***TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Assault***
“Who taught you how to swim?” my then-partner asked me, as our bodies bobbed around in the deep end. We had just learned that the gate to the apartment complex pool was broken, a tip graciously gifted to us by the San Luis Obispo locals, and that we could simply lift it to get in whenever we wanted. For the summer, we were living together in another apartment across the street — it didn’t have air conditioning, or a pool; so on days where the California heat seemed unbeatable, when even the apartment walls began to sweat, we would casually walk on over to the pool like we were visiting our friendly neighbors house. Unfortunately, being tipped off about the broken gate came in late August, towards the end of our summer together.
I hadn’t thought about who taught me how to swim in a very long time. I felt the question as though it were a mild electric shock all over my body — like the kind of shock someone might fall victim to if they try to pull a stick of gum from that old prank toy. A practical joke — ah, yes. Who-taught-you-how-to-swim? I had forgotten that these words could be stitched together and still make sense; stupid syntax escaping me. I dip underneath the surface.
Below, everything is painted in cerulean. I hear the infinite hum of the pool filter. Watch each strand of my hair flow outward and surround my periphery. See the navy blue tiles line themselves up in an assembly of rows on the pool floor. A particular peace finds me here and I will my lungs to hold for a bit longer. I don’t want to go back up and confront that question.
When I was younger, Jehovah Witnesses would often come to our house on the weekends. My parents would quickly turn off the television, turn off the lights and tell us to hide in our rooms until the friendly families got tired of knocking and left. It wasn’t out of animosity that we didn’t answer the door, my parents preferred to be unbothered, or perhaps didn’t have the energy to care. As a child, hiding felt playful — acting sneakily with parental permission. Breaking what my mom considered the most important rule: never lie — right in front of her very own eyes. And now.
Now I wish that I could turn off everything in my body and pretend nobody was home until the who-taught-you-how-to-swim question gave up knocking, got back in its car and drove away — never to return. I wish I could at least have some fun out-hiding it. But here it is on my porch and it’s peeking through the window and I’m out of breathe and I really want to stay under but I can’t and so fine I open the door as I come up for air and in the most calculating way possible begin to figure out how to answer this looming question so we can just go back to flopping in the water and pretending.
The man who molested me taught me how to swim.
So much for calculation. It is hard to think about how to soften the blow of this statement; don’t want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable with this truth of mine. A knot the size of a mango pit forms in my stomach. This familiar, dull bloat and I meet again. Apparently, the experience of childhood sexual abuse — and other psychological, sexual, or emotional trauma — leaves one more vulnerable to developing IBS. Something about the mind-gut connection; something about stress hormones creating a chronically hyper-aroused nervous system. I had to figure this science out on my own after years of ultrasounds, allergy tests, and blood samples got me to nowhereland — where my fellow undiagnosed-chronic-pain friends and I hung out after leaving the doctor’s office empty-handed. If the statistics are true, that 1 in 5 children are sexually abused or assaulted before the age of 18, then I am not alone in my pain, in the rumbling center of my body. Our memories may fool us, but our bodies remember — and perhaps our gut is churning and burning and yearning for some god damn accountability. Some peace.
*Teaching me how to swim was his birthday gift to me. He promised by the time I was 6, I would be able to swim without floaties* I remember. I remember. I remember. More than 90% of children who experience childhood sexual abuse know the perpetrator personally (RAINNN.org). Mine lived with me.
Back in the pool, I am still searching for some cushioning words. My partner already knew about my trauma, but neither of us expected to land on it here in this conversation, mid splish-splashing on a quiet summer evening. She seemed to take it in slowly, not letting my habit of rambling, or smiling, or otherwise emotionally disconnecting, drive her to do the same. Seeing her sad for me made me sad for me. I wanted to say “but he’s dead now” because he was; or “it only happened once” because it did (or so I can recall), but I was focused now on the pit in my stomach and growing knot in my chest closing in on my heart. It seemed so loud, her silence. It was forcing me to think about my answer. Giving me space to feel out what I would rather just blow through. And what might one even say to follow up to that? “I’m sorry” would have fallen flat like a poorly constructed paper airplane kerplunking a few inches from where it began to take off. She’s too smart for that. I think she understands that it’s all too overwhelming and that my stillness is somewhere below the blue surface. I take in her understanding as an approval. So I go under again. Can’t tell if I am swimming towards a ladder to get out or sinking deeper into the moment. The weightlessness throws me off.
It would be a safe time to cry; hardly even noticeable. But I do not cry. I look out into the blurred blue-y water. Complexity overcomes me. There is frustration in knowing that I will never be able to turn off the lights and pretend that nobody is home whenever it’s time to confront my trauma. There is confusion in knowing that even when I think I forget, I remember. There is a grieving in knowing I am far from alone in this hurt. There is gratitude for a working body — and its signals allowing me to begin to understand how we had to mold to survive. How I have a survivor’s brain and a survivor’s nervous system and a survivor’s gut.
At some point, I realize I am floating; I am in a kind of meditation in order to keep a horizontal stature. Filling up my lungs and holding onto the air at the top of my breath. My task is to remember I am safe, especially when I am hijacked by the hurt. And the longer I live, the better I seem to get at this.
It’s likely this moment won’t last long. I don’t think we humans are meant to hold such a charge every second. Or are we? Regardless, I know by the time we make dinner, I will be somewhere else again. Back in the mundane. But this place, the one I am in right now, where I am choosing to surrender to the complexity of it all, I can only be here sometimes. It’s intense, this knowing. And I can’t say it’s peace, but I wonder if it’s the closest I’ll ever get.