I have only written about this…two times…maybe. I don’t know how the words bouncing around my head will spill out, but we’ll see.

The past 8 years I have been trying on my own, mostly unsuccessfully, to try to come to terms with the fact that “I was raped”. At first, I was blank, lost, vulnerable. Next I was depressed and in denial…denial transitioned quite nicely into recklessness and disregard for my life. All the while depression loomed, I felt responsible, guilty and those feelings never went away, they just festered. 

Rape, it is supposed to be violent right? I mean that is how it is portrayed. Some stories are so terrible that I can’t imagine how the women survived. My “story” well, it wasn’t so violent. Looking back, being much older and a little wiser, I know my (drunken)instincts really saved me. He was angry, so angry and the violence was there, boiling under the surface. When I walked into the room to go to bed he was there. He pushed me on the bed and sat on my chest. I was terrified. A young girl, 17, so naive about sex. I was saving myself for someone important, for someone who meant the world to me. I play back those moments in my head like a movie, I can sit and watch it, I even remember the layout of the room. I used to think, why didn’t I just bite him instead of lamely thrusting my head from side to side trying to get it out of my mouth. Well, because his anger would have exploded into more violence. My next thought when he climbed off me was, if I give him what he wants, it won’t be as bad. Choking back tears I whispered, “just fuck me”. He was still violent and I cried for him to stop, please stop. All he did was pause and say “a virgin huh?”. I remember trying to watch the tv in an out of body way rather than experience what was happening. When he was done, he grabbed the clothes he ripped off, and threw them at me like I was a whore. “put these on before someone sees you.” I was broken and my innocent dreams, shattered.

Those three words I whispered have haunted me for 8 years. I know, in the back of my mind they saved me from a much worse experience, maybe even saved my life. My gut, which has never been wrong, knows my words did. But, I can’t help but feel like I asked for it instead of preventing worse. The struggle between feeling like a whore who asked for it, and feeling like a lost victim has really effected my life. I kept this all to myself for years, telling no one. I never got “help” and though I needed psychological help before this and especially after, I still have not gone. It was my fault right? I didn’t need a shrink adding more guilt onto my shoulders.

I have, in a way, finally come to terms with all of this. It is pretty funny, and kinda lame how I was able to get through most of the guilt. Last year, my crime drama loving self got into watching Law & Order SVU. After 8 or 9 seasons straight, all the episodes where Det. Benson constantly tells these girls it was not their fault and explains how the rapist manipulates, things started to click, and I started to feel a little better. Part of me knows it was not my fault, and part of me, it still feels like I asked for it.

I do not know what the point of this post really was, I guess I have never really put into words my guilt and shame and felt I needed to. I’m not looking for sympathy and I am not writing this for footprints or any xanga related stuff. I wrote this, for my head and my heart. For healing.

Someone on xanga recently asked, “If you had a magic lamp and 3 wishes, what would your wishes be?” I will share my answer.

I would wish for an end to sexual crimes. No more rape, no more molestation, and especially especially no more sexual crimes to be committed against children. That is a world I wish for. My other wishes, they are undecided.