Brutally Broken Beautifully Redeemed

A story of a sexually abused girl. Broken...confused.... and doesn't understand love at all. She doesn't believe in God. She grows up to be a broken adult who has traded sexual abuse for physical abuse believing it's what she deserves. She's never seen a healthy relationship and has no idea how one functions. She's developed a relationship addiction in hopes of finding someone that can love her. In her co-dependency, she strives to find the man that can make her happy. Taking her own life seems to be the only way out of the horrible existence she's lived. Fully feeling like she's sitting at the gets of hell wanting in because even that has to be better than the life she's been dealt. Then, she cries out, wanting whatever power may be out there or the universe itself to help her end her life.

Adult General | BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Sacred Sexuality | 2021 | 201 Pages Print · Digital · Age 20+ · Two Month Novel Challenge Finalist

Preview
Chapter I - Broken

It’s Saturday morning…. I am sleeping in. Then, there is the sound of the door handle turning. A sound I despise because I know what is coming. He is there. I hear the slight click of the door as he closes it behind him. I can hear him breathing as he is walking toward my bed. My eyes are tightly shut. I hate everything about being alive. He comes over to the bedside and lays on top of me. The emotional battle going on inside of me is pure hell. I want to cry. I want to scream. Most of all I want him and other family members dead. Please do not do this to me again. I loathe Saturday mornings when we are the only ones here. The sexual abuse never ends. I feel like it never will. The lost feeling and the longing to never be here again is overwhelming. The air seems so thick and disgusting with the scent of him. His breath on me makes me nauseous. What did I do to deserve this? Why can it not just end? The only way out I can see is if other lives ended to save my own.

This was a way of life for me for many years. Many of you have been there, in the same type of situation. The surroundings may be different. The person may be a different family member. Nonetheless, you know that hate, rage, destruction and need to escape. But how? It’s the million dollar question in these circumstances that happen far more than anyone knows.
Being shoved into this situation makes you feel worthless. Alone. As though no-one will ever be able to love you. It is not a matter of what your self worth is because you have none. There is no self esteem. I hope you can hear me above your pain as I tell you: You are not broken beyond repair. You are worth something. Your life does matter. You have purpose. And yes, one day, you can actually know what “love” is. You can discover the key to your own happiness/value/self-esteem, etc.
I’m Laura Schonlau and this is my bittersweet story. It is for those who are so broken you live in the state of despair and depression all the time. Those who have that feeling of hopelessness. I know those all too well. I have lived them. And God saved me from them. DO NOT stop reading here!!!
I’m not going to shove God down your throat. I am simply going to share my story as I wholeheartedly grieve for you where you are.

People who were raised on love see things differently than those that were raised on survival.
-Author Unknown

