There is something most of my friends will agree on: I am a very private person. Some of my oldest friends remember a time when I was private about every part of my life. Over the years, I have become more willing to open the doors of my life to the outside world, but I remain pretty private.
Since fifth grade, I have known no other way of living, other than a need to fiercely shield the inner workings of my life from the world and other people. That year, when I was ten, was the year that permanently altered my life. It was a year that will always haunt me–one that was riddled with fear and unhappiness–but it was also a year that I would never want to hand back.
I spent most of my childhood in suburban Chicago, except my fifth grade year, when my father’s work took us to Washington D.C. Over the course of that year, I became friends with a neighbor who was in my fifth grade class. Let’s call him Matt.
Matt was the foster child of a couple who regularly took in foster kids. They were a warm and welcoming family; I would hang out with Matt after school and occasionally head over to his house for sleepovers.
Changing schools at that age is never easy, and while I will never compare the difficulty of being in the foster care system to my moving from Chicago, we were both fish out of water in many ways. Naturally, we bonded.
Sometimes, I wonder if we had more in common than just being the new kids in town.
Because, over the next year, Matt’s foster dad sexually abused me.
I don’t feel the need to go into details about frequency or what he did, but these experiences created distinct memories that will always stick with me. The sound of this man climbing the step ladder of Matt’s bunk bed when I would sleep over is something I will never forget.
After that year in Washington D.C., when my family and I returned to our home in Chicago, the way I dealt with my life changed for better and worse. Prior to moving, I had been constantly bullied in school. When I returned to Chicago, I left that part of me behind–I wasn’t going to allow anyone else to mistreat me. My experience in Washington D.C. enforced in me a desire not only to be resilient, but also to be perfect. These two traits were the only ways I felt I could protect myself from being hurt any further and shield me from the trauma of my abuse experience.
I was determined to be successful in my life. As ridiculous as this may sound to some people, I began obsessively planning what my adult life was going to be like. It was this same obsession that compelled me, when I graduated from high school, to skip college, move to Los Angeles, and go straight to work. This obsession with success had to do with proving to the people that hurt me, especially my abuser, that I could rise above them.
As a way of dealing with my abuse, which triggered a desire to become resilient and perfect, I developed emotionally unhealthy habits that have ebbed and flowed from there on out. My search to attain perfection led to my becoming incredibly private.
I created this public image of myself: I had no problems. Everything was great. I had no weaknesses. I was strong, so strong that I was consistently calm and available to help others since my life was “perfect.” Privacy was about keeping people at a comfortable distance. I didn’t want people asking questions, getting too close, since I feared they would see that I wasn’t perfect. I feared, because of my experience with abuse, that they would see me as damaged, vulnerable or worse yet, pathetic.
I became incredibly private in order to avoid sharing my memories, memories that hurt me so deeply, that while I was forceful in how I went about my work life and how I appeared to people, I was harboring an invisible, but open wound, created by my childhood experience of abuse. I was so determined to keep these negative memories private that, on a personal level, I lost a clear sense of myself.
I was always available to help my friends with their problems because it allowed me to keep them at a distance when it came to mine. If I was neck deep in someone else’s crisis, they wouldn’t have the time or energy to inquire about my life or push me to deal with my problems.
In my early twenties, I had a tight group of supportive and loving friends (and I am still close with most of these people), but they would often express frustration at the closed door that was my life. While I was seemingly open hearted and very affectionate, they felt I was a mystery. My loyal friendship kept them around despite an indescribable imbalance in the dynamics of our friendships.
Around my eighteenth birthday, I told my parents about what happened to me in Washington D.C. I didn’t share the experience of my abuse with them in a moment of sadness or in a need to reveal my pain, I shared it with them in a moment of anger, to hurt them. To say it wasn’t my finest moment, is an understatement.
But despite sharing this story with my parents, I didn’t make an attempt to put a stop to my abuser. A couple of years ago, I woke up in the middle of night after dreaming about my time in D.C. The dream made me realize that I was putting other kids in harm’s way by my silence, especially since my abuser was a foster parent. I asked a friend, who is a private investigator, to track down my abuser to see if he lived in the same home. He came back to me a couple days later with news that (surprisingly) did nothing to calm my frustration or guilt, he had died in 2004.
My need for privacy was choking my life, despite my success in professional life and a seemingly robust social life–I was dying inside. Nothing felt truly real or comfortable.
But I was trapped. Since I was ten years old, I have know no other way of living. My need for privacy was so deeply ingrained in my identity that I couldn’t imagine changing, just as someone who is right-handed couldn’t imagine writing with their left hand.
The shift in how I shared my life started a few years ago, when I started to become close to friends who, while not perfect, were in a stage of their life (over 50) where they felt more at peace with themselves, and where they acquired a deep sense of intuition. It was with these wise friends that I started to open the door to my life and reveal more of myself. These friends couldn’t be easily fooled by my veneer of perfection, they couldn’t be dissuaded by my claim that everything was great. They had gained enough life experience that they could see the pain and frustration in my eyes.
