Rachel Everhart ~ My story
As I ran down the basement steps,
searching for other kids in the
house to play, my heart skipped a
beat and then stopped. I was
around 7 years old. The man I
feared the most was right there. A
family member that touched me
and spoke to me inappropriately
many times as a child. The man
who chased
me in my dreams, causing me to
hate myself and to wish that I
were dead over and over again. I
was as stiff as a plastic doll that
day, standing there silent. The
on l y s o u n d h e a r d w a s m y
pounding heart, my raspy breaths
and the slow, quiet tick…tick…
tick of the clock on the wall. My
life was silent and my mind was
confused. I was a mime. Only
knowing how to be sad on the
inside, smile on the outside and
wish I was someone else or better
yet, dead.
T
This is how my life began. Fear.
Being scared was second nature to
me. I grew up not knowing love. I
grew up anxious. I grew up not
knowing me. No one’s fault. Just
was. I learned to live within this
fear, but had no idea it remained. I
searched for someone to ‘save’
me. I searched for someone to
know me.
But who could they know? I was
wearing a mask and had no idea
who I was or who I really wanted
to be. Life has a way of becoming
a mask. Behind this mask we feel afraid, lonely, rejected, suicidal, timid, inadequate, depressed, ugly, forlorn,
abandoned and alone. The mask. A place to hide. Insecurities prevail. Many don’t seem to care who we are. Many
others wear a mask themselves. Inside we are paralyzed. Inside we are live in fear and think the only way to be liked
or loved is to be what everyone wants us to be.
This type of lifestyle, set the stage for the next 25 years of my life. I married twice and divorced twice, with my
second husband almost killing me from domestic abuse. I married into abuse and didn’t know it; a direct effect of not
knowing who I was and also of not knowing what a man should treat me like. I never knew me. I never knew what I
liked and what I didn’t. I never knew what scared me and what comforted me. I wasn’t used to anyone paying
attention to me in healthy ways. I was looking for love and found control instead.
During my life, I did manage to become a nurse, which became a lucrative career for me. I had initially dropped out
of college before I was married, not having any idea what I wanted to become. I managed to go back to a smaller
college a few years later and get my nursing degree. I am so thankful for that today. Being a nurse taught me so many
great things that I am appreciate today. I love to help people and I love to serve. The main part of my story comes in
the later years of my second marriage. I have so much to tell and so many things that I have been through, but the