No More Skeleton Winters

By Cynthia Reffner and Deana Reffner

REPRESSED NO MORE

At the core of every child who has been abused are lies that have been perpetrated upon them. Getting to the root of those lies can prove to be grueling. How I walked through those sexual abuse repressed memories before coming to realize the basis of my pain was excruciatingly painful. Hanging out in the

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jun 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685565763

Cynthia Reffner

Cynthia has been married forty-two years and has three children and eleven beautiful grandchildren. She is a Spirit-filled lover of God who has overcome a tumultuous childhood. Her desire as an author is to share her story of repressed memories in hopes that others who remain in their "undoneness" can find healing in their soul also. Her unrelenting and sometimes seemingly inconvenient passion for using her God-given gift of discernment to help bring ultimate healing, deliverance, and wholeness to the wounded body of Christ falls close to her heart. She believes reading this book will do just that for you.

Book preview

Disclaimer

The word pedophile is a filthy word with many vulgar connotations. Just saying it sounds dirty. For this and many other reasons, I have elected in my writings to use the term Pedi in its place. I hope, by doing so, it will take some of the sting out of trying to deal with this touchy subject.

Also, I feel that it is important to let you know as the reader that I have chosen to not include any of the actual violations in this story. I have included what led up to the events and what followed. I want this to be safe for all readers and feel strongly that I do not want to glorify any of these vile acts.

Introduction

A child should be able to pick a dandelion and blow it without any concern of where the wind takes it. This book was written for that child who did not have the freedom to blow their own dandelion. Whether you have been a victim of incest or sexually abused by a stranger, they both are escorted with grief. In one’s life, there is a process to completion that needs to take place for healing to both begin and end. The process begins by first realizing that you are hurting. Secondly, you need to figure out or recognize why you are hurting so badly and resolve what you can do to make it better. Three Rs: realization, recognition, resolve. They are each a process. Through this process, completeness of healing can take place. Some people’s journey is longer, as was mine, and miraculously some people’s journey can be much shorter.

I wrote this book in order to try and help remove the many blindfolds that plague sexual assault victims as best as I can. This book is not for everyone; I of all people get that, but it is for the broken few who are still hurting and in need of help to remove their blindfold. This is my story, my truth, my pain as I lived it. It is about memories that were so painful that I was forced to repress them in order to exist. Memories that I forgot about for nearly thirty years. While it might seem easier for me to just forget about it and not talk about it, that is not in my nature any longer. I have no doubt in my mind that I have been called by the Lord to speak up, speak out, and tell of the great and miraculous ways in which God in His divine and innovative way brought me through the healing necessary to come to a wholeness in my mind. Hopefully, this book can help guide you and give you instruction as to how you, too, can begin your healing process.

So often, people in pain, sexual abuse pain, are not given a recipe nor a remedy for restoration to be completed all the way down within the soul.

My hope and my desire are that this book can be just that for you or someone close to you that you know who is still in bondage to the abuse that was perpetrated onto them. While everyone’s walk on the trail is different, the end goal remains the same. Healing for the victim. Emotional healing, spiritual healing, and soulful healing as God leads. I have done my best to discuss as many different areas that God walked me through as I saw fit to elaborate upon and write about in order to assist you with your path to healing. To God be the glory for the things he hath done.

The world’s ill advice to the victim is to just keep your mouth shut. Keep the status quo. My God says that That which was done in darkness will be brought to light, and therefore, I will let my light shine. I will open my mouth and speak as I am instructed to do.

Always remember that…the very moment we pray, the tide of the battle begins to shift.

It Was Him… Memories Confirmed

Hurry up, is what I thought as I rushed into the house as quickly as my legs could carry me. How many times has the phone rung? My husband, my daughter, my middle son, and I all dashed in from the garage after a night out of eating, each trying our best to reach the phone in our living room before the caller hung up.

Grab it, Mom… Grab it faster, Mom, my teenage son insisted since I was in the lead. Hurry up. Get it before it goes to the recorder, he persisted. In hopes that it was one of the three girls he was trying to juggle around in his dating arena of a teenage life.

The noise of the phone recorder began to squeal loudly throughout the entire house. No…I quickly reached toward the phone, trying desperately to pick it up before the person on the other end had a chance to hang up.

There was a man’s voice on the other end of the line that began talking into the recorder. It was him! I froze inches from the phone. I knew that voice from somewhere. It was the man who had repeatedly molested me for nearly five years of my very young childhood of a life. Why was he calling my house? He was trying frantically to get up enough courage to leave a half-baked apology on my phone’s voicemail. My phone? How dare he, I thought. Really? You can molest me and ruin my innocence, and is it so invaluable that you think you can just leave an apology on my phone recorder nearly thirty years later? Really? I quickly picked up the handle of the phone anyways. This was going to be good.

