Something dawned on a me a while back. I’m scared. No. I’m terrified of finishing it and putting it out there. Why? Because people didn’t believe me when it happened and that killed me emotionally more than what happened, especially when some of those people were very close to me or should have been.

When it happened, there were people (other than the DA) that thought I was hiding something. The police don’t arrest completely innocent people. There had to be something going on that led them to think it was me. That’s what I thought too. It’s why I hid nothing from the detectives that served the search warrant and ultimately arrested me. I waived my “right to have an attorney present during questioning” because I believed whole-heartedly that you could not incriminate yourself if you didn’t do anything wrong. That was naïve. They used every word I said to build a case against me.

I thought it was just the police being overzealous. It’s not evil. It’s just the way things go sometimes. A mistake that will be cleared up after a while. A year later, it wasn’t cleared up until I paid a big lawyer a lot of money to scare them into letting go. Like big ill-trained dog with a bone, I had to get a big stick to get the bone away.

And then it got worse. My church, some friends, and strangers doubted my authenticity and said so. Right as my world started to slip away from me, instead of throwing me a rope, they turned their backs and kicked dirt at me as a fell. My lawyer warned me it would happen and he was right.

I’ll admit that one of my biggest problems is self-consciousness. I feel that I need to have the approval of others, kudos from everyone I can find. I feed off it. I shouldn’t, but I do. To walk around knowing that people think of ill of me is the worst thing I can think of. Being accused of a violent crime was horrible enough, but then people didn’t believe that I was innocent. I didn’t choose to be in the position. I did absolutely nothing to be there. It was just plain circumstances. It happened to me and I got through it.

Here I am, years later, writing it all out and reliving each painful day. And it turns out that writing it isn’t nearly as hard as offering it to the world…voluntarily. This time I’m publicly bringing it on myself. Not only will my family see it and know the details of my experience, some for the first time, but strangers all over the internet will be able to read it for themselves. If people close to me had a hard time believing me, how will strangers react? And how will I deal with that? That’s what is slowing me down right now.

Why am I doing this to myself? Because the truth must be told whether or not people listen or believe. I can’t let other people’s biases, their opinions, stop me from telling my story. I’m doing it for myself, to heal. Not only do I need to become a better story teller to make that happen, I need to strengthen my defenses to deal with the responses to it. Back when it happened, I had to focus on getting through. I had a young marriage, young children, and finances to deal with. It was a like a big meal. I ate and that’s all I could do. Only now am I ready to digest it and grow stronger from the nourishment.

It will be slow going for me, but I’ve learned than any progress is better than none. My story will be told in the best way I can tell it.