Before and After

“There is a before, but there is also an after.”

The Before

Before February of 2023, I was a woman, mom, wife, daughter, sister, nursing supervisor, and friend. I was happy. And I don't mean superficially happy. I was truly happy. Happy with my life partner. Happy to be a mom and enjoy all of the big and little moments of raising children. Happy to be working and providing for our family. Happy to have a full life, one I had always dreamed of. Happy to feel loved and cherished by all of the people I had chosen to have in my circle. I was happy to experience tough moments because they taught me things that made me even happier in the good moments. All the good far outweighed any negative or disappointing moments.

The After

After February of 2023, after one moment that changed the reality I would have sworn I was living in, I was none of those things.

I still functioned, but only in the physical movements of daily life.

I was a woman, because that's the gender I was created as.

I was a mom, but only in packing their lunches and smelling the tops of their heads as I kissed them as all moms do.

I was a wife, but only in the physical ways I had always functioned as.

I was a daughter, but only barely in phone calls from my parents for just long enough to keep from crying until after we hung up.

I was a sister on the phone, but avoided looking any of my siblings in the eyes when we were in person.

I was a nurse and continued to supervise because that was one thing I was good at no matter what else was going on in my personal life. But only in the physical ways of caring for patients, not the compassionate way that had become second nature to me long before February of 2023.

“I wasn't functioning physically because of second nature; even that had been torn away from me. I was functioning only through my body's response to a level of betrayal so deep that I am still climbing through the wreckage over three years later.”

I had been thrown into a prison inside my own mind. A prison with gates left open at all times so there was no real escaping it. I could enter freely when I was trying desperately to figure out what had happened. I could take a few steps outside of it after seeing a smile on my child's face. Then I was dragged right back in because it wasn't done with me.

This prison has guards, men of course, but their faces are interchangeable. I could look directly at any one of them and still never really know who I was seeing. They all wear the same thing. Blue suit, gunmetal aviator sunglasses, timepiece on their left wrist, and cognac colored dress shoes that sound like women's heels on marble flooring with every step.

They all have different colored hair, but the style is the same. It's the short, sculpted, and glued style from the early 2000s. They all wear the same look on their faces, one they have practiced in mirrors over and over. They have learned to look themselves in the eyes and see only the face they want the world to believe in, without ever looking any deeper. Without ever having to face their own soul. It's a smirk that says, "I'm important and in a hurry, so don't make me wait. I'll smile at you if I feel that you need me to, and then I'll forget you the moment I get what I want." It's the same smirk I imagine reflecting up from every man's cell phone and laptop screen.

I would get scents of freedom at times, like my daughter's hair after having just helped her wash it. There were what seemed like scenes of freedom being played in front of me while I saw myself watch my children play in the backyard. But the prison was always there, and I had no idea how to get rid of it, so I started figuring out how to allow it to be a new normal for me. If this was going to be my life, I was going to embrace it, prison guards and all. I would figure out how to thrive in it, supervise it, and rule it. I would try to become the person I had been portrayed as, because I sure as hell wasn't able to go back to the person I was before. That person was gone. And not gone because of the prison, gone because once you experience an after, the before becomes an impossible puzzle created by a sadistic mind who would rather torture you than see you put the pieces back together.

There Is Another After

“The after I am in now isn't the same after I was living in a year ago, and thank god not the one from two years ago. But in those moments, you don't know that there can be anything other than the after you're in at this very moment.”

I want to tell you that there is another after.

And another one after that.

I promise you there is.

There is nothing easy about any of this.

Nothing safe, nothing standard, no playbook, no one to save you. You have to learn how to save yourself. And before you can do that, you have to reach out to someone you can trust and tell them what has happened. They won't have the right words, they won't be able to put themselves in your shoes, but as long as they aren't wearing the cognac colored dress shoes that sound like women's heels on marble flooring with every step, they are a start.