Trigger warning: Sexual assault

June has once again arrived.

One of my personalities deleted all of the social media apps off of my phones overnight. A distinct sign that someone inside is starting to retreat from the world and our public persona.

Why? Why would any one part of me retreat from the large public footprint that I’ve put a considerable amount of energy into building?

Because June is a trauma holiday.

I’ve alluded to a few of them over the years, but my most public June trauma is one of the topics of my first book, The Car That Ran on Prayers.

In June 2016, before I left Concho, Arizona, my husband sexually assaulted me, ending our marriage.

It wasn’t something I even had a definition to describe for over a year after it happened. It remained held by protective alters as a trauma, not understanding it would effect my life for a considerable time. Whether I actively remembered the details or not.

I was a wife. A wife who had not talked to her husband for weeks and had just returned home with her husband after an angry session with our mutual therapist.

It was one of the hottest days in the Arizona mountains, but the steam coming off of my head had nothing to to with the weather the next morning at 5 am when one of my alters verbally tore into my husband for taking what wasn’t his the night before.

The husband stormed off screaming profanities at me and kicking the dog that attempted to follow him.

He walked over five miles to the other property with the small RV where we had spent the previous winter, leaving me at the burned-out 5th wheel with no amenities and very little water.

What a summer. A few weeks later that husband gave me a car that was given to him but unusable over the jeep trails we had lived on.

But I wasn’t to stay in Concho. I had plans. I had started finishing my college degree while living off-grid, buying a satellite dish to get internet with my student loans.

I was set to graduate the next May, but my granddaughters were having a birthday in Washington and I had waited almost a year to return to my home state to see my family.

I just had to wait out June.

Historically, June has been about waiting for me. I waited as a child through a month of the boys and men having birthdays. My cousin, brother and grandfather all being celebrated before (or sometimes on) Father’s Day.

Father’s Day. One more trauma holiday for all of us with difficult connections to our paternal family members.

In 1984 on Father’s Day, while celebrating with my grandfather, I went into labor with my oldest son.

I was 17. His birthday is on the 18th of June. We haven’t spoken in over a decade.

More trauma.

With the ebb and flow of trauma holidays once again visiting my life, I sign off of the public stage for a short while.

I may be lurking here and there, but my first priority is to my mental health, then to my personal physical health and family.

I’ll be back. Enjoy your summer!

Love and Lighte from Maggie Slighte!