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kepesh-yakshi · 8 years ago

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My life story.

My earliest memory was around the age of three, when I was staying at my father's mom's house for the weekend. Gran got home from work, and I was so excited that I bolted from the couch to give her a huge hug. On the way to her wide-open arms, I tripped over something on the floor (probably my shoe lace) and bit a hole in my lip that required a dozen stitches in several layers. There's an image of a memory before that, too. I think it was my first birthday, because I remember feeling the annoying rubber strap around my chin when I recall the image. Anyway, I was sitting in the floor of my mom's mom's house (I call her "Gran," too), and there was a plastic red and blue ball with a yellow handle, and some plastic yellow shapes all over the floor. Of course, I didn't know that was "plastic," back then, but I recall the memory enough to know it was plastic. I think they still sell those things at toy stores. Probably at Wal-Mart, too.

I only have a scar from something I don't remember that almost changed my life. I nearly cut my left thumb off while playing outside around sheet metal (where Mom told me not to play, of course -- that suddenly became the place to play). They sewed it back on after resetting everything, and the doctor told my mom I'd never be able to use that thumb, again. Glad to prove them wrong, as I am left-handed. Incidentally, when I was five, I closed the car door on the same thumb. It didn't hurt until Mom opened the car door. We found out I was a pitch-perfect soprano at that point.

By the way, did I mention that I am accident-prone?

Church-wise, I split my time between the Church of Christ on the mom's side and the Baptists of my dad's side. My mom's side didn't attend church regularly (if I remember correctly, they weren't active in any church), and my dad's side was loaded with clergy and elders and Sunday school teachers...and Uncle Erwin, who drove the Jolly Green Giant Sunday School bus for First Baptist Church of Abilene. (on a side note, my dad's side is also loaded with military veterans. So far as I know, nobody in my family is presently active duty). I went to church because it was fun, and not yet because I understood what it was about.

My life before second grade wasn't special, aside from all my early-stage clumsiness and multiple trips to the doctor for repairs. But in the second grade, everything changed, both for the better and for the worse. I remember coming home to Gran(ny Hall's) house, and when I got off the bus, I looked up at the sky and said "God, are you real?" Or something like that. But I remember asking Him something like that. Because all these kids and people and old people were always so happy to be at church and sing to this God guy, and I didn't get it. Who's God? Or, in my seven-year-old mentality: why the heck are all these people singing to some guy I've never seen at church? Doesn't he need to be there, too? Maybe he needs the bus to come get him.

I got my answer in an unconventional way. Shortly after my mom remarried a now-awesome guy (you'll understand what I mean by that, soon enough), I started attending a non-denominational charismatic church with his parents (who, by the way, I have a lot of love and respect for, as they taught me the power of embracing the way you perceive Jesus Christ as opposed to following the masses to the biggest church in town just because everybody else goes there -- I go to one of the biggest churches in town, so I'm not judging big churches). Something else I noted at this church was the fact that people who claimed to be speaking in tongues during prayer were, in fact, speaking French. I knew this because I watched Pinwheel's Playhouse specifically to see the segment that had Chapi Chapo in it. (that was slightly sarcastic, but they were speaking French).

On one Sunday, a prophetess by the name of Nita Johnson came to give a "word of knowledge" from God to anyone who wished to receive it from her. Not being bashful, I stood up almost immediately, and she started crying as soon as she touched my forehead. This woman was getting upset. Like breaking down in tears as if whatever she was hearing from -- again -- this guy named God who I'd never seen, before -- was telling her something that I suddenly wasn't sure I wanted to hear.

In a nutshell (I have the printed copy of what she said, somewhere, and when I find it, I will share it on here in the form of a separate post), she told me that I was about to endure tremendous pain at the hands of many, and I would not understand why they would do these things to me, and that I'd even taste death. But somehow, I would learn to use what I went through to spread the Word of God. That I'd come back to recall what she was telling me that night, and be blown away by what she said (this happened about 10 years ago), and that I would still not be shaken enough. That I would have to witness His overwhelming spirit one more time before it finally hit me hard enough to seriously desire to seek Him. He would hit me so hard that I'd be unable to speak. This actually happened in mid-December of 2012, again, in the most unconventional of ways.

