After Thoughts: Chapter 7

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 seven Afterthoughts I totally forgot about what I wrote. Um most of this book I remember what I wrote and so it's not a surprise to me as I'm reading it and I knew present day Michaela popped in but I d I forgot what I wrote. I forgot because I'm recording this two years after I published the book initially and I've only read the book one other time since then and I totally forgot what I I wrote and yeah that just came as a surprise to me. But as I said in, you know, I I said a lot of what it when present day Michaela popped into the chapter and not just in these afterthoughts I said, you know, what I said in the last afterthoughts, he did have his training program down as good for children and grooming as he did for horses. And but that is such a crazy feeling to be in the mix of someone's of the of that game, you know, as I was saying in in the last afterthoughts. And you know, now it's it's interesting rereading the book because you know, the first draft, I believe I I mentioned this in the introduction, but the first draft of this book I called the rage pages because I had so much rage that I didn't even know was still there, and writing about this like really brought it up. And every rewrite, you know, I just was talking the other day about how we never watch the same movie twice, we never read the same book twice, we never watch the same TV show twice, and of course, it's like Michaela, but I I just re-watched my favorite movie for the tenth time. What do you mean I can't watch it again? And what I'm saying is we never truly watch the same show book or TV show read the same book twice because we're never the same person of who we were when we watched it the last time. And the example that I gave when I was talking about the other day is I just got done re-watching Top Gun. Uh, it's as of right now, it's the 40th anniversary for Top Gun, and so they re-released Top Gun Maverick and Top Gun into the theaters, and I have not watched the first Top Gun since um another one of my horses passed away in December of 2025. I'm recording this in May of 2026, so about six months ago, and which is just crazy to say, but um, I have not watched the first Top Gun since I lost my horse last December. And so my animals are my family. I'm just as close to my animals as I am people, if not closer to my animals. I am one of the people that like when I lose an I I've actually I haven't lost someone like a human that's super, super close to me. I've had more experience with animal death because we're animal people. Um, but even like as I said when I was rereading this book, like I've cried over my dog dying more than I did when my grandma passed away. And I've really done a lot of work to not make that right nor wrong. It's just my experience. Um, do I miss my grandma? Of course. Do I miss my uncle who passed away? Of course. And I was much closer to my animals that have passed away. So I've cried more over losing my childhood dog, and I've cried more over losing my horse than I have my family members who have passed away. And so that grief for me is heavy and it's hard. And I so me losing Capone, my horse that passed away a few months ago, is very parallel to Maverick losing Goose in Top Gun. And so I haven't again watched that movie since losing Capone. And so, in so many ways, I felt like I was watching that movie for the first time. And that's when I started to think about I am watching this movie for the first time because I'm watching this movie for the first time as Michaela, who no longer has her horse Capone, who she has had since she was a sophomore in high school. And so that's what I mean is I'm no longer the same person, and as this new version of me, I am now watching this movie and therefore watching this movie for the first time as this version of me. And I feel I've felt that way more reading chapter seven than I have in any other parts of the book because I've mainly because I forgot what I wrote. But what is really interesting is I did feel more that way reading chapter seven so far than any other parts of the book. But what's really interesting is whether I was writing the rage pages, whether I was going through different drafts, because I study psychology so much, because I've studied because of all these experiences I went through. I've done a ton of trauma work, I've done a ton of somatic therapies, I've tried, I've done psychedelics, like you name the healing modality, and I've probably tried it at some point, and just trying to find what works best to like get through the madness that life throws at us, if you will. And it's interesting because I have this awareness of like how the brain works and how trauma gets stored in the body and all of this stuff. I just pick up on new things with every rewrite, with every read. And I find it so interesting what like I'm picking up on now. Like that feeling of that I still sometimes experience in business or in my creativity of like feeling like never enough. I feel the 12-year-old girl in me still trying to prove that she was good enough to take lessons from Todd. And it's interesting because I feel like this this reread that I'm doing now for you and for me in doing this audiobook, I feel like, oh, okay, I'm at the point where I feel safe enough to start letting these things go. And how I describe it is I believe there's two kinds of traumas. There is what I call flat tire trauma and check engine light trauma. And the flat tire traumas are the super obvious ones, right? Like we just imagine we're going down the road, the tire blows, we have to pull over and address it right away because the the the we can literally not drive our vehicle without putting a tire on. So we pull over and we address those right away. My flat tires with Todd, I feel like I was able to address those right away and did a lot. And I think also going to court and talking about it and not being someone who there's so many people who have taken this to the grave with them, have experienced what I've experienced, and they've taken it to the grave with them, or they're still alive, and it's been 20, 30 years, and they've never told a soul, and that wound is just sitting in there festering inside of them. Well, because I went to court, I spoke about my story so much in the first few years after it happened, more than someone who didn't go to court would have. And so, because of that, that helped me deal with a lot of those what I would call flat tire traumas. The for me, the flat tire traumas was like I would say the touching, the kissing, and actually I still have a lot to like unpack there intimately. Uh, I still do not like wet things against my lips, even if I'm we'll talk more about that in the next book. But even if I'm attracted to someone, I have a really hard time when their lips touch mine. I'm just like, it's not really the lips per se, but what the moment I feel that saliva on, I'm just like, oh god, because my brain just still unfortunately links it back to Todd, but we're working on it. And it was the check engine light traumas that I've had a harder time with because we can still drive the car. Like, how many of us have had a car with the check engine light on potentially four years? And then one day the car blows up, and we think, Why did my car car blow up? And if the car could talk, it would say, Well, I've been blinking a light at you for the last year and a half, and for us, it would be the last 10 years. Of course, I blew up. And I feel like in this this reread, I'm I'm starting to be able to let some of these little like flat tire or uh excuse me, check engine light traumas go. And it's really interesting. Again, in so many ways, I feel like I'm reading this book for the first time and able to pick up on some of these things that, you know, when I go to work on my business, I'm not understanding, and now I can see it so clearly in the book and say, like, okay, it's time to let this go, it's time to release this. And so it just, it's just so wild. Like, I'm just having a really wild experience right now of how much that writing can allow us to see our story objectively, potentially for the first time, or at least in a different way than we've ever seen it before. And so I actually just um to end this afterthoughts, I just want to say thank you for being here and allow me to tell the story what feels like for the first time, especially for the first time in this way, and see things in a way that I have not seen them before. So that's really all I have to say about these afterthoughts. Uh, let's get into the next chapter.