Sharon's Story

At some point in my life, I heard about the idea of self-actualization, but at that time my understanding was vague. Odd that after six years of counseling and having read literally hundreds of books, my pain remained constant. It hurt to accept the fact that I had learned phrases, and concepts, but rarely internalized them. It is as if there was a literal dam built somewhere between my logic and my emotions. Yet, as I read a statement the writers made in one of my textbooks, "...you will be an active learner:  you will assume responsibility for your education, will question what is presented to you, and will apply what you learn in a personally meaningful way...."  a sense of shock enveloped me as I realized that a part of me had indeed been working toward self-actualization.

One of the first steps of, what many psychologists call "self-actualization," is dealing with your childhood. As I studied Maslow’s hierarchy, as well as Erikson’s "stages," it became quite evident to me that my basic needs were never met. Don’t get me wrong, I had food and shelter, but the foundational development of trust within me was elusive. Yet, for the past twenty-five years God had led me to a place where I could deal with my pain - in His Presence.

He helped me deal with the truth that my needs for safety dissolved when my parent’s divorced, then when my molestation continued the lack of safety was amplified. As a result of these experiences, I became an angry and promiscuous teenager. The only answer to my dilemma, according to my mother, was for me to marry the first person that offered to "rescue" me. When the marriage ended in divorce, at the ripe age of sixteen, I felt "washed up." My self-esteem was demolished.

Ironically, the way I felt about myself inwardly, and the way I thought others perceived me were light years apart. I knew in the deepest recesses of myself that I had something to offer, but the fear of rejection intimidated me and suppressed the real me. My mother often reminded me of my stupidity and laziness. The truth of the situation was that I could not live up to her expectations, after all - I was a child. By the age of eighteen, I believe my emotions were numb and I entered a mode of simple survival; which, incidentally, made it quite easy for my mother to lead me around by the mere nod of her head or the blink of her eye.

My husband and I remarried following his service in the Navy because mother thought that would be a novel idea. Before we could settle down as a couple we became a family. My oldest daughter, Michelle, was born at twenty-four weeks. My husband was unable to handle the birth defects associated with her early arrival and again, following my mother’s advice, another divorce occurred. The lack of self-esteem established in my teenage years magnified, and I found myself on a collision course with life.

For the first time in my life I tried desperately to separate myself from mother, and I guess also, the rest of my family. I grew tired of acting the part of the clown, the glue, or the black sheep. I abandoned by daughter to the care of my mother and stepfather and escaped into the world of the night. As a cocktail waitress and bartender, I heard the verbal messages I longed to hear. Customers and co-workers found me funny and attractive. Little did they know that inside the "cute" shell lived a wounded soul.

Following the break-up with a man I adored, dated and/or lived with for three years, my emotions went on a rampage. I quit working and stayed home drinking tequila, day in and day out. One morning I woke up to discover I had no money, and on top of that, my face and body were swollen beyond recognition. I phoned my parents for help and they allowed me to move back home.

Two weeks later I accepted Christ as my Savior and my life took a radical turn. Although I still struggled with trying to separate who I was from my family, I settled down into being a single parent and enjoyed the Christian life intensely. My euphoric state lasted for approximately a year. It was then that I began to notice a sense of isolation from other church members.

I honestly thought that being married would connect me to others in the congregation. So, when the mother of my childhood sweetheart asked me to write letters of encouragement to him in Germany, I jumped at the opportunity. Letters were exchanged weekly, and within months we were engaged - sight unseen after many years. We were married about eighteen days after his discharge.

Three months into the marriage, he told me of his addiction to drugs. Following the shock of his disclosure, I began to doubt God’s love for me. I went into a time of grief internally. Soon thereafter, my husband felt we would be better bonded if we had a child. I submitted, conceived, and he left when I was five and one-half months pregnant. Divorced again, and extremely dependent on my mother, my state of autonomy remained elusive.

If a glimpse into my heart were possible, in those days (and sometimes even now), I resented being a woman. Men had more freedom and were more widely accepted. I resented how women were treated in the church and in the workplace, and this, combined with the pain from my earlier years, started an inferno in my soul. Yes, I was a Christian, but bitterness, rebellion, and resentment directed my paths.

