When I was five years old, my twelve-year-old cousin, who was a bully and who teased and tormented me without mercy, pushed me into the river. I couldn't swim and would have drowned but a man who was fishing nearby saw what happened, jumped into the river and saved me. This left me with a life long fear of water.
When I was eight-years-old, I was in a car with three uncles and two aunts. We were on a country road, and as we crossed an old wooden bridge, the bridge collapsed and the car ended up in the swift-flowing creek. All the adults quickly got out of the car and struggled through the water to get to the bank on the other side.
I remember them standing on the creek bank and looking back at the car. I was in the back seat of the car, and water was coming in through the open windows. The water was up to my waist and a fish washed through the window and landed in my lap and then swam out the other window. I was paralyzed with fear, and I couldn't move.
Finally, an uncle waded back across the creek and pulled me out of the car as the water reached my shoulders. A few minutes later, the car was swept down stream and disappeared. Once again I had escaped drowning by seconds. I never forgot how all the adults saved themselves and left me behind.
For the rest of my life, every time I crossed a bridge, my mouth would get dry and my heart would race. Everyone knew I was afraid of bridges, and sometimes they would drive half way across a bridge and stop and laugh at me for having tears in my eyes. Sometimes I would get out of the car and run across the bridge, hoping I could get across the bridge before it collapsed.
Even when I was married and had children, my heart would race and I'd hold my breath whenever we drove across a bridge. I would grip the steering wheel as if I could hold the car up and make it lighter so the bridge wouldn't collapse.
Then one day when I was driving across a bridge, one of my children said something that made me laugh . . . and I forgot to be afraid. It was as simple as that.
I can't explain how I could be fearful and traumatized for forty years and then in a second, my fear and anxiety were gone. Now when I drive across a bridge, I don't even notice I'm on a bridge. I don't even think about it. I don't know why it took so long for me to "get over" a childhood trauma.
Now when something goes wrong, when I'm hurt or depressed or feel afraid, I tell myself, "Get Over It! Let it go. Forget it. Move on."
I'd let the actions of my bullying cousin leave scars on me. I let the cold, uncaring actions of family members who'd left me to drown, affect me for years. When I hear about people who have post-traumatic stress syndrome, I understand how they feel. Emotional wounds can take years to heal and sometimes they never heal.
Everyone has been hurt, everyone has trauma in his or her life, we all have scars. The most painful wounds are those caused by people who were supposed to love us.
We can feel like we are drowning in trouble, drowning in debt, or drowning in loneliness or depression, but we need to remember Isaiah 43:2. "When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee."
The key word here is "passeth" . . . it doesn't say when we get stuck in the water and stay there, it means we keep going, keep moving- "passeth through."
I got stuck. I spent years being afraid of drowning, being afraid of a bridge collapsing.
The actual events only lasted minutes, but I carried them with me through the rest of my life and relived the events hundreds of times in my mind. The things that happened were cruel and could have killed me but they only lasted minutes.
It took years to get over the memories and that was my fault. They were scars that wouldn't heal. I couldn't let go; I couldn't forgive and forget. My cousin had tried to kill me. My uncles and aunts had saved themselves and left me to drown.
All the people I've mentioned have been dead for years. I'm the only person who remembers what happened. God saved my life twice when I was a child and has probably saved it twenty times since I grew up. I'm grateful for the man who pulled me out of the river. I'm grateful for surviving accidents and illness.
I doubt my relatives remembered what they did to me; I was of no importance to them. But I remember. I'm not afraid anymore; I'm not traumatized any more, but forget? No, I don't think so. I want to remember that I'm a survivor and God will not let trouble overflow me.
Crying Wind is the author of Crying Wind and My Searching Heart, When the Stars Danced, and Thunder in Our Hearts, Lightning in Our Veins.
