Two years
Today, 22 December, it's exactly two years ago that I was raped when I was abroad. It feels like much more time has passed, but today I'm thinking about it, not remembering exactly, but having it in the back of my mind. I feel vulnerable, but that's not just the day. It's where I am in the process.
"It's all in the mind." "Life is but a dream." Maybe so, but the feelings are real when you're having a nightmare, and to deny them would be foolish. That only makes sense after you wake up. Til then, you have to make due with what is. This is what is; I was raped. A guy put his hand around my throat and raped me in a field, in broad daylight, not far from a busy road.
I'm working toward my goal, but also pretending everything is fine, just like all the other times bad things happened to me. Well maybe not bad in the grand scheme of things, but certainly scary and painful and embarrassing for the person I was at the time.
I need to write about this stuff, and not tell myself I can't do it because it's 'fighting the demons in the sewer'. As long as I am not awake, this is what I do; dealing with the moment at hand and everything that comes with it. So now I write. Tomorrow it might be irrelevant again, but I can not repress anything. I cannot do that. I'd be denying myself, that's what it feels like right now.
I was raped, I was hurt, I was used, and this time I clearly said no, and I begged and I struggled and then I let it happen when I saw I had no chance of escaping.
The other times in my life when I didn't want to have sex but allowed it to happen anyway, at least I could tell myself it wasn't rape because my no wasn't strong enough and they 'persuaded' me. I was raping myself. I didn't know. What I wanted didn't matter, that's what my parents had taught me, that's what I learned and that's what made me give myself to anyone who wanted me and offered some sort of attention. I prostituted myself for love and attention. I didn't know any better.
Only now, in my thirties, I'm starting to develop a sense of having the right to say no. A clarity of boundaries between what I want and what I don't want, and what the other person wants. They are not one and the same anymore. There is a possibility to say no. What an amazing discovery. It still feels new to me though. I'm still on shaky ground when it comes to boundaries and saying no.
But I am slowly becoming my own person. That is a necessary step, or stop, on the road to where I'm headed. Can't skip any. Keep thinking of that phrase I read somewhere; that you need to have a healthy, ripe ego before it can fall from the tree like ripe fruit. Gotta be a Human Adult before you get to wake up. Aaaarrrghh!!! It's taking so long!! But I'm okay with that, I think, increasingly so anyway. It's okay. I'll get there, I am getting there.
Had my hair cut, well, butchered actually, and had it died a dark chocolaty brown today as well. So instead of long blond hair I now have short brown hair. I wanted some drastic change on the outside to match what's going on inside me. So now I look like a chubby Snowwhite.
This helped, writing all this. Still feel alone though. Alone is good, but it can be lonely. Miss my reader a bit. But boundaries girl, boundaries are too much of an issue. 'Sigh.'
Well, I'm out of here either tomorrow or the day after, depends on the trains (it's a mess here with all the snow), and I probably won't be writing til January. Maybe I can write a little at my mother's house, when she's out or something, but I doubt it. Maybe I'll bring a notepad. Or I'll use my phone again. Anyway, merry christmas and a happy new year***
"It's all in the mind." "Life is but a dream." Maybe so, but the feelings are real when you're having a nightmare, and to deny them would be foolish. That only makes sense after you wake up. Til then, you have to make due with what is. This is what is; I was raped. A guy put his hand around my throat and raped me in a field, in broad daylight, not far from a busy road.
I'm working toward my goal, but also pretending everything is fine, just like all the other times bad things happened to me. Well maybe not bad in the grand scheme of things, but certainly scary and painful and embarrassing for the person I was at the time.
I need to write about this stuff, and not tell myself I can't do it because it's 'fighting the demons in the sewer'. As long as I am not awake, this is what I do; dealing with the moment at hand and everything that comes with it. So now I write. Tomorrow it might be irrelevant again, but I can not repress anything. I cannot do that. I'd be denying myself, that's what it feels like right now.
I was raped, I was hurt, I was used, and this time I clearly said no, and I begged and I struggled and then I let it happen when I saw I had no chance of escaping.
The other times in my life when I didn't want to have sex but allowed it to happen anyway, at least I could tell myself it wasn't rape because my no wasn't strong enough and they 'persuaded' me. I was raping myself. I didn't know. What I wanted didn't matter, that's what my parents had taught me, that's what I learned and that's what made me give myself to anyone who wanted me and offered some sort of attention. I prostituted myself for love and attention. I didn't know any better.
Only now, in my thirties, I'm starting to develop a sense of having the right to say no. A clarity of boundaries between what I want and what I don't want, and what the other person wants. They are not one and the same anymore. There is a possibility to say no. What an amazing discovery. It still feels new to me though. I'm still on shaky ground when it comes to boundaries and saying no.
But I am slowly becoming my own person. That is a necessary step, or stop, on the road to where I'm headed. Can't skip any. Keep thinking of that phrase I read somewhere; that you need to have a healthy, ripe ego before it can fall from the tree like ripe fruit. Gotta be a Human Adult before you get to wake up. Aaaarrrghh!!! It's taking so long!! But I'm okay with that, I think, increasingly so anyway. It's okay. I'll get there, I am getting there.
Had my hair cut, well, butchered actually, and had it died a dark chocolaty brown today as well. So instead of long blond hair I now have short brown hair. I wanted some drastic change on the outside to match what's going on inside me. So now I look like a chubby Snowwhite.
This helped, writing all this. Still feel alone though. Alone is good, but it can be lonely. Miss my reader a bit. But boundaries girl, boundaries are too much of an issue. 'Sigh.'
Well, I'm out of here either tomorrow or the day after, depends on the trains (it's a mess here with all the snow), and I probably won't be writing til January. Maybe I can write a little at my mother's house, when she's out or something, but I doubt it. Maybe I'll bring a notepad. Or I'll use my phone again. Anyway, merry christmas and a happy new year***
posted by M. at 11:55 PM
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