Lena's Story

When you remember, you remember...Sounds a bit like Yogi Berra in a TV commercial. But for me, the words ring a profound truth.

In the autumn of 1998, right after I began therapy for incest, I attended a conference for survivors. I felt so jealous of the people who had always clearly remembered their abuse.

If one recovers from an illness, this presupposes one becomes ill. I became symptomatic when my son was born; I began recovering after my mother died.

Before my husband and I conceived our son, I recalled my father being “inappropriate” with me as a baby. I also remembered a babysitter I had at the age of four whom I hated. Only after my mother’s death did I connect the two incidences.

My pregnancy was fraught with challenges. After a medical miscarriage in my mid-thirties, it took 6 more years to conceive and carry to full term. A positive AFP test resulted in an amniocentesis, which was rescheduled twice because the needle wouldn’t go in. My husband and I had a fight on the way to a party and I walked back to our apartment: 5 months pregnant at night, 48 blocks. The baby turned breech days before the window closed negating a vaginal delivery. He turned back around just in time! Finally three days and 23 hours of intermittent labor ended in a “dry birth” and my son was whisked off to ICU for 3 days.

Our baby was bright, beautiful, and high-strung. I saw his life fraught with unknown, unnamed perils lurking behind every door. Breastfeeding was easy but the infant fed every 2 hours. My family of origin was supportive but tiring- alcoholism, cancer, death, and heart disease. My husband’s finances spun out of control. I slowly dissolved.

When my mother died in 1998, I regained the courage to fight for myself. I looked up “incest” in the phone book and found a therapist who is one of the most knowledgeable, professional, generous, kind human beings I’ve ever known. With her guidance and the help of a support group, I finally recalled being orally raped when I was 4 years old. Afterwards, the babysitter (the perp’s wife) had knotted my hair into a hair-pulling braid to remind me never to tell anyone what had happened to me under her care.

So when I remembered, I remembered. The myriad, jumbled pieces of my life finally began to fit. When I remembered WHY my hair was done in a high fashion “do” that day in 1951, I could cease compulsively pulling out my body hair. When I remembered my self betrayed at a gut-wrenching level, I understood why I married a man who is emotionally unavailable. When I remembered the child sexual abuse, I knew exactly what my therapist meant by “Your life sounds so exhausting.” Yes, it’s tough running the marathon with a hole in your heart.

My greatest pain could be how erratic my parenting has been- to my pre-teen son as well as to my 30-year-old stepdaughter. So I talk with them- age appropriately- about alcoholism, compulsions, tricky people, self esteem, and so on.

A baby is a process, not a product. With the help of my therapist, husband, friends and support group I transformed myself from victim to survivor. I feel now I’m an adventurer. My life is not a scripted play. Every moment can bring surprises, challenges- the rediscovery of who I really am. It’s not easy coaxing adventure from chaos, but at least now I get to choose to do so.