The Assault Revisited

Write About Scars, Not Open Wounds.

Photo by Nick Swaelen

This was the advice I have often heard when dealing with blogs/podcasts/vlogs, etc. Don't write about something you are currently dealing with.

But what if it's a traumatic event? What if that wound never heals?

It's been seven years since I was assaulted and five years since I wrote about it. Traumatic memories are not like normal memories. They are stored in a different part of the brain. As such, they come unbidden and fresh.

About a year ago I was talking about the assault that happened to me. All of the sudden I was transported in my mind back to that moment. I suddenly felt the arms of my assailant around my neck. My breath was restricted. I felt my neck muscles bulge as I tried to get his arms off of me. I heard him scream about how he was going to beat the homosexuality out of me.

Back to the present:  I locked up. My breathing became rapid. I was almost hyperventilating.

I was having a panic attack. It was my first ever. I shook it off, realizing what it was and actually curious that it happened to me. Then I realized that it was to be expected and not my fault.

Happening Once More . . . 

I have become more open about discussing my past and my sexuality. It has been freeing, but at the same time, jarring. When I tell people that someone strangled me because of my sexual orientation, I often notice a look of shock on people. They cannot believe it happened to me and then they ask me if I am ok. Normally in the moment I am ok.

Recently however I have been having more and more of these panic attacks. They come unbidden, mostly at night, and when my mind is tired. I realize that my brain has been repressing those thoughts and memories from that night. 

I used to be reluctant to seek out mental help. When I returned back from Germany to the United States, I ended up in a deep depression that affected my work and my marriage, ultimately leading to a divorce. I sought help, but at the moment that I sought help, I felt that I was an ultimate failure.

Now I realize that seeking help is a sign of strength.

So once again I have sought out the help of a therapist. She has been absolutely wonderful with me and I am on a new journey of healing.

But because I am bisexual . . .

Most of the recent terrible things that have happened to me have been because of my orientation. So many people, above all Evangelical Christians, treat me with contempt because I am bisexual. Sometimes an Evangelical Christian I have never talked to before will block me on social media. More often friends and family members have taken the time to like pictures of my sons and me on social media, but when there are pictures of my boyfriend and me, those likes are conspicuously absent. Then there was that Evangelical Christian who physically assaulted me. It has come to the point where I feel as if I am done with the animosity.

Sometimes the worst animosity comes from people who want to be nice, but throw out the phrase, "Hate the sin, but love the sinner." I was recently talking to an acquaintance who asked me what I thought of people who are trying to respect me as a person, but just disagreed with my "lifestyle."

What is it about my lifestyle that they actually disagree with? Is it how I go to work? Is it the food I eat? Is it the shows I watch or the games I play?

To be blunt:  It's not my "lifestyle" they object to. It's who I have sex with that they have the most objections. Even celibate people in the LGBTQ+ community experience this discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

I am disgusted and fed up with the bigotry towards the LGBTQ+ community.

The man who assaulted me was drunk and a white Evangelical Christian. Many people will sometimes use the excuse of "he wasn't a real Christian if he did that."

To be polite:  That's bovine scatology. It certainly wasn't Christ-like what he did, but he was/is a Christian.

Many Christians I know aren't very Christ-like. Many non-Christians I know are more Christ-like than myself.

Where does this leave me?

Right now I am continuing my therapy. Probably one of my biggest helps is my boyfriend. When the panic attacks happen, he is there to help me breathe through them.

I still go to church. I worship with them. I feel at home there. They have recently asked me to lead a small group for LGBTQ+ people. I nearly cried when they asked me to do this.

Do you know what's worse than being an LGBTQ+ person who left the Church? Being an LGBTQ+ person who stays in a church that rejects them. (Let me be clear:  This is definitely NOT my current church. They are wonderful.) I have more arguments with people who question my identity as a Christian because I am bisexual. It would be a lot easier to walk away from Christ altogether, but that is not the pathway Christ has shown me to follow.

There is a song I dearly loved when I was in the Salvation Army. It was written by the late General John Gowans. I actually had the privilege of singing this song in front of him when he was a special guest in Hannover, Germany for the German Salvation Army's congress there. One of the verses, which always brings me to tears, from his song, "I'll Not Turn Back" goes like this:

If tears should fall,

If I am called to suffer,

If all I love men should deface, defame,

I'll not deny the one that I have followed

Nor be ashamed to bear my Master's Name.

This is who I am:  a Bisexual Christian. I do not deny this. I follow God because of this.