one that assaulted me, eventually became a rabbi helping people recover from drug addictions. This week with the Judge Kavannaugh saga thats been unfolding, I actually looked at almost every single persons social media page that was part of that group that assaulted me and tormented me. They had pictures of their wives, their beautiful kids. They weren't the same people they were back in 1989. None of us are. I was HAPPY for them, I root for them...their pictures of their families made my heart full. Thats what forgiveness can do.

Listening to Doctor Fords testimony yesterday, some things were similar. Some things, not all things in that she wasn't actually raped. I still really felt for her though because it was evident that she had serious emotional issues. Something clearly happened to her at some point in her life she has not healed from. From my own experience its very possible that she could have accused the wrong person. My situation happened 29 years ago, with no alcohol. Her trauma happened nearly 40 years ago with alcohol. When I looked at her face, It was evident how much that anxiety has affected her as a person. And I was THANKFUL that by the grace of God, I've been released and healed from that captivity. Jesus heals, He turns victims into Victors.....what are you waiting for?????? #Jesus #Forgiveness #healed