What My Assault Taught Me About Love: An Open Letter

“November 29th, 2015 // I don’t care if it’s been 6 years. Some days it hits you like a ton of bricks and it’s OK to cry and not tell anyone why. No one’s going to understand when you say, “I miss myself,” or the drunken arguments about God, or why you care so much about the drunk girl at the party when you’re drunk, too. It’s OK to be 15 again if that’s what you need, but forgetting and moving on are two completely different things. “

Dear you,

You probably wouldn’t guess it from looking at me, or knowing me, but I’ve been through my fair share of crap. When I say crap, what I mean is, life isn’t fair, for anybody – even the girl who laughs too much. I never wanted anyone’s sympathy, so maybe that’s why it took 7 years for me to tell the people who know me, and the few handfuls of people that I love, “I’m sorry.” I’m not sorry for what happened to me, and I’m definitely not sorry for the person I’ve become. I’m not sorry for the path I took, either, because nothing tested me more than those roadblocks along the way. Instead, simply, I’m sorry for being sorry for being me.

If you know me, you know that I seldom silence myself when it comes to the things I’m passionate about, but every time I sit down to write this post, it feels like an explanation. Even now, I feel myself trying to justify that night; like, I could have done something to stop it. The thought crosses my mind, “but what if they read it?” I was always so afraid of people knowing what I had to say, but now I’m more afraid of going through it for nothing. I’m not going to say that I’m glad that it happened, but let’s just say that I’m pretty content with the person that I became.

Not that long ago, I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to wake up in the morning. It seemed inevitable, but I knew that it didn’t have to be. I had times when I didn’t want to leave my room, convinced that I was on a deathbed that no one else seemed to see. I had nights up past 4am trying to piece together the events that had somehow gotten me there – memories on replay, clinging on by tears and my incapability to let things be.

My existence left me baffled – trying to arrange myself into an idea, a person, a thing that made sense. Even I didn’t know what to think of the mess of a girl staring back at me, certain that I wouldn’t recognize myself even if I were standing 10 feet away. l never knew if God existed because I never knew what to think. I wondered how God could hand me a life that, at times, felt impossible to live. I wondered how God could hand me a brain that didn’t know how to love me back. But most of all, I wondered why I had to be me; to carry the heart of such a broken girl that gave her love away, to everyone, except herself.

I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be the girl who didn’t know how to take care of herself. In fact, I have to admit, I was a pretty good actress, and I didn’t even have to try. My mental illness took the backseat for as long as I can remember, only showing her face when no one else was in the room. Looking back, for the longest time I held it together so unconspicuously. I had my good grades, close friends, and famous “Smiling Mary” smile that let me slide right under the radar as “A-OK.” The truth is, I was far from it, and as adulthood approached, I mistakingly confused growing up and moving on as the same thing.

The truth is, I didn’t know that there was anything to move on from. Sure, I cried about it from time to time but didn’t tell a soul. This was classic me stuff, though, you know? I thought that the crying-mental-breakdown-at-2am thing was just part of being me. I thought that if I could pick myself up like all of the times before that things would be OK, eventually, but they never really were. I started wondering if I ever would be OK, and if so, then when? I started wondering what 15 year old me would do, and why I wanted her advice in the first place. I became obsessed with the idea of where I might be if that night never happened, making a guessing game out of “lost potential.” I filled my body with so much guilt that sorrow was out of the question. What I couldn’t get a grasp on was the mourning of oneself – denyingly trying to resurrect a person that I was once so confident that I knew so well, just to find her missing, taken, gone.

At 15, I learned that people can steal parts of you. I learned that if you cry when boys kiss you, it’s not because you’re crazy.

No matter how far I try to run from it, It happened. Three days after I turned 15, it happened. I try to piece together the events of that day, or the days that followed, but for the most part, it’s gone. Sure, I know the gist of it. I knew who he was and where it was, and the furniture in the room. I remember what was on TV and that I was missing my favorite band play that night. I remember what I was wearing, and that I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. I remember walking into my empty house that next day – collapsing on the floor and singing between the sobs in an attempt to maybe find some peace. I never talked about it. I still don’t. I didn’t tell anyone for 6 months.

