Redeemed and Radiant with Ashley Lutzelberger
Welcome to Redeemed and Radiant with Ashley, where open, honest, and vulnerable conversations about relationships take center stage. Grounded in biblical truths, we explore love, friendship, family, and faith through heartfelt stories and Christ-centered guidance. Whether you’re navigating challenges or celebrating victories, you’ll find wisdom and encouragement to build deeper, God-honoring connections.
Redeemed and Radiant with Ashley Lutzelberger
The Journey: From Self-Image Struggles to Love and Acceptance
Can the relationship you have with yourself really shape every other bond in your life? Join us for a heartfelt exploration of self-discovery and healing, where I open up about my journey from a toxic self-image towards self-love and acceptance. This episode, titled "The Journey: From Self-Image Struggles to Love and Acceptance," isn't just a story of personal growth—it's a roadmap for anyone striving to build healthier connections, both with others and within. Touching on sensitive and profound themes such as depression, anxiety, and the impact of past traumas, I aim to reach those who might find solace or inspiration in my experiences.
Reflecting on childhood influences, we'll travel back to my early years as the protective elder sibling and a young girl wrestling with identity and belonging. The echoes of a religious upbringing shaped my views on faith and salvation, and I share how these experiences, alongside familial and community support, helped me navigate school challenges. Delving into the complexities of childhood trauma and body image, I reveal the long shadows they cast over my self-worth, magnified by societal pressures and personal health battles such as PCOS.
In the final segments, the narrative takes a poignant turn towards teenage heartaches and the quest for genuine love. From unhealthy relationships to the pivotal moment of meeting my husband, this chapter highlights the invaluable lessons learned along the way. As I recount traumatic incidents and the courage it took to confront them, the theme of embracing honesty for self-healing becomes clear. It's a candid conversation encouraging listeners to seek support and find strength in their stories, underscoring the transformative power of vulnerability and self-awareness in building a brighter, more resilient future.
Thank you for joining me on Redeemed and Radiant. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, God’s love can redeem and restore every part of your life. Stay radiant, stay rooted in Him, and I’ll see you next time!
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Hey everyone and welcome to Redeemed and Radiant. With Ashley, we are about to dive right on in to our relationships with ourselves. So, when it comes to having a relationship with ourselves, we need to love ourselves. We need to really get to know who we are, what we are, um, and with this medical journey that I was just on, it unlocked a lot of that for me. Um, I'm gonna go ahead and talk about my personal experience with learning to have an actual relationship with myself and what that looks like.
Ashley:It sounds kind of crazy, but in order to be able to have successful relationships with friends, family, significant others, anything like that we have to have a relationship with ourselves, and that is a pretty big and broad spectrum to look at, because when you think of what a relationship is, it has multiple different components to it. There's communication, there is trust, there is honesty, there is love, there's respect. There's a whole lot of things that go into a relationship, even a friendship. Whether you know any kind of relationship that you have with anyone, even if it's someone that's just a person that you are kind of friends with, like a cult, like, um sorry, I'm going to totally space the word Um, one thing you will find out with me is I definitely uh, trip over my words sometimes and, uh, the words I think are in my head, escaped my brain and, um, I'm sure you guys deal with that often. I deal with it quite often and it's I just just laugh at it. You know, I don't take it too seriously anymore, uh, because it just happens all the time and there's no point to take life as seriously as I used to, like I used to, um, but people that you just like kind of meet in there, they're kind of they're not really your friends, but they're kind of your friends Like you know. You might be able to go and get coffee with them and just kind of talk about like general stuff, or maybe you only see them passing by at work or at church or at school or wherever you're at in life. That's still a relationship and it's just different. There's just different levels of relationships. But the deepest relationship you will ever have will be with yourself and with God. Those are the two deepest relationships that you can ever have, most important ones that you can ever have.
Ashley:And it took me almost excuse me, I've had like something stuck in my throat all day and I don't know what it is. So if I cough a couple of times, I'm so sorry, um, but it's taken me almost 34 years to figure out what it means to have a relationship with myself and for that relationship to be a good relationship, because the relationship I've had with myself has been a very toxic relationship, a very negative relationship, and I'm just very good at hiding that. A lot of people did not know a lot of things that I struggled with, um, and a lot of people don't necessarily know my full story, um, but I am going to be like I said. This podcast is a very raw, vulnerable, open and honest podcast. I will not be letting anything like like I won't lie. I'm going to be honest. It may, um, you may look at me slightly different, which is okay. I don't really me slightly different, which is okay. I don't really. I don't really care. I've learned to to. That is something that I have learned through my relationship with myself on how people look at me and view me.
Ashley:Um, it's still something I'm working on, but I know that we go through things in life and a lot of times we either get shamed for it or we feel shame about it. So we don't talk about it. But we go through the things we go through in life for a reason the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, all the above because that's our testimony, that's our story. I'm so sorry, sorry about that. I literally needed to get something to drink because I was going to be continuing clearing my throat. Um, so this podcast we will be talking about a lot of real issues, a lot of real things that has happened in my life and how it all each takes place into where I'm at, almost 34 years later. So, just to give you a heads up, this podcast will be talking about sexual assault and about suicidal ideations and depression, anxiety, mental health, things like that, eating disorders um, just a lot of real stuff that people have gone through and are either ashamed to talk about or there's a lot of taboo behind it. And a lot of that stuff has personally happened to me and it's part of my story and I believe that it happened so I could help others.