I was no longer afraid of him, or at least that is what I told myself. When had I started shaking? Why had I picked up the phone? What was I thinking to not have just let it go to voicemail?

As I anxiously put the phone to my ear, everyone who had just emptied out from the car was standing in the living room and was within earshot of this very volatile conversation. We all froze after our mad dash, surrounding the phone. My family all looked at me, silently sensing that something was up. They all sat scrutinizing his voice and trying to figure out just who the caller was. I, on the other hand, knew exactly whose voice it was on the other end of the line.

It was him! Yep, that was his voice, and it was him. My heart raced. My chest felt constricted. Oh, my heavens, it was him, calling me. Who did he exactly think he was calling my house? This is my house! My territory! He was not going to intimidate me. He was not going to bully me for one more second of my life. He had bullied me for far too many years. My angry ticked-off heart was pounding out of my chest. I can do this; I can do this, I kept silently reassuring myself. He is no longer going to control me. I can have this conversation after all these years because, after all, he is the one on the defense. He finally, for once, was not the one in control. He is the one in the wrong; it just took me thirty years to remember it.

The tides in my mind quickly began to change. He needs something from me. Ohm….why else would he be calling my home and invading my personal space if he were not in need of something I owned? My memories. I thought to myself, Oh, how does it feel to need? How does it feel to have unpredictable moments not knowing what in the world is going to happen next?

My violator’s voice was coming across the lines of my phone. My dark past finally coming to the surface. My repressed memories only being confirmed by the one who had caused it all to begin with.

Hey, Cindy, this is me. Do you know who I am? he questioned in his eerie voice. Of course, he knew that I knew who he was. He had been my Pedi stepfather for over five years of my life.

Yes, I know who you are, I responded. My hands were shaking; I could only hope my voice was not. I did not want him to think that he had any emotional leverage over me any longer. He had been my perpetrator for far too many years, and I was not about to give him any power any longer. I deliberately did not speak next; the silence was unnerving. He called me; he can entertain, continuing this con artist of his self-conversation. I looked around at my family, who were staring at me with questions visibly written all over their faces. They were reading my tense body language and sharp tone, which was so much different than the blissful one that was so abruptly cut off with this phone call.

He tentatively continued speaking by saying, I heard you were going to turn me in to the cops for what I did to you as a kid.

I carefully and methodically responded back by saying, What would I turn you in to the cops for? My family’s eyes were huge at this point as realization sat in as to whom that voice belonged to that was coming out of the recorder.

Well, you know… he responded condescendingly.

I know? What is it that I know?

He continued, and I noticed there was a shifting in his tone of voice. He no longer had the arrogant, loud, confident voice he had just displayed only seconds before.

He was on a fishing expedition to see what I had finally, at the age of thirty-six years old, remembered. Bad person. Violator.

He proceeded by saying, You know I am sorry, don’t you?

I thought to myself, What is he not trying to say? I answered back and said, No, I don’t. What do you have to be sorry for?

Well, you know how I harmed you… he said, trailing off his sentence.

How did you harm me? I questioned.

He said, Well, you know I touched you inappropriately.

Wow! I thought to myself, Where is this conversation leading?

Then I prodded, And you molested my sister too. Are you willing to admit that too?

He sarcastically replied, Yes, I molested both you and your sister. Is that what you want me to say?

Returning quick-fire, I said, I want to hear you tell the whole truth. That is what I want to hear you say.

In one of his excuse-filled tirades that were all too familiar to me from my childhood, he responded, I was really sick back then and didn’t even know what I was doing or remember much of what I did to you. I had been drinking most of the time when I would do bad things to you and your sister.

I rapidly returned back in an authoritative kind of voice to him, saying, So it sounds to me like you are admitting that you molested me, and you are saying you don’t even remember most of it. How convenient.

Like I said, I was really sick back then.

I returned fire in a very aggressive tone and said, Oh yes, you were really sick, and you tried to impose that sickness upon me.

I wrestled with the fact that I had him on the phone and my family could hear every word he and I were saying. Wow, exactly what I needed my husband to hear. He had sort of questioned the integrity and validity of what I was saying to begin with. So to hear my perpetrator all but admitting this truth I had most recently brought to the table, for me, was incredible. Now, on the other hand, for my daughter and son to have to hear it was disgustingly gross. But then again, at least it was coming to the surface and being dealt with. Now, what more did I have to say to this Pedi anyways? I wanted and almost did hang up, but instead, I said, "And you are not sick now?" I questioned.

No, I am not, he stated back at me adamantly.

