Twenty-five years after a casual encounter in a high school bathroom that caused a childhood trauma, reviewing the episode, and his tormentor, changed the course of the author of this text.
I was ten years old when I experienced childhood trauma that would last for years. It was 1993 and he had recently entered high school in southern Maine. One afternoon I left the Spanish class to urinate. I walked into one of the stalls in the men’s room, slipped my shorts over my ankles, and let it flow.
What happened during childhood trauma is confusing. What I can remember is that I worried about something in my genitals or around my genitals, so worried that, without realizing it, I left the toilet and left the post. I stood by the sink examining my balls.
My shorts were still around my shoes when I heard the metal door slam. Standing in front of me was the toughest eighth grader in school. Brandon [has changed his name] was a soccer star, handsome and popular and was now incredulous.
“What the hell are you doing?” I was cold “Are you a fagot?” I freaked out a lot, picked up my shorts, and ran. Back in Spanish class, I slipped into my seat and closed my eyes. That way I faded the entire experience.
After that day in the bathroom with Brandon, I disappeared in high school. I stayed away from the dining room, running home as soon as school ended. My grades went to the bottom. I got to know that particular pre-teen agony of wondering where it fit. I was sure I liked girls, but the homophobia that existed among upper-class Maine boys was so cruel that the news of my missing pants would mean I was in danger, and had convinced myself that it was a matter of time before. that Brandon told the whole school that I was gay.
At 11 years old, I began to take beach shoes to the pool, covering my body. For years, I hid my face under a baseball cap. Puberty finally hit, bringing brutal bouts of acne with it. Years later, still struggling with my identity, I ran away from drugs. When I was finally sober in 2017, I first faced the vast and gloomy kingdom of all parts of me that I had suppressed. Was that one incident with Brandon to blame for all my years of childhood pain? No. But it was the day I knew I had to hide.
I tried all the tricks that could help me dig through my basement of hidden memories. Freudian psychoanalysts shrugged my head in New York, a shaman from Topanga Canyon recovered my soul, and along the way I learned something transformative: every time I plucked up the courage to reveal a shameful memory, it often lost its power. Instantly.
Adults understand that shitty childhood experiences are as common as chickenpox, but kids don’t. By uncovering all the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden, we calmed the awkward sixth-grader who was sure his brand of torture was unique.
One afternoon, during a breathing exercise with my therapist in Beverly Hills, I remembered Brandon. He couldn’t believe how long his memory had been repressed, or how strongly his feelings returned. I felt my whole body stiffen. Hesitantly, I revealed to my doc what had happened that day in the bathroom and how shame had haunted me in the years that followed.
I went home and Googled Brandon’s name, and a Facebook page came up. It had to be him. I kept searching and found his email address. I wrote an email: I was a classmate of yours from high school. He had a memory that he wanted to corroborate with him, and would he be willing to speak?
Two hours later, a text message arrived: “Brando wants to send you a message.” I felt a familiar squeeze on my chest.
I got off the road and took a deep breath. I thought I could hyperventilate. In all my fantasies about how this could go, I had never gotten to the part where I would really have to talk to him.
I spent two hours crafting the perfect text message. That night, I finally mustered the courage to hit send. Less than five seconds after the text landed, Brandon called. Startled, I replied.
“What’s up?” It was the same deep voice that had been playing in my brain for months. “Hello Brandon,” I said. “Thanks for-” “What’s wrong?” He asked very cool and distant. “Refresh my memory,” I replied.
When I finished telling my story, he stopped for what seemed like an hour. “I remember going out of housekeeping to go to the bathroom,” he said, in what sounded like disbelief. “I went into the bathroom and, yes, there you were, with your pants down. I was scared. I thought, Jesus, this boy is showing me his penis. I didn’t know what to do! ”
I laughed. The river.
“I told the boy that he sat next to me on the housekeeping about it,” he said. “But I never talked about it or thought about it again.” Then I asked myself, “I mean?”
When I explained what he had said, his voice dropped. “Man,” he said. “That was wrong.” Then he asked, “Why did you go into therapy?” I told him about my struggle with addiction. “It’s not a joke,” he said. “I’ve also been there.”
With the tension turned off and a bond built, we laugh like good friends. We laugh and laugh for hours.
“Come see me the next time you’re in Maine,” he said when we were done. “I’m glad you called.” I thanked him and hung up the phone, triumphant. It was a better feeling than any drug.
What happened the day after I faced childhood trauma that haunted me for a quarter of a century? You wake up at 4:00 am, electrified. The most embarrassing moment of my life was resolved. The most epic fear reduced to laughter. Had it really happened? In the weeks and months that followed that phone call, my life was transformed.
I smiled more, the memory of childhood trauma haunted me less. The hours I spent searching my skin and my body in the mirror became the time I spent in the world, lighter, freer. Relationships with the older men in my life, even the tough, macho guys I realized I’d always projected Brandon with, got easier. I experienced the world less like a scared boy and more like a man.
In recovering from childhood trauma, I have learned that the places within ourselves that we fear to go to are the places that we must go to. And sometimes we find something that we could never hope for. A story, a narrative that she had preserved for years turned out to be just another experience shared by someone who saw it from a different angle.
Brandon’s explanation of what happened freed me. As Brandon said, “I can’t believe that day I haunted you all this time, and I never thought about it again.”