This post was edited from its original form to remove the actual name of The Plaintiff in CL11-5265-00 while I fight this individual’s malicious legal action in Prince William County Circuit Court. For now, the pseudonym Sahn deLuce will appear in place of the actual name of The Plaintiff.
When I started this blog in November 2008, I had run out of time and good options.
My recovery from my April 11, 2008 rape was excruciating, expensive and complicated (and still is). In the months afterwards, the man who raped me, Sahn deLuce, then a nearby neighbor, continued to date women, repeatedly and flatly refusing my verbal and written requests for testing for sexually transmitted diseases. These results would have helped me and my doctors know exactly to what I might have been exposed when the condom broke. This was especially important for me because I have hypoadrenia, which causes serious immune system impairment.
To be clear, a condom break—under all circumstances—should mean that both people automatically get tested and the results made available to both parties. This can be handled privately, of course. But Sahn deLuce made that impossible.
Sahn deLuce repeatedly refused to get testing and give me the results, refusing even to have a civil conversation about it. Then he added more fear, alarm and uncertainty to this already awful situation by admitting to having herpes-I during a July 24, 2008 phone call. It really didn’t matter, at that point, which disease he admitted to having. I needed the validated medical test results for the spectrum of STDs to begin effective and appropriate treatment, with least harm to my fragile and, at that time, failing health.
That July day, he reiterated again his refusal to submit to complete STD testing, even after I told him I was ill and needed this information (see the 12 numbered posts in Recovery Chronicles for details). THESE POSTS WILL BE EDITED AND MADE PUBLIC AGAIN WITH THE PSEUDONYM SAHN DELUCE, WHILE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS COMMENCE.
My doctor, a specialist in infectious disease, joined me in observing the red flag.
If he had nothing to hide, why would he refuse testing? Had he informed those he was seeing? How could I remain quiet when I had any information that could potentially spare them from exposure and particularly in light of his evasive behavior?
Then someone very credible and close to him contacted me with some startling information that confirmed my reason to fear for both my safety and that others were being exposed. Revealing direct knowledge of his intentions, this caller also clearly warned me that I was in physical danger and that Sahn deLuce—then a neighbor—was attempting to coerce the caller to file a false police report about me (see Recovery Chronicles Part VII).
This frightening development spurred my decision to plan this site and publish this story, as soon as possible. But I needed time to make legal contacts, research, give Sahn deLuce notice of my plan and time to respond to my terms before I launched this site using his name. I contacted a lawyer, the police and my homeowners association to cover my bases. Armed with knowledge of my legal boundaries, I commissioned a signage company to design the secrets2tell message for the back of my car:
No Victims!
Raise Your Voice Today. Silence? So yesterday.
www.secrets2tell.com
This information needed to be out NOW. I found a Web site, Don’t Date Him Girl (www.dontdatehimgirl.com), and immediately posted a Sahn deLuce profile summarizing my story, pulling no punches. Women read it and, over the past three years, contacted me, confirming that it was in the public interest to disseminate this information.
(Special thanks to Don’t Date Him Girl for providing the first forum that allowed me to post a profile about Sahn deLuce and begin warning women months before I could start this site. You helped me make a difference, DDHG. Thanks a billion!)
Nearly three years after secrets2tell’s launch, Sahn deLuce is filing a defamation suit against me and the Web hosting company. Understandably, DDHG yielded to his threats and took down his profile, avoiding being named in the suit. I have been indirectly informed that an injunction hearing is set for Oct. 7 in Prince William County, VA, though I have not yet been served.
It is a sad reality that I can’t have a permanent address right now. It is sad that I have valid reasons to fear this man’s potential, and sadder still that (right now) being transient is the safest course of action for me—even while I am in the midst of a hardcore and terribly protracted recovery from the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reignited by his 2008 rape of me. Living feet away from him didn’t help my recovery and neither did what happened on Sept. 18, 2010.
Escape to the Shenandoah
Until Dec. 6, 2010, I lived at 15759 Widewater Drive in Montclair, VA. The neighborhood, for me, was not a good one, and I lived there for a decade.
My time there was brutal, tainted by my struggle with chronic illness, an odd spattering of random neighborhood violence and the threat of it: my 2008 rape and, ultimately, a Sept. 18 murder-suicide that was just the last straw.
What was hell for me is (I’m sure) heaven for others. So know that the context and content of this post reflect my experience, and mine alone.