Ashley:So I'm going to start from the beginning, kind of a bit about me growing up. First and foremost, I absolutely love and adore my parents. My parents have done their very best to be the best parents that they can be and they've always done what they thought has been best for me and um I any part of my story where I mentioned my parents, um, it is not in bad light by any means. I love my mom, I love my dad and I could not have asked or been blessed with better parents. So I just wanted to put that out there because obviously I'll say things that are about my personal family life and how I grew up and this is just how I felt. And as a child, you see things differently than when you're an adult and you kind of look back on things and there's a lot of raw emotions and stuff behind everything. I'm not here to tell their story. I'm here to tell my story and just how I've perceived my life throughout my childhood to now.
Ashley:So, first and foremost, my dad adopted me when I was three, but he was in my mom's life prior. My mom was engaged to my bio father and got pregnant. They broke up and my mom and my dad that raised me had dated off and on for seven plus years and my dad who ended up adopting me, he was like I still love you, I will raise her like my own child and I want to be with you, I want to be her father and he stepped up and he took on something that he didn't have to take on, and my dad has been an amazing dad. I grew up with daddy's girl, um. My mom politely asked my biological father if he could stay out of the picture because, um, I had a dad that was going to take care of me and they knew each other and he was very respectful. Regardless of the past and history between my mom and him, which I really don't know a whole lot about Um, and I really don't know a whole lot about my biological father he respected my mom's wishes on that and to me that is a very admirable thing to do. Um, he never wants to reach out to me. He never wants tried to talk to me or disrespect my parents, who asked for one simple thing, and he followed through with that, and to me that that speaks tremendous volumes on his character, um.
Ashley:But I was the oldest and it was I was seven, almost seven years old when my brother was born after me and I just remember it was just like so cool to finally have a sibling. I grew up very independent, very, you know. I played very well with myself, but I was also very talkative. I played very well with myself, but I was also very talkative. I in elementary school never really fit in with the girls. I went to a small private school and I actually fit in better with the boys. So I call myself a guy's girl because I tend to fit in much better with guys than I do with girls. I tend to fit in much better with guys than I do with girls. And growing up I was always just the oh, these girls are having a fight. How many girls can they get on their side to like see who's right or whatever. And I was always that odd number so I was kind of like the tiebreaker. So I'd be like, oh, if we're having a fight, we can talk to Ashley. If not, then she doesn't even exist in their eyes. And that's how I felt growing up in school, never truly felt like I fit in.
Ashley:Um, I had a weight problem. Um, it wasn't bad. I was always in sports, always active. I wasn't morbidly obese as a child, but I had a tiny tummy. I had a tummy. I wasn't skinny like all the other girls. I always thought there was something wrong with me. Also, if you hear my stomach, I am so sorry I ate dinner before this. You might hear my stomach gurgle from time to time. I am so sorry this, and so you might hear my stomach gurgle from time to time and I am so sorry. I'm going to just say that now. Um, welcome to talking to someone who's had weight loss surgery.
Ashley:Um, but I would be shamed, you know, for my looks, for, like my size and and that started at a very young age, to be completely honest, and that was hard. Um, I was seven when my brother was born. I was almost seven. I always say I'm seven because it was just a two months difference in age, but I was almost seven when my brother was born, I was almost seven. I always say I'm seven because it was just a two months difference in age, but I was almost seven when my brother was born and, of course, we had the typical sibling relationship where we got on each other's nerves all the time and, uh, he would always destroy all the things that I would build or do and, um, I remember the first time my parents left me alone with him. It wasn't for a long period of time, but, um, I, I was like super scared and nervous, like they literally just went to go get the mail and like it was right down the street and it wasn't that far, but like I'm like, oh my gosh, like what? If something happens? You know you get used. I've always been that like mother protected mode, you know, um ever since he was born I kind of went into this um survival mode without realizing it, because I was so protective of my siblings, even though we fought a lot, like I've always been very protective of them.
Ashley:There was an incident where I was almost the situation was an odd situation I was almost sexually assaulted by someone that is very close to the family. I was about eight and that was my first encounter with feeling very uncomfortable around someone in that sort of way and I never understood. At that point I didn't understand what happened, but it was just like a God thing where he protected me in that situation. If someone wasn't trying to come into the room like I don't know what would have happened. They were older, like much older than me. It could have been a really weird thing, um, it could have been horrible, um. So I was protected in that moment.
Ashley:But fast forward to my teenage years. I was well, let me finish kind of my elementary age. I guess I've always grown up in church, so I was saved at a very young age. I was saved at a very young age and I was baptized at a like in a pool, a gym, because we didn't have like a place to baptize at our church. And I remember it, I still actually remember it, and I was like five or six when I got baptized and I was saved at a very young age.
Ashley:But I always my children's pastor actually had to pull me aside multiple times and say, ashley, you've sorry, you've already asked Jesus into your heart. You don't need to keep coming up here and asking Jesus to come into your heart. If you've sinned, you just repent and that's it. And so I make a joke that my name's probably in Lamb's book of life like a thousand times, because I would go up to the altar all the time to get resaved every Sunday. Because I just didn't understand.