Really, and what have you done to change your behavior? I said. Silence remained on the line. I added sarcastically, Have you gotten yourself any therapy or counseling? Maybe even gone through any twelve-step programs or a combination of the three? Still more silence. I proceeded with, And how do I know you have not molested my baby sister or other family members? How can I be assured you are not still hurting other young girls?

His response made me sick. He very repulsively said back in a rapid and condescending tone, I don’t hurt the ones that I love.

Oh, he did not just say what I thought he said! Appalled by his response, I was ready to hang up when he quickly spat, I said I was sorry. I guess that is not good enough. I guess you’re going to turn me in to the cops anyways, aren’t you?

I responded with a matter-of-a-fact statement and said, Well, I’ll tell you this much. I certainly will be documenting this conversation and talking to my attorney first thing in the morning. Oh, and by the way, this whole conversation is being recorded as we speak on my phone recorder.

His now timid non-bullying voice responded back, Well, I have said all I am going to say, and I guess it’s not good enough. He tried to back his way out of the conversation he had initiated.

No, it is not good enough, I said, knowing in my knower he had harmed many young undeveloped girls because that is what Pedis do. They very seldom only harm one victim unless, of course, they are caught right away and sent off to prison. Which, unfortunately, is not the case far too often.

As I frantically decided that this conversation was over with, I hung up the phone, feeling righteous in my indignation. Manipulation. Launch and failure.

Immediately upon hanging up, I rushed to grab a pen and pad of paper to dictate the words that had been exchanged just minutes before as a backup. My memories were being put into question by many different sources at this point in my life. I wanted my already retained attorney to be on notice that he, the first stepfather, had reached out to contact me, trying to intimidate me into backing off. Insanity.

Within seconds, this elating feeling began to wail up inside me, sort of like emotionally overcome me, and I started yelling throughout the entire house, I told you, I told you that no good piece of feces did all that inappropriate junk to me. Yes, yes, I yelled, How does it feel, Mr. Deface (my new nickname for him… so that I did not have to say his name; it made me sick to my stomach at the mere mention of his real name)? Not so good, I will bet. Are you just a little scared now? A little nervous? As I continued to practically run around my house from room to room, yelling as loud as I could possibly scream, Hallelujah, hallelujah. He is finally going to be stopped, I hollered out loud! I was a nervous wreck. I was shaking and trembling all over my body. Like a jolt of adrenaline had been injected into me.

Or was he? The fear inside of me questioned myself. Was he finally going to be revealed? Did I sound bold enough? Did I sound unafraid enough? Will he be able to detect through the sound of my voice that I truly am still afraid of him, like he did when I was a child?

Then this feeling of fear and a combination of shame began to overpower me, and I started crying and shaking, almost inconsolable. Suddenly, I started laughing and crying at the same time. Crazy. Finally, finally. I yelled aloud, He is going to feel just a smidgen of the nastiness that I am living in. Uncertainty of life in general. As my crying escalated, I retreated to my bedroom and began to hysterically ball my eyes out. My body was still shaking and trembling with fear and joy, all mixed up into one uncontrollable ball of confusion. I truly was not sure of exactly how I felt. I had never experienced feelings like this before. Elated that my past Pedi stepfather was finally exposed, and yet I was the one that felt exposed and naked all over again. As if it was all just now happening at that very moment. That is how repressed memory works. Awkward.

My husband came into the room and reached out his arms and began to just hold on to me. It was all he could do. I really did not need his educated guess of how I could possibly be feeling; he knew that. He remained quiet and just held me tightly for what seemed like an hour. It was exactly what I needed as a child yet did not receive. Loving husband.

My two children were just walking around in a daze from what they had just overheard. My poor kids, they did not need to be going through what was my abusive life and not theirs. They were teenagers. They had their own life experience issues. They did not need more on their plate to swallow. Yet they had been previously filled in on what their mother was going through. I felt they needed to be informed as to what was happening to me. So for this phone call to come across the wires was not a shock to them. They were smart kids, and they could put the pieces together. They realized that the man on the other end of the phone was in complete denial and repair mode of his uncontrollable sickness of harming young children.

All these years, I had not remembered what the stepfather had done to me. How can that be? But that is how it was. God had to have allowed me to forget or, as the professionals put it, repressed it for my own mental safety, my mental health. I quite possibly would or could not have handled living in the memories of being sexually abused and emotionally being treated like a piece of trash and having to live in the burn-up scared body of over forty percent third-degree scarring.

Repressed No More

Just months prior to this phone call, I had the experience of having one dream after another as I began remembering what it was that he had exactly done to me. Yes, I said one dream at a time. That is how God, in His infinite wisdom, elected to help me to recall my memory. Recapturing at its finest.

