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I consider myself to be a late bloomer and a bit of an odd ball. I developed later than most of my friends and never journeyed down the predictable path. Traits I used to loathe, but now happen to love about myself. Ah, the joys of matured perspective.
Most of my 20’s were spent in battle. Sounds dramatic, but that’s exactly how it felt. I was in a battle with myself. I was struggling to find relevance, meaning, and direction in my life and spent a substantial chunk of those years lost in the fray of missed connections and foiled opportunities. I lived in a state of constant anxiety, comparison and compromise. I simply felt that I wasn’t _________enough. (Fill in the blank).
Growing up, I was never provided the messages from my parents that I was smart, capable or competent. Don’t get me wrong, my parents are wonderful people who did the best they knew how with a selfish, spoiled, self-centered teenager. Any sort of praise I did receive was usually centered around my appearance, and very little encouragement of my intellectual capacity or maturity was noticed.
Fast forward several years later when I experienced a life changing sexual assault- an event so violent and hateful that I thought I might never be the same. I was right- I wasn’t.
I rarely revisit the memories of that night. This was not always the case. In the immediate days and weeks that followed my assault, I was practically incapable of leaving my bed- flashbacks of that night, how I should have fought back, and things I wish I could have said to him were playing in a constant loop in my mind. I spent seven hours in the fetal position on my cold bathroom floor one day. Seven hours. I was emotionally broken and physically battered, and I had the bruises to prove it.
In the months and years that followed, I became highly promiscuous- a common coping mechanism amongst sexual trauma survivors. I would go to bars alone and start a conversation with someone who seemed like they would do for the night. My promiscuity and dominance was my way of regaining power and control in my life; of rewriting the script of that night and what had happened to me. Looking back, I was also cultivating an environment of profound disconnection and self-loathing.
Here’s something not easy to admit- I do not know how many people I slept with during this period in my life. One person would just bleed into the next until they were all just faceless bodies that I used to anesthetize my pain, terrified that if I were to address my brokenness, I would simply crumble underneath the weight of it all, rendering me inoperable.
A few years later I was sitting in a business meeting, likely just having kicked some faceless soul out of my bed just hours prior. The CEO posed the question “If you could have one super power, what would it be?” Immediately I knew my answer- I would want to heal people. I said this because I knew I was profoundly in need of healing in my own life.
How was I supposed to know that that question would be a pivotal moment for me? I wasn’t expecting it. I had yet to see my assault for what it was- one of the great lessons in my life, that looking back was anything but fortuitous. Later that day, I made my first appointment with a therapist. A therapist who would prove to be the hand that pulled me out of the darkness.
Prior to my assault, I was what some might consider a lost soul and a free spirit. Growing up in an environment that offered little encouragement for anything outside of my physical appearance, I didn’t realize that I had a well of untapped resources lingering beneath the surface. When I allowed myself to be broken open, that well inside was bursting. In it, I found my life’s calling and am now in my third year of a doctorate degree where I will be fortunate enough to be someone else’s hand that pulls them out of the darkness. For this lesson alone, I am eternally grateful.
As I begin to wrap this up, allow me to leave you with this:
When you are ready to begin the process of healing, healing finds you. Until then, you are deadlocked in a battle of trying every other route imaginable in an effort to avoid taking the long and arduous road to recovery. Whatever you do on the path to recovery, wherever it is that it takes you and however long it takes you to get there, is okay. You will get there, and I promise the 2.0 version of you will be so much better than the original.
-Julie Kelly
Julie Kelly was born and raised in Manhattan Beach, CA. She now lives in San Diego where she is earning her doctorate degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. She hopes to intern at UCSD Rimac Arena, Rady’s Children Hospital, and a downtown domestic violence center in an effort to help others begin the process of healing from physical and emotional trauma.
She has two dogs, Gracie and Cosmo, who serve as her Recreational Outdoor Consultants. They take this role very seriously 😉