Ashley:I was always so scared because back then in the early 90s, if you grew up in church in the 80s, it was the fire and brimstone that if you are not saved you're going to hell, and it was like spoken over and over and over again Like do you know what's going to happen if you were to die, like you were terrified, and so that's how I grew up and my church I went to was also the school I went to, so I was constantly there. Um, my uncle was the youth pastor there, my grandma was working in the? Um the church office, and my non, who was my grandma's best friend, was also in the church office. My dad was basically like the worship pastor for the youth group. So, basically, growing up as, like you know, my dad's not technically a pastor, but kind of like a pastor's kid in a sense, because I was always at church, went to school there, lived there. Basically it was my life.
Ashley:And I went to that school up through fifth grade and I had a lot of bullying happening to me during that time. I really didn't have any like at my school. I didn't really have any good friends except my guy friends. And then I get picked on because I was friends with the guys and it just it was hard. Um, I only had one really good friend that I trusted, Um, and uh, she's still my best friend to this day.
Ashley:Uh, I met her when I was seven and she was six and we we went to the same church together. We grew up together at the same church and I just remember going up to her and kids church and I was just like I started talking to her and she looked at me like I would like, had like five heads, and then like I basically was just like you know, we're gonna be friends, like whether you want to be or not, and they kind of just that's pretty much how our friendships started and, um it, we've had our ups and downs and fought like sisters and like loved each other like sisters. She was an only child, basically, and raised by a single mom and she was always over at my house and literally like she was my sister and before I even had a sister. So, fast forward to my teenage years, where we get into homeschooled life and life with going through hormones and everything, my sister was born when I was 12. Um, so I am 12 years older than my sister. Um, and before she was born, um my mom, I had left my elementary school.
Ashley:I was struggling a lot in class, I got in trouble a lot for talking, like I was always in detention because I talked too much and, um, literally I'd had a teacher that said that if you put Ashley next to a rock, she would still talk, and it's true. Um, and I had a lot of issues with learning. Like reading was the worst for me. I would always jumble things up. I literally would have horrible anxiety. We play this game called popcorn, which is where you're reading like a paragraph and then the person would just call on another kid to read the next paragraph, and I would be so terrified to get called on because, like, if I didn't know a word, I didn't want to get made fun of, like things like that. And I I really did try in school, but I felt so discouraged because I felt like I was dumb, and so my mom homeschooled me sixth and seventh grade. So my mom homeschooled me sixth and seventh grade, and in seventh grade, my brother went to the elementary school that I grew up at, and so there were times where I was left alone.
Ashley:And I love my mom, but, man, when I was a teenager, her and I fought like cats and dogs, like it was horrible. I don't know why we fought so much. To be completely honest, I think it's just because we're so similar. But like we would fight and it was, it was bad. Like we'd scream at each other and um, but I loved her so much, like I think I just wanted her to be proud of me and and happy for like, like it, make her happy, and I felt like I could never do that because I always felt like an obligation and her and I've had this conversation before and we'll get to that point Um, but back then I felt like I was just this built-in babysitter that you know, my mom was really young when she had me.
Ashley:The situation on how I came about was not necessarily the most ideal situation. She didn't really get to have like her twenties to herself. She was a mom at the age of 20, um, pregnant when she was 19. So it's like she lost out on a lot of stuff and I felt like I was just this obligation to just like have because we do not, like our family does not believe in abortion, because adoption has ran so deep in our family that we don't believe in that Like, if anything, it's adoption. And so before my sister was born, my mom was pregnant with me or with her Sorry, not with me, but my mom was pregnant with my sister and my dad ended up taking me to the hospital.
Ashley:I was having horrible side pain. I had just turned 12, a month prior, and found out that I had a cyst inicitis. So, um, I ended up having emergency surgery and I was terrified, no idea what any of this meant. Um, I was homeschooled and we didn't really talk much about sex education or anything like that, because we did a biblical homeschooling curriculum, which is what we used at the school I went to, because it was a Christian private school. But I mean, obviously you kind of know, like the, you have an idea of what happens from, like, watching Disney channel or whatever. But, um, I was kind of like what is going on, like what is happening and it was kind of scary Ended up being put on birth control, um, because they were scared that my other ovary would have the same thing happen.
Ashley:Um, and to help with the cysts and help with my periods and stuff, they put me on birth control at the age of 12. And that was something that you know. We were like, all right, we understand, we get it Like. For me it was just like, okay, it's just a medication I have to be put on To me. I never looked at it as anything other than just that. Um, I know my hormones were really off.
Ashley:Also because, you know, going through all that, then being put on synthetic hormones, I was very depressed as back then Um, still dealing with bullying, dealing with my weight issues, feeling like whenever I had a crush on a boy, like getting told like, oh well, you have a beautiful face, but you're fat Things that you think of, and then people say out loud then tend to stick to you, and so everything I thought of myself was negative and everything that would be told back to me was negative. So I started having this really negative, toxic relationship with myself. Um, and I know that, like, with my hormones being all messed up, I was, I was a fairly loose cannon when it came to my emotions. Like it, if you hit it just right, like I could go off like the 4th of July and not even realize and not understand what was happening and I was 15.
