The rumors are true! I am BACK after 3 or so years of not writing on here! So, I think this blog is going to take a different turn than what it was originally started for. Since it’s called “Simply Allison”, I’m going to be writing simply what’s on my mind: whether it be about my autism, mental health, spiritual experiences, relationships, trauma, etc.
Mine and Farris’s first wedding anniversary is coming up on October 14th-15th (14th was the civil wedding ceremony and the 15th was our temple sealing day). I am very excited to be celebrating this special time with him next weekend! We just booked our hotel at the Black Swan Inn in Pocatello for two nights and we’ll plan some other fun things while we’re there. I can hardly wait! With this, however, comes a heavy topic I think is very important to address: triggers and trauma.
**WARNING: highly sensitive topics are about to be discussed regarding sexual abuse and trauma. Viewer discretion heavily advised: if these are topics you find uncomfortable, I highly suggest you stop reading right now. I will be discussing my personal experiences with it in the most tasteful way with absolutely no vulgarity whatsoever. Nothing too far in depth either, I promise.**
I was discussing with Farris this morning how I’m feeling excited for our first anniversary, but how it also feels triggering to me. He asked me why it felt triggering to me. Of course Farris knows my history, but still asks to make sure he’s on the same page with me. It feels triggering to me because of past experiences I had with my ex husband before our divorce. I haven’t talked a whole lot publicly about what actually led to this divorce because it can honestly be hard to talk about. But today, I decided I’m ready to talk about it because it’s important to bring awareness to mental, emotional and sexual abuse and the long term effects they have on people. I will not be mentioning my ex’s real name in this account and I don’t think I need to explain the reason behind that decision. So, here it goes…
Long story short, I met a guy, we will call him Joey, in Fall of 2013 at BYU-Idaho and we were friends on and off until summer of 2014. When we reunited in Rexburg in Fall semester 2014, we decided to start dating. I was expecting what you’d think most sane people would: a slow and steady dating experience. Things went really well until about a few weeks into the semester when he started talking marriage! Joey started telling me things like “I think I know everything I need to know about you” and “I’m ready to marry you. Why wait?” I remember quite vividly how I kept trying to reaffirm my position that I wasn’t ready to marry him yet, getting married this soon was crazy, and that I felt we should date a bit longer to be sure. He wasn’t letting down at all and his pressure started to get to my head. It made me question whether I was being crazy and too rigid about my expectations and what I wanted, especially given I had a friend who got engaged after dating someone for just two weeks and it seemed to work for them. He was so convincing that he’d be an amazing husband and that marriage to him would be wonderful. I then convinced myself somehow that I wanted to marry him. He proposed to me October 10th, 2014 at a picnic we had at the temple grounds in between my classes. I sort of wondered if he was going to when he told me to make sure I dressed my best for the occasion. I was sort of caught off guard when I realized I was right, but nonetheless happy and excited that day happened for me.
I accepted and wedding planning began. I suggested we get married in spring or summertime the next year. Joey started pushing to be married within the next three months in January 2015. I continued to express that I would rather not get married in the snow, wedding planning takes time, and I didn’t feel like that timing was quite right either. He continued to not listen to my desires and kept pushing for the January date, saying “I can’t keep dating you long distance. It would be better to just get married in January so nothing has to be long distance anymore. I love you so much and I’m ready.” There he goes again with his convincing way of telling me marriage to him will be wonderful and I had nothing to worry about. We went with the January date he begged for. I also remember him giving me a hard time about what temple we would get married in- he wanted to be married in a much more elaborate temple, like Salt Lake, I think and I wanted to be married in a temple closer to home (his mother was on my side with that one and that's what finally got him to listen)- and what sort of wedding dress he wanted to see me in. He got mad that I wouldn’t let him see the dress before the wedding day. He was then disappointed with what I chose, but still thought I looked beautiful that day. What a child!
Throughout this engagement, I remember very well how excited Joey was about the sex part of marriage. He was always making strange remarks and jokes about it and I would just be confused as to why he was telling me those tasteless things. He did anything and everything he could to make sure I was aware of how excited for sex he was while I had my fears about it and he knew it. No pressure, right?? He even went to great lengths with this by getting my attention to look at the erection he had showing through his pants, saying “heehee. Look at me! This means you’re attractive.” Gross, am I right?