When you say “rape” people will say “I’m sorry,” but it never feels like enough. Why are you sorry? If you really knew, my god, sorry wouldn’t be enough. Sorry is the word on the repeat when I tell my loved ones that I am so sorry that I am so hard to love. I’m sorry for all of the nights I locked myself in my room. I’m sorry that I made a victim out of my body, and for how it’s hard for me to be anything but distant. I’m sorry for all of the cancelled plans, the empty bottles, and for the texts at 3am, always certain that I’d rather be dead than be me.

This post isn’t to tell you about how great life is, because I know, firsthand, it really sucks. Of course, life can be pretty great, too. Despite the things I went through, I still laughed harder than anyone I knew (and still do) and never took a person for granted. I always felt like I “felt too much,” and back then I thought it was a bad thing. What I fear, though, is that one day, I won’t feel enough. Life’s too short not to love ruthlessly.

If there’s one thing that I know makes me happy, it’s people. Specifically, helping people. I said it during my darkest times and I’ll say it now – people are what makes life worth living. Because of the situations I’ve been put in, it’s given me a whole new perspective on what love is, to the core. Of course, you love your mom, you love your friends, you love Chipotle, whatever. Getting past some of the darkest times of my life and making it out on the other side gave me a new appreciation for living. It gave me an appreciation for people like me – broken and crooked and unusual, but beautiful despite that. I learned that love has nothing to do with who you are, where you’re from, or the things you’ve seen. I learned this because even though it took awhile, I learned to love me.

I could be so bitter (at times I truly was). It would be too easy to wear a cold shoulder, shut myself off, and never look back at the places I’ve been, convincing myself that I’d always been that way. It’s hard loving yourself when you weren’t what you expected to be. It’s hard loving yourself when there’s so much blame. You can hate and hate and hate until the day that you die, but in the back of your mind you don’t hate yourself at all. Don’t let the bad times fool you.

It was hard loving myself. It was hard holding out for the girl who pulled the disappearing act, or for someone that I wasn’t even sure that I knew at all. I cry when I think about that time and how I was ashamed to even know that girl in the first place. She was my closest friend, a 2am phone call, and the girl I called my home. I love myself because I know where I’ve been and what waking up once felt like. In my most imperfect ways, I got out, and I did that; it was me. Maybe I’m strong now, but that girl was stronger. I owe rock bottom my life.

I hope that someday you love your life so much that the people that you meet can see it. I hope that every now and then you’ll look back at the dark places you’ve been, not because you want to go back there, but to get a more humble perspective. There are billions of people that I’ll never get to meet, with stories that outshine mine, by far. The more experiences that I share with the people who pass through my life make me realize more and more – we’re not all that different after all. I think that maybe, just maybe, you might realize the same thing.

Never stop smiling. Never stop laughing. Never stop loving. Never stop your crazy, silly life.

So much love,

Mary Kathryn

Lost & Found

I wish there was a point that I could look back on to say, “Yeah, that’s it. Right there – that’s where I got lost.” But if life were a game, then the game is hide and seek – continuously losing ourselves to be found once again. The thing I’ve come to terms with recently, though, is that winning once doesn’t mean that you’re safe. This is how we lose ourselves. 

When it came to this second post, I wasn’t sure what there was to say. It’s funny because I had so much that I could say, but none of it seemed right. I wanted to say something inspirational, but to be honest, I wasn’t feeling very inspired. I’ve been in Utah for over a month now, and I have to admit, I’m pretty darn happy. That’s not to say that things are all lined up in Mary’s World, because trust me, they’re not. When I got here, I was so sure of who I was and where I wanted to go, but even the people who have it all together get lost, and I’m not an exception.

