an act of abuse; violation
to seize, take or carry off by force
A few years ago, I was almost raped. I was almost raped. The first time I was able to say this outloud, admitting it to myself, was 3 weeks after "that night." I drove myself up to the Y parking lot and repeated it over and over again while I sat there and cried for about 2 1/2 hours. I went through the details of that night countless times, trying to see why it happened and what I did wrong to have brought that upon myself.
When I was younger, I remember the school assemblies where they talked about rape and abuse and said how you should report it. They said that even if it happened, it wasn't your fault. I heard girls that had been victims before say that they felt embarrased. They didn't think people would believe them. They said how they were terrified. In my head, I laughed at them thinking that they were stupid. "I would never be that girl! If someone did me wrong like that, I would blow it into a HUGE deal and make sure I got justice for it." I didn't think much of it though because there was NO WAY that I would ever be one of "those" girls.
Wellllll......not even a year after my judgmental thoughts, I WAS one of "those" girls! I'd heard that most victims are attacked by someone that they are close to and I was no exception to that. It was somebody I was close to and trusted. He was somebody I felt safe with. To say that I was scared, is an understatement. I was literally paralyzed in fear! Even after that night, my whole life was "lived" in fear! I was scared to be alone. I was scared to take baths or shower. I couldn't even talk to boys. Even FOOTBALL had changed for me because it threw me into associations of that night. This fool had me so messed up that I second guessed everything and everyone in my life, even down to the point of my own DAD!
Senior year was almost here, and I slowly became more functional with people. Boys especially. At that point, I hadn't told anybody yet and had never felt more alone in my life. At girls camp one night, we had talked about how much God loved us and how we are his daughters. That hit me really hard! Not in the way you'd think though. It made me bitter. It made me even more confused. If God loved me sooooo much then why would he let this happen? ...There's no good that could have come from this....it didn't make me a "better" person, it made me feel cheap and used and like I wasn't worth anything. Hanging around the fire with a couple close friends that night, we talked about what a cool program it had been and how they felt about it. That threw me into a moderate breakdown and that's the night that I first brought it up to anybody.
"The boys" of senior year saved me. They had no idea what had happened and what kind of things I was still going through, but they started to turn me around! They were good. They were nice to me. They didn't do anything to betray my trust. I slowllllllly started to trust boys again and allowed myself to feel safe around them. They were respectful, honored their priesthood and made me feel good about myself again. They helped build up my confidence again. I started to see self-worth in myself.
I guess in a way, I still have fear with me. I let it dominate my life in large ways sometimes. I'm not scared to be alone with guys, it's a different fear. It's a fear of getting hurt again. I had never felt so empty, worthless and broken. Even a hint towards words like "love" or "relationship" will have me RUNNING in the other direction! I realized yesterday that that's not okay with me anymore. This guy messed up and did me wrong in the worst way that he could have. He almost had complete power of me. I refuse to let him continue to have that power over me anymore. It's time for me to start dealing with it and work towards letting it go and moving on.
Yesterday and today I went to this thing at UVU called "Project Clothesline." It's where people that are victims of rape and abuse write on shirts that they hang up and display for people to walk through and read. They have a soundtrack of screams, gongs and bells going off that signifies when somebody is hit, raped and killed. Most people in there were so disturbed. A lot of them came and went really quickly. Some of the shirts re-told parts of their worst nightmare nights. Others were call outs to the guys. Some were peaceful and more on how they healed instead of still focusing on the bad. I loved those ones! I want to be that girl!
I guess that this is part of my attempt for that. Seeing those shirts yesterday was what finally gave me the courage to do something. Most people couldn't wait to get out, but I didn't want to leave! For the first time in YEARS I felt like I wasn't alone and that even though all of these people were totally random and annoymous, they knew what I felt. I sat in the chairs and watched a tape over and over for almost 2 hours, listening to the screams and bells and gongs and feeling totally comforted and "at home." Leaving, I realized that that was kinda sick. I wanted to be at REAL peace with it, without having to sit in a room surrounded by the hearache of other people. I told my mom today. I was terrified and was crying and couldn't even look at her, but I got it all out. It actually made me feel better. A few of my friends knew, but none of them have been there before and there's nothing they could say to make me feel better about myself or the situation. SO, I instead am turning to a therapist.
Hopefully reading this will give somebody else the "courage" to get help the way that those shirts helped me. Mine was 4-5 years ago and I'm just barely working on it. I went through every emotion in the book: fear, embarrasment, denial, anger, resentment and flat out depression. Pushing it away, hating that it happened but essentially ignoring it, doesn't do you any good. Eventually something will come up to trigger it and throw you back into the feelings of it again. That last blue shirt was my favorite one :) 
No comments:
Post a Comment