While I feel that true friends give us room to be who we are, these particular friends were relentless in their pursuit, not to change me, but to make sure I was being myself–showing and revealing more of myself. When I would become frustrated and try to push them off, they would act as if that frustration was never expressed and kept working to pull me out of my shell.
Even after sharing my story with family and a small group of friends and making the effort to find and stop my abuser, I still didn’t feel like I was in a place where I had let go of my obsession with privacy. I still didn’t feel fully open-hearted. While I felt happy and largely confident, I felt uneasy in my own life.
In my short thirty years on this planet, I have more loving, supportive friends than most people have in an entire lifetime. But I often wondered if I would ever get to a place where I feel fully comfortable with someone to the point where I could share every part of my life, not just the edited version–where I would feel at ease exposing my fears, insecurities, imperfections and where I wouldn’t spend my time being concerned about how someone judges me for being honest. At times, I firmly believed I would be a kind of lone wolf forever.
But a few months ago, that unexpectedly changed.
This past October, at a long lunch, I shared what happened during my time in D.C. with a friend with whom I had recently re-connected. It was one of the most liberating moments of my life. While it took my own emotional energy to get that point, this friend gave me the room and comfort to be myself, to be honest about my problems. It was and is something I am not used to.
During that afternoon I also shared stories and experiences (from the mundane to the serious) that I had kept to myself for my entire life. I finally let go of many things that I held onto for twenty years. I could actually feel the weight lift off my shoulders.
It was such a major shift in my life because, for the first time, I wasn’t worried that I would be judged, wasn’t worried that someone would see me as weak or crazy because of my imperfections, and I didn’t extract a promise of, “don’t tell anyone.” I knew through and through that my private matters would stay private. I had never experienced that sense of calm before, ever. And it wasn’t something that had to be explained to me, it was just the way I felt.
I don’t know why it was that friend, someone I knew for sometime, that made me feel this way. I guess that’s just how things happen sometimes.
That day in October was the catalyst for me to cease playing a character in the play of my life. A character I had carefully constructed over the years, one that was based on who I fundamentally was, but a character who didn’t permit me to improve my personal life or express real vulnerability.
A year ago, I could have never imagine that I would be sharing this story in such a public way. I would be concerned about people who don’t know me, would judge me as unstable, weak, broken. I would want people thinking that while I had problems, I solved them in a revolutionary way that didn’t involve talking to and relying on people I love and feeling vulnerable and sad.
To most of my friends and family, I will always be private on some level. It’s essentially part of who I am. I feel no need to share everything with everyone. But my sense of privacy is no longer fear based or driven by trauma. It’s a conscious decision to keep a part of my life entirely my own.
Now, I take a real joy in my sense of privacy because it’s about keeping positive memories special. Things that were previously ho-hum are now incredibly special to me. Watching a movie with a good friend late at night is a memory I won’t forget and won’t take for granted. Going for a walk in the country with two close friends on a Sunday afternoon, previously nothing to write home about, but now one of my favorite memories.
It was when I stopped being a character in my own life that I realized what an incredible life I have. My life is no longer about creating a perfect image and my sense of privacy is no longer tied to my memories of trauma and abuse. In a way, I think I am now excited by the really simple things because, in way I’m re-living my childhood. The same sense of wonder and excitement about the smallest things that children feel, is an experience I am having for the first time at age thirty-two. I am still private about my life, but now, my privacy is a conscious choice I make out of the pleasure for privacy, rather than the fear of being found out.
Victims of abuse don’t need to have a friend like mine in order to have a shift in their memories. They don’t even need to have an experience like mine. That day in October just happened to be a catalyst for my situation. Ultimately, it’s about breaking free from the blueprint that is drafted when someone faces abuse. For some of victims of abuse, like me, it’s even about taking a moment to really see, notice, and realize that we were living by a blueprint, drafted through our traumatic experiences, that we didn’t fully understand.
I’m not going to forget about that time in D.C.–ever. But that experience no longer serves as the architect of my life. Instead, I have memories that propel me forward instead of hold me back. Memories that I can keep private, not so I can hide away and be someone I am not, but because they belong to me.
Like that afternoon in October, when I finally let go of everything, and learned how to trust.
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Thanks so much for sharing this. For a former/still struggling painfully private person, this was very uplifting :)
Also reminded me of one of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes…”I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it.”
Blessings to you…Kristen
I too am the opposite; i feel the need to everything about myself to anyone and everyone. The need behind it validation. I have spent most of my life fully believing that no one believes anything i say, everyone is humoring me. Different reaction, i guess, to the same trauma. Of course the one i could not share with hardly anyone was the “who” because i knew no one would believe me, and worse theyd ridicule me for making up stories.