Life is good, right? Well, not after this Word of Knowledge. See, Nita, if you look her up on Google, has a lot of apologetics calling her out as a false prophet. I am only going on what has happened to me, but so far, she is pinpoint accurate. A week after this "session" with Nita at the now-disbanded Church on the Rock was the first time I experienced sexual abuse. Not just by one person, but by two. One of them is currently serving a sentence in Ohio for exposing himself to children. The other one was a lengthy ordeal that happened on an almost weekly basis. I won't say who did this, specifically, but I am sure you can gather by "weekly" who had access. This one was also an alcoholic, and was fine until he was drunk. I remember the details of what happened vividly, and I'm sure if I sat here long enough, I could recall all of the times they happened. "Just do it and get it over with," I remember thinking. I don't think it was the abuse that caused the emotional damage, though. I think it was the fact that he kept saying "I love you," while it was going on. That's not the kind of "love" that is supposed to happen in that kind of relationship. And this is probably why I am still a virgin to this day...so maybe it has affected me more than I let myself believe. Single for life, but only as a form of self-protection.

And...then there was the physical abuse that started about two weeks after that, when the dog got out and I was the easiest to blame. This particular person is now one of the strongest supporters in my life, right now. So I will again refrain from pointing out which "he" I'm talking about. You can draw your conclusions if you know me, personally, but disclosing names of people who had problems some 28 years after the fact can be traumatic for those people, and this is my story, not theirs. (in other news, 28 years ago, I was seven years old). I was thrown about my room, beaten with a stick, and left immobile on my floor until mom came home. Later that year, I was chased out of the house with a shot gun (some people deny this, but a bus full of witnesses -- including the driver -- saw it). And in the winter time that year, I was made to stand outside in the snow until Mom came home for a reason I don't really remember.

All of these are from the first six months after that Word of Knowledge. The sexual and physical abuse both carried on until I was old enough to leave the house. But there were other abusers, as well. When I was eight, the lady at the day care center chewed me out for not claiming kindergarten homework that belonged to an "ADAM" (name clearly written on the page). The gas station attendant locked me in a closet until I agreed to do unmentionable things for him. I was able to unlock the back door and leave. A friend's father tried to lure me into his house. The kids at school, who I'd been really good friends with, up to this point, suddenly became very aggressive toward me. Even my softball team mates were rude and uninviting. It was like everyone around me started shunning me. And all of this started after that Word of Knowledge. Which I'd completely forgotten about by my tenth birthday.

The funny thing about all of this is that I was already a natural loner. I spent a lot of time writing, drawing, listening to music, singing, playing video games, but I wasn't much of a socialite, though I loved to meet new people and make small talk. I was, and still am, horrible when the conversation gets deep. My conversations become massively one-sided, and come across quite like the words I am writing now. Everything is like a grand story that needs to be told, no matter how mundane the topic. I was fixated on the details of things. For instance, with flowers, I loved to look at the pistils and anthers and how the grains of pollen sat in the center of the petals. With bugs, I loved the ones who were iridescent in the sunlight. And there was something about music. I liked to try to dissect the instruments in each song. I'd listen to a song over and over until I could focus on, for instance, only the bass or only the backup vocals. Classical music was my favorite. So, if the pain of dealing with people was a problem, I was, by my nature, making it hard to detect.

I was a straight-A student in school. When I was nine, I stopped doing my homework. I told my fourth grade teacher "I did this last year, why do I have to do it again?" And that pretty much set the tone for the rest of my educational career. I lost interest, and because of that, never put forth any effort, except for test time, where I aced it and still passed with a baseline 75%, since that is what is required to pass. I was a teacher's nightmare. Smartest, most active student in class. Never did homework. Never had a reason. But give me a topic I am interested in, and I will research it into the ground until I am satisfied. Then, I'll tell you all about it in the form of a six page dissertation. Sometimes, I wish my fixation on things would be more technical, like cars or airplanes and not things that included people (like sports or cultures...or just people, for that matter). Maybe I should have been an anthropologist.