Following the break-up of still another marriage, I moved to a little town in Talladega. There I married again. This time the man was well educated, an optometrist and suddenly I knew a deeper sense of security than I had ever experienced. While that area of my life was quickly helping me realize certain things about myself, my femininity was questioned -- my husband was impotent.

Oddly, this revelation gave me a certain break in my life that helped me find a sense of sanctuary. No longer was I an instrument of satisfaction for a man’s burning desires, I was simply Sharon, a sometimes funny, sometimes serious person with a few emerging talents, other than singing. Educated men and women enjoyed me teaching their Sunday School Class and they laughed with me at the comedy of errors in my life. My questions about God were no longer perceived as my being an infidel. Instead, my husband and my pastor encouraged these questions and they way I sought the answers.

The feminine part of me began to develop in spite of gaining weight. I allowed myself to enjoy bubble baths, the color pink, and roses. It was a period when the only thing I wanted to wear was dresses and lots of ruffles. Just as I began to enjoy my femininity, my pastor encouraged me to seek an education. I entered Samford as a music major with a concentration in voice. Never in my life had I experienced such acceptance.

At the beginning of my second semester, I read a book that triggered some painful memories. For three days I rocked and cried as the memories resurfaced and I felt, actually for the first time, the degree of abuse I suffered as a child. While in the process of working through these issues, the music department put on an opera surrounding the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Woman at the Well.

Since music is a major means through which I feel comfortable to experience my emotions, I could barely contain myself as the young students did their best work. Within weeks I ran from school and my husband, but I was unable to run from me. Everywhere I ran, I still found myself, and ironically, the pain became more intense.

Around this same time my mother passed away. As I gazed at the lifeless body in that coffin, my grief doubled, but I was unable to express it because memories from my teenage years overwhelmed me. One in particular was that my mother often wanted me to fix her hair.

The most compliments I ever received from people were about the way I wore my hair. This led my mother to insist that I attend cosmetology school following my marriage at fifteen. My godmother just so happened to be an instructor at Dempsey Beauty College, and lied for me so I could start before I turned sixteen. I kept my license for many years, but only worked as a cosmetologist for approximately three years. Through that memory I realized just how much control my mother actually had on me and how deeply it had affected everything in my life.

You might say I am a "jack of all trades, but chief of none." I have worked as a fast food employee, cafeteria worker, employee of Southern Bell as a directory assistance operator, cocktail waitress, bartender, payroll clerk, secretary, Director of Lay Ministries, Music Director, and then as a secretary again. All of this before the internet came along and God led me to start this ministry.

Much of my adult life has revolved around the church and its music program. Much of who I am is still reflected through music. You see, as a little girl I often entertained my mother’s customers at a local "beer joint" where she worked. One day while doing this, a man encouraged mother to allow me to audition for a local radio program. Mother said "Yes," and the man drove me to the audition. I was placed on the air that day. For two and one half years I traveled over the state of Alabama singing. This part of my life ended abruptly following an episode when mother awoke me at 3:00 in the morning to sing for her drunken friends. I just couldn't sing. So, she stopped me from singing and I never sang another note until I was around twenty-three years old.

Following an emotional breakdown shortly after moving to Talladega, I had to place mother in a nursing home. One day just as I was leaving I told her I loved her, as was my general custom. She gazed at me intently and stated, "You don’t know how to love." My immediate response was, "Well, if someone had taught me how - I could." I still get cold chills when I think about that moment.

Sincerely, I don’t remember loving any one as a child. I do remember working hard to have others love me. The first person I think I loved was a man who rented a room from us when I was about seven. Pee Wee took me places, bought me things, and treated me like I was special. The only bad thing was that he also molested me on and off for three years. Looking back, I realize that love, sexuality, and intimacy all fell together somehow. I assumed that if you loved someone you had sex with them. The flip side of this type of thinking also meant that if you had sex with someone you apparently loved them. This is inauthentic love, but it was the only type of love I understood for years. At least until after my suicide attempt of 1993.

