Stephanie Gagos

  BIO

As a child I was physically, emotionally and spiritually abused by my mother as well as sexually abused by nine men. The sexual abuse began when I was eight years old and continued till I was fifteen. As a result of my early sexualization, at sixteen I became a mother without the slightest idea of how to mother. My father then took me away from my mother and gave me a chance at a new life. Despite the change in environment, I struggled greatly with believing in my worth and even more with the role of mother. My education seemed to be the only thing I could have control over while I lived an internal turmoil that would not let me loose. By the time I was 25, I received my bachelor’s in English Literature and later received a Masters in Elementary Education. I immersed myself in the growth of my intellect, trying desperately to prove that I was good enough. With a 3.875 GPA, I could at least pretend to be “somebody”. I reacted to my world through the eyes of a traumatized and damaged human being despite my outward accomplishments. I could not get over my feelings of inadequacy and I continued to abuse myself and close myself off to the love of others. While my deepest desire was always to be a writer, I went into teaching instead, believing that I was not good enough.


It wasn’t until my thirties that I understood the toxic hold of my past and the many ways it kept me hostage. Healing was not even a concept I could in any way understand till much later on. Since my father was a psychotherapist, I understood the psychological damage of my childhood and so it was natural for me to begin my journey with therapy.


I began therapy at 30 and it was the first time I revealed all of what happened to me. I continued with this therapist for seven years and learned that I had major depression. With the help of some medication and ongoing therapy, I was able to function and began to see progress. I found that revealing the abuse to others - family, friends, even some close colleagues was liberating for me. I started thinking about writing letters to my abusers after a few years in therapy which later would be the genesis of my memoir. When I moved to New Jersey, I joined a support group of women who were victims of sexual abuse/assault as children/and or adults. For the first time I was learning to trust women, a major difficulty for me for most of my life. At thirty-five I started writing my memoir, perhaps the greatest healing tool of my life. Through writing I’ve learned to validate myself and my experiences and understand the true gifts of my past. By actively working on my thinking, I am learning new ways of thinking and being, and new ways to seeing the world. Each day I am learning to reinvent myself, to trust that I am more than I ever dreamed I could be and that yes, I am worthy, I am good enough.


Today I am an aspiring screenwriter and author. I look forward to all that life has to offer me. While I still struggle with believing in myself, I’ve grown immensely by using multiple ways of healing (therapy, connecting and trusting others, writing, telling my story, self reflection, immersing myself in all things positive through inspirational books and audios) I see my healing as a journey, a way for me to grow into who I truly am.


~ Stephanie's Contact Information ~

Email:       sgagos@aol.com

Homepgs:  www.myvoiceoftruthcoaching.com

                                      MyVoiceofTruth.com


                                     Letters to My Abusers

  Q & A

1.  What is your favorite coping skill?
I would have to say writing, be it journal writing, prompt writing, narrative writing, lists or self reflection exercises. Anything that helps me go within and learn more about myself helps me cope with my world in a better way.


2.  What was the best piece of healing advice you ever received?
Focus on how far you’ve come instead of how far you have to go. Give yourself credit for all the ways you have survived and thrived despite the abuse.


3.  What was the worst piece of healing advice you ever received?
Move on. Most people who tell you this, mean well, but have no idea the long lasting effects of abuse. If it was that easy, we all would move on. It also comes across as condescending and insensitive. At the same time moving on is something we all need to do but only after effort and time spent in the healing process.


4.  What were the three hardest obstacles to overcome?

• The engrained patterns of thinking brought on by the abuse are especially strong and tenacious and require that we actively work on creating new beliefs and new ways of thinking. 

• The trauma we hold in our bodies catch us off guard at times, seem so involuntary as we react quite strongly to stimulus that reminds us of danger, of the pain of the past. I am still in the process of figuring this one out but awareness is key. Knowing that our bodies hold trauma and identifying our triggers is helpful. 

• Thirdly, the memories, the ones that never leave us and remind us constantly how difficult it is to just move on. I don’t believe we will ever rid ourselves of the memories but changing what we made those memories mean about us can lessen the heartache of it all.