Ashley:Um, and when I was diagnosed with PCOS, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome, which I had back even when I was 12, but it was just very um, it was a more newer term, a more newer thing that they were looking into that didn't have a lot of like history or background on PCOS itself. So I had to find like a doctor that would that kind of knew what was going on PCOS and was put on a medication called metformin, which is what is diagnosed for people who usually have diabetes because their blood sugar levels don't regulate properly. And when you have PCOS it's very similar to that, because you're having hormonal issues, you're having a lot of irregular levels, and so usually metformin plus birth control will help with your PCOS. Pcos is a syndrome, so it doesn't go away, but it can be managed. So, being told at the age of 15, having that that most women with PCOS don't usually get pregnant, when your dream is to be a mom my mom's a twin and I always was like I was so upset that I was never a twin, that like I was like I want to be a twin, so I want to have twins. So bad I want to have twins so bad, like that was. My dream was to be a mom and have twins. I played dolls like baby dolls and pretend to be a mom for so long, um, all the time, just because, like that was what my dream was. Um, I had other dreams too, that like God spoke to me when I was young about doing like things I knew like that was what I was going to do and I'll get into that in a little bit too but, um, it was kind of hard to like grasp that Um, when I was 12, a few months after my surgery had happened it was that summer I was sexually assaulted by one of our family friends, and that person knew the situation, knew what medication I was on.
Ashley:Um. I personally, my brain personally, blacked out who it was for a long time and it was just this black figure, um, and I didn't understand what was going on. Um, and a couple of years prior to that, I had one of my friends that I used to go to school with Um, she had spent the night and her sister was a lesbian and she started to touch me and do things inappropriately to me as well. So, like I've had a very young age, I was exposed to sexual things way early in life. That should not have happened and I know a lot of people have gone through that and I just I thought that I made it up like in my head, like I was like, well, it's a black, it's a black figure. Like I didn't. It didn't happen. That didn't happen. It was just a bad dream.
Ashley:And as a child, you know someone who's still trying to put things together and when something that traumatic happens, your brain will go into a protective mode. Brain will go into a protective mode, um, a survival mode, and, um, I did, um, I did not tell anyone about that until I was married. I told my husband. He was the first person to know about that and I still, at the time, didn't know who that black figure was until I spoke with my mom. This was when I was 22. No, sorry, I was 23, 24, something around there, and we figured out who it was and we just kept it to ourselves for a while before I told my, like anyone else, before I told, like my dad or anyone else, um, because we were going through a lot of family stuff at the time. But, um, that was, that was really hard. And so for me, um, I didn't understand why it happened. I still, to this day, we'll never understand why it happened, um, why any of those situations happened, those those three situations under the age of 12 or from the age of 12.
Ashley:Um, but I went to high school with, uh, you know, a public high school. So I've been in a private school, I've been homeschooled and I've been in public school and of course, you have crushes, and no one ever liked me and it always went back to my weight. And for those of you who do not know, pcos also causes weight problems. Well, my weight caused me to have a lot of eating disorders, from binge eating to purging, to making it appear like, oh, I'm just eating smaller portions. My parents would be like, oh, you're eating smaller portions, we're so proud of you. And then I'd always take a shower after dinner and I'd go throw my food up and they had no idea. My friends in junior high would tell my parents that I wasn't eating lunch. So then my parents started showing up to lunch at my school to make sure I ate Um, and ironically, I never lost weight.
Ashley:And it was really frustrating. I thought something was wrong with me, cause I'm like most people can stop eating and will lose a lot of weight, and I don't understand why I can't lose weight. And I would look at myself in the mirror and just be like I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm dumb, I'm dumb I'm. You know, I ended up like I knew a lot more than than the like the public school was teaching, like because of the curriculum we were on um, it was a little bit more elevated. So, like a lot of the stuff that I learned in my junior high and eighth grade, I had already learned, but I stayed in the. My mom didn't want me to go up a grade one, keep me in the same class with everyone else with the same age, and that was totally fine because there were still some areas I was struggling in, because I will get to why that is. But, um, I would, I would.
Ashley:I would always just look at myself and be like, why can't all my friends get boyfriends? Why can't all my friends have like, wear the cute clothes. Why can't I wear the cute clothes? You know, try to fit into the clothes that everyone else is wearing, and being upset that, like you know, crying, hating going shopping because you can't fit in the clothes that you want to fit in. And it caused a lot of suicidal idolations for me because I hated how I looked, um, I hated that I was always fighting with my mom. I hated that I was always hormonal. I hated that it didn't matter what I did. I was never good enough for anyone or anything, and even the people at church that were mentors would literally like shame me for what it was, my body. They would shame me for the clothes I was wearing. For the clothes I was wearing.
Ashley:They would shame me for being on birth control, saying like you shouldn't tell people you're on birth control, they're going to get the wrong idea. And here I am thinking like this is literally a medication that I was put on by a doctor, so like I'm I know that I'm not sleeping around Like I don't know why it's a problem to say that I'm on birth control. You know, like getting shamed for like the silliest things, like having a small group leader ask everyone the same question there's no right or wrong answer but yet when you answer, you literally get told that you're wrong in front of everyone else in the group. Like I felt very picked on and it was hard. Picked on and it was hard, and I guess I just thought that's just kind of like how Christians were. Uh, cause I was in the church I grew up in and that were, those were the people I grew up with.
Ashley:And, um, I in junior high started having a really bad cussing problem. Um, cuss like a sailor. Every word, except the see you next Tuesday word. No, thank you. Uh, did not like that one, still do not like that one. Um, I would always find myself saying too much or saying the wrong things at the wrong time or not reading the room properly and getting made fun of.
