How moving away from my hometown has helped my healing process
Returning to my hometown as a survivor has been difficult. It’s where my trauma happened. It’s not just one place that triggers bad memories; it’s also my high school, the Starbucks in the center of town, the side of town where my assailant lived, the soccer fields, my own house.
The uncertainty of his presence whenever I returned to that town was nauseating. Was he home for break too? Did he still even live there? Before Christmas break, my therapist asked me “what do you think would happen if you ran into him?” when I expressed my fear of returning home. A week later, that very scenario played out in our local Barnes and Noble. It turned out that the answer was that I would run and hide and cry on the floor of a Starbucks bathroom and leave my friends to go home. My town was no longer a safe place for me.
In my college years, one of the more prevalent symptoms of my PTSD, aside from nightmares, was fleeing at the sight of people who shared his features. It was particularly bad when I visited home, since I was all of a sudden potentially within a few miles of him. I’d be out at a restaurant with my friends and find myself suddenly outside. A man with curly brown hair and glasses had walked in, and I just got up and ran. I’d run away from random men in public if their outline looked anything like him. This is what saved me in that Barnes and Noble years ago – I saw the outline and I ran as usual, but that time it actually was him.
That was 6 years after the abuse happened. The nightmares had started getting better. There were weeks where I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat, days where I wouldn’t think about him at all. After the close encounter in B&N, the nightmares started back up again in full force. It set me back years. Thankfully, I got to go back to college two weeks later and was far away from anywhere he might be.
When I graduated, I had to move back in with my parents. The paralyzing fear of running into him kept me from venturing to the other side of town. When I needed something from the specialty Japanese grocery store down the street from his house, I would sit in my car hyping myself up and RUN into and out of the store. I couldn’t go back to that Barnes and Noble and I wouldn’t go to the Starbucks in that strip mall anymore. I had a panic attack about seeing people from high school at the Thanksgiving Eve party at the local bar and abandoned my friends and ran home. It was like that terrible Christmas break, but for an entire year. In my mind, the danger was ever present.
I was the first one to move away in my friend group. I left one metropolitan suburb for another, just a few hundred miles South. I moved into a house in a neighborhood where I knew nobody. There were no memories to haunt me, no places that were off limits for me, no dread of running into anybody I once knew. It might sound lonely, but it was so incredibly freeing, more than I was able to comprehend until long after the move.
Moving to a different state was like being given a second chance at life. I no longer have to live as a victim- all of the baggage that came with familiar locations and people doesn’t matter anymore in my day-to-day life. I have no reason to run from people with curly brown hair and glasses. The nightmares are infrequent. I can go to any store I want and visit any part of town without fear. I never have to drive past his house, I can get coffee at a Starbucks that doesn’t bring back bad memories. I can walk around not on high-alert all the time. I finally feel free.
I still visit home a few times a year, and yes, I still feel anxious when I’m there, but it’s different now. In my time away, I’ve become stronger and more distant from those bad memories. They have less power over me. He has less power over me. Moving away from that town freed me from the feeling of being trapped, and now when I visit, it’s on my terms. Last year, while visiting for Christmas, I went back to that Barnes and Noble and sat down and drank a coffee. My eyes were trained on the escalator searching for him the entire time – I’ll never be completely okay in that space, but just being present in there was a small triumph, the first of many. Hopefully, after spending some more time away, one day my home town will feel like home again.
Hi, I’m Sandy! I’m a high school math and science teacher and a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, class of 2020, where I studied astrophysics and music performance. My drive for co-founding Survivors was primarily my own experience with sexual violence as a teenager. I wanted to be able to provide the resources and support to young survivors that I didn’t have when I needed it most. I want to give survivors a place to speak freely about their own experiences without fear of repercussions, and more importantly, give them a place to heal and feel powerful. Outside of Survivors, in my spare time, I like to play video games, hike, and drink coffee. treasurer@survivorstosuperheroes.org
