Part Three

I was recently thinking about why I feel led to share my testimony in this format—sharing it on the website. I have shared it numerous times on video, and I have even written a book about it. However, this time feels different. I am not sure if this time is for anyone else other than me, but during the last two entries God did a deep work in my heart and healed areas that I didn’t even know still needed to be healed. That is the thing about God—He knows exactly what we need and when we need it. His timing is perfect. We can fully surrender to Him and trust that He has our best interest in mind. Because of knowing He is our Healer—not just reading it in the Bible but knowing it as truth for myself I want to encourage you to sit with Him with your past, pain, and difficult situations because you may also have areas that still need to have deeper levels of healing. Give those areas to Him and let Him do what only He can do in your life.

My story continues….

We are going to pick up my story in my teen years. As I already talked a little about in part two, by the age of 12 I had become interested in guys. I was interested in anything that gave me attention and moments of not focusing on the emotional pain. By age 13 I had my first boyfriend, and I quickly lost my virginity. My body didn’t mean anything to me, and sex was nothing. I looked as it as something you did in order to keep a guy and later in life I learned to use it to get what I wanted. I craved attention and I never cared where it came from. Any attention was better than no attention. When I found out I could use my body to get attention I started dressing provocatively and that caused me to begin to get noticed by older guys. One time my friend and I were hanging out at the mall, and we ran into one of our teachers. We started talking to him, but then I noticed his eyes kept going up and down my body. That really grossed me out, but the feeling didn’t change my behavior even in the slightest little bit. Even at that age there were other teachers that I would have loved to have been noticed by, but just not the one that did notice me. He was much older—like grandpa age. Yuck! Looking back now I know I could have so easily been one of those kids whose teacher ends up abusing them, but they believe they are in a relationship with them.

I started visiting my biological dad and his family again. I started going back around for a couple of reasons. One, I was more afraid of making him mad than I was of going around him because if I just pretended like everything was okay I thought it would keep him from hurting me or my mom. Kind of like the old saying goes keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. When I was not going around him I always felt like he was plotting my murder, but when I did start going back around him I felt like he could kill me at any moment so I never felt safe. The other reason I started going back was because I missed my aunt, her family, and my grandparents. Although I had not looked at my grandparents the same since I had disclosed the abuse to my therapist. When I disclosed the abuse to my therapist, and she sent the letter to my bio-dad, saying I needed a break from him, my grandpa came to my house. I could hear what he was saying, and he basically said that no matter what my bio-dad had done I was young and I could get over it. It was my job to take care of my bio-dad. Even though the letter did not lay out the specific abuse that had happened, it said enough to say that I had been very hurt. It felt like they did not even care. Since that moment my who view of my grandparents shifted and I realized that no matter what my bio-dad was always going to be first in their lives. It didn’t matter what he did or how much he hurt others they would take his side, make excuses for him, clean up his messes, and expect everyone else to do the same.

He still lived with my grandparents, and they lived on the same land as my aunt. My aunt and uncle owned the land and they let them put a home on it. When I would visit him I did not spend much time at my grandparents home where he lived. I spent most of the time at my aunt’s house, but when I did stay at my grandparents I would stay awake all night with a can of hairspray beside me so I could spray it in his eyes if he came in to kill me. I didn’t sleep much but would instead lay awake all night. I mostly visited him a little bit during the day, and then went to my aunt’s house. At my aunt’s house we played cards, did crafts, played video games, ate really good food, and spent a lot of time together laughing and having a good time.

My bio-dad stayed in his room all the time and hardly ever came out. The door was always closed, and no one was allowed in unless we knocked on the door and he gave us permission to enter. His mother cooked and cleaned for him. She did everything for him. A lot of the time he would not come to the kitchen table to eat so she would cook his food, put it on a plate, knock on his door, and deliver it to him. He talked to her like she was a dog most of the time. He did not appreciate all she did for him and a lot of the time it seemed like he hated her. I really do not know if he was even capable of love. It seemed that he only wanted people in his life that could do things for him, but even then he did not love or appreciate them. He just used them to get what he wanted, but he was never kind. He was often sarcastic, rude, and flat out hateful. The only time he really left the house was if he was dating a woman, needed to go to the store for pop and cigarettes, or if he went down to my aunt’s house. My grandma never wanted him dating and see seemed to hate every single woman he got involved with.

His first wife was my mom, his second was the woman he married while my grandma was in the hospital, the third was the one he got involved in witchcraft with, and his fourth was a woman who was physically disabled and severally mentally ill. None of his marriages lasted very long. When he was married to the last woman he moved about a 1.5 away from my grandparents. When I visited that home I was allowed to drink until I blacked out and it was where I smoked pot for the first time. He said he and that wife had a psychic connection, and they could communicate without talking. I was terrified in that home because her ex-husband lived there, until he mysteriously died and left my bio-dad and his wife a ton of money. He was really scary. The whole situation was scary because I didn’t know any of the people who were coming and going from the house. His stepdaughters wanted to sneak me into a strip club where they had met several of the male dancers. They went into the parking lot and had sex with them after the shows. Thankfully I never went. It was one big scary party. I only visited them a few times and before I knew what had even happened he ended up back at my grandparents and got divorced. After that marriage he never remarried, but he did get “engaged” at least one other time that I know of. He met a woman in a chat room that he had to pay to be part of. In the room he would watch her do sexual things and he had to pay for each minute he was in there. He said they fell in love and that she was going to move to the states to be with him. Of course, she never came and my grandma ended up having to pay off thousands of dollars of debt he ran up while watching her.