Ashley:And when you're someone who loves and strives to have relationships with people and it doesn't work and you don't understand why, you look at yourself and you're just like what is wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? What's this issue? And, um, my mom and I had a conversation when I was about 13 or 14 and I had been fighting with and I had been fighting with, I had had a falling out with my best friend and at the time, and then and I and honestly I'm pretty sure it was just because I was a freshman and she was an eighth grader and so we were just kind of in different areas in our lives at the time, so she was hanging out with other people and I took it personal and it wasn't personal. Um, and then, um, my other best friend I was hanging out with, like we got in a fight and my mom was like, well, you need to look at it like this, like there's only one common denominator and that's you. So you need to be thinking about what you're doing.
Ashley:And I took that, being a young teenager as I think things in black and white. I took that as I am the problem, and that stayed with me for a very, very, very long time and that became part of my identity, of who I thought I was. I am always the problem. So then I start to always say I'm sorry to everything, for everything, whether it's my fault or not. I am the over apologizer and, um, I know now obviously it's not what my mom meant. We've had a conversation, um, and we'll get to that shortly. But um, when you're young, um, and we'll get to that shortly, but um, when you're young and you're already thinking these things, and then people say them to you out loud, reaffirms what you're thinking and I know a lot of us can. Whether you're like whatever you're, if you're a man or a woman, you can understand that, because we all go through that when we're teenagers.
Ashley:I watched all my friends through high school have boyfriends and go through their boyfriend drama, go through their boyfriend drama, and somehow I was always that like therapist. That was like telling them how to fix their stuff or how they can you know what they should or shouldn't do, and I'm the one that's never had a boyfriend. So how I had all this knowledge was beyond me. But I was always the therapist of the group and the mom of the group and that was just who I was. Group, and that was just who I was. And, um, when I was it was six days after my 18th birthday I'd ran into someone I knew, um, at the mall and I had my youngest brother with me. Uh, my youngest brother was born when I was 16. Um, it was a very interesting day. Uh, Um, it was a very interesting day.
Ashley:Uh, I always joke that he I don't well, we, we joke, but it's really true he's my mini me. He literally is me in a male form. Um, and I'm basically was old enough to be his mom. So I'm like a second mom. My mom did raise my family, let me just say, like, my mom raised my siblings, but I also helped in raising my siblings too. Um, whenever my parent, you know, like my parent, I was always like the second mom, basically, you know. And then I, in my opinion, I felt like I was put in as being a second parent, like being a second mom, but then I get in trouble for being a second mom. So I always never knew what my role really was like. I knew I was the sister, but like I felt like I was supposed to be more. But I was very protective of my siblings. I still am um, I'll get to that when I talk about family relationships.
Ashley:But, um, I had my littlest brother with me. He was like two and I ran into a friend. His friends left him at the mall, we went to my house because he now knew no longer had a car, and so I was like, well, just come with me, where I was picking up pizza for dinner, and my mom said that he could come over and have dinner with us, so picked him up, took him home or took him to my house and my little brother's with me and we we eat pizza. He hangs out with me and my mom, my, my siblings and my dad worked graveyards at um, a pharmacy at the time, and he was sleeping cause he was getting ready to go to work, and so my dad didn't really meet this, this person, and, um, I went to take him home and he had a girlfriend. You know, here I am, this girl who's never had a boyfriend, never been kissed nothing. And, uh, I take him home. I always look at, I always see the best in people and sometimes I, especially back then I was very naive, um, but I took him home and there were cars in the driveway, there was a light on inside. He was like hey, come meet my mom. Since I just met your mom, I was like sure, well, no one was home. And he pushed me into a dark room and ended up raping me, um, taking my virginity, and he did not pull out. So I was terrified that I was pregnant, um, even though I was on birth control, um at this point for six years, um, and was told that the chance of me getting pregnant was slim to none, I was still terrified, um, and I didn't tell anyone for a while.
Ashley:I was in beauty school at the time, while I was in high school. So I was doing half days my senior year and then the other half of my days I'd spend in beauty school. And I told one of the girls I was in beauty school with and she bought me a pregnancy test and I took one there. It was negative. And then I had another one that I took at home and I hid it in my room. And this all happened six days after I turned 18, mind you, and this person was 19. So if it had happened seven, like a day prior, it would have been statutory rape.
Ashley:Um, my parents went through my room because I got very depressed during that time. Um, I isolated myself, um wouldn't tell them what was wrong. I kind of like distanced myself from my friends, from everyone. Um, I didn't even want to go to prom senior year. Uh, it was just a really, really dark time. And my mom went. My mom thought like there was something I was hiding from them. So she went through my room and she ended up finding the birth or the pregnancy test and thought I was sleeping around. And I told her no, that's not the case. And I told her what happened and she kicked in a cabinet in our kitchen. My dad was confused because my dad didn't meet the kid, or the guy I should say. And so this was two months after everything had happened.