Where did i get that belief? From the school counsellor i confided in. She essentially told me to keep it to myself, that it was an honest mistake -men make that mistake all the time. So of course that translated into “no one will believe what you told me. They will know you are confused about what happened because it was just a common mistake”
It wasn’t until my abuser came to me during my divorce to let me know that he was still “turned on” by me that i knew everyhing i had been told was absolutely a lie.
After that i told someone, and realized that my need for validation could finally be assuaged. I began being open about the things that mattered to the people that mattered instaead of blindly throwing my life story at everyone hoping for confirmation. I finally felt like my story mattered. Now, i can be private by choice.
Thanks for sharing.
I am like you. Sometimes I share everything with everyone, and its taken me years to even realize that it was (and still is) about validation for me….and some of it is so deeply ingrained in me, that I worry I wont ever let it go, that I wont ever fully trust, that I wont ever fully believe it when people tell me things. I wonder if I will always feel like they are humoring me, and if I am really just one big joke to the world…and I may never know.
I am happy with who I am, and how I am living my life for the most part…but this is the one area where things havent changed much. I still doubt everything people say to me, or that I assume they think or feel about me…even when they tell me that my assumptions are wrong.
Im tired of asking for validation, and needing validation, but I have no idea how to change that in myself.
Thank you. Your words described my reality so clearly. Although I never experienced the same kind of abuse, I’ve resorted to the same protective pattern and I’m trying really hard to break off of it. It is very difficult, though I can’t intellectually understand why, to feel that I am not guilty for the abuse which I suffered during my childhood.
I found your blog a while ago and have become a regular. I always found it touching and interesting, but today a chord has been struck hard. Thank you for that.
Hello Yashar,
Your blog amazes me. Every time you post something I can’t wait to read it, and you never disappoint. Thank you for sharing your life with us. I know your words make a difference in my life, and I’m sure they affect many others.
May your life continue to blossom.
Thank you so much!
WM
What a great article and I can totally relate to it as well. I love your articles I am so glad that you were finally able to break free and come clean about your secrets.
this is beautiful, thank you so much for sharing.
I completely understand your need to be strong and perfect and rise above it, but in reality you really needed to be weak and vunerable. I also understand and remember the times I when they only friends I had were ones that were in need or needed help. It was also frustrating for me because when I was actually in need no one was there. It does protect you from anyone getting close. I really believed no one would like me when I shared the vunerable hurt side. I ended up doing the opposite which was I was too honest and that was my way of coping with the hurt. I now have learned it is ok to have privacy and that I don’t have to tell everyone everything. That it’s ok to only share it with the ones that will love and protect you. It’s ok to be selective. I felt guilt if I wasn’t honest, yet I wasn’t protecting myself. Not everyone has your best interest at hand. Thank you for sharing your heart.
I never really did have too many secrets, and I have fewer as I get older as it appears most of my sins have done better and with more style by others. What I keep close is generally what I cannot yet face, and there is some of that. I do not keep private what was done to me when I was a kid by an elderly man the whole neighborhood knew and loved. It’s an interesting premise because we are taught–male and female alike–that if we are molested, it is OUR shame. We’re referred to, in fact as shamed–and by some, we are known as “ruined.” Balderdash. I willingly take the burden of whatever I have chosen to do, but those who chose me as their victim bear the shame of that abuse, not me. In that regard, I am as innocent as that time before I ever know that my abusers existed. I do know that the powerful level of control you needed for so long speaks of a desire to control the world–and that which is of danger to you within it–by controlling as much about yourself and your life as you could. The problem with that is twofold–it doesn’t actually work and by closing so many doors, you also shut yourself away from so much that is marvelous about others but even more so, about yourself. This was what my brother did and with his pain, he shut away his tenderness, his empathy and his sweetness; it was only when he literally opened the floodgates that he freed himself.
I am (without having any earned right to be) incredibly proud of you for opening those doors closed due to trauma so that you can safely and happily keep closed the doors that it pleases you to keep closed.
Now go forth and be happy as you know happiness to be, with the burden of guilt and shame on the perpetrator, where it belongs. Big hugs and nose smoochies of great pride!
You are an incredible person.
Thanks so much Yashar – what magnificent vulnerability !
I am sending this on to two special men in my life who might really benefit from this.
Thanks. Courage is beautiful.
Hey Yashar
Thanks so much for sharing. I can relate to your post in every detail of it.
I read it with encouragement for myself that one day I can be in that chapter of my life to break the walls down.
Wish you continue success.
Yashar,
I am so very proud of you and love you for the person you are and nothing else.
I’m going to have to quote one of the comments on Facebook: You are beautiful and brave. Although I haven’t had physical abuse that has caused me to have to play a character, I did go through emotional abuse that has. I can understand the need to hide yourself and be private—you didn’t want to be hurt.