Anyway, as a result of my "odd" classroom / interpersonal behavior, I was given several tests in the sixth grade. I was 11. The school district's counselor tested me for a lot of things. Out of the tests came the discovery that my IQ was 147 (157, now) and a statement that I was too intelligent to have ADD or anything on the autism scale. I swear to you that I have, at the very least, Asperger's Syndrome. I was given a "PDD-NOS," which stands for "pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified," and sent back into mainstream education, where I continued to rack up goose eggs and ace my tests. I graduated high school in the bottom 25% of my class, but with a 1580 SAT and a perfect 36 on the ACT, I was among the top 10% in the nation on national test scores. And even though it took four and a half years to graduate, I have the words "graduating junior" on my diploma. So it still looks good on paper.

The whole church thing was out of the window by the time I was in high school. My mom started attending a Seventh Day Adventist church, and something about them saying "THE Church" (meaning the ONLY church) of God's choosing turned me off. That, and the demand of getting baptized without taking time to consider it was odd. Don't get me wrong, the people were very nice, and the pastor was awesome. But...I just couldn't buy into what they were selling. I'd tried out several different churches in Abilene (which was rumored to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for having more churches per capita than any other city at one time) on my own, and almost all of them required baptism into the church. It seemed too much like "used car lot" tactics to me. And there were a lot of places that claimed to know angels by names, places that looked pretty and welcoming on the outside, but made me feel very dark and fearful on the inside -- something I'd learn later is a spiritual gift I have called discernment. Despite the church shopping and denomination hopping, with no success for a longterm fellowship, I stuck with my bible and developed an understanding on my own, avoiding anything that had to do with fellowship, since I just couldn't place faith in places that wanted submersion before submission. To me, it needed to be the other way around. Learn, then lean back, so to speak.

Very shortly after I graduated, I moved to Durango, Colorado to work for my uncle at his construction business. Talk about epic job. My title was “Executive Assistant,” and my job duties were just about everything one could think of. I took care of the house boat, the house, the bulldogs, and carried thousands of dollars in cash to the bank for the company. I’d assist my aunt with various um…personal needs. By that, I mean I’d go shopping with her and carry all her bags (and get my own outfits, out of the deal, too). On Saturdays, I’d clean the office and make sure certain supply orders were properly placed. On weekends, it was almost always at Navajo Lake or Lake Powell, depending on the time of year. And Lake Powell – wow. The scenery is so awesome, and the fishing was second-to-none. I even caught a 60lb striper, there. Well, it caught me – after a tiresome 45 minute fight, I fell over the rails on the stern of our house boat and into the water, but I got my hands wrapped around the beast. Just couldn’t save myself and the fish at the same time, so I had to let it go. I lost my Diawa rod and reel, too, in the whole mess.

But Durango, the year and a half that I was there, was such an amazing experience. I called the scenery “car crash beautiful,” because you’re always looking up at the La Plata mountains and you often forget to watch the road. And the residents were awesome. You knew everyone, and if you didn’t, you almost always had a one-degree connection. Which, being a small town, meant that if someone got into trouble, everyone knew about it within a week. I likened it to church gossip. People didn’t talk to be mean; rather, they talked because they actually cared…and to pass the time. Or, usually because there was nothing else worthwhile to talk about than other people.

Anyway, sometime while I was in Durango, and I don’t recall the trigger point, nor do I remember actually doing it, but I “came to” at about 6:30am on a Saturday, and my legs were aching and wrapped in towels. There was dried blood all over the place, all over my hands, all over the floor. What happened?!? I was clueless and scared. I took the towels off my legs, revealing very long, deep gashes. Some were still bleeding and in need of medical attention. I drove myself to the ER and got a hundred or so stitches while the nurses and a chaplain calmed me down and talked with me. This was my first personal exposure to self-injury. Actually, up until that day, I hadn’t heard of it. I didn’t black out due to drinking — I was very much so a non drinker, because I saw how negatively it affected family members, and how it turned a few of them into monsters. I did not want that lifestyle or problem for myself, so I avoided alcohol like the plague. But why on earth would I want to harm myself? I knew my stress levels were through the roof, and had been building for some time, but why would I ever want to do something like this to my own body? It served no purpose, other than to hurt like hell and leave some nasty scars. I started counseling shortly after this, but I was far too deep into denial in regards to my problems for anything to work. After a year and a half in Durango, I left for home.