Ashley:We called one of our friends, our family friends, who is in the um, who was a police officer. He told us what to do. We had to go through a different um, a different police, off like a police station, because it was not in our, our like area. And, um, when you, when I look back on it now, and honestly, when I told my therapist about this, she was very surprised and very dismayed at the fact of how this happened and why it happened this way. I don't know, but I had to meet a sheriff or a police officer, a male who I did not know, at a jack-in-the-box, inside, at a table where there were other people who I did not know, and I had to tell him every detail of the situation, with my mom sitting there, and it was the most uncomfortable, demeaning, self-deprecating feeling I had felt and I was 18. And my parents, because they were worried about me, put me through therapy, had me go see a psychologist, put me on antidepressants. I personally didn't want to do any of those things, but I knew I needed to, so I did. I had a very hard time understanding why it all happened.
Ashley:Um, leading up to this, I did do a lot of like. This was when, like I am in and like talking to people over the internet was new. Um, for those of you who are young youngsters out there, um, I would have online profiles and talk to people and who knows who I was talking to, but a lot of that stemmed from what happened to me sexually. So I thought that that's just kind of like. I never really went into like that kind of conversation but like the, I think the striving to have a male connection that was not like a family member kind of thing um was there very strong because of what had happened to me prior.
Ashley:Um, and I got would get in trouble all the time for talking to complete strangers on the internet, which now, looking back on it, I'm like, yeah, that was stupid. My aunt even had to have a whole conversation with me about it. My mom, because my mom was like I just can't keep telling her to stop doing this, she keeps doing it. And so my aunt and I drove around and she talked to me about how dangerous it could be. And, of course, being a teenager, you're like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I look back on it and I'm like you know seriously that that stuff was dangerous, like really dangerous. And yeah, lucky to be alive.
Ashley:Um, but when I turned 18, after everything happened there, I fell more into the talking to people online. Myspace was a thing. Um, facebook had just kind of became a thing not that long prior, um, and I was not allowed to have either of those. So I had a MySpace secretly, um, where I would talk to people, and uh, then I had a Facebook and that is how I met my first boyfriend. And it was not that long after everything had happened and I think it was. I had zero self-esteem, I did not love myself. I despised every aspect of my being. I thought that the only way I could love myself is if someone loved me. So then I would tell them this is what happened and that I was on birth control and they would. All they would want to do is have sex.
Ashley:And I, at the age of 12, when I was at church, I took a purity pledge and I it was my choice. I went through a whole like book series and stuff with some of our youth group and we did a. It it was like over the summer, it was like a 12 course or a 12 week program, and then at the end we did a purity pledge and our parents bought us rings and I was saving myself from marriage, because in the Bible that's what it says we're supposed to do. And I felt like, after I was raped, like there was just there was nothing left of me. I was not worthy of that. I wasn't worth. Like my purity pledge was taken from me and your brain's still developing, you're still going through a lot of stuff, a lot of changes. Like I wasn't grounded enough in the word to know that that wasn't the case, like that I what it was not my fault. So like the purity pledge was not broken, but in my mind it was.
Ashley:And so I looked for love everywhere else, but where I needed to look, um, but where I needed to look, um, I always seeked the approval of others. Because I never got the approval of others, I always felt like I never was making my parents proud, but it was always this troublemaker kid. And one time I lied to my mom and told her I was spending the night at my friend's house and went up to Phoenix to go meet some boy. I didn't even know that I met on the internet and sadly he was not attractive, but I had zero self-esteem. I stayed there with him overnight. My phone died, my mom's freaking out. My mom looked for me everywhere, in every hotel she could find, because prior to that she had found out that I had been to a hotel with a older Asian man. Like he wasn't like that old, but he was compared to my age I was 18. He was like in his thirties. Nothing happened with him, but he like bought me clothes. It was like a sugar daddy kind of thing. But like I never did anything, um, I kind of just used him to get the clothes, cause I was like, hey, you're going to buy me clothes and I am poor and I don't have money to buy clothes like that, so cool Um, to buy clothes like that, so cool Um.
Ashley:I made stupid decisions. I I really did not. I did not love myself and even though I know I was saved, like during my teenage years, like I did not really hear from God a lot. He spoke to me a lot as a kid, but he didn't speak to me a lot when I was a teenager. And it wasn't it's not because of him, it was because of me, because I was off making the stupid teenager mistakes and decisions and all the above and looking for love from a man who would never actually love me, because all they wanted was just the physical aspect of oh she'll put out, because that's who she was or who I was and it was really, really, really hard.
Ashley:I had these group of friends that I used to hang out with and we would drink and they got me smoking pot, you know, back then, and I was underage and I only did it when I was with them. I never, really, I never did anything like that. I did it just during the time I hung out with them, which wasn't very long. The time I hung out with them, which wasn't very long, um, but I was just so desperate and so lonely and so I felt like no one wanted me. I didn't even want me and I literally thought I, like, I did everything I thought I could to be seen, to be heard, like the fact that, like when I was 12 years old and having stomach issues at school and my mom or I was 13, I was in no, I was in eighth grade, so 13, 14. But like I'd go to school and like after lunch, if I ate, like I would have horrible stomach pains. And we told my doctor for months and he was just like he just don't want to be at school. Well, it turned out, I had large ulcers in my esophagus and, uh, he just wasn't listening to me and we had to get an actual professional opinion from a gastroenterologist and they found it doing an endoscope and um, for me it was like just another reason I wasn't being heard and I, I, when I would finally get any sort of male attention, I would just heat it up as much as I could. You know, um guy be like, oh you're you look really good, oh you look really pretty, oh you're gorgeous, or you're this or you're that, and I just eat it up because for some reason, that was something I just never I, I didn't see it in me. I never heard it growing up, um, from the people I liked and I, literally it was. It was what I thought I needed to hear.