Since I was four, no matter what happened in the household or outside of it (from constant fighting between my parents to bullying) I was always told “You’ll get over it—you’ll be fine, there are people in worse situations than you” ANY time I opened up emotionally I was stuffed right back into that bag. I was too emotional. I was overly sensitive. I just needed to “get over it”. Probably all of the things you feared being told, which caused you to be that private person. It caused me to not be able to identify with my emotions and to put on this ‘hard shell’ exterior that I was always okay when I wasn’t. Being the oldest child in the family also played a role in this—I didn’t want to show weakness to my younger siblings.
It’s only at almost 25 years of age, finding a love for social justice & activism, and a loving, understanding and amazing boyfriend that I have found that it’s okay to have emotions and not want to have them hurt. I have the right to that in all aspects of my life. I don’t have to stay at a job with a boss who feels that yelling and bullying employees is okay. I don’t have to stay in a romantic relationship where someone is not considerate of my needs. I don’t have to keep friends around that are disrespectful of me in any way. I don’t have to see my parents if I don’t want to. My feelings are valid and they deserve to be respected. I don’t have to hide them. They are a normal part of life. I don’t have to play a character. I can share my emotions and am no longer concerned of what my parents or anyone else thinks. I am HUMAN.
Keep being beautiful and brave.
Thank you for your comments. They were as useful as the post itself.
Thank you for sharing, from someone who has been there. In return, I’d like to share a poem by Theodore Sturgeon that I find great recognition and comfort in:
There is in certain living souls
A quality of loneliness unspeakable,
So great it must be shared
As company is shared by lesser beings.
Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this
That in immensity
There is one lonelier than you.
It’s very brave of you to share this. I really believe that the more we share of ourselves (appropriately to the audience, of course!), the stronger we become. Thank you.
This post is incredibly touching, I have a lump in my throat. No I don’t know you at all, but ever since discovering your blog, this has definitely become my fav blog to read. When I read this, with you revealing so much of who you are, I didn’t think of you as weak, insecure, needing help or any of those other adjectives you used. In fact, I thought of you as real, if that makes sense. Its easier to write about observations, about others, and even help others with their problems rather than reveal the complete truth about ourselves. What you have done here is not only brave, but has added dimension to your online persona, making you someone a lot of people can relate to. No I havent experienced sexual abuse in my life, but emotions that run that deep, everyone has something or the other. Its relatable on a different level.
I am almost exactly the opposite of you in terms of the privacy aspect. While others secrets are guarded closely, I have to tell someone or the other every single thing that happens to me in a day. From how someone ripped me off, to how I cut my finger, to the random act of kindness I experienced, if I dont verbalize it or write it down and share it, its like the situation did not occur. As for private things, I tell those to a few people, but I can’t keep it inside me, I can’t keep emotions inside me at all, they just come bursting out.
Despite all of that, reading this post to me was extremely touching, and I can somehow relate to it, not the privacy bit, but the strength of the emotions.
Thank you for sharing. You are an inspiration to so many.
AS
Thank you Yashar for sharing. Thank you for being vulnerable – and thus showing real courage and bravery. I find it so ironic that in our world – we think people that look like they have it all together are really the weak ones while the ones who show us their imperfections are really the strong ones.
I also can’t help but think that the more of us that stand up and talk about the abuse we have endured – whatever kind it is – the more awareness we bring to this issue the more we as a society can solve. I recently heard a horrifying statistic: that today 1 in 2 children will be sexually abused. And yet we continue to make half of our population live in shame like it is their fault this has happened to them. Shame on us really. When will the tide turn?
I have so many more thoughts…but will have to turn them into my own posts I believe…www.realmamareallife.com where I PRACTICE being vulnerable in hopes to inspire others to do the same in their own life. That is true courage!
Again – thank you for being so forth coming and sooo very very brave! You are beautiful to me.
Blessings,
Holli
Took my breath away and made me cry. So inspirational! Glad you found your peace and will live the rest of your life free of an ordeal you never should have had to experience. Thanks so much for sharing. You ROCK dude!
Congratulations on opening up and sharing yourself with friends, and finding support and strength in that experience. I have no doubt you’ll continue to discover this type of help, encouragement, understanding, empathy and genuine interest in everything you are as a whole person from your true friends. It sounds like you have entered a wonderful new stage of your life at a great time to really process through everything that has come before, is happening now and will come in the future. Good luck with this next chapter and thank you for putting yourself out there with this piece.
How poignant a story and how brave of you to share. Inspires me to question my own fierce need for private matters. It is time to break down some walls. Smash them. Forever. Thank you.
Thank you.
Just that.
Thank you.
Hi Yashar,
Just wanted to say thank you for your post. You are very brave in sharing this….and I am sure it will help many people.
Blessings!