When I came back to my faith, naturally, my testimony was as strong as ever. I relied on prayer to get me through the day; I even found myself praying on my lunch breaks, filled with such a profound gratefulness for the love that seemingly downpoured, with no real warning or expectation. How could I not thank God every minute of every day for giving me back a light that I had once been so certain wasn’t even there to begin with? Well, now I know how.

I started forgetting my prayers. Maybe I didn’t have time. Maybe I was just too exhausted. Maybe there was so much going on and it just slipped my mind. I can make excuses all day long, but isn’t this how we lose ourselves? So, even I, the girl who moved across the country on nothing but faith, started to slip. Before, I was certain that since I had found the gospel and the joy that came along with it, it would never leave me. I was certain that for now, church and everything along with it was going to come easy. But, I learned that it doesn’t happen that way, and that being close with Heavenly Father is like any sort of long-term relationship; it takes work.

This situation that I found myself in reminds me of a scripture from the New Testament that I remember learning in sunday school as I was growing up.

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

Heavenly Father is always going to be there for us, whether we think we need Him to be or not, but it’s our responsibility to open the door. It’s easy to forget the gospel, or even the things and people that are most important to us when there’s so much going on. While things in my life aren’t necessarily the “best ever”, I haven’t been facing as many trials as I was when I was making the move here, so I guess that as selfish as it is, it stopped being a priority. The reason this is so notable to me, in my mind, is because of how drastic my days seemed to change. Maybe I didn’t close the door, but simply left it half open.

Day to day, everything was the same. I’d wake up at 7am (or maybe hit snooze 3 times), get to work, come home, and do whatever. But, I noticed myself getting annoyed with the little things. I noticed myself judging people, when I swore to myself that that was something I didn’t want to do, because I know how much it hurts when I feel someone judging me. Three hours of church seemed way too long, and even work began to seem unbearable. I don’t necessarily feel guilty for forgetting, but now I’m more aware of how much happier I am when I have the gospel in my life.

Distractions are a given – that’s part of our experience here on Earth. We can’t be perfect 100% of the time, and Heavenly Father knows this. I also know how much He loves us, though, and in order to recognize that love in our lives we have to keep that door open at all times with an overwhelming, “Come in and make yourself at home!” Day to day, no, we don’t need prayers, we don’tneed scriptures, and we don’t need church, but I promise, life is so grand if you welcome these things into your life.

Yesterday I was having what seemed to be the worst day ever. I woke up with a crazy, painful red eye, and had to drag myself to the only open clinic in town (good luck finding a doctor in Utah County on a Sunday!). I waited an hour just to get called, and it turned out that I was going to be OK! They sent my prescription to my pharmacy, which I found out was also closed on Sundays (Oh, Utah County). After finally getting my prescription ordeal figured out, I decided, “What the heck!” and went to the gas station to buy my beverage of choice, a Diet Coke, just to find out that their coke machine was down (first world problems, am I right?). While of course I’d normally say that you should try not to shop on Sundays, I know now that I was supposed to be there because of what happened next.

There was a man in the store that was about my father’s age who was also grabbing a soda. I expressed to him, “Wow, today is not my day!” We laughed about it, and then went on with our lives. When I left the store, though, he was outside waiting for me to tell me that my bad day was about to get worse! He noticed that the front tire on the right side of my car was virtually flat. If you know me, you know how hard I rolled my eyes at this point. I thought, “God! What is going on?!” My first instinct was to be angry and frustrated. I couldn’t see the good side of this situation. But, I also didn’t expect this man to be so kind.

He pumped my tire for me to make sure I was safe to drive on the road, and let me know that I should probably get it checked out. So then I had to find an open car place on a Sunday in Utah County. You see how frustrating this must have been for me, right? I had a painful eye and a flat tire and a measly Diet Pepsi instead of my coveted Diet Coke.