Ashley:And I met my husband online on an app and I thought he was so cute. We both matched um this I don't even know if the dating app is even around anymore because we're so old, um but I messaged him first and he had messaged me and at the time, like I had just gotten, like not long before that I was in a really toxic relationship. I didn't date, so I was also very picky. So that was me. I'm like I'm not going to waste my time on dating someone who does not have a plan for their life, because that's just not what I'm going to do. So I'm like my longest relationships are like a month long. They weren't even really relationships. But my ex that was the longest one I had before I met my husband. It was six months long and it was extremely toxic, borderline physical abuse, mental and emotional abuse. All the time Um he had a horrible temper would flirt with women in front of me. Um would only like I felt like he only wanted to have sex with me and that was it.
Ashley:Um found out that he ended up having was cheating on me with, at the time, one of my best friends who lived down the street from him, and just, it was a horrible situation. And I found out that he was cheating on me while he was out of town and I called him out on it and he was like that's not true, cause I got a phone call from an unknown number that left a voicemail. He's like that's not true, that's not true, that's not true. I called his best friend, I called his mom, all the way above to get to the point where, you know, I was just like okay, I believe you, I believe you and um, then he finally goes.
Ashley:You know what I think I'm going to like? I don't think it's going to work. I'm thinking of moving to a different state and long distance just won't work. And I was just like, oh no, you do not. You do not get to treat me the way you do and then get a breakup with me. You're the one that cheated on me. So, no, I'm going to break up with you first.
Ashley:So I had my friend. I was bawling and my friend drive me to her, to his apartment and, uh, I go and give him back his quote unquote promise ring. He gave me, um, and he wouldn't even look at me, he wouldn't talk to me, it was just like stoic and I was like, wow, cool. And then he kept coming back, trying to get back with me, trying to tell me like he was sorry, but then tell me he was going to move and then he ended up moving out of state. But then he would call me and harass me and be like you can't see anyone else because I am the only person that you can see and I'm like you broke up, like we broke up, like you're not here. You said long distance wouldn't work, I can do what I want. Blah, blah, blah, blah Whole situation.
Ashley:So before I even started seeing my husband, I had made it very clear to myself I was young, I was 21. I was a new 21 year old at this point when I met my husband, um, but I had made it a point that I'm not going to have a serious relationship or bring anyone home to meet my family unless I was going to marry them. I knew very quickly on in the relationship with my husband that I was going to marry him, um, because well, at first I didn't think he liked me. We had the best first date in my mind and then he gave me this little kiss that was like kissing your grandma, goodbye. And he said I was going to kiss you in the car, but then you got out and then he's like, and I was trying to be polite and I'm like, okay, but I was also not used to that, and so you know, I had told him, like the guy that I'm going to marry is like, or I had told like I told myself this my whole life the guy I'm going to marry is going to ask for my parents' permission to date me and also to marry me, and so he would ask me if I would be his girlfriend and I strung him out.
Ashley:And I strung him out for two weeks. I would always say, next time we hang out. And we hung out all the time. And finally I was like, okay, well, it's time with me, but like it's not official unless you ask my dad's permission. And so my grandpa had passed away and my mom and I went out of town for his funeral and he went to my parents' house and spent a day with my dad and my brothers and my sister and asked my dad's permission to date me. And that's when I knew I was going to marry this man. I was like, yep, sold, this man is going to be my husband someday. So anyway, he literally was the man I had prayed for my whole life. Or well, even though I thought I was going to marry this other kid that I went to high school or that I went to church with, I was determined I was going to marry him. But God knew that that was not who I was supposed to marry.
Ashley:Obviously, um and and obviously with my track record, I was just used to men taking advantage of me and I would tell him hey, this is my past. This is like I had this surgery app and I'm on these, I'm on birth control, and he never tried to take advantage of me, he never tried to have intercourse with me during the time we were dating, um, and I was just like like I'm trying to put the moves on him and I'm like it wasn't like he was like, he was just literally just being a gentleman and I was not used to that and I had assumed that he was not a virgin because he had told me he him and his ex had lived together when he was in college and stuff, and so, my mind, I just assumed, well, if you live together, you guys must have done stuff. And I had no idea he was a virgin and I it was hard for me to like take that in personally, because I'm like, wow, like you lived with your ex girlfriend and you didn't have sex, like wow. And he was like I'm waiting for the person I'm supposed to marry, like I knew wasn't going to marry her, and I was like, wow, that is so admirable. And I there's going to be two parts to this, because this is just there's still so much to go through. Going to be two parts to this, because this is just there's still so much to go through, um, about we've been married, we've been together now for almost 13 years and there's, there's still been so much that has gone through my life and how I look at myself, how I perceive myself, my relationship with myself. It took me just until a few months well, yeah, a month and a half ago to actually love myself. So we still have quite some ground to cover. But, um, I am going to leave this one at. This is I'm sorry for the long pause. I'm trying to figure out how to word this. If you have gone through something traumatic, it is not your fault.