Have I always believed in God? No. Plain and simple. Bottom line truth is I asked Him to save me one time, and he did not do anything. I went home and it was the same thing over and over again. To me, God could not exist or He would not let this happen. If He was so great, then where was He? Why did He not save me like the preacher guy said He would? But wait….maybe, just maybe, IF there is a God…I’m too pathetic for even Him to love. If I was such a horrible child and unloveable by my very own family, maybe that’s why God turned His back on me.
After days and weeks that turned into years of contemplating this, I decided there was no way God could exist due to all the sexual abuse I encountered. My thoughts were “if He was real, He would not allow this to happen”.
No, it was not just on Saturday mornings. Those were just the days I just knew would be a sure time it would happen if he was there. He would make it so we were alone. He would lock the front door so my brother could not walk in on the act taking place on this side of the door. How I despised being on this side of the door. I wanted to be the one he sent outside to play or the one he gave a little money to so I could go get some candy at the store. Why was this happening? What made me such an unloveable child that this is what I deserved? Why couldn’t they love me like they loved my brother? Why did my little brother have to exist? I fully believed if it were not for him, they would love, care, protect and take care of me…right? Right? As much as I needed someone to save me, I needed someone to tell me ‘yes, your right’. How I longed to hear that I was good…
Many of you can relate right this very minute.
My mother walked in on the act one night as he was ‘rubbing’ against me. I can still hear her saying: ’Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? Is this how you call him, coming into the kitchen & signaling him with the light from the refrigerator? Go to your room!’
Hmm. I was told I brought this on myself, so many times…so after that I would wear oversized shirts, usually boys shirts, in hopes no one else would do this to me too. I mean obviously it was my own fault right? My own mom said it was. So I was quite the tomboy.
A few of years later, I remember a young girl right down the street from us. I will not use her name to protect her privacy. All of the sudden one day, her and her mom moved out. I wanted to know why. Later I heard about her mom finding out her dad was sexually abusing her and they left. I remember hearing adults say they hoped he rotted in prison and got what he deserved. I was very young. I knew what was happening in my home. I could not help but wonder what her dad did that was so different that it made her mom take her away. Most of all, I wanted that too, but I never found out what the key was or what you had to do for that to happen. I remember wondering if it was her fault. Maybe she did not want to be taught what you have to know for when you get married so you can please your man. (I can honestly say, at that time I did not even actually know what that meant.)
I know some of you are relating to me more and more. Some of you are sitting there in tears because you feel like I am describing you. I cannot help but wonder…did you ever tell anyone? Or did your fear, feelings and lack of self worth take over and you kept your secret hidden…possibly still hidden. Did you feel it was your job to have to protect ‘the secret’ because you believed it was all your fault? Told it was all your fault? As tears run down my cheeks for you right this very minute, I just want to hug you and tell you have valuable you really are. You are not hopelessly broken, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
So many women have come to me, mad, fueled with hate and demanding to know who I thought I was speaking to women when I obviously had the good life other women wished they had. When they would hear my testimony of all this, they would break down. Tears flowing like a dam unleashed. They had been sexually abused as a child. Their parents had done/allowed these same things to happen. Beautiful women who felt broken beyond repair. Some who never told anyone, some who told their mother, some who had told a friend and wound up in the school counselors office only to be removed from the home yet your mom stood up for your abuser. Maybe she even called you a liar in court. Only for you to be placed back in the same home for the abuse to continue. These are a few of the stories that have been shared with me. Many of you have never even told your husband. Some of you have still never told anyone.
When I think about the statistics on children sexually abused, it is laughable. Are you kidding me? They are nowhere near close to being correct. I read those and get irritated. It’s so ridiculous. 25-35% of Women and 10-16% of Men are sexually abused ranging from fondling to intercourse. 15% under age 12 and 29% between the ages of 12-17. Do you have any idea how many people have never reported their sexual abuse? The number skyrockets above these. Many of you know what it was to tell your mom, someone you trusted or have been caught in the act and they chose to look the other way. To blame you. To leave you unprotected. To turn their back on you. To leave you hurt, broken and feeling unwanted/unloved. I know exactly how you feel and I’m so sorry, with every fiber of my being, you had to suffer that trauma.

Of all the monsters I imagined growing up…I didn’t realize humans were the real ones.
-Author Unknown

