Meet the Girl.

Hi. Welcome to my site. I don’t know how you got here, but I’m glad you did. I wanted for you to get a sense of who is behind the words and pictures you see here. What’s my story? It’s one that will probably shock some, encourage others, and well, that’s how life goes, right? I started out as a loud, outspoken, defiant, and rebellious little girl. I have been wearing glasses ever since I could walk. When I was born, I came out cross-eyed. I was also born premature, quite a couple months early, coming in at 2 pounds and 13 ounces, with a retinal detachment in my eyes which caused for impaired vision from the very start of my birth. Not to mention the lack of oxygen to my brain, time spent in the incubator, and oh lest I forget to mention this hideous looking scar on my left breast, which makes it look deranged. I have extremely bad vision and my condition has been the same since birth. To this day, I am legally blind in one eye. I can’t tell you how much it sucks having two eyes but really only getting full strength out of one of them. I am as blind as a bat, you just can’t tell. That is why I’m sitting here telling you.

I grew up in a household with two traditional Chinese parents who did everything in their power to make sure that their kids were on top of things both academically and behaviorally. So, you better be sure there was a lot of disciplining going on from spanking, to yelling, to ignoring to punishing. And me, well to get the attention that I so desperately wanted I did everything and anything that caused me to be disciplined in a variety of ways. I was given most if not all, negative attention but attention nonetheless, right? Honestly, I don’t remember a lot about my childhood, except for the times I got punished when everyone else (including my brother) got to go play, how I would feel bad that they would all have to be waiting for me and the embarrassment that came from always being the one called out, made an example of in front of the other kids, adults, including my own brother. So, as it were, I was the “black sheep” in my family and my brother was the obedient one, sweet one, cute one etc., pretty much all the good attributes that you’d want your child to have … I was believed to have none, the “problem child”. I was so much of a “problem child” that my parents couldn’t and didn’t know how to deal with or handle me (because one child was enough) that they sent me away to live with then, some family friends. Even though I was young, I came to understand and interpret that as “I’m bad, my parents don’t want me. Why don’t they want me?"

Before the summer of my starting 5th grade, things had gotten so bad that my parents, once again sent me to live with the family friends. In December of that year (1998) was the first time I ever truly met Christ. I formed a pretty intimate relationship with those family friends and in the same token, came into a relationship with Jesus Christ. By the summer before I entered what some call Junior High or Middle School, a falling out had taken place between the family friends and my parents. One spring day after school, I came home only to find out that the family friend would no longer be looking after my brother and me while my parents were out in the city working. My mom had asked, “What did you do to make her stop wanting to come? Did you do anything?” Me not knowing what had gone on (I had just heard the four adults fighting the night before) said, “We didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.” Being stuck in the middle of this falling out, I found myself asking, “What did I do that was so bad that they didn’t want me?”

By the time I hit high school, after having attempted suicide twice before (admittedly cries for attention), instead of resorting back to suicide attempts and cutting, in an effort to deal with, face, or escape from (these were cyclical) I had started masturbating as a form of release from the pain, some suppressed and some on the surface, or everything that had happened up until that point. Pretty soon, the form of release became a daily activity for me as a way of escape from the pain that I had tried to bury. At the beginning stages of my struggle, I was still very active in ministry, teaching Sunday school, being involved in AWANA (a children’s ministry) and serving as one of the church pianists.