Ashley:To be completely honest, the Me Too movement really affected me because I knew a lot of people used it as an excuse and there's a difference. Like I'm going to tell you this, I'm going to be honest and you may not like this, but I know from personal experience here there is a difference between being molested or raped versus being taken advantage of. You can allow someone to take advantage of you, but if you're being molested or raped, you don't have that power to stop that person. You don't have that power to stop that person. I allowed men to take advantage of me after the fact of me not having that aspect of myself, after losing that aspect of myself. And so a lot of people say, well, like I get, there are definitely people who came out and said things about the Me Too and the Me Too movement that it happened to them, and they were actually listened to. I was told by the cop when I had reported my rape that there was nothing they could do. They could put it in his chart or in his file, and if someone else comes down the road then they could do. They could put it in his chart or in his file, and if someone else comes down the road then they could potentially open up the case. But because it had been too long which was two months, mind you, and there was no physical evidence, they couldn't do anything. And it kind of sucked, honestly, to see that people came out and after decades or years of things that happened to them, they were able to get that person to hear them, they were able to get that vindication that they were looking for and I didn't.
Ashley:Now let me tell you this too I never once hated any of these people that did these things to me. I hated myself. I never once blamed God for any of the things that happened to me. I never once blamed God for any of the things that happened to me. I blamed myself. I am really good which is bad, but I'm really good at hiding how I truly feel, um, especially about myself.
Ashley:It took a long time for my husband to even know that I had self-confidence issues. Um, we were dating for six months before I had a whole meltdown because I didn't know what to wear to a date. He was like what are you talking about? I was like nothing looks good on me. It's the typical. Like I have nothing to wear. I'm fat and you know just like where's this coming from? I'm like this is how I always feel. And he's like I had no idea. It is bad. I trained myself to hide it because that was kind of the environment I felt like I grew up in was like we don't let people know our stuff.
Ashley:Our stuff is our stuff and we keep it inside and we don't talk about it and if we do, it's behind closed doors and no one knows. And growing up now I see, like you know, I, I can't. I can't have kids. I don't have kids. I look at my siblings as the closest things that I'm going to have to kids until they have kids, and then my nieces and nephews will be my children.
Ashley:Basically, if I can help anyone who's gone through stuff like this, that that is what my plan is Like. That is, you are not. We'll get into more of it next time, because next, next week we'll we'll kind of talk even more about this, because it's very important to talk about the relationship and the love for yourself and how to get there if you haven't gotten it yet, because it takes time. It takes a lot, of, a lot of work, but I want you to know it is not your fault. I want you to know I'm sorry I'm to cry because no one really sat there and told me that it's not your fault. No one really sat there and held my hand through it and consoled me and was there for me in that way. So, therefore, I always thought it was my fault. I always thought everything was my fault and those things that are out of your control are not your fault.
Ashley:And if you have been sexually assaulted in any way, I highly recommend you seeing someone, um, whether it's a therapist or a counselor or someone or someone that you trust that you gain a relationship with, to work through it, because I thought I worked through it, because I was able to talk about it so flippantly in a way of like, well, yeah, I'm like, I'm not mad at God, so it's fine, like it's going to help others and I would get shamed for it, like I got shamed for getting for, for being raped, basically, and that was really messed up and literally you guys are so much more I have to tell you, um, but I really don't want to go into a whole another hour of talking, because I know this is already a little over an hour. These first couple ones will probably be very long, only just because of the topics I will be talking about and the importance that I really want to just like tell you that it's not your fault. I really want to just like tell you that it's not your fault and if you need someone to confide in about it or you don't know what to do about it, you can message me, you can reach out to me If I have any way of getting you resources to help you. That is what I'm here for. But I want you to know that you're not alone. I want you to know there are so many of us out there who, who I've I've personally encountered people who have been able to help, and and to me that that makes what happened not hurt or affect me as much, because I'm able to turn what was bad into something good. So we're going to kind of leave it on that note. I know it's a really low note to leave it on, but we, every Wednesday, we'll be having another conversation about relationships. We're going to continue the conversation about relationships with ourselves and, honestly, you need to be honest with yourself. That's going to be my first point with this is you already know the things you've gone through, so why hide it? Why are you not like that's my question for you guys for this podcast.
Ashley:Um, episode one, or part one of of this episode is why are you not being honest with yourself?
Ashley:If you know everything that's happened to you? What are you hiding? Why are you hiding it? Why aren't you being honest, even with yourself? Is it benefiting you or is it hurting you? Because if it's not benefiting you, then it's hurting you and hiding things. They always come out, and sometimes they come out in ways that you don't want them to, and it can come out in really nasty ways and it can come out in ways that you wish you could take back. So why are you not being honest with yourself? God already knows what we've done. He's seen it all. So we can't hide from God and we can't hide from ourselves.
Ashley:So I'm going to leave this one with that. Think about those. Those questions are why aren't you? What aren't you being honest with yourself about, and why? And is it benefiting you or is it hurting you? And keep that in mind for next time, because we're going to continue to talk about the different things that we need to do to create a good, healthy relationship with ourselves. But until then, thank you for listening. I know this was a tougher subject to talk about but, like I said, we're going to be open and vulnerable here. We're going to talk about the hard stuff. We're going to get into more of the mental health aspect next, next episode, um. But until then, I hope you have a blessed week and have a happy Thanksgiving, and I look forward to talking to you guys next week. Bye.