I was in my mid-thirties, married to the same awesome man. Mr. Blue Eyes, I call him. Along with my three children. Three wild-child teenagers. I was working full-time as a licensed real estate agent for what would be my seventh year in San Diego County, California. I had obtained the title of Top Listing and Top Selling agent in an office of over seventy-plus agents. Quite the task. Busy, busy, busy. My husband and I had worked very hard to achieve and achieve some more. That is just how life is in a fast-paced California sales world.

My world was slowly crashing down upon me. I was having a hard time functioning and operating for the past year of my extremely busy high-end job. My emotions seemed to be getting out of control or quite possibly getting in control.

For the past few months, I had been having dreams and waking up with the clarity of these dreams on my mind. As a born-again Christian, I began asking God why I was dreaming about such pathetic things throughout the night.

That is how it all started. That is all it takes sometimes, to just ask God to explain why in order for God to go forward in what it is He has already begun in you (Philippians 1:6).

Each time I woke up with another one of these so-called dreams fresh on my mind, I began writing them down in my conveniently located composition tablet I had placed alongside my nightstand after my first pitiful foul dream. Smart woman.

Not completely understanding what in the world was happening to me, I still would sickeningly write it down. Once I would reread the dream the following morning, I then would remember it all happening to me as a child. Like it was freshly done to me. Feeling nauseated to my stomach.

I began questioning God. Why in a million years would I have forgotten about this? Goodness. What in the world am I going to do with these very real, raw, fresh, true, valid memories? How could I have forgotten these very crucial events in my life? Emotionally painful.

I was seeing a licensed counselor on a regular basis at the time. After much inner debate, I decided that I would test the waters and tell him about one of these dreams in my next session.

That did not go so well. He stopped me dead in my tracks, cutting me off mid-sentence. It was as if, if he had listened to me, then he was accountable and might get dragged into a situation he did not want any part in. Shame on him. This counselor did not want to hear about it. He quickly stated that this was out of his realm of expertise and that I possibly needed to check into seeing someone else who may understand better what I was going through. Quashed.

Boy, was I offended. I had been seeing this counselor for close to two years, revealing some of the most personal abusive parts of my childhood, and he just wanted to throw me to the wolves. Dismissed.

I began looking into finding another counselor who could quite possibly explain to me what I was experiencing. They seemed to be few and far between.

At this time in the nineties, there was a lot of controversy as to whether repressed memory actually existed or not, or so I quickly found out.

Well, for me, it did exist because I was living proof it had happened to me and was happening to me all over again. That was all the proof I needed.

I knew in my knower I needed to get these so-called dreams validated by someone who knew more than I did about this subject matter.

Eventually, I found another licensed psychologist who was willing to hear my now multiple dreams and memories of being sexually molested by this first stepfather of mine.

At this point, I had had six dreams of separate offenses. Six. Six separate dreams, all of which after I had each dream, I literally had to ask myself why I was remembering them now. Why now? How could I have forgotten such horrific offenses? It was weird. It was as if after each dream, I would remember it as if it were happening or just had happened to me. I needed to understand more than anything exactly what was going on and how I was going to emotionally survive. I felt like an emotional mess. I needed God’s grace more than ever.

The mind is very complicated, I quickly learned from my new psychologist. She called it PTSD. PTSD? I had never really understood it when I heard about military veterans coming home from war with this side effect, but that is how it was being explained to me. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is exactly what you are suffering from, my new doctor said. Wow.

What was I going to do for employment from here on out? I could barely show up to work without feeling like everyone around me could quite possibly see and feel what a mess I was becoming. I would try and convince myself that they could not see what was going on in the inside of me. For the first time in my life, having everything all perfectly placed, perfectly put on, perfectly taken off was not working. It seemed like no matter how perfect my hair was done or how perfectly excellent I had my brand-named eyeliner on, they all could still see how undone I was in every area of my life.

My real estate career was booming, and I just could not understand how it was that God elected to bring these memories to the forefront of my mind now. But God is good, and He does things His way, not ours, is what I convinced myself the Word of God speaks.

In addition to working, raising a family, being a wife, and having any type of a life, I was trying to understand how I was going to function with all this emotional pain I was in. What was I supposed to do with all these memories, or should I say repressed memories, I was having?

I needed to be able to keep working. Yet, as each day would slowly creep on by, I was having less and less of an ambition to get to work, go to work, and most definitely, stay at work and perform up to snuff for my very important clientele base. I was losing my drive to succeed. Success was getting moved down on the Richter scale a few notches. At this point, I was having a very difficult time even driving a car without having a very nervous feeling coming upon me. A very important part to being and remaining a realtor.

Not too long after what I knew at the time to be my fully remembered memories, I decided I needed to do something to try and stop this old stepfather of mine, should he still be touching young girls. I just was not sure of the what I needed to do. I was becoming angrier by the day. Each day that would go by as I was trying to