I came so close to dying, it was scary. Lying in intensive care with tubes everywhere, my brain continued to function. The feelings I had for my children and grandchildren rushed through me like hot water. I knew then that the toughness I used with them, with the hopes of helping them, was indeed love. Instantly, I knew if that was true, then God’s way of dealing with me was truly love. Once I realized the depth of my distrust of Him I began to grieve. I knew that it was indeed worth the pain to love as I loved my children and my God. I grew to understand that sexuality or its intimacy with a spouse was much like the icing on a cake, or syrup on ice cream, either could be taken and enjoyed alone, but when combined with friendship it brought about jubilation.

It seems that sex has been a part of my life, all my life. There have been times when sex was the foundation of a relationship, and other times when thinking about sex made me sick at my stomach. In either case, sex or sexual thoughts have rarely evaded my conscious thoughts. I was either running to it or from it. For years I thought I was the only person in the world who was wicked enough to think of sex this often. Once in counseling, I learned that since I was first exposed to sex as early as three-years-of-age, it was natural for it to be such a large factor in my life. Finally, I am at a point in my life where I can enjoy the few moments of intimacy my husband and I are able to share without feeling it's my "job" to do as a wife.

God helped me throughout the healing process. In one book I read, the author stated, "people are robbed of their choice in the situation...[i]ncest, date and acquaintance rape, and sexual harassment all involve depriving individuals of choices, and they also entail abusive power, control, destructiveness, and violence." In other words, as a child I did not have a choice.

Since, according to psychologist Eric Erickson, trust wasn’t built in my life as a baby due to certain circumstances in my life, the betrayal of trust through sexual abuse deepened my need for trust in my life. It is no wonder I had a hard time trusting God, learning to love, and relating in a normal rather than abnormal way about sex.

My best friend and neighbor growing up was also named Sharon. We were called big Sharon and little Sharon. There were several other people we associated with, but to call them friends would be somewhat stretching the imagination. I rarely made "friends" with anyone. A deep sense of "aloneness" was a part of me and obstructed my ability to relate well with others. I could entertain them without problem, but to really relate was indeed rare.

Having grown up in a blended family, I assumed and/or developed as a part of my philosophy that when a relationship becomes stale or hurtful you divorce and move on. As a Christian, this created a bit of confusion within me. Ironically, since becoming a Christian I have married and divorced more than before. I believe it is partly due to the emphasis the Christian church places on family. At the age of forty-five I know what I wish I had known years earlier: a single person can be considered whole.

Only recently did I learn that part of the reason people kept their distance from me was that I wanted intimacy. I enjoy knowing what makes a person tick and helping them see the positive side of who they are. During my journey I have found that this innate desire I have turns people off. From time to time, however, I find that I am unable to communicate with others what my needs are. I hope that as I grow in Christ this aspect of who I am will mature.

One of the greatest paradoxes of my entire life is solitude. I hungered for solitude and at the same time hungered for a partner or an intimate friend. According to the way I was raised, this wasn’t normal. Now I understand that this paradox is not actually a paradox, instead, it is quite normal. However, I have been lonely. I have been lonely in a crowd of hundreds. Loneliness I hate, solitude I appreciate. Yet, as a mother and grandmother with children and grandchildren living at home I find it evasive.

I honestly don’t remember ever being afraid of death. Both of my grandparents died before I was three. I just grew up with an acceptance that death happened. Peculiar thing about all of that is God showed me that I was "dead" psychologically and socially. Internally I felt the only good I had to offer was being a doormat to those who needed to use me. Now, I am in the process of grieving over years of waste and ruin.

Needless to say, the majority of my years were spent living on impulse. The adage from the sixties "if it feels good do it" pretty much personified my life. Several years ago, as I was contemplating Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 29:11, I had to deal with the thought that God actually might have a "purpose" for my living on this planet at this particular time. I now believe with all that I am that God truly wants to use all my pain for the gain of His Kingdom. All I can say to end this dissertation is "to God be the glory!"

This was written in 1995. I've learned much since that time about myself and those around me. There is hope. July 4, 2004.

A Questioned Life

Becoming Real

The Girl

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