Hey everybody, welcome back to The School of Greatness!
Today, I will be sharing the story of how I was sexually abused as a child and how I’ve healed from this trauma. When I first shared my story on the show, my hope was to not only experience freedom for myself but also create a safe space for other people. However, I know that this subject matter is extremely sensitive and challenging.
Five years ago, I made my first post opening up about my childhood sexual abuse. It was the best thing I could have done. My life became so much better when I started to share my shame. I was able to sleep through the night, I connected to other people, and I was able to give and receive love.
If you’re interested in hearing my story in a little more detail, I’d encourage you to check out Episode #61. In that episode, my good friend Jonathan Fields facilitates the discussion as I share exactly what happened to me and my healing journey.
Now, I want to help other people experience the same feeling of light, peace, and power that I did when I opened up about my rape.
Today’s episode is more about the effects of trauma. Growing up, my experience affected many aspects of my life. It influenced my relationships, and it created this anger inside me that built up for years before eventually exploding. This episode is about how I healed from that experience, and how you can heal too.
Recently I saw the documentary Leaving Neverland, which tells the stories of some of the boys who were sexually abused by Michael Jackson. It’s heartbreaking, controversial, and relatable for me. Those men talked about how they were manipulated into things they didn’t know were wrong, and about how they kept their abuse a secret for many years.
I didn’t start sharing my story for 25 years, and it was a long 25 years. I remember having nightmares every night and not fully understanding where they came from. As they say, “You are as sick as your secrets.”
In this post, I’m going to focus on my life since I was assaulted. I’ll briefly retell the story of how I was abused, but then I’m going to share how it affected me growing up — I became very reactive and even violent without really understanding why. I’m also going to talk about my experience of telling my story — first with a group at a workshop, then with my family, later with my friends, and finally with the world here on the show.
But if you take away one thing from this episode, I hope it’s this: You can take your power back. Even if you’ve been abused, you don’t have to live in guilt or shame. You can heal from your trauma and live a life of peace, love, and joy. And you can even start today.
One in four women has faced sexual abuse in some way, and that statistic only changes to one in six for men. Too many people are victims of sexual abuse, but we can heal. We don’t have to stay victims. We don’t have to stay afraid. We can set ourselves free. I hope that this episode encourages you and empowers you to do just that.
How My Trauma Affected Me Growing Up
Before we get into how I healed from trauma, I want to take a moment and share again the story of what happened to me:
I was a happy kid. I grew up as the youngest of four, and I loved my big brother and sisters. I have two happy memories from when I was really little: I remember my first day of kindergarten when I colored in an outline of Clifford the Big Red Dog, and I remember taking brownies to preschool to share with my classmates for my birthday.
I don’t have any other memories from before. I don’t remember my brother, Chris, playing his violin, my dad throwing me in the air, or my mom holding me as I cried to sleep. I do have one picture of me with my two inspiring and compassionate older sisters, Katherine and Heidi, but I have no memory of it. I wish I could remember more of those things.
I was five years old when he sexually abused me. What I experienced after one school day with the teenage son of my babysitter, I may never forget.
Even when it happened, I didn’t feel like I was attacked or like someone pinned me down and did something horrible against my will. My abuser manipulated me — that’s why I didn’t realize the full impact of what he’d done until I was older. But once I realized what had happened, it started to affect everything.
It was particularly difficult for me as a straight man. My first sexual experience was with a man at five years old, but my first experience with a woman was when I was 13 (it was my first kiss). I remember feeling confused and experiencing different challenges because my abuse shaped the way I thought and my desires.
I was also extremely angry and reactive. I remember in the documentary, Leaving Neverland, a lot of the men talked about how they were depressed for most of their lives, and that truly resonated with me. I remember feeling like I was a fun-loving guy, but I would have moments of deep depression and anger. That reactiveness showed up a lot in sports, and there was one particular day when I got violent with another guy that forced me to turn things around.
The Day My Anger Took Over
To give you some quick background: My life was going well on the outside. I was making a lot of money, building my business, and my dreams were coming true. But on the inside, I just didn’t feel happy or fulfilled. I couldn’t seem to feel a true sense of love for myself, and I didn’t feel like I could truly love another person, no matter how much I wanted to.
At the same time, I often reacted in anger. Any time anything happened that wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it to be, I took it as a personal attack. If someone cut me off on the street, it was a personal attack against me and my identity. If someone disagreed with me, it was a personal attack on my knowledge and insights. And if someone beat me in a sports game, it was a personal attack on my athletic abilities.
Because I was under all that emotional stress all the time, I played a lot of pickup basketball because that’s what men do when we’re stressed — we play sports to get our frustration out. But on one particular day, I was really looking for a fight. I remember walking on the court as I imagine someone might walk through a bar — chest sticking out, intentionally bumping into people just so I could say, “What are you gonna do about it?” My mentality was, “How can I pick a fight without hitting someone so that I get off the hook if they hit me?”
On this day, I was playing a game of pickup basketball, and an older guy was guarding me. Things got heated, and it was a pretty physical game, and the guy got mad that I’d fouled him too hard. Maybe I had and maybe I hadn’t, but he head-butted me, and at that moment, all of my anger, rage, and frustration exploded out of me. I lost sight of what I was doing and just unleashed all my pent-up fury on that guy.
Thankfully, nobody ended up with anything worse than a few cuts and bruises, but even I was taken aback by what I’d done. And then my friend came up to me and said something I’ll never forget: He said, “Lewis, I don’t really want to hang out with you anymore. I really don’t like your behavior. I don’t like your attitude. I don’t like how you’re acting, and I don’t want to be around you if this is how you’re going to be.”
Ouch. I knew he was right — I definitely had some things to work through.
