Stephanie Boisvert
Monday, September 11, 2006 at 4:14PM BIOGRAPHY
Stephanie Boisvert (a.k.a. Beesedentary), is 21 years old and resides in Connecticut with her musician husband and 16-month-old daughter. Writing is her passion and life force – she mainly writes poetry and short stories, but also keeps a personal journal and blog (www.myspace/beesedentary). Her writing has appeared in Teen Ink and MotherVerse magazine. Books are another, perhaps lesser, passion. Right now she is awaiting the next installment of the whimsical children's series, "The Borrowers." She is also attempting to wean herself off chocolate with thrift shopping trips and lots of juicy pears. Her goals are to become a BIG writer (she is still quite small) and a more patient person.
Q & A
What is your favorite coping skill?
Writing is probably my favorite coping skill. Talking helps, too, but I've found that sometimes the other person's feedback is more detrimental than helpful – therefore writing, a solitary and personal act, is more effective. With writing I can say what I mean or what I don't mean, with intention or without intention. Nothing is restricted.
Another favorite is what I call "internal dialogue." With this skill I communicate to myself in my head and can discuss a bad situation and the ways in which I might make it better. Maintaining internal dialogue is important in determining what action I might take – whether it be negative, cutting, or positive writing.
What was the best piece of healing advice you ever received?
I shall substitute with the best inspirational advice I've come across, as I haven't received any healing advice worth mentioning. In the well-known literary work ‘The Desiderata’, there is a line that reads: You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. This line has stuck with me for years. Whenever I feel at my lowest, I conjure it up – like a healing aroma – and it soothes and gives me purpose.
What was the worst piece of healing advice you've ever received?
The worst piece of healing advice I've received came from two different people. During my most difficult period, both claimed that I simply needed to "move on with my life." Such a statement was not beneficial to me at all and only depressed me further. What a struggling individual needs is a person who listens, sympathizes, and offers suggestions – not someone who disregards their condition or feelings.
What were the three hardest obstacles to overcome?
High school. It was a heinous period. I felt so alienated, and what made it worse was that I was extremely mentally ill. Combine serious alcohol/drug abuse and risqué sexual encounters, and you have a complicated situation. During my high school years I attempted suicide several times and landed in the hospital once for it. After being in a mental hospital for a few weeks, they placed me on Lithium and Paxil, which I take to this day.
The summer of 2004. I had stopped taking my medications and had become physically and mentally unwell. I couldn't sleep, nor could I eat. I had horrific migraines and my body ached all over. At one point I lay thrashing on my bed, staring at the markings on my ceiling, sure that aliens were entering my room at night. I began hallucinating. I saw my arm severed by a butcher's knife. I don't know how it came about, but I stayed in a mental hospital for two days before I convinced the doctor that I was fine. Eventually I got back on my medication.
Childbirth and its aftermath (2005). Initially I had severe postpartum depression. I couldn't sleep, didn't eat well, could not relate to my daughter and felt emotionally unstable. What made it worse was that my daughter had colic, which made her cry for three hours every day, and she didn't sleep well. This was nothing, of course, to what came next. A few months after my daughter's birth, I began having flashbacks and all the typical symptoms of what they term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I shall spare the reader details; suffice to say that the agony and terror of that period were a reliving of my early childhood and that it took many painful months before I accepted that I was sexually abused.
Have you ever hit rock bottom? What kept you going?
I've hit rock bottom more than once. I believe that the little child inside of me has great strength and that I lived to protect her. I knew that I would reunite with her someday and create a safe and purposeful future for us both. Additionally, my ability to self-express through words has helped me enormously.
What does forgiveness mean to you?
I'm still not sure what forgiveness means to me – it's such a foreign concept. I sometimes alternate forgiving and denying forgiveness, but more often I find myself in the middle. I don't forgive those individuals who hurt me, but I understand the conditions that led to their actions and even sympathize with them.
When did you know that everything was going to be okay – that you were going to make it?
