Greater Is Coming

God says “The reason some people have turned against you and walked away from you without reason, has nothing to do with you. It is because I have removed them from your life because they cannot go where I am taking you next. They will only hinder you in your next level because they have already served their purpose in your life. Let them go and keep moving. Greater is coming.” Says the Lord.

I am experiencing so many mixed emotions right now. I have to believe that greater is coming. I just need to hang on through the chaos. If you have the ability, I would love any prayers or kind thoughts you can send my way.

Please enjoy your family through this holiday season. Don’t take them for granted. Love them deep and be sure they know it. Those three words have more power than we could ever know.

Hang in there with me. I need you right now. More to come.

xoxo,

Kristin

 

The Damaged part 1

For someone with Borderline Personality Disorder to write the things I did in this post, I had to pull some MAJOR skills out of my tool box. I will cover in Part 2 the DBT Skill called “Distress Tolerance”. It is a tough skill to learn, but amazing if you can master it. My parents might need to use that skill while reading these posts.

I am taking a deep breath right now and hoping I can make it through writing these stories out. These are things that have been haunting me since they happened. And it isn’t fair to not include them in my story. They will be the hardest posts I have written to date, which might be surprising based on my previous content. So fasten your seat belts… I’m not sharing these stories on a whim. I rarely talk about these times in my life, but I feel it’s really important to share my experiences because so many young girls are still going through what I went through. Relationship violence and date rape are devastating young lives. It’s time to put an end to the abuse…..and it’s time for everyone to understand that actions have consequences.
I share this story to let girls everywhere know that you are strong……and you are not alone.

I like facts and statistics so let’s begin there.

You should be able to click on the photo to make it easier to read. But let’s start with the very sad statistic that 1 in 4 women have been raped or suffered attempted rape. As I struggle to write this I am going to keep that in mind. Because there are too many of you out there who this has happened to and someone needs to shed some light and open the freakin door and say THIS IS NOT OKAY!

I was 18 years old I had already been through so many tough experiences. I had suffered extreme bullying. I had been using prescription drugs as a way to control my life, and to be honest, I just didn’t care much about anything. Thankfully I was able to attend college instead of going to my senior year of high school and it was a great way to get away from the people that made my life a living hell. Let’s be honest, I was all around pretty mad at the world. So I didn’t take the precautions that I hope and pray my daughters will take when going on a date.

I dated pretty much anyone and everyone. I really didn’t care who. I just wanted to have fun and escape my problems. We were just getting into the age of meeting people online and I met and dated a few people from there. And one person I went on a date with was just a cute guy I met at a gas station. I was impulsive and loved surprising people so when he talked to me, I responded back.

I really want to highlight the fact that “25 percent of men surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if the woman asks the man out, the man pays for the date or the woman goes back to the man’s room after the date.” ALSO … 33% of guys said they would rape someone if they knew it would go undetected. WHAT THE HELL is that about?

So I went on a date with the cute guy I met at the gas station. He bought me dinner. We both liked to play video games and so I went back to his house where he had told me people would be there to play a new video game he had purchased for us. When we got there no one was home but he said they would be back anytime. “Don’t worry.” he said. He turned on the video game console and I didn’t really think much about it at first. UNTIL he asked me if he could get me a drink. I remember joking with him, “Yeah right, I’ll get my own water. Don’t want you spiking my drink. haha” Just so you know. The entire time I was at his house “waiting” for the other people to get there so we weren’t alone, my intuition/inner spirit/heavenly angels were SCREAMING at me to leave! The sirens were going off inside my head and heart and the panic started to set in. He drove on our date so I didn’t have a car, but I should have called someone to pick me up. And even though nothing had happened yet, if I HAD a car I hope beyond hope I would have mustered up the strength and courage to trust my instincts and go.

I’m going to be real with you for a second. I feel like as a society, women have been trained to be too polite, especially with the culture in Utah. I don’t know how many times I have done something just so the other person didn’t feel uncomfortable even though it made my skin crawl. I’m not sure how to overcome this problem, but it needs to start being addressed.

Anyway, that was that. My first sexual assault and attempted rape. I resisted hard enough and kicked him in enough sensitive places that he swore at me and finally let me go. And after all that he ended up driving me home as fast as his truck would go. He wouldn’t even take me all the way to my house. He told me I didn’t deserve for him to waste his gas taking me anywhere (as his squealing tires took each curve). “What did you expect you bleep bleep bleep?? I bought you dinner and everything.” And these are the words of the entire experience that I will never forget. “What did you expect? I BOUGHT YOU DINNER”

After that I called a friend of mine. He told me to go to the police. I knew that I couldn’t. I knew that I knew better than to go to his house. I knew that I should have worn something different. I knew that I should have called someone when I felt something was wrong. I knew I didn’t want to disappoint my parents. I knew that I didn’t want to be made to feel shame because he tried to rape me. Because all those things added up to this in my head: “It was my fault.” And no one could tell me different.