A month into our engagement, I went to Joey’s apartment to do homework and some wedding planning stuff with him. I got tired that evening and ended up falling asleep on his couch. When I woke up, he decided to confess to me that he reached into my pants and touched me inappropriately! I was shocked, very upset with him, didn’t know what to think or say and obviously didn’t think anything through here! I thought it was weird that he would just admit it like that, but because he admitted it and was honest, I decided to give him a chance as long as he confessed what he did to his bishop. I told him we weren’t getting married unless he told his bishop what he had done to me. The whole experience left me shaken: I felt so much guilt for putting myself in such a position and that it was totally my fault it happened. I felt even more nervous for sex after the wedding than I already did as well as even more pressure and constant thoughts of “what if I can’t perform for him? What will he do? How will he react?” I was scared to tell my bishop what happened out of fear that the blame would be put on me for falling asleep in Joey’s apartment and my temple recommend would be taken away and I wouldn’t be able to get sealed. I never told him, but I know now that I should have given that he wasn’t that scary of a bishop anyways. Was what I did the best? No, probably not. But Joey was also at fault and that should never be ignored. Nothing I did, wore, or said asked him to do that disgusting deed and I know that now. The reality is all too real: way too many girls and women feel this way when these things happen to them due to how church leaders have handled them in the past and it needs to change majorly if it hasn’t already! I said what I said.
When Joey talked to his bishop and I asked him how it went, he told me that he wasn’t in trouble and his bishop just told him to refrain from ever doing it again. So moving forward with the wedding we went. We get married January 10th, 2015. It was a happy and fun day…until we got to the hotel at the end of the night. He carried me into the room over the threshold and I could tell he was expecting sex that first night. I honestly would have been happy with waiting a bit and just enjoying the time together. But, I did what he expected and it didn’t go well. It was not a comfortable or enjoyable experience for me, but I kept trying for him so he’d be happy. After awhile, he actually went to bed mad at me because it didn’t go as he expected. I was heartbroken. My wedding night was robbed. I know what you’re all thinking: “seems like this was always all about him and he never respected you”, or “why did you marry him with all his ridiculous pressuring?” Oh believe me, I very much wish I could go back in time and tell 20 year old me that Joey was never a safe guy to marry in the slightest, that I needed to stop giving into his stupid pressure and move on. But hindsight is 20/20.
Things never truly got better as time went on in our marriage. I was too blindsided in love to really see it until the end, however. Throughout our 4 1/2 year marriage, Joey continued to find every way to vocalize how he felt about me not feeling comfortable having sex. Not once did he ever think to stop and address how I felt and why I felt that way. Had he done that, maybe things would have gotten better and more trust would have been built. But no. It was always him expressing how he felt by whining and complaining: “I just want sex with my wife! How hard is that?”, “if you would just have sex with me, we wouldn’t have all these problems”, “I just want to make you feel good and I feel like less of a man because I can’t”, “I think you should go to the doctor and get this checked out. Something’s wrong.” He would of course then push me to see a doctor against my will with no explanation as to why he was pushing for it. When I finally went one or two times to get him to shut up, he said nothing of encouragement nor did he stand up for me in there. He just shamed me for being too anxious as the doctors pointed out and that I just needed to suck it up. It was like he couldn’t see that his comments and actions that almost felt like berating were just pushing me away further and further. He never felt he was the issue. He always felt I was the issue. Neither of us could see how unsafe this situation truly was. I never felt so alone in my life.
