After Thoughts: Chapter 5

Welcome to Michaela Mae's Audiobook Experience for The Barn off of Colfax Lane: an unfiltered memoir about sexual assault and the mixed feelings that come with it. 

In this book Michaela tells her story of the childhood sexual abuse she experienced when she was 12-years-old while taking horse back riding lessons from a horse trainer in Oregon.

BOOK SUMMARY:

I was 12 years old the first time my horse trainer grabbed my left boob and asked me if I had ever had sex. I'm not sure what caught me off guard the most: his question or the fact a 79-year-old man had his hand firmly cusped around my boob while asking me, a 12-year-old, if I had ever had sex. I've blocked out a lot of that season from my mind, but that first day sticks out clearer than the rest. Is it because of the shock? Is it because I hadn't fully remembered my pro-dissociation skills yet?

I have no f*cking clue, but I do remember the green-striped tank top and the dark navy blue jeans I had on that day. I remember watching his lips ooze as the words, "Have you ever had sex?" spilled out of them. I remember the blank stare in his eyes, the black specks of chew stuck in his teeth, and the way his cheeks met his chin like a pillow shoved under fitted sheets.

My eyes left my left boob, flung around the barn, and up to his face. The light coming in from the barn door behind him lit his back, but darkened his face so his face looked as dark as the blank stare in his eyes. My brain raced for answers that made sense. Hell, it searched for a question that made sense too. "No, of course not. Wait, why is this happening? How do I answer? Do I answer? Am I dreaming?" I couldn't speak, so I looked up at him blankly then he turned and walked away.

LINKS + CONTACT:

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For inquiries or to connect with Michaela directly, email michaela@michaelamae.com

© 2024 MP Media. All rights reserved.

Narrated by Author Michaela Mae.

Keywords: survivor memoir, childhood sexual abuse memoir, childhood sexual abuse, trauma memoir, healing memoir, horse trainer abuse, equestrian community, read by the author, audiobook, Oregon, Michaela Mae

