Chapter 4: Wearing a Mask

            Despite that I was a new creation in Christ, part of me was still ashamed of my past and I tried to hide from it.  I tried to forget that anything had ever happened to me, that I came from a dysfunctional family.  I tried to blend in to the holy culture of my youth group and the cool culture of my high school and at the same time.  I tried to pretend that I had it all together. 

I was reading the book Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson when I was inspired to write this book.  He says, “Often what we show on the outside is a false front designed to disguise who we really (think we) are, and we cover up the negative feelings we have about ourselves.” 

I never knew someone in my entire high school who did as much as I did.  I not only graduated with a 4.3 GPA, I took several AP classes, which were supposed to be college level.  I played basketball 3 years. I was in choir 4 years.  I was in a program called Model United Nations 4 years, which is like a debate club.  I was our Senior class Vice President in ASB. 

I had many talents, and the recognition I got from all these activities helped me to forget my past.  On the inside I felt dirty and broken.  So I felt an immense drive to prove to myself that I was better then the scars of my past.  I was better then my family.  I wanted to prove that, despite the family I came from, I could excel. 

I had gone to counseling from the age of 6 to 10 but then did not go again until a couple months in high school and then finally again when I was 21 for a year and half.  So the whole time between 10 and 21, I was pretending. 

I tried to forget that anything had ever happened. 

I was a very good actor. 

I have heard that acting is a common trait of those who experienced childhood sexual abuse, because they do not want others to see what is on the inside. 

I had a revelation a week ago after my husband and I watched the movie The Aviator.  In some ways, the scene where Howard Hughes is naked in his theatre not talking to anyone and peeing in bottles is how I have always felt on the inside. 

I have always felt disgusting and dirty, used and tainted.  I have always felt not good enough. 

Satan has been whispering into my ear ever since my dad had to move out.  He has tried to convince me of lies like, “What your dad and brother did proves that guys only want you for one thing and that is your body.”  “Nobody really loves you.”  “You have to show people that you are worthy of love, otherwise they won’t love you.”  “Your mom’s depression is your fault.”  “Your brothers issues are your fault.”  “You messed up your whole family.”  “If you would have never been born none of that would have happened.” 

Satan has talked to me my whole life, but I put on a smile for the outside world.  I didn’t want anyone to know anything was wrong with me.

I tried to prove that I could accomplish just as much as anyone else.  I tried to prove to myself that I was not broken.  I thought getting straight A’s would make me feel accomplished and whole.  I thought if I was the best basketball player I would feel better about myself.  I thought all the times I sang in school assemblies would make me feel worthy of love and respect. 

 My mom has had clinical depression ever since she found out about what my dad did.

 She was actually suicidal when I was 10 and thought of swerving into the oncoming lane of traffic and ending it.  She said she thought of us, my brother and I, and that stopped her. 

She committed herself again to a mental hospital for a week to get better.

I always felt responsible for her depression, and  I always tried to make her happy, but nothing seemed to work.

In the same way, none of my accomplishments in high school seemed to make me happy.  So after high school I continued on the addiction to accomplishments. I got accepted into a private Christian school, Biola University and into their prestigious Torrey Honors Institute, but I still was not happy with myself.  I wasn’t happy there. 

I came home every weekend.  I didn’t feel like I belonged or fit in at Biola.  Everyone seemed to come from a perfect family and mine was far from perfect.

I even felt when I graduated from Biola that I didn’t deserve to have a college degree.  I remember my whole life I had looked forward to this one moment when I would be a college graduate, yet I felt nothing.  I still felt empty inside.  It did not bring the sense of fulfillment that I thought it would.  I felt like, “there must still be something out there.”

Three years after I graduated I thought working on a cruise ship would make me happy.  I actually envisioned that it would be a utopia on the water, with no crime or pain or disappointments.  But most of my experiences were disappointments.  I worked as a youth entertainment coordinator.  I saw the empty lives of people trying to drink away their pain.  Everyone else on the ship was in same situation I was.  We were all trying to run away from something.

            I felt very isolated when working on the cruise ship.  I could not call my mom or friends most of the time.  I did not have a church community.  That was the main thing I missed.  And I fell into a bit of a depression.  I had a cold war with my room mates.  I was stressed out in my job working with kids all the time. I felt like I never got a break.  I just wanted to be left alone and it felt like everywhere I went I was on stage.  There was no privacy anywhere.  I even got reprimanded by my boss several times for not smiling enough.  Finally I just asked to go home.  It obviously wasn’t working out. 

I had always thought that seeing my mom’s depression made me depressed but really I have some depression in myself from all the repressed anger built up over 20 years. 

At first in high school I would not allow myself to be angry at my dad over the molest, because I thought it was un-Christian. 

The counselor at Biola helped me realize it was ok to be mad at my dad.  God was mad at him too.  From then on I decided to cut off all communication with him. 

She made me realized he essentially abdicated his role as father when he hurt me.  He did not really love me.  He only gave birth to me, but he is not really my father. 

He continues to try to be verbally abusive.  When my grandma died, his mom, he told me to not even try to come to her funeral or I would be walked out.  Of course I had no intention of going since he would be there.  He is not truly sorry for what he did, and he probably never will be. 

In high school I would actually try to call him every Sunday and just about every time we talked he would profusely apologize for what he did.  I would always say, “Dad I forgive you, drop it.”  My counselor helped me to see he still has not forgiven himself.  No amount of me saying “I forgive you” will matter until he can forgive himself.