The Tattooed Lady

I am going to veer off from my usual topics here and post a very personal story that I want to share.

The Tattooed Lady

or We Are Survivors!

This year marks 50 years ago that I survived childhood sexual assault. I was 14 at the time. Two men assaulted me throughout the night, leaving me half naked in a corn field at 4 in the morning when they were done.

In my very immature 14-year-old brain, I figured I would rather kill myself than wait for them to come back and find me and carry out their threats. Of course, I had to tell the sheriff what happened. Yes, I could identify their house. Yes, I could describe them. Yes, they were caught.

In the 1960s we didn’t have victim services--at all. No one knew what to say, so no one said anything at all. After my suicide attempt my parents sent me to a state mental hospital (after not talking about what happened or its suicidal aftermath) which is where the psychiatrist said I would be safer than left to my own devices. I didn’t meet with the psychiatrist or any other health care professional during my entire sojourn there.

Where I spent two years pacing the halls and crying. But I survived. I eventually left. I finished school, worked, travelled, grew up.

My life had all the ups and downs every life has. Then mine became decidedly richer: I found the love of my life, had five amazing children, continued to travel, was awarded a fellowship to return to school after the children and received my state midwifery license in 1989. I wrote a book* and became an author, a grandma and an artist all at the same time. Life is still full and busy and, like brandy, my husband only gets sweeter with age. I am blessed and deeply grateful.

* Ma Doula: A Story Tour of Birth, North Star Press, was released on June 1^st, 2015. In 2016 Ma Doula won as a finalist in the 12-state Midwest Book awards.

Continue forward to this year, 50 years later. I’ve moved on. I tried to forget. I stuffed all of the rage and shame and fear down so deep I hardly knew it was there, but every time I looked at the white slash marks up and down my arm, I was reminded. I hated my arm. I wore long sleeved blouses all of my life. I didn’t want anyone to see my past carved out there so clearly.

Then the miraculous happened: about seven years ago I was at a doula workshop and during our lunch break, as I was wandering around, taking in all the vendors there for the day, I happened upon Victoria and her henna booth. Cool, I thought. She invited me to sit down and have a henna tattoo done. They were so beautiful and magical. When I was settled, she gently reached out to take my arm which I quickly drew back. “Not that one. It’s ugly. Do the other one,” I said. I could actually see a shift in her eyes as she carefully continued to pull my left arm onto the little table by my chair. As she took in the 12 inches of my own handiwork she said, “Then let’s make it beautiful.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t say anything. I let her paint as my mind was swimming with this new paradigm on the whole of my arm’s life. She not only completely covered the scars, but it was elegant and beautiful. 

  

After that I bought some tubes of henna and learned the art by drawing over Victoria’s patterns as they began to fade. This experience had really opened a whole world of possibilities, short sleeved shirts being one of them. It definitely stopped the horrified looks every time I went to the doctor or had my blood pressure checked.

Fast forward (back) to my 50^th anniversary this year. What appeared to be a grave error on the part of my medical practitioner turned into a miraculous teaching and healing that would direct the next ten months in particular, and then the rest of my life. This was also the year I turned 65.

The whole saga is being written as a book called Elopement Risk so I won’t go into details here other than to say that as I was being weaned off a mild anti-depressant, I was prescribed Trazadone and by the 5^th day on it, was into a full-blown psychotic episode where I was hallucinating, had stopped eating and sleeping and my mind was convinced I was on an epic religious crusade, complete with Satan stalking me from behind attempting to thwart my successes along the way. Yes, to say it was bizarre is an understatement. It was like going on my first LSD trip at 65. It took two whole weeks in a psych ward for the effects of the errant drug to leave my system and once again get a good night’s sleep.

The miracle, however, is that I had the opportunity for the first time in my life to talk about the past and all the things that had bubbled up during the last two weeks in the hospital.

Even when I went home, I was required to continue psychotherapy (having been diagnosed with PTSD) and found a wonderful woman who actually understood what I had been through. After several months with Janice I was invited to join a 10-week workshop/group therapy program called, “In the Wildflowers” with five other survivors of childhood sexual abuse. What an eye opener. I had never heard any other woman’s story. I could share mine and each time I did I remembered more and more details and was able to work through the pain. It was freeing. It was amazing. God had found a way to heal me, even at 65.

About this same time I stumbled upon a website for women who had survived mastectomies and chose instead, rather than reconstruction and breast augmentation surgery, to cover the scars with beautiful tattoos.

I was awestruck. Such brave women, and they were all around my age! What a revelation! I could permanently cover my scars with something beautiful. This idea ‘blew my mind’ as we would say back in the ’60s.

So, I got my first tattoo. I designed it and found Nora, a budding artist who has perfected the art. 

I love it. I even love my arm, after 50 years. I thank God and Janice and Victoria, and Nora and all the amazing women who have blessed me this past year. I am grateful.

Stephanie