When I returned to Abilene, I went back to a counselor I was going to shortly before I moved to Durango. I’ll call her J on here, if she comes up in future posts. She’s a friend, now, and I’d like to keep our counseling relationship private for that reason. But in our counseling, I was able to gather some reasons for why I would do this to myself. We noted that, at this point, I’d done this once. But through the sessions, it was noticed that it happened every 6 months, usually in April or May and October or November. These were when the seasons change. And it also seemed like I would contain my stresses until I literally could not hold them, anymore. I’d let these things pile up around my mind until my head would pop. Being that I was so accustomed to being the guilty party all of the time as a child, I blamed myself for everything that happened around me as an adult. So when I popped, I ended up punishing myself and getting stitches for all of it. It was, then, very important for me to learn to let go of these small problems as they happened, lest they grow into a pile so big that I could not handle them.

The last time I cut myself was April 19, 1999. I remember the date because it was the day before the shooting at Columbine High School. And again, I don’t remember the trigger, except that everything was so piled up that I couldn’t handle it, and I popped. I ended up with over 300 stitches and 127 staples in my arms and legs. Odds are, the trigger was something small like dropping the shampoo bottle in the shower, but out of the hundreds of thousands of other tiny straws that I’d piled up on myself, it was the straw that broke my inner camel’s back. And, for some reason, cutting seemed like the proper punishment for all of these small nuances that happened in my life.

I had a friend, who I was very close to, suggest that I go to church with her, which I did. It was a Church of Christ — and one of my favorite churches to this day, though I don’t go there very often, anymore. And I wasn’t a “regular,” though I was a member. Through my own study, along with the sudden influx of really nice people in my life from this church, the whole ‘relationship’ aspect of my Christian faith started to click. I began to pray regularly (read: all the time. In the car, when I woke up, hugged people, took a shower, went to bed, etc). I began to be very open about my beliefs. Everyone started to take notice of how much I was glowing about it, too. I felt really good, and it poured out onto others. Someone said “Suzie, you’re truly filled with the spirit! Everywhere you go, you light people up!” I wasn’t so humble to brush it off. I was proud of myself. But not in a prideful “look at me!” sort of way. I was doing things right, and it was showing. This was the first time I wrote a testimony about my life, and also the first time I shared it from the pulpit with a church fellowship (that was scary).

Shortly after this, my workplace had a FISH! Philosophy seminar, and I was reeled in — hook, line, and sinker (pun) — to the whole “leadership” phenomenon. I started to reflect the four standards of the FISH! Philosophy (among them were “be there” and “have fun”). I worked at a hospital, and it seemed like a corporately-thankless job — but there was so much mutual gratitude between peers, patients, visitors, and nurses that it more than made up for the lack of attention from upper-management. The patients must have loved me, because I earned a “You’re A Keeper” award, complete with my own Pete the Perch, which is something the hospital gave out to employees that the patients nominated. Mine was for customer service and leading from my position (which was far from a leadership role). So far as the self injury was concerned, I had gone from that day in 1999 to July 31, 2002 without any hint of wanting to do anything to myself. I give massive credit to learning to talk to God about everything, and really putting my faith where He was, which at this point, I placed Him everywhere in my life. An interpersonal conflict at work forced me to feel the need to quit, which was devastating. My side of the story is that I trusted a person way too much, and she tried to force me to go from Patient Services to the dish room. For the first time in my life, I was torn between being the people-pleasing girl who was scared to make anybody mad and standing up for what I loved (helping the patients) and saying no (which meant letting someone down). I said no, and it went downhill from there. I ended up feeling so much shame over it that I quit on July 31. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside with a razor and arguing with myself over whether or not I should condemn myself yet again to that kind of punishment. I felt like I deserved it. In desperation, I shouted out “If I am useless, Father, then kill me. Please kill me. I am worthless like this. If I am useful, then make me useful!” I woke up the next morning, and for some reason decided to open to Isaiah, where for the first time I read chapter 53 verse 5: He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him; by His stripes we are healed. That was the last time I considered self injury as an option. I’d already been talking with the pastoral staff of my church, and and through our discussions and a LOT of prayer, I made a commitment to Christ and was baptized on my birthday, August 7, 2002.