During my senior year in high school, I had told God that before I went off to college, I wanted to be rid of masturbation, that I would no longer be involved with it. I wanted a fresh start, a chance at healthy friendships and healthy relationships with the opposite sex, if God still found me worthy of having one. My freshman year in college was definitely a difficult time in my life. Nyack College, I thought, was my place of escape from it all – my non-existent relationship with my parents, the guilt I felt as I thought my brother must have hated me throughout his childhood because he would always have to try and maintain order in the midst of all the chaos, and well finally, the chance for my parents to have their wish of a normal family, with their good son. Those internal thoughts just wove deeper my web of pain. I felt lonely, unwanted, unworthy, and defective … these were feelings that were all too familiar to me because I had met them way early on in my childhood. At the time, I did what I thought would provide me a sense of belonging – I attempted to befriend those who were of my culture or had similar cultural roots. Though that got me a little sense of belonging, deep down inside I hadn’t felt that it was a genuine sense; it was more of a genuine sense of conformity that led to that pseudo sense of belonging. They were nice people, but deep down inside I just thought there had to be something MORE. Now in my classes, there were a couple of people here and there that I thought I might be able to befriend who were not of my culture or had similar culture roots, but because of my own insecurities, and let’s not forget my hidden life of secret sin and the things that came with that (like fear, rejection, guilt, shame), I held all the people I met at a distance, and had learned to put up emotional and relational barriers (once again, these habits were ones I knew all too well, for I had developed them in childhood starting with my parents).

From attempting to find a sense of belonging in making friends, I moved to trying to do the same in opposite sex relationships. Freshman year, I had briefly dated this sweet Korean boy. He was goofy, funny, and tried to be as best he could a friend and boyfriend. But, because of what I held inside and the immensity of my internal struggle with all the things that I had tried to leave behind, I did not allow him to learn and grow, neither did I allow those things for myself. I ended up hurting myself and those around me, but I must thank the people that were in my life at that point because I was not a pleasurable person to be around, and they dealt with me.

Before the end of my freshman year, I was sexually abused by two different men in my life on two separate occasions. The two men were so I thought, friends. One I had gotten to know through class and the other through mutual friends. Now, let me clarify something here. Sexual abuse here means that I was forced to do something that I did not want to do (whether I voiced it verbally or through my body language). I was not raped, but I was violated - touched in places that I shouldn’t have been, and asked to do things that I was uncomfortable with, did not want to do, but was guided or led into doing anyway. During the summer of my sophomore year (2004), I once again attempted to escape from what had happened just that spring, in addition to the family stuff that I had escaped to college in order to avoid dealing with it all. I spent my summer studying at Cedarville University where I met three amazing girls who God brought into my life to begin my healing journey from the past wounds that I was running away from. Then, by the fall of 2004, God brought me right back to the place of my pain, now everywhere I turned on campus, brought back memories, flashbacks, and I found myself to always be on the lookout for one of the guys, who I knew was still on campus. I lived my life in fear that I would be sexually abused again, and worse this time I would do so without a flinched bone in my body. As God would have it, not long after I confronted one of my abusers who apologized for what he did, it was brought to my attention that he had been suffering psychologically, was on medications for a variety of mental illnesses, and as a result of his attacking someone on campus, he was arrested and escorted off campus. I have heard it said, “Hurt people HURT people.” What truth.

By my junior year in college, God had brought along a great group of girls who I had the privilege of sharing a home with in Christie Hall on 4 North. He used these girls to usher in the beginnings of a wonderful healing season of which I am still traveling through to this day. I would love to say that the story ends here and I lived happily ever after but, it doesn’t. Hang in there with me for a little while longer.

In 2006, after the loss of my dear friend, Jennifer Leghorn who had fought a long and hard battle with some form of pediatric cancer, I plummeted into a deep dark depression complete with loss of purpose, direction, and an extreme lack of clarity with anything having to do with life and ministry. This was all going on while I was still stuck in my struggle with masturbation. The good news is that at this point, I had become able to openly share the story of my struggle in tidbits with a girl or two who I trusted at the time. So, the healing was coming in bits and pieces of more real and tangible ways. Right then, the need to run resurfaced itself as a result of Jen’s death, and a multitude of things that had taken place before then. So, by August 2006, I had relocated to New York City and was going to finish out my last year at Nyack College’s Manhattan Campus. Up until this point, my habit of carrying my guilt and shame, running off anywhere and everywhere so as not to have to deal with it, had not proved to be helpful or beneficial at all. But because that was all I knew how to do, I landed right back into the habit, and what I have come to call my defense mechanism. Now for someone who had been struggling with masturbation, having an apartment to myself only served as a place where I could and did, go deeper into my struggle, adding a hint of lesbian porn to the mix. In that first year I moved out to the city, I became stuck knee deep in my struggle with masturbation in combination with a growing desire for watching lesbian porn while masturbating.