5.  Have you ever hit "rock bottom"? What kept you going?
Yes, a few times, but having a child was exactly what I needed to keep me going during the times in which I did not find myself worthy enough to continue on for me. Having a dream also helps. The wanting, the desire, keeps you alive.


6.  What does forgiveness mean to you?
Forgiveness means that I can somehow find it within me to understand on some level that those who hurt me were in pain themselves. It does not justify or minimize what they did to me, but helps me to understand my own humanity and frailties as I have also made many mistakes. Allowing myself to see my mother as a sad and wounded human being instead of as the monster I believed her to be for so long, helped me to forgive her.


7.  When did you know that everything was going to be okay -- that you were going to make it?
I would say about two years ago when I was introduced to the law of attraction. I felt liberated in knowing that I can create my reality, I can choose what I attract into my life and that I have more control over my life than I ever thought possible.


8.  Is there anything that you would like to say to someone just beginning their journey?
Start with learning to believe that you are greater than you know and that this journey is a journey of discovering who you are underneath the lies of your childhood. What we were taught about ourselves through the abuse is untrue and it is up to us to uncover the true beauty of who we are.


9.  If there was 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 through out the survivors healing process, what would that be?
When your partner reacts or overreacts, understand that they are responding from a wound that is in need of healing. Don’t take it personal. Ask them how are they feeling? Listen. Love. Support them.

 POETRY

Dead Bones

At night

I am reminded

Of your

steely touch

grasping

my small body

Your hands

Are dead

bones

forever

pressing

against my

Skin

Reminders of

unspeakable

violations

I pray

for them to

crumble into

dust

I pray

for the memory

of you

to end

By: Stephanie Gagos

Stephanie has added two new articles to our Survivor Journal and they are must reads!  Please click on the links below.

 

 Abuse Survivor Series:  Using Overreactions to Begin Healing Our Childhood Wounds

 

 Self Esteem:  A Necessary Component For Survival

LETTER

NORMAN

Norman was an x-ray technician at a major New York hospital.  My mother seemed to like him and we often went to see him at his job in between her many doctor’s appointments.  The following occurred on the first and what I believe to be the last time he visited us. 

Dear Norman, 

I remember your white lab coat and how you worked at a hospital in the city.  You were kind and pleasant, even humorous.  I remember how you tried to talk to me and how I shied away from you.  Then one day, there you stood at the doorway to our apartment dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans, your eyes grinning beneath your bifocals.   As usual my mother was still getting ready when you arrived.   I was to be your host and so I showed you to your seat and asked if you wanted a drink of water. You didn’t and instead you rambled on speaking words I can never remember.  I think you made me laugh because I could feel myself moving closer to you.   My mother called out to you, promising to be ready soon.

She was absent just long enough for you to molest me. 

As I sat on the marble coffee table in front of your hand rested on my knee.  You continued to talk to me even as your hand made its way up my skirt and into my panties. As soon as you started to touch me, I could no longer hear what you were saying to me. One by one my senses shut down, leaving only this strange sensation between my legs.   I could feel myself go numb, removing my self from my body, attempting to pretend that IT wasn’t happening.

You heard my mother and stopped. Jolted by fear, I quickly went to the carpet and sat in front of the television.  I pretended nothing happened but inside my heart was pounding and in between my legs the sensation of your fingers was still there.  I felt as if I was the one committing the crime. There were no thoughts in those moments between the first and the second time, just the voice of my mother, calling out once again that she would be out soon. 

I could hear you get up, your pants swishing, a determination in your step to once again molest me.  You came to the other side of the marble table and sat on it, motioning me to stand in front of you.  There as stood before you, you proceeded to touch me again between my legs. You placed my hand on your crotch and that is where my memory fades.  As with most of my memories what happens afterward is a blank. What did I feel directly afterward, days and weeks later? What did I say to myself? How did I survive? Perhaps it was in the stoic numbness that I found my comfort.

