Dr. John A. King describes his journey through severe childhood sexual abuse and finding a therapist named Mona in South Dakota who specializes in trauma. He committed to two sessions a day, three days a week for three weeks, and moved from feeling hopeless to recognizing his own resilience. Mona later told him he was the most resilient person she'd ever met.
After doing all this reading and all this research, I was speaking to a business mate and his mother-in-law was a therapist and she'd had a— because part of the problem with therapists is they're really good with theory, but they've got no experience whatsoever. And so here's a whole lot of people trying to tell me how to cope with, you know, they've got no parameters for it. Or they've dealt with combat people, they haven't dealt with sexual abuse people. So it's, and it's different beasts, man. It's the same trauma, but there's different ways of getting there. I went up to see this lady, Mona, and she was in South Dakota. I was doing a bodybuilding competition up there at the time. And I went in to see her and I'm pretty sure she was Satan, you know, and she was going to consume my soul and post it on Facebook. 'Cause here I was gonna sit down and get all vulnerable and tell her my story. And, you know, all the antitrust paranoia, fear, everything kicks in, you know. So I go up and see this lady, you know, in retrospect, she was, you know, probably 65 and 4 foot tall and gray and cute. So I went up to Mona and I went to see her and, you know, I go in for my first counseling session and I have a chat to her. And she said, okay, she was sitting there very serious. standard 45-minute session. You know, I had my little jar of M&Ms that they give you to calm you, and we've got all this calming music and everything's calming and smelling calming, very calming. And she's over there and she takes up her therapist position, you know, with the therapist nod. Yes, and glasses and just the therapist nod. So she's over there doing that, and I'm over there with my bowl of M&Ms going, right. How long did it take you to get to the point where you said, I'm done? And I'm making this conscious decision. I'm either gonna lie to her and be out in 15 minutes, or I'm gonna tell her the truth and be out of there in 15 minutes, or I'm gonna tell her the truth and something's gonna come of it and gonna do something. So I'm sitting there with this jar of M&Ms, just running my finger around it, you know, thinking, all right, this is my one chance. I'm gonna do this. So I go, well, the first memory I had was oral sex at the age of 4. And I just kept on talking and the buzzer goes off at 45 minutes and she, therapist, she goes, keep talking. So talk about, you know, and the scoutmaster did this and we go on for another thing. So she comes, buzzer goes off, she picks up her phone, secretary, can you please cancel my appointments? Goes on and we're 2 hours into this thing and I get to the end of it. And she looks at me and she says, John, that is the worst story I've ever heard. Your life is terrible and I can't possibly help you. Your case is hopeless. I was gonna punch this woman, mate. I thought I was gonna reel over and just clock her, you know. So, so I go back to stirring. I've got about 3 left. I go back to stirring my M&Ms. I said, Well, the problem with that, Mona, is I've decided you're going to help me. So I don't need you to be perfect and I don't need you to be my savior. I just need you to give me tools for my toolbox. Just give me some skills so I can, so I can, you know, have something to work with. But she— I saw her the next day and she said, well, listen, I really— first of all, I want to apologize for my lack of professional behavior. I've never done that. I said, that's all right, love. I said, I think I can help you. I want to help you. And she said, what I want you to do is make an appointment and come back once every 2 weeks, and we'll process things together, and then we'll be able to do it. I said, okay, well, thank you. The problem here is I'm here for 3 weeks, so I'd like to do 2 a day, every day, for the next 21 days and just get this done. And she goes, that's impossible. No. can possibly cope with that much. I said, I just remember leaning forward, I said, you don't know me. I said, I will beat this and I will beat it in the next 21 days, but I need your help. So we managed to negotiate it down to 2 a day, 3 days a week for 3 weeks. So I'd get up in the morning, I'd go to the gym and train, come and see Mona, go through a session, go back and have a cry over lunch, then go and do cardio in the afternoon and cry. And go back and see Mona, and then come back and cry some more at the cardio equipment. So it's in South Dakota in winter, and I'd be walking into the gym sobbing, and my beard would be frozen snot, and I'd be on the cardio machine, but I suck. And go back and see Mona again and come back in, and it was just 3 weeks like that, mate. And it was just a beating, but I got it done. I collected tools for it and I was able to process a bunch of stuff and get it out. And Mona is the person, it's the first person who ever, and was probably the greatest compliment I ever got, I was ever told. She looked at me one day and said, Yeah, John, you're the most resilient person I've ever met. And it was the first time That I had hope that I could beat it. You know, it's like I didn't know what I could be. I knew, I knew I was fucked up. I knew I'd fucked up my marriage. I'd fucked up my kids. I knew I was just fucked up. But now I knew I was resilient. I was resiliently fucked up. I don't know how that works. You know, it's like mega fucked up. I don't know what that is, you know, but I was resiliently fucked up and I could do this. And whatever this was that I needed to do, I could just get this done. If I ran at it, if I got after this thing, then I could beat this thing. Because I knew now what I was fighting against. Because this was the first time someone explained to me what I was having to deal with and gave me some tools to— Up to now, man, it was like climbing in the ring with a heavyweight champion. And never having been to a boxing class. It didn't get any less painless after that because I was still climbing in the ring with a heavyweight champion, you know, with gloves on for the first time. But at least I had a chance. I just felt I had a chance.
