my back is damaged, but

My back is damaged.

Sure, I’ve known that for a while, even before my first spine surgery when I was a 23-year-old newlywed. Back then, I was familiar with pain but absolutely terrified about being a wife, given the married model I grew up with was doused in alcohol and gussied up for appearance. I don’t know how to describe my parents. I just know it wasn’t real, what they projected to the world.

My back and my knees were never right. They were broken before they were whole, effed up before they were fully developed. The same could have been said of my soul, but somehow that survived intact.

My therapist says survival of me was a mix of my tenacity and the grace of God. I’m still not sure about that. I think I just did the next thing, until the things I did were my choices rather than their consequences.

I’m still learning to deserve healing, to believe I’m made for more than bruises. I’m still learning that little girls shouldn’t have to earn love from the people meant to give it no matter what. And I’m still learning to recognize the sound of my own voice, the voice they once stifled with as much violence as they quieted the rest of me.

And still they speak.

“Get over it; it was a long time ago.”

I’ve been told this, including by a man who raped me.

Do you understand that an unwanted and unexpected touch from a principal during a meeting to advocate for my daughter can make me jump, yelp, cuss, because my body can’t get over it?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“What could have happened 20 years ago that would still matter today.”

I’ve been told this, including by a man who trafficked me 20+ years ago.

Do you know trauma memories are stored differently, coming to life in nightmares in which it feels like it’s happening today?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

I’ve been told this, delivered not as a question but as a statement about my credibility.

Do you know all the ways I tried to tell with fresh cuts on my arms & meals revisited in the toilet & extreme overachievement to earn something like worth?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“Why speak now?”

I’ve felt these words as accusations, hurled at me or other survivors who begin to find their words.

Did you not hear, see, cringe, turn away from all the ways I tried to speak, tried to die, tried to run from sobriety, tried to work hard enough to matter?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“You seem so sad/mad/hurtful lately.”

I’ve heard this from the people who were used to my habit of folding words back into my mouth.

Do you know how much what I survived is worthy of sorrow and anger, how honesty about hurts is good for everyone but the abuser?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“Don’t you know [person/church] has done good things too?”

I have heard these words from those who prefer the blindfolds of comfort to the reality of discomfort.

Do you understand that I would say nothing if I believed everyone to be bad, that speaking is an expression of hope?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“You seem so happy and healthy, though.”

I have smiled at these words, not knowing how to respond to a person I don’t yet trust enough to peek behind the façade.

Do you understand I am a full story and not just a cover?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“Just call your family. It isn’t healthy or Christlike to be estranged.”

I used to follow this advice, as if God’s intent for me was to be broken and abused for the sake of my familial abusers.

How is it healthy or Christlike to keep petting the snake who reliably strikes?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“Jesus wants them to know he loves them, though. You need to keep telling them.”

I tried that. I nearly died trying. Now I’m working on telling me that Jesus loves me.

Do you believe in a Jesus so small that women have to bleed, burn, be violated for God to be made known?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“You just want attention.”

I hear this from those who prefer happy beginnings, middles, endings, even if they are all woven with lies, from those who would rather dismiss me than the harsh tragedies in my life story.

Do you do this to yourself too, wounding instead of tending?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

“This - #metoo, #churchtoo, #sextrafficking, stories of women’s bodies sacrificed on altars of silence - is new.”

I heard these words years, decades, a lifetime after I lived them.

Do you see now that the things in the dark were always there as you turned to the light instead?

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

Precious one reading this, I’m sure you could add to the list. Please know you were born valuable, worthy, beloved even if you were taught different.

In the words of pop prophet Katy, there is a part of you that they could never ever take away. Water that.

Your story matters.

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

But one more:
“Telling your story publicly is brave.”

I have heard that & disagree. You don’t have to publicly perform pain to earn a merit badge. In @BreneBrown’s words, share with those who have earned the right to hear your story.

Living in the after is brave. Period.

— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) September 14, 2018

My back is damaged, yet another body scan showed last week, described objectively by a clinician writing out the words of my brokenness with sterile and impartial terms. This scan was meant to take some pictures to help my neurosurgeon properly place the spinal cord stimulating electrodes during my most recent surgery yesterday. It did that.

But it also showed the broken places from the days their consequences reigned while my choices weren’t even a thing yet. Back then, I was the object of the story - the one to be hit, to be thrown, the one to be stripped, raped, sold, lather, rinse, repeat.

I’m the subject now. I do things. I write things. I make choices.

Like the choice to have surgery, surgery, surgery, surgery, surgery, surgery, and yesterday one more surgery over a stretch of 18 months. This is my bodily trauma therapy, the taking apart and putting back together, the reconciling my then with my now, the learning I was never made for broken.

After this recent and hopefully last surgery, my back is damaged. But the neurostimulator we’ll turn on in a week will quiet the pain of it, changing my experience of that damage. It’ll be weird to have electricity coursing through my spine, but it should have been weird for bones and joints to be damaged before they were developed. That was just my normal.

I’ll take this new weird, a weird of my choosing to reject their consequences in me.

My back is damaged, but my voice is not.