Feeling Safe in My Own Arms

and remembering to refill my Prozac

The earliest memory I can recall is running to my parent’s bedroom. It was the longest hallway that ever existed, most especially after a bad dream. I can feel my feet on the creaky floors, moving past panels of knobby wood walls, inching my way toward the big, scary picture of a leopard which was sitting in a tree. I’d always felt that leopard was guarding their room, forbidding my entrance. Its eyes followed me as I got closer and closer, and I was certain he might leap through the canvas and devour me. But just before he was able to pounce, I burst through that bedroom door, diving between my mom and dad’s bodies, and finally reaching Homebase. No nightmarish monsters could reach me, there.

Between my parents, I’m safe.

I was five years old in the back of a station wagon which was heading toward Dothan, Alabama. From the rear facing seat, I got a wide screen view of everything we were leaving behind. First, our driveway, where a little redheaded girl named Lauren was waving goodbye. Then, our neighborhood where my cousins all lived and where Dad was now renting a bungalow. Then went my school with the familiar playground—the kindergarteners always raced to the big yellow slide that twisted its way to the ground. I would always get there first at recess.

I wondered who would be first, now.

As we hit the interstate I whispered goodbye to every familiar landmark. The Space and Rocket Center, the glittery billboard that said Coca Cola, the airport, the Tennessee River Bridge. And then everything was entirely new territory, and would remain so for the next long while.

When my parents divorced, my world was upended. My notion of family was shattered. Where there was once two bodies to dive between, now it was just momma and some pillows. I wondered about my dad, that scary leopard, and my five-year-old best friend, Lauren.

What was everyone doing now?

I supposed it didn’t really matter. The mountains were fading into peanut farms, and I couldn’t go back if I wanted.

For the next couple of years, when Momma tucked me in, I asked her to leave the door cracked. Just a small crack—big enough for some light to get in, but too small for any monsters to get through.

I’d close my eyes tight and squeeze my favourite stuffed animal.

When Bahkoo is with me, I’m safe.

Momma fell in love and I had a new stepdad. I guess my door was just a little too cracked because it turns out, a monster got through. I clutched my stuffed animal every night when his frame would appear in the doorway.

Bahkoo couldn’t help me, Momma couldn’t know, and Daddy was six hours away. So my brain did it’s best to protect my childhood by severing my ties with reality.

Disassociation is one hell of a defence mechanism.

When I’m floating on the ceiling, I am safe.

I barely remember the years I survived by separating mind from body. The memories I conjure up from childhood are hazy, and resemble swiss cheese.

There’s a knock kneed girl with oversized teeth wearing hand-me-down Tweetybird Keds.

There’s Bus 86, where I was picked on by girls who had curled hair and duckhead shorts.

And after a full day of running the gauntlet that is small-town elementary school, I’d get dropped off at home where the monster was waiting with a smile and some after school snacks. I started sleeping under the covers with my door shut tight.

But still, the nightmare continued.

I disassociated my way through braces and middle school, through my first kiss, my first love, my first break up.

Nowhere was safe, and there was nowhere to hide.

I was in fight or flight for a decade.

Then, my freshman year of high school, I fell madly in love during band camp. Ellis was a drummer in the marching band, with a car that spelled freedom. I’m not sure if it was him or his security that had me head-over-heels, but when that boy hugged me, it felt like a fortress.

When I am with him, I am safe.

I told Ellis about the abuse and he helped me find the courage to tell mom (and the cops) all that happened. The monster went to jail, but only for a day. Then he was back on the streets and furious. There wasn’t a ceiling high enough that I my family or I could escape to. So, the cops whisked my family away to Florida.

In witness protection, I am safe.

Three years later, during my senior year of high school, the trial finally hit the docket. Ellis had joined the Navy and was long since gone, but I wasn’t alone by a long shot. I’d fallen in love with my high school sweetheart. A basketball player with strong arms. And good thing, too…cause I needed that safety. I craved it on a soul-deep level. And as a teenage boy with a hero complex, he was more than happy to provide it. We had a big plan. When the trial was over, we’d go off to college, get married, and live happily ever after.

