The Deep End.

I have been wondering… how do I merge these different parts of my journey and life into a single path?  I started off pursuing life as a bass tournament angler, hitting the backroads of America during the whole covid debacle in 2020.  I found THE REAL JESUS and started walking with Him in earnest in late 2021.  And then, my newly changed life took an extreme and unexpected turn.  At the age of 51, I started having emotional flashbacks and spiritual warfare that was off the charts. What the heck is this?

By the spring of 2022 I was trying to balance a tournament schedule while starting to have traumatic memories break free. I don’t remember a lot of my life. I am missing huge chunks of my childhood and adulthood. I feel like I am floating in an archipelago, situated smack dab in the middle of a sea of amnesia. Islands of memories, chunks here and there and lots of nothing.  I have known that for most my life, but I never questioned why I can’t remember. Maybe I didn’t want to know. I suspected there was something ‘sex abuse like’, but I just didn’t want to go there.

As I traveled from tournament to tournament, I found it increasingly more difficult to function in that capacity. I was starting to remember bits as they broke out of the amnesia, but what I was remembering was absolutely horrific. Often it would start as emotions, disembodied emotions that would surface and I would be feeling something and have no idea why.  Then I started having body memories emerge in the form of pain, or at times bruises, marks and welts would appear on my body. Sometimes these would appear right in front of other people and we would both be staring at these welts and scars that suddenly appeared on my skin as we conversed.  I became aware, consciously aware, that I was losing time and that I was experiencing dissociation and dissociative parts of myself.  Ultimately the truth of what I have survived began to surface and come together, memory by excruciating memory. I am a survivor of multigenerational ritual abuse. There. I said it. In print. To the public. That is the simplest and most horrifying term; an identification I don’t like too much. Five little words that don’t remotely even describe the true nature of what being a ‘Survivor of multigeneration ritual abuse’ means; let alone touch on trauma-based mind control that underpins all of it.

There is a large number of people who only know me as a gal that competes in kayak bass fishing tournaments, or made quirky fishing videos.  I was doing pretty good just as all this truth about trauma started unraveling in my life. I had made 6 championships; I had made it into the most elite Tournament of Champions. I had beaten big names, cashed some checks and was doing podcasts left and right about fishing.  I was getting sponsors and supposedly living this dream life of traveling and fishing all over America. 

Then... POOF.  I pretty much disappear off the fishing scene. This past year, my fishing life and adventure gave way to an intense pursuit into trauma recovery and healing.  I have had to keep my life all separate, in compartments. Ritual Abuse healing over here in this secret box and fishing over here in this corner, desperately trying to maintain some sanitized public appearance of normalcy.  But none of this is normal. At the same time, I am not the only person going through this. We just don’t talk about it; we don’t expose it.  But we need to.

I kept quiet. I didn’t share what I was going through except with a handful of people. It is risky to share and scary. I could barely understand what I was going through myself.  How do I share something so awful and painful? DO I SHARE IT?  Do I want people to see me as a fisherman?  Do I want people to know I am a survivor? 

In the end I have to not care what you see me as.  I am me, it’s complicated and I don’t fit into cookie cutter shapes.  I have to speak truth about what I have experienced and truth about my life.  Holy Spirit told me that I am going through this, so that I can heal and then I can help others that are going through this as well.

So that is what this is all about; truth and sharing an experience. It is about talking openly about what many would prefer to keep hidden. It is about looking at things that are hard and speaking about things that are even harder.  Some of this might be about what I am walking through, or sharing information and what others are walking through as well. Some of it might be about fishing or other things I find interesting. It’s the deep end. I welcome your subscription if that is something you wish to do. I anticipate being busy with this substack and I pray it is a blessing for me and for you. Thank you for your time, interest, curiosity and bravery.

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