As kids, we were afraid of monsters. They might be in the closet or under the bed. I used to put one foot out of the covers and would eventually put it back for fear something under the bed might reach up and grab it.
A tree limb near a window and my imagination would run wild with what might be outside trying to get in. Nightmares of monsters or scary characters that would chase me and sometimes my friends too. I would wake up with my heart throbbing in my chest. I would be so scared and tried to hide under the covers from it all.
I was allowed to watch a movie about Boggy Creek. Afterwards, I was so scared to go to the bathroom anywhere the toilet was next to the window. I had this unrealistic fear of the boggy creek monster breaking out the window and getting me. We picture grotesque monsters that turn out not to be real. But, in our mind, in that moment…we feel like they are.
Vampire movies always made us second guess if they were real. What if we encountered one of these life sucking beasts? The threat in our mind was very real, if unrealistic.
Our imaginations can run in so many directions at once. A friend of mine was waving to me through a window on a dark night. I couldn’t tell who she was & thought someone was watching me. I remember being so scared I could feel my heart pummeling in my chest as if it were trying to jump out.
Of all the scary monsters I may have dreamed up, they did not compare to the real monsters in life. The fact the monsters are those that actually do hurt you is more scary than anything I ever invented in my mind. The people who abuse you. They are the real monsters. They cause us a lifetime of strife and pain. Leaving us with the inability to function with any type of normalcy.
Four years…four years of living with the real monsters and enduring harrowing circumstances on a regular basis. I had no inkling what normal could even be. My life turns out to show it.
By the end of grade school we were going to church. To me, this was the most unwanted ritual and waste of time of anyone’s life. It is where I learned about the pretend God that didn’t save you from anything. And yet, people kept going back there and giving money to hear all these lies. I guessed it was what made them feel better about themselves but did not understand how grown ups could fall for such crap when I could see right through it. I had no understanding of their teaching, they obviously did not understand it. Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Obviously they had no wisdom or knowledge to keep showing up doing the same thing each week for a God that didn’t exist. All they were doing was making the Pastor’s richer.
Once there was a work conference and our family went and stayed in a hotel. The next morning it was happening all over again. Many times I couldn’t hold back the tears. Even if just 1 or 2 of them trickled down my cheek, I hated myself even more. As I lay there, usually on my stomach, one of those stupid tears somehow made it out of the corner of my eye. Although I just continued to pretend I was still asleep, that single tear made the whole situation ten times worse. Then I heard the door rattle. It was my brother wanting in. I was so glad because I believed it would stop. But it didn’t. There was more rattling of the door. As you know, the hotel door automatically locks when you go out. The rattling stopped. I couldn’t hear my brother any more. Dang it! Another stupid tear of weakness made a way out of my tightly closed eyes. A short time later, the door opens. My brother had gone and got my mom at the conference because he could not get in the room. My mom came in first, seeing the scene before her, she ushered my brother back into the hall. I remember hearing parts of the conversation. “What are you doing?” “I was still half asleep, I must have thought she was you.” Lots of murmuring I wasn’t able to understand. This was yet another time I soared with the high hopes that it would all stop happening. And this was yet another time my heart plummeted. All hope dashed against the ground with a violent thrust that felt like an explosion inside my chest at the realization that nothing would change. I was left alone…again.
We moved around a lot when I was a kid. By the time I went into the 3rd grade we had lived in 23 houses. Yes, all with my parents. We moved around some more before I finished grade school. It was harder to make friends and never ones you thought you could trust. Don’t take me wrong, I always made friends wherever we went. I just didn’t make the type of friends you could tell your secrets to. School - yeah that was kind of a joke. In and out of different school districts, I had trouble with math. In one year I went from living in Altus and being in the math class I was doing well in, to a math class in Mangum more advanced than where I had been, to Gould, who had a math class 1-2 years behind the first math class then back to Altus again to start Jr. High. The last math class I had been in was on a 4th-5th grade level. The school was so small both classes were in one room. Those kids thought I was really smart. I remember being proud of that. Jumping from fourth and fifth grade math to Jr. High was absolutely horrible. I had no understanding of most of what we were supposed to be learning. Even when I asked for help, it was as clear as mud. My grades suffered. Again, it was all my fault. On hearing “We know you’re not stupid, why are you not even trying”? I was trying. With all I had, I. was. trying. But in spite of the bad grades, they passed me to the next grade. Sometimes I think my bad attitude played in it. They probably did not want me back in their class.

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Author

Laura Schonlau

Born in Oklahoma, Laura has a huge heart for broken/hurting women. Being abused as a child gives her an ability to relate to them by hearing more than just their words. She hears their hearts and the underlying hurt. She has endured all of the emotions they go through; pain, hate, low self-esteem, unforgiveness, and the tears. The many, many tears she has shed, just like them, and for them. She has spent the last eighteen years helping women help themselves, move to places of forgiveness, and build self-esteem.

Information

Genres:
Religious Aspects of Sexuality | Gender and Relationships |
Sex & Sexuality: Advice & Issues
Country:
USA
Release Date:
February 01, 2021 (USA)
Publishing Co:
First Time Press

Language

Language:
English

Accessibility

Print:
Larger Easy to Read Print.
Age 20+:
Content is appropriate for audiences ages 20 and older due to intense and personal subject matter.