That said, even before I moved to this neighborhood in May 2001, I had a story, a difficult and compelling history of abuse and trauma that I had told many times, sometimes while I spoke on training panels for Fairfax County foster care as an adult who was in the system as a child.
I didn’t need a new storyline involving being raped at 38, nor did I need to witness the aftermath of Robert Bates driving his wife, Jennifer Bates, into my neighborhood, murdering her and then killing himself.
My struggle with PTSD was forged the hard way. Childhood beatings, molestations, multiple rapes, and the brutal murders and deaths of people I dearly love. The story was complete and painful enough to hear, let alone tell. It was not uncommon for people to cry as they passed me after my testimony on foster care panels.
The days after the murder-suicide brought a horrible PTSD setback that I fought hard, and unsuccessfully, to contain. The chaos that swallowed my life in its wake came with a remarkable miracle that made it possible for me to leave my house penalty-free. It came within a week of my deciding that moving was mandatory for me. I had a private mortgage company that was responsible for administering this miracle.
These events and others that unfolded all around me at the time changed the course of my life, and the direction of the book I am writing to tell the secrets2tell story. Per usual for this windy adventure, it was not in my plan.
As I prepared to move, a secluded, picturesque home opened to me in the Virginia mountains, offering (so I thought) the temporary sanctuary I needed to recover and to write the new version of the secrets2tell book, now titled, Marked: A Call to Heal Damned Hearts.
The title called out to me in those early days after the murder-suicide. It was born of my desperate and despaired realization that seemingly unrelated events in my life—events that seemed like bad luck or unfortunate coincidence—truly had deep roots in my early sexual and physical abuse. Worthlessness, imposed silence, patterns of violation and violence, fear and their malignant bedfellows all masterminded every event in my life for 41 years, despite my best efforts to change my fate using the best therapy and holistic approaches I could find.
Shell shocked and stunned, I escaped to the mountains and began a journey to save myself from a life that seemed hell-bent on killing me. True to the path of a “marked” woman, it would get much worse before it would get better.
Focused
I am a focused woman, even amid delicate health and a hard recovery. I’m busy writing Marked, which takes readers from the murder-suicide, weaving the story (partly) covered in the Recovery Chronicles series and the dark roots that landed me there, through my time alone on the mountain, the rocky road to wholeness, legal developments and the current state of this nascent revolution.
I remember when there were nine (yes, 9!) subscribers on this site, probably all friends of mine! Today, as I write this post, there are a couple thousand subscribers and supporters between this site and the facebook group I started titled “Stop Sexual Violence Against Children and Support Recovery from All Sexual Abuse.” This is especially remarkable given how infrequent my posts have been lately.
I am learning to surrender to the process—be it my own recovery or building this effort. Truly, the course is out of my control.
One thing I do control is my own story. No one will stop me from telling it. My health may buckle. My spirit? Never. I lived threatened and afraid for decades; three of the worst years spent living frighteningly close to a man who raped me, a man who then made clear to me that he would sooner do me harm, sooner see me suffer, than be accountable or help me in any way.
Really? At the very least, I deserved his cooperation on the STD testing, and given the chance, would have cooperated with him. Instead, I worried and suffered through six months of HIV testing, saw my health literally swoon and required (and continue to require) medical tests and treatments/therapies, mostly trauma-related. The full burden of all of this falls on my lone shoulders, with little to no help. No one deserves that.
Telling this story cast Sahn deLuce into the light of day. Telling this story continues to empower others by informing them of his capacity, giving them a true choice about whether to associate with him. Some have never met nor ever will meet him or anyone else named on this site. Those supporters lovingly reflect to me that my story serves as a beacon for those lost in the dark of trauma.
Telling freed me of a decades-old spell binding me to victimization. My own voice, spoken and written, called forth my freedom and the hope that one day my life would be different, better.
Telling was just the beginning, though. This effort is far bigger than Sahn deLuce. For now, moving forward remains complicated. PTSD is complicated and recovery from it totally labored and unpredictable. Personal safety is difficult to gauge right now. Add the uncertain outcome of legal challenge, and complication abounds.
This one thing is clear. I refuse to cower, to be quiet or maintain fear. I perfected living in fear over the course of far too many years.
Think I was free because I wrote about him on this blog or shouted loud his secrets (and mine) to his face in the street? Try looking over your shoulder every time you leave your house or return home. Clamor to lock the door behind you every time you get home or shut your car door like you just narrowly escaped capture and tell me how free you feel. I’ll tell you how I felt— like a hunted animal on the verge of being caught.