Because of my fear, guilt, shame, feelings of impurity, and worthlessness, lust arrived at my door. Prior to this time, I had never really struggled with lust. It was almost as if it was a demonic spirit that I had allowed to oppress me, notice I said oppress and not possess, big difference. I lusted, but not after men because of the immense amounts of hurt and betrayal that they had caused me, but after women. In my anger towards men, I started to notice a growing attraction toward certain women. These feelings were not unfamiliar ones, because I had become acquainted with them in college, coming upon strong feelings for a good girlfriend of mine, who did not judge me, but walked me through that period and still remains one of my best friends today. There is a specific incident where, I had a girlfriend over and we had gotten into a discussion about our sexual struggles and then before we knew it, we were on the rug, engaged in a massive make out session. Then … here it comes, when I started having those feelings and flashbacks of being violated and touched in places where I shouldn’t be, I spoke up firmly saying, “Stop! We can’t do this, it isn’t right.” I sat up, looked at her, seeing the pain in her eyes and said, “I am SO sorry. I am SO sorry for what just happened. You are my sister in Christ and I love you. I know that God has better plans for you, for us than this. We don’t have to do this. I believe that He can make us better. Right now, I am angry at men, I can’t see myself in a relationship with any of them, I can’t see myself liking them, not to mention loving them because I am too bitter. BUT, somewhere deep down inside a shred of my heart still believes that I would make a good wife, a good mom … I want the chance to be. I don’t know if God will give it to me after all of this, but I want to believe … I want to try.” After we cried and cried, the girlfriend of mine shared with me about how she had been sexually abused by her cousins when she was a young girl, and because of that she has been left in her sexual struggle. What pain in the faces of every day ordinary people. Please, pay attention, be mindful, be aware, be alert, and always be asking God what to say, what not to say, what to do, and what not to do … all in the name of Jesus.

All this to say, in the course of the last couple of years, I myself have struggled with and THROUGH so much, so much from entertaining the thought of “coming out of the closet,” leading a Christian homosexual (lesbian) lifestyle, while trying to love Christ, disassociating myself from any form of organized religion (specifically the evangelical Christian traditions and denominations) because I have been a part of and observed where in churches, ministries, and other Christian institutions, individuals or groups are treated as outcasts, as being inferior, all because of either what they struggle with, what they do or don’t do, the amount of money they make or don’t make, where they live or don’t live, what they have or don’t have, the degrees or positions they hold or don’t hold, the nationality they are or aren’t, the religious beliefs they hold to or don’t hold to, their personal opinions on this or on that … quite honestly, I was more than ready to exit the universal Church doors and never look back, because I questioned whether they (or we rather, because for a time, I saw myself as an outsider) were really doing what Jesus would be doing, because as evangelicals, we often go around asking ourselves and others, “What Would Jesus Do?” Well now, so REALLY, What would Jesus do if x, y, or z?.

I share all of this not to condemn, judge, or criticize anyone … or maybe, more than likely, honestly, I do … and I DO. But all the more, I share my story because then you can see … I come at this having been on both sides of the fence, really. If this doesn’t provoke you to do anything, I would hope that my vulnerability and transparency will cause you to think, reflect, and maybe someday be moved and led to action, to change, to HEALING.

“Instead of their shame, my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance; and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs.” – Isaiah 61: 7 (NIV)

May you learn to be well and love well, one moment … one day at a time.

Peace,
Alicia Wu