I tried to move on and just forget it all. I buried it like I did everything else uncomfortable in my life. Now this is the part that I am really dreading to write. Because you are probably going to be screaming at me as you read it.

A few months later I met a guy for a date. I took precautions. I thought I was being safe (as safe as an 18 year old can ever think she is being). I drove this time. He paid for dinner. And then we walked through part of downtown Salt Lake and I paid for dessert. We went to an art exhibit or something. Now if you didn’t know better you would be thinking.  “Okay. She is out of the woods. Safe”. But we all know that isn’t how this story goes. To be honest. I’m not sure of how the story goes. I can’t remember what made me go inside his house. For those that don’t know I am an avid reader. It is one of my favorite escapes. I’m pretty sure he told me he had a first edition of one of my favorite books? I’m not quite sure. I have a few lucid memories from that night after we ate dessert. But what I do know for a FACT. He put something in my drink, drugged me, and raped me. There are moments during the rape that I can recall clear as day as I type this. I can remember thinking how was this possibly happening. I can remember how it felt to have his body press so hard against mine. I remember a few of the things he said during the assault. And I’m not going to go into too much depth. My heart is already racing as it is. 

BREATHE Kristin. I said it. Do you know how difficult it is to say the word “rape” and “me” in the same sentence? Probably not. I have worked on this post for a month. I have cried a lot. And I still cry about it. Maybe that is why I have felt so awful lately. But even through my tears right now I am telling you. I need to tell these stories and I need them to be shared. I have prayed about it and prayed HARD! Would I love to pretend that all this never happened to me? Of course. But who does that help? No one. And I can guarantee you. If the numbers are correct and 1 in 4 women are victims of sexual assault then there are FAR too many women of all ages that need to hear this!! And know that yes, my road has been hard. Harder than anyone knows. And I have suffered the unthinkable. But look at me? Through it all? I have amazing parents. An amazing Husband. Beautiful Daughters and a GOOD LIFE!! So if I can overcome, you can as well. We are Daughters of our Heavenly Father who LOVES us! We are His WARRIORS here on earth! I will continue to fight the good fight. Will you join with me? 

And by the way, if a 28 year old guy asks you (a barely legal 18 year old) out on a date … RUN AWAY NOW! That guy was 28 years old working on his PhD in some type of Molecular or Chemical Biology Engineering. AND I did question at first when he asked me on a date. Why a 28 year old guy who is getting his PhD would want to date an 18 year old girl. Now I know.

I’m going to stop here for this post because I am guessing that is a lot to take in. I will post the rest tomorrow about some of the aftermath. And in that same post I’m going to tell you about “Jay”. The guy who I dated for almost 2 years after these events who actually helped me get past a lot of this. And then, (spoiler alert) when I tried to break up with him, he attempted to kill us both. And almost succeeded. Digest that for a while.

 

Please Support Rainn! The work they are doing and light they are shedding on such a difficult topic is remarkable! Their hotline is 1-800-656-HOPE. You can call in anonymously! Here are other great hotlines as well.

You are MORE than welcome to contact me! These are tough subjects. I get it. The Comments here are NOT made public. They are sent only to me.

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Loving through Pain

I am going to have to work hard if I want to get my blog current. There is just so much great information to cover and I don’t want to leave anything out. And thanks everyone!! I can’t be more excited. My blog is almost to 2000 views!!! It has been seen in 4 countries. This is so amazing and unexpected! I am extremely humbled. I really hope it is helping people.

What happened next is another phenomenal miracle in my life. It is still happening to this very day. I don’t feel the pain, anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts anymore. He took the darkness away. I feel extreme happiness. I guess dying will do that to a person. What a great gift God decided to give me. Because without it, I would not be here. And there is a VERY big reason I am still living. And you will get to see it play out. Maybe one of the reasons I am here is to write these very words. Who knows?

After the 22nd, I have talked about how my life changed. My love for Seth and my family changed. My love for myself changed. But Seth understandably wouldn’t let me in. At all. It hurt. It was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. I had finally found myself, and was becoming the woman I had always wanted to be -that HE wanted me to be- and he didn’t want anything to do with it. With me. And I was pretty convinced that would never change. The divorce was still going forward.