I immediately called my parents and sobbed because I realized how GRATEFUL I was for what had just happened to me. I was in the right place at the exact right time to meet this man who was going to help me. If I hadn’t met him, I probably never would have noticed the tire, and then what would have happened? It would have been an even worse day. This person was a complete blessing in my life.

I decided that I probably wasn’t going to go to church. Not only was I having the worst day with a bum eye, I was exhausted and my doctor pointed out that I couldn’t even wear makeup (which, if you know me, is not cool). BUT, at 1pm I hopped in the shower and got to my sacrament meeting only 5 minutes late, despite being upset with how my day seemed to be going. It turned out that it was Ward Conference, which meant that my bishop had the opportunity to speak to all of us (I LOVE my bishop). I’m so grateful that I made it, because as embarrassing as it was, I felt the Spirit so strong during his talk that I cried my way through the rest of Sacrament Meeting (and, luckily I wasn’t wearing makeup or else I would have looked like a raccoon by the end of it). I knew that that was where I needed to be, and it occurred to me that if I had missed out, I’d probably be at home, still upset, and still angry.

It would have been easy for me to dismiss the man who helped me that day, and instead focus on everything that went wrong. Even on our worst days, Heavenly Father’s got our backs! If you put your trust in Him, things will work out, believe me. Sometimes, choosing God seems like the inconvenient choice when our lives are so busy and sometimes kind of miserable. Yes, some days are absolutely and completely miserable, and instead of humbling ourselves we turn to God with a brash, “Why?!” But the first step to losing ourselves is losing sight of God’s love. Losing sight of God’s love inevitably means losing our faith. When we lose our faith, then we say, what’s the point? And this is where we can get completely and utterly lost.

As someone who considers herself lost & found, I never want to find myself in a “lost” situation again. When you embrace God’s love and open the door, there are no “bad” days, but instead, “BLESSED” days. The bad days are opportunities for us to humble ourselves again and recognize the good things. Take my advice, and search for the blessings in your day to day life, because I promise they’re there.

I’ve gotten into a funny habit that I’d like to share with you guys, because it’s helped me recognize the little blessings in my life. When something even mildly good happens to me, I say out loud to myself, “Cool!” The other day I thought that I forgot my phone charger at work, but I looked in my purse and it was there, and said, “Cool!” My favorite song comes on the radio and I say, “Cool!” I got to sit next to my best friend at work and I was like, “Cool!”

Every day I try to make it a habit to view God as my very best friend, and the small things that He does for me to make my days just a little bit easier seem very, very cool. Having God on your side is like having your best friend everywhere you go, and that’s what gave me the courage to do what I did and move across the country all alone. I’m not afraid of the “what-ifs” anymore, because I know that when I get there, Heavenly Father’s going to be right there with me, too.

Lost or found, the door’s always there. Next time around, just remember to open it, silly!

So much love,

Mary Kathryn

image source: http://www.opendoorpersonnel.com/

How I Got Here

Some days the reality kicks in and I can’t help but wonder, “How did I get here?”

When I made the decision to move across the country with no real end goal in mind – no idea of what it really meant – I wasn’t living in reality. My friends asked, “Why?” and I didn’t have an answer. Some of them were actually really excited for me, but for the most, just like me, they couldn’t get a grasp on it. Moving over a thousand miles away isn’t something people do every day, let alone making the trek for the inexplicable, which I usually masked as, “I simply need change.” The truth is, I did need change, but I’m still not convinced that that’s how I ended up here.

It was May when I made the decision. My class schedule for my 7th semester at my university was set. I had already signed a year-long lease living with one of my best friends in the place that had slowly become our home. I had the very best cat babies (missing you, Rayne and Bella Bean) that I had to contemplate leaving behind. My mom was a 45 minute drive away and I had my hiding places for the days where I just needed to get away. For so many years, this place, this life, it was comfortable, but the truth is, it never was comfortable being me.

