Do you remember when we didn’t attend virtual meetings while wearing slippers? That time when we didn’t do our shopping while wearing facial masks and trying to dodge that fucker in the cleaning materials isle with that nasty little cough. This would be the time before we clucked our tongues disapprovingly while shaking our heads in disgust at the poor woman that sneezed in the dairy isle. I refer to that time as PC. Pre-Covid19.

In that era, it was socially acceptable to have a meal in a pub. The pub was even allowed to serve alcohol whenever it pleased to do so. I had a meal in such a pub at such a time, where I sat sipping on my legitimately purchased brandy. At the same time, just across from me, a group of older ladies and one very lucky gentleman was also ingesting copious amounts of wine and what looked like gin to me.

It was also a time where people in the music industry could still work and sustain themselves – the good old days. So, in this pub, a live band was doing exactly that. Perhaps calling them a live band is extremely generous. They were two old men behind a sound system. They also had real guitars slung across their tired bodies that they strung passionately. I gave them an A for effort. They performed some of the old classics that always get pub crawlers excited and across from me, the very lucky gentleman took turns dancing with all the ladies at their table. One by one he would take them for a shuffle across the dance floor and you could see their faces light up – all except for one old lady.

This old lady remained seated at their table and hardly paid them any attention while they danced to all the classic pub tunes. I felt strangely comforted knowing that I am not the only human being alive that would rather eat a roll of barbwire than to be seen dancing in public. I pointed her out to my partner and proudly declared that I am indeed not the only rhythmically challenged person on earth. Soon after, the band performed their version of Green Door by Jim Lowe and lo and behold – she rose from the table, strutted to the dance floor and shook what her mama gave her. Well, at her age, her hips are probably not the ones her mama gave her anymore. But she shook those hips nonetheless.

All it took was that one song. Green Door.

I was reasonably familiar with the song, but I couldn’t really tell you what that song was about at the time, so I read the lyrics:

There’s an old piano

And they play it hot behind the green door

Don’t know what they’re doing

But they laugh a lot behind the green door

Wish they’d let me in so I could find out

What’s behind the green door

That old lady didn’t inspire me to humiliate myself or my poor partner by trying to move my hips, but she did, in that one moment, remind me of my own awakening.

The word ‘awakening’ is described as ‘coming into existence or awareness’. This coming into existence happened for me in the same manner that my coming-out happened: suddenly and without an iota of planning. My brain doesn’t process most things. The image I have of my brain is that of the living room of a hoarder. It holds so many things and I’ve scrambled it all around to such an extent that no individual item can be found without sending out a search party – which is exactly what I did a short while ago.

Somewhere in my scrambled brain, I knew that I had been abused as a child. I wasn’t confused about the fact. It wasn’t a suspicion. It was something that I knew to be true. The memories of these traumatic events however, were lost among all the other debris that I have scattered around in that hoarder’s living room that is my conscious mind. I was walking around that living room, lifting various objects and moving things around, but on my own, I wasn’t able to find the details of my truth.

So, I called in the experts – people that are trained to sift through the debris we gather in our minds in order to find our truths and ultimately our healing. My therapist performed EMDR treatment and together we sifted through the debris and we did find my truth, but more importantly we found my healing. Covered in the debris, cowering in a corner, we found the four-year old me – just waiting for a warm embrace. I was able to convince the four-year old version of myself to take my hand and follow me out of the destruction of our past and into the blinding beauty of our future.

Healing from CSA (child sexual abuse) is not an event, it’s a journey. You don’t take that little girl by the hand and lead her into paradise immediately. She has learned not to trust anyone, so she often retreats and you have to talk your way back into her confidence and ultimately, into her heart. Unfortunately, the path out of the debris leads past every transgression ever made against her. It leads past dark car garages, into musty alleys and forlorn backyards where monsters lurk and prey. Her senses are overloaded at times and she smells the sweat and foul breath of every perpetrator that forced their way into her innocence, but the only way out, is through.

About a year ago, out of the blue, I walked into a salon and cut my hair. It might sound strange but it wasn’t a conscious decision. The discerning feature of the four-year old me was long white hair. Long hair that I kept for over thirty years. I walked into a salon and without planning it or thinking about it, I asked my hairdresser to cut it off. He gathered my hair into a ponytail and snipped right through it and I could feel the weight lifting off my shoulders as my hair fell to the floor. It sounds completely silly, but I entered that salon that day as a petrified, lost, lonely little girl and I left as the woman I was always meant to become. For the first time, I looked into a mirror and liked what I saw. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and whispering like a crazy person:

There you are.

Studies show that CSA manifests in medical problems with the reproductive system. It has more to do with the psychological link between our minds, our souls and our bodies. The uterus and ovaries revolt against the abuse and becomes hostile. I had the first cyst removed from my ovary when I was only 17. Exposure to CSA is associated with the incidence of a condition called Uterine leiomyoma. This is commonly known as fibroids.

I have such a fibroid right in the middle of my hostile uterus. It’s been sitting there for years, just being ugly and angry. Over the last year, coinciding with my journey of healing, it started growing so big that it has now been decided that my uterus will be removed.

So, today I spent the last day carrying this angry, sad and hostile uterus.

Tomorrow, an anaesthesiologist will put me to sleep in a sterile room where I will count backwards from ten to one. By the time I reach seven, the doctor will prepare to gently remove the manifestation of every vulgar man that treated himself to my body when I was just a little girl with a bright white ponytail.

Tomorrow I will wake up behind my Green Door and finally get to open it, walk through it and discover how to laugh along with those behind it. Tomorrow, they will let me in so I can find out what’s behind the Green Door.

From what I saw in that pub, it seemed like freedom.

I think it’s safe to say that I will still not shake my hips. Nobody deserves to see that.