I had a friend who decided she wanted to go on a vacation to Los Angeles and asked me to come along. At the time, even though my joy was bursting out of every cell in my body, it made no difference to Seth. So I took her up on the offer. I told my parents I was going on a vacation and they thought it was a good idea as well. I had been through so much, and a vacation might take my mind off things for a while. I was still living away from home with my roommate and I packed my bags. But I felt sick inside. Regret, darkness, fear. I pushed those feeling aside because Seth and my parents told me that getting away might be good for me. So it had to be, right? It was an impulsive decision. I came to my home to say goodbye to my girls, and something inside me knew. If I left for L.A., I might never come back. Something there would change me forever. That opportunity to spend some time with my girls Seth decided to take them swimming so it didn’t have much time with them to say goodbye. I was angry. He knew I needed to spend some time with them before I left. And the anger grew. It was first time since “The Day” that I felt that much negative emotion. I do regret that day, but I know what I was fighting for I NEEDED this time with my girls. I knew why I was so hurt and mad. If I left I wouldn’t come back, possibly ever. And this was my only chance to hug them, kiss them, hold them for the last time.

After the BIG fight, I got in my car and left. I drove to Mesa where my friend lived, but instead of going to her house, I somehow ended up in the Mesa Temple parking lot. I had never been there before, and I have no idea how I got there. I was just driving and there it was on the right hand side. So I parked, and let the feelings wash over me. My friend was anxious to leave. Her boyfriend had just committed suicide the week before. She was losing custody of her kids. She needed to get away. But every time I thought of leaving, darkness overtook my mind. I could barely think. I sat there for hours. And then I finally made a choice. The choice. I was scared to upset my friend, but I finally called her and told her I couldn’t go. And she was mad, really mad. But it was the right thing to do and I finally felt peace.

My dad called just after I made the decision. I can’t believe how much he and I felt the same things. I mean we were 12 hours away from each other. He didn’t know all the details and drama in my life, other than what I told him on the phone. But he somehow KNEW. He asked where I was. He told me to go back home, that he had been thinking all day and felt sick about me leaving. I told him I was already on my way home. He told me to stay and fight for my family. I told him that I was. He told me to move back home and fight, that it was time to stick it out, stay there no matter what. I told him that I was already setting that plan in motion. It would be hard to love someone who didn’t want to be loved anymore. Who was so hurt he couldn’t even function in his life. But I would love him through his pain. No matter how long it took.

I went home. Obviously there were bad feelings from earlier in the day from our argument. I flat out told him that I was done living apart. I was going to come home whether he wanted me to or not. That I was ready to fight for him, and I wasn’t going to walk away anymore. I was staying for good.

I gathered my things from my roommates house while she was gone to work the next day and I never came back. I know I didn’t get the chance to pack everything that was mine, but I had to get home fast. I could buy new things and nothing was going to get in my way because  I was going home. To FIGHT  – with love and compassion. With allowing him time to heal. By showing him what I knew I was becoming. I stayed. And I fought. Nothing ever felt as good as that decision I made that day. Peace and relief washed over me again and has never left. But the decision to stay would prove to be difficult. It was a choice I had to make over and over again every single day. It took a long time, but not as long as I thought. One day, he broke down and let me in. Six months to the day after I died. Coincidence? I don’t believe in them…and you shouldn’t either.

Going Home

The last few days have been really rough. Just regular life stuff, but really hard nonetheless. Birthdays have never been my thing. I keep thinking that it is not the right time to write this part of the story, but maybe it is the BEST time. Because it will help give me some perspective. To not let the regular life stuff trip me up and question my purpose here.

 

Okay, so now we all know about July 22nd. Where do I begin with the aftermath? I guess for starters you should know that I never should have survived (which seems to be a running theme in all these stories and my life). In my mind the phone ringing and the text messages finally stopped and peace enveloped and embraced me. I absolutely know some things I experienced are never meant to be shared, even with my closest family. Want to know why? Because even though I can see them, there are no words on this planet to describe what I saw. I do however remember the feelings. The first and foremost was a complete sense of calm and peace, of just feeling right with the world. I felt the warmth and welcoming. Complete acceptance, no judgments. Just that feeling that you are finally where you are supposed to be. Home. I felt my Heavenly Father’s embrace. His love. His complete understanding. It fills my heart right now just thinking about it. I wanted those feelings to last forever, anyone who experienced them would. But of course they were fleeting, because the very next thing I knew I felt a very strong hand push me back. Of everything I experienced during that time, it is the clearest of all because it was so jarring. It was definitely a hand that pushed me back, propelling me forward.

I woke up in a cold shower. My roommate had found me and was trying to get me to come back. It has to be like what a baby feels like when it is born. All warm and safe, then suddenly ripped from the quiet and peaceful enclosure to be thrust in to a world of bright lights, loud noises, and unfamiliar surroundings. Things progressed quickly from there.

That day changed me. Wouldn’t you be changed? Since that experience time has changed as well. Days feel like weeks. Weeks feel like months. It has been very confusing at times. Here is an example. I ordered a package that said would take a week to arrive. I wake up in the morning, and I get upset when I check my mailbox. Why hasn’t the package gotten here yet? It is taking forever. Then I look back through my emails. I had just ordered it the day before, actually just the night before. Of course it isn’t here yet. But things like that happen almost every single day. It’s weird to say the least. But I know there is a reason for it. Can you imagine experiencing all the things I have in my life? And you as a reader know only a tiny fraction of them. How long would it take for you to recover from those awful, painful, traumatic events? Months, Years? It took me a week. Because those 7 days felt like 7 months. And every month that has passed since that time has felt like a year. Think I’m crazy? Ask the people I live with. They know.