With a lot of effort (and a little bit of luck), I landed a great job with the federal government. It was September of 2002, with a new administration created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. I felt like I was finally able to do my part to keep our country safe. And after some of my experiences with this admin, I feel like I did just that — there is almost no greater fear than that of when you’re standing next to a bag with a possible IED in it. I learned even more about leadership, there, too. Since I loved to write, I started suziehall.com to share what I was learning, translating it to a more personal level, so that anyone could use the skills that were so instrumental to my own development and recovery. I wrote for my administration’s regional newsletter in a section called “Keep it Positive!” and got a lot of compliments for it. I also got employee of the year 2006 for my efforts, which I took as a sign that, again, I was doing things right. All glory to God! In 2007, I transferred to Denver, where I realized being an introvert in a place that was like Black Friday at Wal-Mart all the time wasn’t so bad; actually, it was kinda fun! I was right at home in such a stressful environment, and was frequently called on to diffuse tense situations. I got several awards and recognition for my customer service skills, and was promoted to a real leadership position in 2008. Everything was going so well! I was on top of the world doing something that I love to do (helping others in any way I can).

On Christmas Day 2008, several of us were working together to get around a server issue on the computers, and I got the phone call that would change my life forever. My mom said “are you sitting down?” “Yes,” I answered, knowing that when Mom asks this, it means something very bad has happened. She told me that my uncle David was in the hospital, and that he had a heart attack. Now, I haven’t mentioned him, yet, but David was my hero. My best friend, closest confidant, the only person in my family that actually knew me well enough to answer me before I spoke. We could get into the kind of fights that were full of — pardon my language — “F*CK YOU!” and would end with “hey, wanna get a pizza?” And we’d gotten into an argument around my birthday that was so bad that we weren’t talking. On the way to work that morning, I was driving down Pena Boulevard, blasting Chris Tomlin, praising and praying to God, telling him to wish David a Merry Christmas, and that I’d call him as soon as work was over. I couldn’t wait, because it was a good day to forgive someone and ask their forgiveness as well. But when Mom said David was in the hospital with a heart attack, she couldn’t bear to tell me that my grandfather found him dead in his house on Christmas morning. There are no words to relay the immense hole that immediately filled my heart. Only that I felt such deep sadness that the tears couldn’t climb their way out for another month. His favorite song was New Years Day by U2, and it was almost appropriate that his funeral was on January 1. I met so many people from his life that I’d only heard of, up to that point, and had several of his coworkers laughing hard – even at his funeral. One told me I was just like him, with my ability to make even the saddest days slightly enjoyable. That was a sincere compliment. David had this unique ability to make the darkest days a lot brighter. He was a firm believer in Christ, and we’d spent so many nights playing dominoes (aka “bones”) and doing bible trivia, and praying for my very skeptical grandfather’s salvation. David’s biggest fear was that he’d see my grandfather (I called him Peep) die an unbeliever.

The day David died, Peep began to read the bible, and he started taking it seriously. He asked me a LOT of questions. With my ability to retain information like a sponge, I was able to answer the majority of them, and even squelch his ideas about religion being created for the sole purpose of greed. While I agreed with him to an extent (that people use it as an excuse for war and seizing land and oil rights), that’s not the reason for religion — it’s a method of conveying the dire need for us to have a relationship with God. A relationship that, up to this point in my life, was on a baby-needing-milk maturity, even though I was on fire for it. Peep was already saved (at age 13), but he was finally affirming it in his early 70s. Sometimes it takes that long, but David’s pleas and prayers to God were not unheard — he never saw Peep die an unbeliever. And Peep did not die an unbeliever. A year and a day after David passed, Peep died in his sleep of natural causes. These were the first two deaths in my family — the only deaths, actually — that I was old enough to comprehend. I’d just turned 30 in 2008, and this was not how I expected this decade of my life to start, and I was not at all prepared for what would happen, next.

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