Sometime in January of this year, I began taking my medication properly and establishing a healthy relationship with my many "parts" and myself. Food functioned as necessity, not as a means of punishment. The image in the mirror was not one of disgust and contempt. My past became a manageable picture screen that I could witness and redial without fear. A loving, supporting family met me at every wail and tirade. And my daughter called "Mama-Mama" with such irresistible sweetness. I accepted my past. This was when I knew that I was going to be okay and that my life was finally mine.
Is there anything you would like to say to someone just beginning their journey?
Take it one day at a time. Today may seem unbearable, may fill you with despair, dread, fear, hatred and shame, but tomorrow is a blank page. You, too, are a child of the universe – one that deserves unconditional love and respect. Lastly, establish a relationship with your inner child if you can. All the negative treatment you inflict on yourself is transferred to that innocent and wounded child. It's important to remember that he/she has been mistreated for so long and needs all the compassion and kindness you can provide.
If there were one piece of advice you would give, or one thing you would want the significant other, best friend, etc. of a survivor to keep in mind throughout the survivor's healing process, what would that be?
I would ask any significant other to, before they dismiss or retaliate, place themselves in the survivor's shoes. How would they feel if they were that abused and neglected person? Would they cope any differently? What would they need most from other people – compassion or dismissal? The healing process is one of frequent change – one where you do well for weeks, then crash. Be patient. Listen. Honor the survivor's progress.
POETRY
A note on the poems: I've decided not to include any recent poetic material, as its sensitive
and graphic nature might offend and/or trigger certain readers.
The following poems were written between the ages of 17 and 18. Unfortunately, neither has an adequate title. I've selected these two as they demonstrate the survivor qualities of hope and perseverance.
Untitled
A little bird creeps and falls.
A little bird whines and jaws.
Inside his leg is a sharp affliction,
Embedding deeper and malicious –
And never recovered from his leg.
A little bird sighs and cries,
A little bird attempts to fly.
But his action is a useless repetition,
Because his leg won't change from its
Rigidly pinned position.
A little bird loses faith.
Is there a bird god to help him
Keep his strength, some peace?
Little bird, listen to me:
That pain will cease.
Poem
Outside the energetic wails of children
Run with the wind –
As I sit here in modest approach
To the sunny temperament.
Looking out my window the
Burning heat glares, glancing
Out onto the bleak, block pavement
Where cars collide like ants.
Is this reality?
The red beacon next door,
Standing so still.
It's a house, but a house alive –
Even the sky is alive with memory.
Nostalgia plagues at my heart,
Depression eats away at my brain.
Slowly lost, slowly confused by days
Which ache and reach back into life.
Where friends told the truth
And joy bounded elastically.
Now the elastic breaks,
It boomeranged off into a foreign world.
A wired head pounding for release,
Pounding for dignity.
The wind flaps back my curtain.
The wind so tender and gentle
With mild feet that don't trample
On you, or tramp you down.
The sky wide and bright
There must a space left for
Meaning, for new experiences.
My window is only
A cage if I let it be.
LETTER
Letter in Parts: To Uncle David
RAGE
Your face never leaves me. When I look behind my back it's your face I'm waiting for. I know it exists even today, but the fear it previously evoked is gone. You do not make me cry, Uncle. You do not leave me shaken and whittled. Uncle David you are a liar. You are a cheat. You are a man anatomically but you will never be a man. A real man knows that a child is sacred territory and never takes her apart organ by organ. A real man will hold a child's hand and mean what he says – not take that child to a secluded area where her logic will slowly turn chaotic and she will never see sense for what it is. Uncle David I hate you. I hate your name. I hate the Dave in David. I hate the Date in David. I hate the Day in David. I hate the Damn in David. I hate D. Banish it from the alphabet.