I continued to have extreme fear no matter where I was, and I never felt safe. I also had weird things happen to me. I would hear scratching on my bedroom wall, I would hear someone walking around my room, I saw shadows walking around, my items would disappear only to show back up laying in plain sight, and I always felt eyes on me. It was like someone was always standing behind my back, breathing down my neck. It didn’t matter where I was I could never escape feeling and hearing dark things. On time I was at my aunt’s house and I was laying on the couch facing the tv. The tv was off so it was like a mirror, and I saw a woman in a long white dress walk behind me from one end of the room to the other. At the time I just thought I was seeing and hearing ghost wherever I went. It wasn’t something I talked about a lot, but it was definitely something that was on my mind a lot.

I also started getting really curious about what all my bio-dad had exposed me to in his occult practices. I knew it was bad and I knew it was dark, but I just did not have full memories to know everything. Part of me didn’t want to know, but another part was angry because I felt like even my memories had been stolen from me. In my quest to uncover the buried memories I checked out the satanic bible from the local library. As soon as I brought it home I felt a massive darkness enter my room. I could physically feel it. I put the book in the corner of my room and did not open it. The activity and darkness in my room continued to the point it was physically uncomfortable, so I quickly returned it to the library. I had experienced darkness and I had experienced seeing and hearing things, but that was an entirely different level of darkness.

Self-hatred, depression, anxiety, and fear were my constant companions in life. I put a smile on my face, but I was never really happy because I was in so much emotional pain. I had moments that made me happy, but they never lasted long. It was more like distractions and I was constantly seeking them in any form possible.

I did not fit in at school and I had very few friends. I was very shy and never wanted to be called on to answer questions. I hated school and I never wanted to go. I missed as much as I possibly could. I had my therapist write excuses for oral reports for me because they felt impossible to do and I would panic every single time I thought about having to do them. I could not talk in front of people, and I also could not eat in front of guys. I could have sex with them, but I could not let them see me eat. It confused me even then, but it was a huge struggle. It also shows how little my body meant to me that I could more easily share it in a sexual way versus being able to eat with someone. My therapist felt that it was an intimacy issue and that I could not cross that line because I was so closed off to letting people in my life. I was also diagnosed with anorexia at that time in my life and was threatened to be hospitalized if I lost any more weight. Looking back, I am not sure what the inability to eat in front of guys I was attracted to was connected to. I know the anorexia was a control thing and connected to low self-worth.  It was the one thing in life I could control, and I always felt ugly, fat, and worthless.  

I had very few friends and even fewer boyfriends in school. I quickly turned my interest in guys my own age to grown men. I rationalized they were interested in me because I looked older, and I definitely acted older. At the time I did not view them as predators, but looking back it is hard to see how a man in his mid to late 20’s would have any sexual interest in a 14-year-old girl. It felt normal at the time, but looking back it was anything but normal. The sex meant nothing to me. I just wanted to be in a relationship, and I wanted to be loved. In my mind that meant I had to say yes to sex. It never entered my mind to say no. It is so odd looking back to recognize that “no” was not even on my radar. I had sexual interactions that I did not want to have at the time, but it never even dawned on me to say no. It was like that word didn’t exist for me and it was never even one of my choices that I considered. I used my body as a commodity. In my mind I didn’t have anything else to offer. It made me feel good to turn the heads of older men. It made me feel special that they paid attention to me.

I continued to have suicidal ideation and I started engaging in risky behaviors. I snuck out at night, put myself into dangerous situations, and I started cutting. Looking back it is only by the grace of God that I never got kidnapped, raped, attacked, and/or killed. I was in so many situations that could have quickly went very wrong.

I continued therapy, but it didn’t really seem to help. There were times I think it helped me to not kill myself, but looking back I just don’t see that she really helped me because she didn’t include any of my family in the sessions. I needed help from my loved ones, and she never facilitated that. She did use me as a case study to present at a conference she attended. I didn’t like that, and I felt used. It felt like I was a circus freak show that she put on display for her peers. After I became a therapist I had so many questions and issues with the treatment, or lack of treatment, I received.

I think this is a good stopping point. Next time I am going to dive into my first marriage and what all that entailed in my life. Thank you for joining me on my journey. If you ever want to message me please feel free to use my email: fullnessofjoyministry@gmail.com.

Blessings,

Nichole Henson, Fullness of Joy Ministry