I seldom shared my story, always keeping it on the backburner for a mental breakdown in my room at 2am, or for the drunk girls at parties crying on bathroom floors. I convinced myself that I liked this life, making jokes out of the “bad days,” because laughing at the bad stuff  was easier than dwelling in it. I lived as if I were bulletproof, but at 4am on a Tuesday night I’d find myself wide awake, not knowing what to think of the girl in the mirror staring back at me. She looked like me, but I’m beginning to wonder if I ever knew her at all.

Growing up, I was raised as a Latter-Day Saint, or as most know it as, Mormon. In the midwest, this set me apart from most people in the crowd. For as long as I can remember, my family and I attended our 3 hour church meetings every Sunday, and we made the effort to participate in church activities as often as we could. For some, being Mormon was the best thing that could ever happen. To me, it seemed like a curse.

It’s not that I thought it wasn’t true – because I did, but thinking and knowing aren’t the same thing. I saw the kids my age at church and I just couldn’t relate. I never felt like I fit in, and the things they found “fun” and the things I found “fun” were never the same. When I stopped going to activities, it had everything to do with me and nothing to do with them, but I couldn’t help but feel alienated; like, I was the charity case and everyone was just going along with it.

Meanwhile, I was going through things that most kids my age couldn’t imagine going through (post at a later date?), in a constant battle between who I was and who I felt I wanted to be. I know now that this was spirit-deep – and battle between my physical self and and my soul. Always in an emotional state, I felt different from everyone else. I seemed to care more than most. Even the most minor problems seemed like the end of the world, and waking up for 6am seminary and then attending my classes at school seemed like the bane of my existence. Still, though, I was always the “good” kid. I was hard on myself, which meant I had an ideal to live up to. It wasn’t until the end of my high school career when things started to slip.

The college I chose was one that I felt confident about – they were the only school in the state that had my major, and it continually makes the lists for some of the best public colleges in the country. Even my mom felt good about it, feeling certain that this was where I needed to be. Maybe I did need to be there, but for reasons that seem so opposite to what we had originally believed.

It was the first time in my life that I could do whatever I wanted. That meant not going to church, eating pizza at 2am, dating whoever, whenever, and of course, drinking. Looking back, it feels so far away, but my life became centered around feeling like I was doing college “right.” For a few weeks during my freshman year, I decided that I wasn’t going to drink, but even that seemed impossible. It seemed like everyone was having so much fun, and I was the one missing out.

Now, it’s obvious – there’s nothing fun about drunk texts, or fighting with your best friends over the most trivial things, or wiping snot from your friends nose with their face in a toilet. There’s nothing fun about crying on a bathroom floor in a fraternity and waking up in the morning to the aftermath. There’s nothing fun about the hangovers, or crying the next day because of the stupid things you’d done. The only thing fun about it was maybe the stories, but like I said before, don’t we just laugh at those things because laughing about it is easier than admitting that that’s part of who we really are?

Now, I’m not judging people who drink, or go to frat parties and cry on bathroom floors, or send sloppy drunk texts – because how can I judge someone for the things that I myself have done? I get it; I get all of it. I get the stigma around partying, and I get why people do it. In fact, I understand people a lot more because of it, but that doesn’t mean I like it, and it doesn’t mean that I want to be a part of it anymore.

This was how I lost myself. For the 3 years that I was in school, nothing seemed to change, except maybe my hairstyles and the people I called my “besties.” I skipped classes more than I’d like to admit, and found myself wondering what the heck I was doing there. I didn’t care about my major anymore. I didn’t really care about my grades. For awhile there, I felt like I was stupid because the grades didn’t seem to come as easily as before, but now it’s so simple in my mind — I was getting by with the bare minimum. I was just existing.

Towards the end of the semester this past April, things seemed to be changing for me, but not really. I was less emotional, and I started to see things for what they were, and not what I built them up in my mind to be. I wasn’t where I’m at now, but I was getting better. It wasn’t until I reconnected with an old friend who was LDS that things began to change.