I also remember during my marriage to Joey how he would constantly seemingly compare us to other married couples or people in general inappropriately, saying sick things like “you know, some women have really high sex drives”, “my coworker told me about a couple he hears doing it really loud every Sunday morning and how funny that is”, “sex is what makes married people truly happy in marriage. It’s so important.” These comments would just make me think: "why does he think I care about that stuff? There's more to marriage than sex isn't there?", "what am I doing wrong?", "Am I supposed to care about sex this much? Does everything in marriage have to be about that?", and "I can't wait to get over this fear and discomfort so I can think about normal human things again like all my friends." He even called sexual intimacy the keystone of marriage, I'm pretty sure. He also kept constantly talking about how he wanted a baby with me right away and how good I would look as a pregnant woman. I just wanted him to stop pressuring me so much, so I stupidly made a promise to him that I would hopefully get over my fear of doing it by our first anniversary in hopes he would finally stop getting on my case. Of course our first anniversary comes around, that didn’t happen, and he got mad and upset again. He always found reasons to be upset with me about our sex life through the whole marriage. The pressure never really stopped either. Joey also hid things from me as long as he could, such as viewing pornography for at least the first year of our marriage and masturbating. I remember when I caught on that he might be masturbating and asked him if he was, he told me something along the lines of "yeah, I've done a bit of masturbation because needs aren’t being met.” As I’m writing these things, I’ve realized that it’s possible his total open admitting when asked after avoiding it as long as he could was his way of gaslighting me into feeling like I need to step up my game or something so he doesn’t feel like he has to resort to these things. He even went to great lengths to express how upset he was: he talked to another woman he knew from back home behind my back about my private, delicate struggles, even mentioned something about my underwear to her for heaven's sake, and took her on a date without my knowledge. I felt so beyond humiliated and embarrassed. How could a man that’s supposed to love me no matter what talk about such delicate struggles with someone else without my permission and violate my privacy like that? I should have left Joey at that point, I even considered it, but convinced him to go to counseling with me instead to have any sort of hope of reconciliation. He was still never convinced he was part of the problem so counseling was ineffective and he ended up starting the divorce process with me “because I can’t take this anymore,” he said. It is a true blessing that I never had kids with this man! For a little while after, I thought that because I did all these things wrong with him in his eyes, I'd have difficulty finding a man who thinks I'm worth it anyway despite my past. My friends, everything I've described in this paragraph as well as the previous few is what abuse looks like.
Back to the present: the main trigger I’m experiencing as my first wedding anniversary with Farris approaches is the stupid promise I made to Joey that I’d hopefully be over fears of sexual intimacy by our first anniversary. It's putting pressure on me to make something special and incredible happen because it's the first anniversary and it's the real deal or something. Makes sense since it's our first anniversary, right? That's not at all what Farris expects though. He doesn't really have any expectations as far as sexual intimacy goes nor has he ever. Now, Farris is absolutely nothing like Joey. He doesn’t pressure me into anything and has respect for me. He wants it to be a good experience for me as it is for him. He is an excellent example of how a man should treat his wife and I am so blessed to have him as my husband and eternal companion. If there’s any pressure on me, it’s the pressure I put on myself as a trauma response to everything that happened in my past that I’ve just explained.
The point of sharing the story of what led to my divorce with my ex husband is to illustrate and educate just how abuse can impact an individual and how they think and view different situations despite being in a much safer place after escaping the abuse. It's more complicated than you think. And everything I'm telling you all is exactly why I believe this topic is so dang important! Even though my marriage with Farris is a truly healthy one with mutual respect for one another and much better and more open communication, sometimes those darn triggers still hit home hard with specific situations and anniversaries. People asking me if I'm pregnant (depending on how or why it's asked) or want to have kids is a particularly huge trigger for me because of all the abuse and gaslighting I experienced from my ex. I can't just forget my ex and flip my mindset about what a healthy marriage looks and feels like in a matter of seconds after being married to Farris. I really wish I could and it was that simple, though. It takes time to unlearn unhealthy ideas about marriage or anything for that matter. It's a process, a long one that can feel like an eternity. Those unhealthy ideas that were given to me through my ex's abuse were powerful enough through his tone of voice and the convincing "wonderful, caring husband" face he put on while doing this crap to become ingrained in my brain to the point where they feel impossible to forget sometimes. Why do abusers have to be so dang good at what they do?!
The way I've been able to get through my triggers and trauma responses is having open, honest communication with Farris, creating the safest space possible for intimacy of any kind, making affirmations for myself to refer to when I'm triggered, reassurance from Farris, and counseling. I still feel I have a ways to go, but I've made progress with counseling and I try to remind myself of that as often as possible because a lot of the time, it doesn't feel that way to me yet. It takes a very long time to unlearn unhealthy things and there is nothing wrong with that. With time and continuation of healthy habits between Farris and I, I will be okay and those triggers and trauma will start to mean less and less to me. To anyone reading this who has also experienced abuse: it's totally normal for healing to take a long time and there's nothing wrong with you if that is the case with you too. It's totally normal to still have triggers and trauma responses despite being in a healthier place now. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with you if you find it hard to forget your past and just move forward like people around you might tell you to all the time. It's not easy at all to just forget it, and you tell 'em that! It's easier said than done, but be patient with yourself, give yourself grace, and just know that it's okay to make progress and then have setbacks. Healing is not linear nor will it ever be. You got this and so do I!