For years I imagined that you and the others happened upon an opportunity to molest me, but the more I learned about men like you, the more I realized how planned our encounter was.  It wasn’t until my thirties that I came to the realization that you and the others chose me long before you entered our home, long before you dared to place in between my little legs. As you asked my mother for a date, it was me you were after.   I was the plan, already marked as  less than human, an object chosen by you, for your satisfaction, wthout even a thought or care about what it would do to me, the girl, the human being.

 And when my small body responded to you, I’m sure your twisted mind took this to mean that I wanted it.   This is part of how you pretend to be sane and live an otherwise normal existence while you creep your filthy hands up little girl’s skirts. You imagine this unique connection. You imagine that this little girl likes you and wants you.  That she is your girl,  your special girl, there just for you and only you. 

I’m here to tell you, that little girls want you as much as they want needles in their eyes, as much as they want to be set on fire or drink rat poison and die. Men like you delude themselves into believing that we are loving and wanting you back, when all that we are doing is escaping your touch; by going far, far away to a place where you cannot touch us, where your insanity cannot reach.

I now speak for the little girl I once was and that little girl never wanted you to put your dirty hands on her.  She could never want you sexually or otherwise.  All you did was create a physiological reaction, no wondrous feat.  Nothing a real man would need to be considered a man.   What you did to me goes beyond the fact that you molested me in those moments in my living room when I was ten years old.   What you did forever changed who I became, who I trusted, who I gave my love to and how I walked in the world.  Among the many parts of me you altered, you changed how I would feel about myself as a sexual being; making my attempts at normal sexual interaction futile and corroded by your violations of me.   For years I would feel guilt about being turned on, about wanting to be close to someone sexually. 

You did that.   

You don’t deserve that kind of power. 

Today, I choose to change how I look at myself. I choose to reclaim the power I've given you for so many years. I release the heavy darkness that comes over me when I think of you. I release the shame and guilt for having responded to you physically. I release the sadness over not being protected and not being able to protect myself. I release my anger and hatred of you, knowing that it will take time to let it all go.  I release the distrust I have in all men because of the evil you showed me on that day.   

As of today I embrace the sexual woman that I am and have every right to be.  I embrace my divine right to my sexuality and love for my body.

I choose to take back my power and relinquish yours.

 From now I on I decide who I become, who I trust, who I choose to love.  I decide how I walk through this world. 

As for you, you are like a dead man walking, a wasted life that could have been a light to others.  There is the shame.

~ Stephanie

I don't know what ever happened to Norman.  Like most of the men in my mother’s life, he did not stay beyond the first or second date.   As I look back I can see how robotic I was and how routine it seemed for him. He seemed fearless and unashamed; I, guilty and afraid.  Even upon becoming an adult, there is this emotional confusion despite being intellectually clear about who is at fault.  I used to wonder why I didn't react?  How could I like what he was doing to me?  I felt unsure for years about how to read people. How does one know who to trust when bad men smile so gently, arouse so softly?  

    For years I would wonder where was the seduction, where was my resistance?  How could I have been so friendly and trusting having been molested before?  How could I ever trust myself? These questions would haunt me and I blamed myself for getting too close, for being “too friendly”.  I blamed the little girl I was instead of putting the blame where it belonged.  In retrospect I can see how deep my conditioning was to respond in a certain way, to not question authority, to accept abuse, to take on the blame. I was schooled in passivity early on which later became an engrained trait.  I learned to stay very still and quiet as my abusers produced either pain or pleasure to my body. I never wanted to get in trouble or make things worse. By the time Norman came along, the perfect conditions were in place for him to safely molest me.

While writing this letter I uncovered some of the anger and distortions that still existed within me. Some of the wording of previous drafts was modified to reclaim the power I gave him as an adult. It is just the beginning of the work that I must do, but it is a start.  Just being able to say that I was letting him go was difficult in and of itself but the more I grow and discover all the love and power inside of me, the less space I have for the bitterness.  I am working on forgiving him still.

All Words & Poetry Copyrighted  by Stephanie Gagos
© 2007