Dear Fellow Survivor Blog: Painful Puzzle Pieces

Sensitive content advisory: The following post talks about my concern over the size of my male member and repeatedly uses the anatomical term for that body part.

Dear fellow survivor,

In my last post, I mentioned the fact that a horrible lie has held me prisoner for almost four decades. It was a lie that I believed with my whole heart. It was a lie that exerted power over every area of my life. It was a durable lie that resisted any sort of rational argument or rebuttal. It was a lie that caused me unceasing, excruciating pain.

I’m sure that you, as a fellow survivor, can relate. I would guess that there are lies that are holding you prisoner, affecting every area of your life, resisting every rational argument or rebuttal, and causing you unceasing, excruciating pain. Before we go any further, take a moment to think about what those lies are. How have they affected you? How long have they held you prisoner?

Today, I want to be very candid with you. I’m going to tell you explicitly what the lie is that has mercilessly held me prisoner for all these years. I will also tell you about the many pieces of the puzzle that had to fall into place for me to finally experience the loosening of this lie’s grip on me. I hope that by walking you through my journey, you will find hope and encouragement for your struggle against the lies holding you prisoner.

Here’s the specific lie that has imprisoned my mind ever since I experienced sexual abuse: Penis size means something.

That lie planted itself in my mind as the abuse was happening. The person who abused me wasn’t that much older than I was at the time of the abuse. But he had already gone through puberty, while I had not. (I went through puberty about two years later than most other boys my age.) His body, including his penis, had already developed. Mine had not. And so, when I looked at the two of us, I saw a huge size difference.

My fourteen-year-old mind desperately searched for something that would lead it to safety, something that could guarantee that nothing like this abuse would ever happen again. The solution it landed on was penis size. If my penis was large enough in comparison to other guys’ penises, then I would be safe.

As I mentioned at the outset, this lie has held me prisoner for almost forty years and has affected every area of my life, from my self-perception to my relationships with my friends to my marriage. This past weekend, though, something unexpected happened. I began to feel that the lie FINALLY was starting to lose its grip on me. I’m not saying that the lie is entirely gone. It’s still lurking around and causing plenty of trouble. But it no longer seems to have the iron grip on my mind that it had even just a week ago.

This experience has been very strange. The only way I can describe it is that, after all these years, a lot of painful puzzle pieces have finally fallen into place. All the pieces had been there before, accumulated at various times over the years. But it wasn’t until this weekend that they all seemed to snap into place together. And, as I think of all these pieces of the puzzle, I am convinced they all were necessary.

I compiled a list of the pieces of my healing puzzle that had to come together to finally be where I am now. As you read through this list, think about how many of the pieces of my puzzle resonate with your own healing puzzle.

I’m sure there are other puzzle pieces I left off that list. But I don’t think I could have reached the point where I am now if I hadn’t experienced ALL those pieces—even the pieces that were not in themselves completely healthy. It would have been nice if I could have gone directly from Piece 1 to Piece 15 and skipped Pieces 2-14 entirely. But that’s not how this works. The puzzle of healing has A LOT of pieces, and all of them are necessary for the entire puzzle to come together.

It reminds me a lot of solving a Rubik’s Cube. I’ve learned the different combinations of moves necessary to put each piece of the cube in its proper place. A lot of those moves don’t make sense all by themselves. But together, they lead to the solution. And if you miss even one move, not all of the pieces will wind up where they need to be. Similarly, not all of the pieces in my healing puzzle have made sense. Some of them have made NO sense. All of them have been painful. But I am convinced that ALL of them were necessary. And, as painful as they all were, I am now grateful for them all.

I’ve written in such detail about the painful pieces of my healing puzzle in the hope that my experience can encourage you. I do not know what all the pieces of your healing puzzle are. Perhaps some of the pieces in my healing puzzle are the same as the pieces in your healing puzzle. I’m sure, however, that many of the pieces in your healing puzzle are different (especially if you are a woman). But regardless of how similar or dissimilar our healing puzzles are, I hope you can take the following things from my puzzle and apply them to your own puzzle.

My healing puzzle is not yet complete—and neither is yours. Assembling all the pieces of our healing puzzles will continue for the rest of our lives. Yet, I am encouraged by the still incomplete portrait that I am beginning to see in these pieces of my puzzle that already have come together.

There I see, not a broken and abused boy, but a child of God and a strong, grown man.

You can look into your healing puzzle and be encouraged by what you see as well. There you will see not who you once thought you were but who you really are in Jesus—a dearly loved, wondrously made, uniquely gifted, infinitely valuable, strong, and victorious child of God. Find hope and joy in that slowly developing portrait because that truly is who you are.

In Christ,
Your Brother Survivor