That Mountain Goats Song

Vol. 2, Issue 10

It was in 2015, at 41, when I first suspected I was sexually abused as a young kid. The memory came back to me while I was in rehab during an acupuncture session, something about the quiet clarity and the sound of the technician's voice bringing it all back.

It's a spotty memory, but an awful one. It was summer. I was nine and having some terrible sleep anxiety, night sweats and intense panic, and I'd make my parents let me sleep next to their bed or, at the very least, outside their bedroom door. I was ashamed of this, but I also didn't know what else to do because I was only a nine-year-old kid. They took me to a sleep therapist or a child psychiatrist—I'm not sure which, but the office was in a strip mall just down the road from a junior high school where I played travel basketball and church soccer. The sleep expert or child shrink had glasses, maybe his hair was graying, but he wasn't old, probably more about the age I am right now.

This man laid me out on the couch and presumably hypnotized me. He made me count backwards from 20, instructing me to imagine I was riding a bike up a steep hill, and he reminded me how tired my legs were because this hill was so steep. And I went right to sleep. Every night I struggled, but this guy put me right out. I figured he was allowed to touch me because he was a doctor. After that, I don't remember much. I have little lightning bug blinks of specific detail, but most of the actual big-deal moment is lost.

But something happened in that room. The reason I know something happened in that room is because I had such wickedly vivid, uncomfortable memories when we drove back to that office again for a follow-up visit. From the backseat of the car, I saw my father’s stiff toupee peaking over the headrest as he focused on the road. My mother shifted and rummaged through her purse. But the sunset is what I remember most. I’ve had that sunset on my mind for almost 35 years, the red-orange glow of late suburban summer, the gray clouds crookedly streaking across the sky like diesel exhaust from a crashing plane.

When we got to the office, my parents spoke to the doctor first, leaving me to sit in the waiting area with the tan wall-to-wall carpet and the ugly lamp. While I waited I threw a howling fit, just hysterical with fear. When they came out to check on me, I begged them to not make me go back into that room again. I don’t remember how that was ever resolved the remainder of the summer or ever: the moment just vanished and we didn’t discuss it anymore until I got back from rehab in 2015. They didn't want to discuss it at all by that point, even though they were the only ones who could help me fill in the blanks. They offered some theories, but they sounded more like alibis and excuses.

****

Since 2015, I’ve rewritten a version of this paragraph dozens of times to try and articulate my thoughts and feelings about it:

Trauma has its teeth sunk into my heart, but I can't confront it.

When it comes I’ll try to speak calmly but then there will be this loud CLANG! in my brain and then I’ll cough and cough. Sometimes I cough so loud I fear bats will fly out of my mouth and right into that wall.

I finally did EMDR last January. It had been recommended to me since I got out of rehab, but I stalled. For those who don’t know, it stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing—a form of psychotherapy for severe trauma and emotional distress. It's like a true deep-dive into all the hurts and fears. In fact, they give you either some box to put over your head or buzzers to push while the therapist talks you through it so you don’t go crazy. I did the buzzers. We had some breakthroughs, but some of the sessions made me feel nauseated a couple times. Plus it was very expensive.

I also discussed the trauma and abuse with my regular therapist who’s worked with me since I came here to Los Angeles four years ago. In 2019, I was determined to crack into this once and for all. She showed me how to use the meditation practice to help me heal from it. How to recognize the emotions that come up, but not to let the unctuous, doomed feeling near my stomach drown me.

She told me to locate the part of my body that feels most activated by those memories (my lower left side; just above the hip; maybe the gallbladder or some other stray organ), and let the feeling pass through. This is the part that I don't think is spoken about enough: the relief and validation I felt once I was convinced I was sexually abused. Because it made so much sense to me and gave some insight into my own strange and abusive behavior, having these emotions contradicted the enormity of the sadness.

But that relief–oh my God. It was more than relief, it was merciful. It worked for a while. Once I started to get some peace about it I had another fear: what if the sexual abuse never happened and I'm just a big fucking liar?

Both of my therapists assured me they’ve had other patients say similar things and that it's very common for people who've experienced repressed memories. None of this stuff is completely accessible, it’s just a small noisy creek beneath the surface where shame always floats.

Okay, I guess.

But what if we're all liars?

****

At a New Year's party in 2011, my friend Lindsay was singing some strum-strum emo shit song that was coming through the Sonos all by herself that I found very annoying at first but grew to love because she seemed so entranced, singing it quietly just above a whisper as if the song had secret meaning. "Who sings this?" I asked. She told me the band Mountain Goats and then I was even more annoyed that I liked it but I also didn't consider myself a Mountain Goats kind of guy up until that point. But because the moment was so lovely the way she sang by herself while all the other party guests just teetered and chain-smoked, I wanted to remember it forever. So the next day I Googled the Mountain Goats to figure out the name of the song. They had more albums than I anticipated but I figured the song I was looking for had to be fairly popular. I narrowed my search to "What's the name of that Mountain Goats song?" and eventually found it after I remembered some of the lyrics. I only listened to it a couple times since that night, mostly when I wanted to be reminded of Lindsay, but I felt like an impostor because to be honest my life didn't feel all that plaintive. I'd had sad moments and rotten breakups and some friends and dreams die, but I'd move on from those quickly, skillfully, and alcoholically. I just wasn’t ready to admit how spiritually decimated I was; I quietly hated myself instead. I feigned tenderness with certain people, but my heart was as hard as a bocci ball.

****

Cut to 2015, fresh out of rehab still with a garbage head but now full of those awful, lightning bug blinks. Out of desperation, I returned to that Mountain Goats song. I finally felt like I qualified, like I was able to share in the secrets of that song with everyone else who did so around this time of the year. A full ashtray in front of me in my empty apartment and the Hue lights dimmed to green, I got the song, finally, even if most of the verses were completely not relatable. Because that chorus! Jesus Christ, that wailing anthemic chorus hit me right in the empty spots, all the divots these new memories left behind. It made me so angry, yet I was overjoyed because it accessed the scream behind the scream I’d been searching for since I had to walk around in the world with this—the new shame, the new relief. The song scaffolded all of it.

Bring on 2016, I got this, I thought.

And then guess what? 2016 sucked so hard for me. The trial. The failed sobriety. The financial decrepitude. The humiliation. The joblessness. The election. Florida! All that.

But 2017 got so much better. And 2018? It was a beautiful dream.

2019 was even better and more dreamy between my wife and my two kids, the ability to prioritize fatherhood and full-time recovery. And we have another baby on the way. In 2015 I had no one and now I live in a full house with the softer heart I never knew I needed. Even the bad things—the near relapse, the suicidal thoughts, the meds, the shingles, the busted knee. It was all great because I learned how temporary all of this is, how all of us are. And I worked hard to heal myself from that sexual abuse. I have finally accepted that I wasn't lying, but the specifics of it can stay right where they are—the left side; just above the hip; maybe the gallbladder or some other stray organ—and I don’t cough bats out of my mouth or run back to drinks and drugs anymore to deal with what it left behind.

Oh, by the way, I think I figured out the meaning of life this year: Don't fight it. Don't ignore it. Just let it pass through. — AJD