It was an immediate transformation. I talked to my Dad a lot after that day. My Grandfather had died earlier that year and he was still grieving the loss. We all were. My dad and I needed each other. We would talk every single day after The Event. It was interesting because he would start to say the same things as I felt. “Wow Kristin, you have come so far in just the last few weeks, I can’t even believe how much you have changed!” “But Dad, it has only been two days. It’s the 24th.” “You have got to be kidding me. It feels like a lifetime ago.” And in my mind it was. But that wasn’t the case for everyone in my life.

I have never, ever in my life seen my husband lose himself the way he did on That Day. In fact, I think I have only seen him cry twice in 11 years. He never loses his composure. But he did that day. And in the months following, when I had nothing else to hold on to, when he was a thousand miles away even though we were sitting in the same room. I would remember his words on my voicemail. Him pleading and crying for me to stay. “Please Kristin, do NOT do this, we NEED you!”

But he has no idea how much he truly needs me. He probably still doesn’t. But I do. I’ve seen it.

The Light

When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person that walked in. That is what the storm is all about. -Haruki Murakami

I have debated back and forth with myself about how much to tell of this part of my story. I talked to my husband and he said that I needed to tell it. Be honest. This is what created who I am now. So we are going to back track at bit. This is THE story. The story that changed everything. So I’m just going to start writing and see where it takes me and it may take me a few posts to get through it all–

July 21st was a really rough day. But almost every day after I was released from the hospital and was living away from my family was rough. I have been looking through my journal entries for July and I hope that you won’t mind if I share a little from it. That way maybe I can get where I need to go with this story. Because I think you will better understand my state of mind leading up to the 22nd. The day that changed everything.

Journal Entry: 7/11/13 – “I still love Seth very much, but I believe that the only reason we met was so that we could create my beautiful little girls. They are the best of me, the best thing I have ever given the world. They are THE only good thing I have ever done. And in deciding to get divorced I almost feel like a huge weight and burden has been lifted from my shoulders. Can my true life really start? Can I decide to be who I want now? No one will have to know how messed up I was. I don’t have to tell the new people I meet. I finally feel like a have a new greater purpose other then just being the person who screws up everyone and everything. And my girls will be so much better off seeing me a few times a week when I can be at my best for that short time, than every single day a complete and horrible wreck of a mother. I definitely feel sad and I know this sadness won’t ever leave. But I will make myself be the best mother I can be for now, because that is what my girls need and deserve. I may have only a little time with them each week, but I will make the most of it. I know that I have relied on others for far too long for confirmation of who I am and what I am supposed to accomplish here in this life. Today I actually feel a little bit of confidence in myself. Instead of getting feedback from the world or my friends or family, I actually feel a sense of peace in who I really am, deep down inside.”

That journal entry was during my stay at the hospital and was one of the only entries up until after July 22nd that felt positive. That I was moving forward. But the weight built up. I was alone, living with someone I didn’t know. She was kind and compassionate. She helped me try to deal with the loss. But I felt this need to still fix everything. There was no way it could end like this. I became obsessed. I called Seth a million times. He was as cold as ice. He had completely shut down. That was the only way he could deal. I tried over and over to break the walls he had built. He wouldn’t even talk to his own family. He didn’t talk to anyone. Ice Cold. Finally, I hit rock bottom. I lost myself. I felt I would never be good enough to be around my children anymore. Why would they even want me in their life? Seth would barely speak to me. Walking in the home we had lived in for years felt like an out of body experience. I would see my kids, but I was detached. I had to be. I could barely see them without breaking down. I saw my future. Them growing up with me on the periphery of their lives. Why would I even allow myself to be around them with all the chaos I had caused? But here is the thing. And it took a while to understand. This was NOT my fault. I had tried over and over. So many medications, so many awful side effects. So many different therapists. I tried SO hard. I fought to to get better all the time. I would get a few months at a time where things weren’t a fight in my head to control the madness. But it never lasted.

I decided one day, that I had enough. I couldn’t deal with the pain anymore. Everyone would be so much better off without me. I was losing my kids. I had already lost my husband and I couldn’t live with it. Not one more day.

I took my life that day. I won’t tell you how. But I left. Without a doubt. I was texting my Dad and Seth leading up until the moments when I was gone, they are still saved on my phone. They were pleading with me, crying out for me to stay. I couldn’t. I had chosen my path. I knew I couldn’t live without my family. July 22, 2013. The day I died.