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Chapter 5, Afterthoughts. That was one of the hardest chapters for me to write, because as I had said in the prologue, one of the promises I made to myself was to be as honest as I could and not hold back to share everything. And the reason that chapter was so hard was because unless you've experienced something like that, it is you feel so crazy. And you know, there's so many beliefs that tend to be in our culture of like, oh, you can't feel that way, like things can't happen, like you your whole body just can't go numb. And especially as me being 12, that definitely wasn't a thing that I thought was possible. So for my body to just go into this complete numb feeling to the point where I couldn't even walk, I had a really hard time writing about that, not because it wasn't true, but but because I didn't want to appear crazy. Cause even reading through it and like the only reason I I sometimes believe that that's real is because of how real it was for me and how I experienced it. But it's so hard to describe, and it's so hard to open up like that. And I actually one of the things that I realized, like once the book had got out into the world, because um, as of recording this, my book has been out for two years, and I'd never been that honest. Like I'd been honest about what happened, but I'd never been honest with the actual experiences, like the actual assaults. I told that story I don't know how many times because I did end up testifying in court. So I told that story I don't know how many times. So the the actual telling of what happened, I told so many times, like writing that wasn't difficult, but how I felt and like my reactions afterwards. This book is the first time I'd ever put that into words. I'd never written it down anywhere else. And so it was really hard to, and then even to go back to that place of like feeling that frozen feeling, of feeling that numb feeling of trying to get my legs to work, and then I will never forget, you know, picking up the saddle, and like the saddle hit the weight of it hit my arms, and I just dropped it, like it just collapsed. And that was something I had obviously done like many times. It wasn't like the weight of the saddle was a problem for me, it was just a problem that day because of the experience and response my body was having to what just happened. Like I I just went numb and I I did feel, you know, so alone. And I I study a modality, and one of the things in the modality is why do some events turn into traumas and some don't? And the the framework for it is it has to be shocking, it has to be isolating, and then it had to have been important to you, like it had to have some meaning to you. And that day hit all three of those dots for me, right? Like Todd, the writing lessons, it was very important to me. It was shocking, as I it said in the last afterthoughts, like it it came from nowhere, was not expecting it, and then I did feel so alone. And even in writing that, like I I remembered the loneliness piece of it because I felt so crazy, it was never something I planned on talking about, which is really interesting because I at some point, but this was probably later on in the journey, I always knew I'd write a book at some point, but I never planned on sharing that out loud. I never planned on the feeling of the numbness, like not knowing how to walk, like staring at the ground. Like I I think I'll always remember how that latch on the that stall door looked, that rusty latch that it was the latch between, like the stalls were built with wood, but the front facing of the doors were like this rusted they were like these rusted panels, but then they had hog wire like over the top. And it was that the bottom latch on that second stall in the barn on between the door and the panel, like I just like latched onto it, like literally, like my eyes just got stuck onto it. And then the the process when I had to move like my eyes from that latch to to look at my feet to try and get my feet to walk again, like it felt like like you know, when you have a lever and it's just super, super heavy, and you're just like taking all your energy to try to get the lever from one side to the other, like that's how it felt trying to move my eyes was like there was just so much weight and pressure, and and these are things we just do so automatically, we don't even think about them being difficult. And in that moment, like it was difficult for me to get my eyes to move from the latch to the the tips of my boot to try and focus on walking. And what's really interesting is how with especially with my eyes, like thinking about during, like when he actually had his hand like around my boob, like thinking about how quickly my eyes were moving. Because I remember like to this day, I don't know how my eyes moved so fast, like when my eyes moved like to my boob, to around the barn to up to him, like it just felt like it was so fast. And so for my eyes to move that fast, and then for them to barely be able to move at all, like it was such a it was such a crazy experience, like to just I'd never gone through something that I was consciously aware of that had that much of a an effect on my body, and it's it is really like scarring to feel like in so many ways, and I I think I would I don't really know where I land on this to be honest with you, but like in so many ways, like that we don't have control over our bodies in some aspects, like something happens, like our eyes see something, it communicates it to our brain, our brain responds as necessary, and then our body just reacts. Like, yes, there are times where we have control and we can have response, but there are these instances where I mean this is kind of a bad example, but right, like if your bladder is so full, like at some point you just pee, like you don't have control over it, your bladder is like, dude, we are so full, like I gotta go, and I'm going, whether you're over a toilet or you're sitting down in a vehicle and I'm just coming, whether you're ready or not. And that is something I've really had to have had a hard time with. Like, are there instances where we don't have control over our body? And our body just reacts and responds based on the trauma or the stimulus in front of us. And I don't know. I I'm just sharing this because that's just something that's coming up for me in these afterthoughts. And again, these afterthoughts are just like the conversation, like how I feel now, and I don't always know how I feel now, but these are still things that I wrestle with and that I think about and that I wonder if there's a different truth for. Like, is there is there a case where in all circumstances we can control our body? Or are there things where we are just always going to respond? And the control is not in the response, but in what we do after the response. And yeah, these are just things that I still wrestle with, and really just reading through that, but then also thinking about the contrast, like I was saying, of like how my eyes were moving so fast during the incident and how slowly they were moving in that frozen state, and just realizing like how much a body can react to and respond to in such a little time is both amazing that our bodies can do that to protect us and things, but also like terrifying to me of like losing that control over my body and my reactions and responses. And I it's something I I do still struggle with to this day for sure. So, yeah, that um reading through that is always just really interesting to take myself back there, to think about it, but then also to um be okay with being vulnerable and something I originally never wanted people to know about me because it felt so crazy. And really in writing that, but then also in reading it now, just knowing that I there's a lot of things like what I was telling you, I still debate about, I still don't know for sure. But the one thing I do feel like I know for sure as of right now is that the truth really does set us free. And so in writing that, and then now and reading it and then talking to you here, like that's the thing that I feel like keeps me going forward and keep doing it when I don't want to, is like I know the only thing that sets us free is the truth. And sometimes someone has to be like crazy enough to talk about the crazy, because in that we can both speak the truth, and it'll both set us free. And so that's that's what I kind of have to keep holding on to, like even reading it now and talking to you about it now. I'm like, no, I do still feel crazy. That does still feel like a really insane time, but the the payoff for it is that if I speak the truth, you can speak the truth, and then we can both get set free from that.