All of my fighting and flighting could end.

After all, I’d have nothing to run from…right?

Turns out, all that trauma had conditioned my brain.

I couldn’t stop running if I tried.

So I ran and I ran, from party to party, drowning my trauma in Aristocrat vodka. Chad went to medical school and I went to Asia, trying to find Jesus for the third time. And when I got back, I ran straight into the guy who would eventually become my husband. Sure, we were young, but he was my very best friend. We were in love, and so we got married.

I figured that this was the end of my traumas.

In his arms, I would always be safe.

***

The car ride was mostly quiet that night. Momma kept her eyes on the road. I stared out the window, tears streaming down my eyes, logging each familiar landmark. The Tennessee River Bridge. The Space and Rocket Center. The road up the mountain to Momma’s house. The kids would be home the following afternoon, and that’s when the reality of this breakup would hit me. For now, I was floating up somewhere near the globe light of the car, trying to pretend that nothing was happening.

Divorce.

It felt like the beginning of the end, and looking back—I can see why I thought so. For four-year-old me in 1989, that’s exactly what it turned out to be.

The familiar crunch of my mom’s pebble driveway pulled me back to reality. We unloaded the car, I took some sleep medication, and then slept for the next twenty hours. I think my body didn’t want to wake up and process the hurt that awaited.

The next morning, Momma’s doorbell rang, and I opened to a familiar smile. Lauren hasn’t changed all that much since kindergarten, and neither has her pretty red hair. She held me as I sobbed. She petted my back. And she promised me she’d be there, just like she always had been. She would be there, and everything would be okay.

I remember my mind going a million miles an hour, and my mouth scrambling to keep up.

“I’m afraid of what’s next. I’m afraid I can’t do it. I’m afraid that nobody will ever love me. I’m afraid I’ve never been loved. Lauren, I’m just…afraid.”

My friend looked back at me with knowing eyes. She’d been right where I was, 8 years prior. Her marriage and life had fallen apart, but somehow she’d landed on her feet.

Lauren had healed, and put her whole life back together. Bit by broken little bit. Her son was thriving, her career was killing it, she’d found healing and yes, even love.

Maybe, if Lauren could do it…

“How did you do it? How did you survive? I feel like I’m broken forever. If he doesn’t love me, who is going to love me? Who is going to make sure I’m okay?”

“You,” she said, as if this was completely reasonable and not the scariest shit I’d ever heard.

It was a terrifying thought, doing that work in house. To be honest, the concept still scares me. Was she seriously saying that *I* could save me? Was that something of which I was capable? All my life I’d been hitching my wagon to anyone who showed me kindness. If I felt loved, secure, and safe, then baby I was hanging on for dear life. One part love, two parts trauma response.

It was a recipe for disaster.

I had no sense of independence or agency. I certainly didn’t have any tools. But here was Lauren, who knew my whole story, who’d held my hand the whole time, and she was telling me with truth in her eyes that I could be my own hero. And wouldn’t you know it, month by month, I starting to see she was right.

I didn’t need someone to refill my soul. I just needed to refill my prozac.

You are going to love you, Mary Katherine. You will make sure you’re okay.

Last night, I was putting my daughter to bed. I kissed her forehead and tucked her in tight. Her breathing had steadied into an almost-snore, so I tiptoed my way across the room.

“Momma?” She whispered as I was closing the door.

“Yes, baby?” I turned to respond.

“Do you mind cracking the door? Let a little light in?”

“Of course,” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. “Good night, Toodleboot.”

“Goodnight.”

Lying in bed, the tears came quickly. It was such a small, insignificant moment but it felt like a hug straight from Heaven. Holland was snoring, sound asleep. Benjamin was reading in bed. And not a single person in our quiet little home was worried about the presence of monsters.

It felt like my whole entire soul took a breath, and then sighed out three decades of tension. That night, I wrapped my own arms around me and drifted off to sleep, praying.

No more flighting. No taking fight.

In my own arms, I can feel safe.