Your name is not biblical. No trumpets blare, no crush velvet robes touch the air. You are a maniac. You are a perverted, twisted felon and escape artist. You don't know it but you hate yourself. You don't know it but you are that first uncle – the one who took your sanity and raped it among the sweet swelling campgrounds. Then you did the same. You built a fort with your name on it and repeated the mistake.
SYMPATHY
Oh David! Sometimes I love you. Sometimes I see the light in your eyes, small and delicate, little curving tears. You had eyes like mine. Blue. You were young, tree tall and straight. I backed into you, thought I felt your roots once. You let me touch your heart for a second, gathered me up and took me from where I was standing. Why couldn't I find you when you were a wandering, small boy, around the bend; all the time alone, waiting for someone to say, "We're sorry?" Waiting for someone to say it happened, it did. Oh David. I do not hate you. I do not hate your name. It is a Defense. It is Death: hiding behind the fort at two.
MEETING MEMORY
I am now a person. I now have a name. The years that have gone before were filtered through transparent light, gauzy as the moon. All that light cinched into days like folded paper jackets that couldn't trace. I sent all that off somewhere. I mailed it to Australia. But they sent it back to me with a note on the top: You are old enough to remember. You are ready. And so, I opened the hole and found what remained. Remember David. How the sun stole in and the fire cracked? Your man is waiting.
RATIONALIZATION
Insanity is caused by insane acts. If David had known better than to rape me, he would have. But, he did not know better. What he knew came from a bigger man's message that grouped sex and little children. In a sense, David was doing the only "normal" thing he knew. Also, it should be reminded how an individual often repeats a traumatic action to master it – to make sense of it and potentially rid its toxicity. This was probably what David was doing when he manipulated me sexually.
CLARITY CLOSE
If I were to see you again I would only stare at you intently. I would let you see my purity, blazing like a noonday sun, soft and downy as a lamb's dressing. I would let you see the lines in my eyes for they are not lies. I would let you see the black iris in the center that is not death deep but circles forever and ever as a shimmering lagoon. I would let you see the vitality of the blue, the amazement of the sky's frontal possession inherent there, the amazement of the words it can read, the amazement that it functions: opens, closes on its own. I would let you see that I am not manipulated: That I create my own movement and react as I wish. I would let you see that I am whole, not disembodied. I would let you see me for an instant and then I would close my eyes and envision you as a little boy touching a little girl…
Do you I forgive you Uncle David?
No. But I understand.
2008 UPDATE
Much has occurred since writing my September 2006 Survivor Archive. My uncle, the main perpetrator and person to whom I wrote a letter in my archive, died suddenly in May (2008). He was only 36 years old.
Since September 2006, I have processed memories that have led me to believe that my Uncle David nearly killed me at the age of five. Because of his uncensored rage on that particular night, I almost lost my life and subsequently had, what I believe to be, a near-death experience.
This memory, as well as the many others of my early childhood, has led me to write an untitled memoir. This memoir will combine my experiences of childhood abuse, with various states of being that I used to survive, along with information on my near-death experience and my growing spirituality.
I have also been creating a lot of artwork that has been helpful in processing my abuse. You can view this artwork on my MySpace page: www.beesedentary.com/myspace.
Both my artwork and poetry will be featured in October at the Healing Through Creativity festival which is held in Virginia. This festival promotes awareness of abuse, and gives voice to the millions of survivors of abuse. (www.healingthroughcreativity.org)
Reader Comments (2)
it took to write all of this down in such remarkably articulate words. You have done a magniminous service for other survivors and the world by sharing such
painful memories, with such a triumphant spirit.
Grateful thanks also to the lovely women behind Survivors Archives for creating this extraordinary safe haven.
Don't just survive, but survive WELL!!!
Originally Posted: Thu, September 14, 2006 at 12:13AM
Wow. This is an absolutely amazing testiment to survival and I wish there was someway I could repay you for so selflessly sharing this with all of us. Kristin was completely blown away by this, and I feel honored to have had the privilege to post this as our first featured archive. Thank you so much for everything.
-- Joanna