"You've Changed" As An Accusation

Trigger warning: Mentions of rape and sexual assault.

I grew up in the south. The hot south. The religious south. The “bless your heart” south.

We were upper-lower class. We mostly always had food. We always had electricity. We rarely had extra anything, and there was shame in asking or wanting for things out loud.

As a young boy, when I saw movies with cities that had snowy backdrops, I fantasized about what the people were like who lived there. The TV screen would show snowflakes drizzling in the dim light on the top of streetlamps and then move to the sidewalk where people are bundled in their thick coats and warm hats.

These people say things like “You guys” instead of “Y’all.”

It seemed they knew a life that people like me didn’t.

I had come to believe the way they talked, and living in cooler climates meant they were rich.

After spending 15 years of my adulthood in the south, I started making my way out. I moved to California in 2010 after my first round of healing at a treatment center for a nervous breakdown.

My life was quiet on the West Coast. A lot of the time, it was more quiet than I wanted. I was struggling to understand who I was, what I believed, and how my next chapters would come together, based on the Southern and religious life I had lived.

I do not believe the South is wrong. But it was wrong for me, as was religion.

The year I moved was when we came to know what was known as the first Slut March in Boston. A Toronto police official had made a statement to university students claiming that if they did not want to experience rape, they needed to stop dressing like sluts.

Activists took to the streets and marched in defense of survivors. They dressed unapologetically in what was deemed “slutty” and retaliated against the idea that a rape survivor has any responsibility in this situation.

I stood, staring at the TV screen, not sure why I had more of a reaction than I normally had. I was understanding the gravity of stories like these for the first time. Not because I had never seen or heard them before, but because the way I viewed these stories had changed.

Year 2000 Nate would not have paid attention to this story and most likely would not have thought anything was wrong with what the officer said.

Year 2010 Nate had just had his first experience with authentic healing. He had his first therapy experience that had nothing to do with Christian counseling. He had gone through his first cycle of EMDR, where the rules about bodies and traumas were being rearranged. In his healing process, his religious beliefs started to feel predatory in how he sought freedom for himself.

So, when the slut march news came to him, he paused but didn’t quite have the tools to process what it meant. Until…

Someone I knew well who had a large ministry platform made her way to a national news broadcast and explained that while the officer could have used different language, she agreed that women who dress provocatively are triggering men. She trailed off to tout a mantra: “Modest is hottest.”

“No!” I thought. “NO!”

It was not the Toronto officer’s statement that alarmed me (the way it would now).

It was not the slut march that made me pause (the way it would now).

It was seeing my close friend, who I had just spent a weekend with in NYC for our birthdays two years prior, go on national news and say something in a Christian way that was ignorant and extraordinarily harmful to survivors.

This was one of my first awakenings to how twisted my upbringing was. While many debated what they felt was an extreme act by these women marching in their undergarments, I look back now and wonder how many of them marching had experienced sexual assault at some point and knew to stop apologizing to a sick society—they knew their bodies and how they dressed were not the problem.

I had heard plenty of assault stories in my life.

I had comforted many friends (as far back as high school) as they would share details that, in some way, we all thought were normal but hard to deal with.

I experienced my first child sexual assault at 5. My last at 13.

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After years of therapy, I would return to my family and crave conversations about what I was learning and how I was impacted by our family. When I started hearing about things like boundaries, trauma, scapegoats, and dysfunction, I had a language that was reaching something in me that nothing else could.

Having spent years as the kid who, by far extremes, got the brunt of both parents’ abuse, I thought these conversations would make me feel close to my family the way other families seemed to be. Especially those who lived in towns with snowy winters, dimlit streetlamps, and a house where the bills were paid.

I thought there was a way I could deliver this information that not only helped me adapt better to our family dynamics but also helped them see me as more likable. More tolerable too.

On a recent podcast interview with my friend Max, I talked about how his story brought up a memory for me, where my older sister explained in detail to others the way she assumed her friend had sexually abused me as a kid. She told the story in front of me yet never addressed me.

I noticed through my healing process as an adult that I worked particularly hard to get this sister to see my growth. The way she talked about my experiences in front of me left me believing I needed to prove something to her in order for her to understand that I had more value than having this abuse discussed in front of me. As if I were a thing to be talked about with no regard to the impacts of what was done then and how it was being discussed now.

Each attempt to connect with her, to be seen by her, was met with statements like “Oh, so you think you’re better than me now?”

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I started therapy thirty years ago this year. Therapy that took me down twisted turns and uphill battles that would give me more to heal from. Therapy that never helped me find relief. Really dumb fucking therapy.

I have reconnected with a childhood friend this year, who reminded me of when I was wrongfully diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 19 years old. My mother would meet these quacks through religious groups and set the stage with them before we met. I eagerly went to these meetings, and by the way they talked to me, I could see they had met with her first. She had painted a picture of how problematic I was and ensured that no person who came my way would see good in me. Good that would shine light on the crazy shit she had done to me.

If you are reading this, I am guessing you see part of your own story here. You have gone through some similar battle, where the levels of grief, pain, and memories have done too much, and you’re trying to find your way to something different—something new.

And you read stories like these and think about what you did and did not know and why. Stories about you, about others, how you’ve been influenced to fight against yourself at times, and how you’ve worked hard to gain approval from people who have no interest in you feeling safe.

Safe.

Seen.

Heard.

One of the things about trauma that complicates healing is when it came from someone you believed loved you or you were trying to love; it puts barbed wire in the place of what should be a safe connection with your mind and body.

We then spend so much time attempting to be seen or heard by the very people who want us feeling invisible, because us feeling secure or aware will lead us to things like boundaries and healing and being the spotlight that shines on their darkness.

It can’t be all them, can it?

It can. And it can also be some of us too. And it can sometimes be all us that are needing to make change and pay closer attention to behaviors that we are hurting others with. There isn’t a hard-and-fast rule that applies to all people in pain. There are consequences, though.

“You’ve changed.”

Yes, I have. We’re supposed to. Thank god I have, because at one numb point in my life, I heard about things like someone being sexually assaulted, and my ignorant self may have thought things like, “But, what was she wearing?” This was coming from a person who had never named his own sexual assault…as…a…child.

“You’ve changed.”

Yes, yes, yes. Thank goodness you see it, because I know at some point you thought you were going to have access to me so you could replay the crazy shit you said to me when I was a kid and think I would still believe it.

“You’ve changed.”

Yep. This is not going to stop either. So when you try to bring me beliefs that I outgrew when I got serious about healing, you are going to be confused by how lonely you feel in my presence, because I won’t hold you in your denial anymore.

For many complex trauma survivors, the first big change they remember is something that was done to them that changed their reality.

That something changed the way they think, the way they feel, and how they experience their world.

That change is often riddled with other people’s stories, their denial, and their nasty claws in your back hoping to keep you committed to them, downplaying those stories so they can remain unchanged.

“You’ve changed.”

I have. And it bothers you, because you haven’t.

I look back to grieve at how often I was committed to my own unknowing. Enough religious fluff to distract me from any sense of reality, and enough dysfunction to make me not look for something more.

Change did come, though. And with it was the sacrifice of accepting how few would change with me. It does not mean that I am a better person because I chose to change. It does mean I chose the change over them, and they will continue to fight that battle without me.

The healing journey through complex trauma is not an easy one. May we all know peace.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

Next month, my online group will be doing a deep dive into “Healing from The Scapegoat Role.” If you’d benefit from this experience, you can join the group here.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.