Growing up, one of my mom’s favorite sayings was, “People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.” It’s some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten, and it still holds as true as the day she first said it to me. This person came into my life for what seemed like a really dumb reason – I had just gotten out of a relationship and needed a distraction. I never would have thought that they’d be the person who contributed to me “finding” myself. At that point, religion was out of the picture, but I was still curious about the church and the people in it. He himself seldom brought up religion, and it seemed like I always wanted to talk about it much more than he did. I started reading the scriptures every now and then to humor myself, and most nights I found myself praying. Even though I thought nothing was going to come of it, deep down there must have been some faith there, because slowly but surely, I started changing. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point I realized that this was real, and that even the most creative of people couldn’t make this sort of thing up.

This person isn’t really in my life anymore, and that’s a sad part of the story, because I wish they could be around to see how much they helped me. It’s hard to be sad, though, when all you want to do is say, “Thank you!” It’s funny how things happen, because although things can get really messed up and it feels like everything is wrong, looking back, they always seem to be blessings that we ourselves couldn’t quite see yet.

And so you’re wondering, how did you end up over a thousand miles away in the Mormon Mecca known as Utah? And the answer is, I don’t know. The idea popped into my mind months and months ago, while I was still in what I call “the dark days.” It seemed to come into my mind every now and then, but I was never serious about it, and if I was, it never seemed attainable. It was at that time that I realized that the fear of not changing was greater than the fear of actual change.

In May, I prayed about it often. I told my parents that that was what I was doing, and to my surprise, they supported me as long as I felt like that was what I needed to do. And let’s be honest – what Mormon parents would be opposed to their previously distraught child making a change that included being surrounded with a bunch of their Mormon peers?

I started to pray about it every day. Some days I was excited about the trip, but on others, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “What the heck are you doing?!” I was scared. I frequently got anxious about the trip, and some days I flat out decided that I was being illogical. Even though there was doubt, it never felt like not going was an option. I decided that if things worked out – if I could get my college apartment subleased and find a new apartment out in Utah, all while maintaining good grades in my summer courses and working at my summer job – then I would go. So here I am. Of course, things seemed to fall into place just at my deadline, but I went by the saying, “better late than never,” and decided that it was a sign.

When I got here, things weren’t what I was expecting, and I began to wonder, “OK, what have you gotten yourself into?” I’m not going to pretend like I don’t cry every now and then because of how much I miss my family and my friends, or like some nights aren’t lonelier than I knew lonely could be, but the truth is, I never truly feel alone. That’s the BEST part about my faith – knowing that Heavenly Father is right there with me for every step of the way – the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It’s hard to feel sad when I’ve been blessed enough to be able to recognize how much love we are all given by Him.

I never thought I’d be here, yet here I am. I don’t know why, yet. I have faith that one day things will be very clear, and that this part of my journey is necessary, whether it be for me, or someone I meet along the way.

The most profound thing I have gained from the gospel is the overwhelming amount of love I have felt from our Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ. I have never known a love or joy so great than the love that we receive from God and our Savior. Because I’ve been lucky enough to recognize it, I can’t help but spread that love to every person I meet.

I can picture my old college friends now – rolling their eyes with blank stares, wondering how someone like me could fall into something as silly as religion. But people like me are exactly who the gospel is for, because nobody’s perfect and every person makes mistakes, no matter how good they seem to have it. I know that most of my old friends won’t be around for the future, and that’s OK. I know that most people I meet aren’t going to see things the way that I see them, and that’s OK, too. I wish that every person could experience the gospel the way that I have, but I know that they won’t. I do know, though, that I can build more bridges than I burn,  be a listening ear or a good friend, and spread much more love into this universe than I can hate.

It’s so good to be here, and for the first time in my life I’m starting to realize that home has nothing to do with where you are, but who you are, and the people you meet along the way. For the first time in my life it feels good to be me.

So much love,
Mary Kathryn