In those early days of standing up to him, I shouted for my life, literally. I had no idea what would be his next move. My only protection was to raise my voice, my pen and put this story in a place he could not control, a place that would speak for me if he succeeded in silencing me forever.
Had I known on November 10, 2008 (this site’s launch date) what I know now, I wouldn’t have bothered using a pseudonym, which I chose to use to give myself time to get through recovery without having to be any more exposed than I already was. I owned that Jade Isaacs was a pseudonym right from the beginning. (Seriously? I had a full-time job, a part-time job, a wicked commute and an obscene number of doctor’s appointments. I also spoke on foster care panels and knew that, if I started telling this story in this way, it could bring fast attention, possibly from the media. I didn’t know. But I knew I needed time.)
Back then, I thought I’d recover in one year, be good as new, have the book written and the outreach funded and ready to launch. That’s (almost) funny, now.
Before my April 2008 rape, I had not planned on talking about my abuse history on any blog—and certainly not one this bold. I planned on simply continuing to speak on Fairfax County foster care training panels. I thought I’d simply write a book that would set me off on a nice orderly speaking tour, largely in child welfare venues. Sahn deLuce changed those plans, decisively.
Little did I know that recovery would be so long and complicated and that I would be forced to tell my employers my story because of the number of doctor’s visits I required and how public this effort really had to be.
My privacy and freedom to choose when and how I spoke about these issues left long ago, along with the opportunity to maintain employment in peace. The burden has been tremendous, in every way.
When I started this mission, I splashed the secrets2tell message and Web address across the back of my car, stripping myself of any hope of true anonymity, if that was my true goal. It was not. Anyone who really wanted to know who “Jade Isaacs” was could have done fast Internet research…or just emailed me!
I will continue to use this pseudonym because it has special meaning to me. My real name is Esmeralda Barnes. My first name is the Spanish word for emerald, a green stone said to represent hope, wisdom, luck, etc. The stone “jade” has some similar attributes and coloring.
To take the name “Jade” on this site was to push beyond all the suffering that came with the then-very-broken “Esmeralda,” keeping only hope, wisdom, luck. Isaac was my father’s first name. “Isaacs” reminded me that I am the daughter of a man who was resilient and strong, very human, but, nonetheless, a force to be reckoned with.
No daughter of this Isaac would ever break. Ever. I needed the power of Jade Isaacs.
The name is a part of me and ever will be. I don’t hide behind it. I invoke it.
I know the risks of this effort. Greater are the consequences of silence. I’ve even crossed paths with random would-be aggressors in the streets (and highways) who make their hatred for this cause, and sometimes me, known. They appear to be set off by the signage on the back of my car. I’ll say it again. Greater are the consequences of silence.
This is my story, my truth and my public mission to use my story to protect those who would otherwise blindly walk into harm’s way, at the beckoning of people who only “seem” safe. I stand on the power of that truth and now walk fearlessly into the light of day, transcending the victim archetype and owning all parts of my story. I suffered and bled for the right to tell this story, and telling is exactly what I intend to do.
While Sahn deLuce threatens me with legal action and private investigators, I am spurred by a healthy and wise type of fear to take legal steps to protect myself (and potentially others) should he or his agents attempt anything nefarious. I’m not afraid of what happens fair and square, in the light of day.
I am living proof that (debilitating) fear has a shelf life. When it expires, what’s left is the raw, nearly savage drive of a human spirit not only to survive, but to live, to truly live.
“The most dangerous creation in society is the man who has nothing to lose.” ~James Baldwin
Equally dangerous, I say, is the woman who has had ENOUGH. I carry this mission boldly on my car and in my heart and in my body, every day of every week of every year. As I grow stronger, I will only shout louder and in bolder ways.
I will keep naming names, when it serves public interest and would protect public safety. I will keep telling my story and the stories of other victims. My hope and intention is to empower others to reach the healing and balance that helps them avoid suffering, particularly the kind I have come to know so well.
NO ONE deserves to suffer like this. For those who do, I intend to illuminate the choices they do have, the steps they can take to take back their lives and power.
I am the Rev. Esmeralda Barnes, known here on secrets2tell as Jade Isaacs, and I own this truth, this story and the right to tell it.
Magnificent thanks to all who supported me, and continue to do so, even through my apparent silence on this blog. Know I will never forget your loyal support. I’m working hard to represent and show you how it’s done—surviving and thriving, that is.
One way or the other, I’ll keep you posted. ~J