They aren't going to prosecute him

I found out yesterday that the DPP (in Ireland) have decided not to prosecute my rapist. The police here felt that there was a strong case and recommended that he be charged with rape and assault but the DPP decided not to prosecute him because there was alcohol involved and because there was a question of consent because I willingly left myself alone with him.

I think I'm still in shock, I don't understand it. They have it written in the legislation that alcohol can not be used as a reason or excuse but yet that's the main reason that the DPP gave. Because he was drunk and I was drunk then he gets away with it. I might have been drunk but I was in no way falling around the place, I had consumed alcohol but was in my full and right mind and so was he. I made it clear to him over and over again that I wanted him to stop and fought him for an hour before finally giving in, I had bruises and bite marks on my body which were documented and photo's were taken but still they won't prosecute him. He admitted having sex with me so how can they believe that the injuries I sustained were as a result of 'passion' as he called it.

This sends the message that well it's ok for you to rape someone as long as both people have drink taken. If you've drink taken you'll get away with it. That's the message we are sending, it's ok as long as your both drunk. You can do what you want with her then.

I don't understand it. He gets away with it and I am here in a crumbling mess.

New memory

I just remembered something about that night, it's awful. I wish I didn't remember it. I don't have anyone to tell. How is it after nearly 8 months a new memory just pops into my head. I can hardly breathe. No sleep for me tonight. I really don't want to remember this. I feel so panicked and scared. I'm so scared. I don't want to remember.

My Birthday next week

It's my birthday next week and it will also be 8 months since it happened :-(
Needless to say I'm not looking forward to it. I hope it will just pass by without any fuss. It seems any bit of anxiety even good anxiety gives me a tension pain in my jaw so I don't want anyone to acknowledge it or talk about it or give me a card or present or anything.

I used to love birthdays.

I've told everyone that I don't want a fuss but I have a feeling that won't happen. All I'll be thinking about is this time 8 months ago.....

God how sad my life has become. It's truly awful how much rape infects every aspect of your life. It's like a disease that spreads through your heart, soul and mind and you have to live with it forever.

Still working on being a bit more positive than the day before. It's hard.

They see me now

I posted yesterday about an email that I had sent to my support network, the response was a bit mixed. Most thought it was great and I got some great responses, some were a little upset by it. I meant for it to be a check in, to say honestly here is how I am. Anyways, it's done now. But they all see me now, how I really am. It's out there and I'm afraid. I'm afraid that they will not like the real me. I'm scared that they will get sick of me. I'm scared that they will walk away from me. I'm scared of getting hurt even more I've left myself wide open. I don't know if I could take much more, I still feel like I'm at the brink and one more thing could push me over the edge.

I know my sisters are looking for this blog but they'll never find it!! Maybe some day I'll show them, when I'm better.

Yesterday I was full of good energy, peoples support on this blog helped me to go... right! do something to help yourself today but today I'm back down in the dumps. I'm not as bad as I was but I just can't seem to get out of bed. I swear I used to be a fun person, sensitive but fun. I would crack jokes and have a laugh, I didn't always whine this much!

One of my favourate sayings before this was 'life doesn't throw you anything you can't handle' what a load of crap. Life throws loads of people stuff they can't handle! If I try and think positively what would help make today better, get out of bed, face the day, what was it that Andrew told me to say yesterday - It was not my fault, today I will work on being more positive than yesterday.

It was not my fault, today I will work on being more positive than yesterday. It is work.
Today I will WORK on being more positive than yesterday.

I have to work on it. Right get out of this bed girl, this is not your life, this is not who you are.
Today I will work on being more positive than yesterday.

Reaching Out

Why is it so hard to reach out to people who I love, who I have grown up with. These people I would do anything for but when it comes to me needing them to be there for me I feel I don't deserve it. How messed up is that, ridiculous, I am sick of feeling this way about myself. I had some amazingly helpful comments to my previous posts which led me to send the following email to those close to me:

Hello everyone,

So I've been doing this blog thing and am receiving a surprising and heartwarming response to it. It's a blog to share my thoughts about what happened to me and to put it out there in the world wide web and who knows maybe it might help someone someday. Don't go looking for it you'll never find it, it's anonymous  

Anyways on Sunday night/Monday morning I was pretty low and posted on my blog at about 6:30am when I was exhausted from the lack of sleep and feeling a bit crazy from it. The posting received an overwhelming reaction and loads of people who I will never know posted comments of support and also some tips to help me get a bit of hope in to me when I'm at my lowest. One of the tips was to reach out to the people I needed to and I'm not very good at that. Most of you know that I've made myself a bit of the Mammy of the gang and am used to minding everyone else but I have no idea how to mind myself and be kind to myself, that is a whole new learning for me. 

The suggestion was that if I didn't feel comfortable speaking about what I feel to those close to me then to email it so here I am. It's a bit corny but f**k it I'm desperate to get my head on straight and get my life back to some form of normality. So I'm going to write a couple of things in a list (ha ha me and my lists!) just to share with you and nothing else. I'm not expecting nor do I need for anyone to come to do anything from this, only I can build myself back up, if you feel like sending something back then do but your not under an obligation, it just struck me that some of you might be wondering how I am and not have a clue but strangers in the world do know. Your my friends and my family so I just wanted to share with you because your important to me  . 

Right, here we go...

Where I'm at now:

Pretty low.

Off work again 

Anxious

Have jaw pain 

Scared 

Determined

Confused 

Focused on getting better. 

Not getting better fast enough

What I do know

That what happened was a crime 

FD  deserves what's coming and alot more

That I'm very lucky to have the support that I have

That I'm not ok but I will be. 

What I'm afraid of:

Losing my job

Having no control over what I feel and when

Not having the life that I wanted. 

Never properly enjoying sex again 

Buckling under the pressure

What I want

A time machine  only messing!! 

To stop the cycle of being ok for a while and then crumbling

To be good at my job again  

For you know who in work to stop pouring her life's problems on me 

To get rid of the jaw pain 

To buy a camper van and travel around Ireland/Europe in it and pull up and random beaches, swim and learn to surf 

To stop blaming and hating myself 

A house and a family with 2.5 kids and a mini van.

To get me back, shur I'm only unreal shur! 

To look him  in the eye and ask him  why and then smack him  over the head with a baseball bat (not really, I'm too much of a pacifist).   

So now there we have it, not asking much. Thanks so much for reading, hope you aren't thinking oh lord she's finally cracked  I haven't quite the opposite, it's just something I need to do. 

Talk to you soon

x 

Overwhelmed

I'm a little overwhelmed at the support, encouragement and kind words of this who have read my blog and have left such supportive and genuinely helpful advice. It's helped me to reach out to those close to me and tell them how low I am and get the support I so desperately need right now. Before this happened I used to think of rape as this awful thing and hoped that it would never happen to me but it's only when it happens that you realise just how destroying it can be. I can't put in to words how much I despise myself right now however, I do know that I   need to stop thinking that way about myself. Hopefully my therapist will help me see things differently someday. I feel very undeserving of the support I have received from so many people that I don't even know but at the same time I am incredibly touched and it has lifted me enough to hold on and keep trying to heal, I really want my power back. I want to be free from these thoughts, I never used to be like this and it's so sad who I have become.

Some day I will be different, some day I will feel like I deserve better than the way I have been treated. Someday I will have the life I dreamed of. Someday I will be a survivor and a thriver, someday I will do something good out of all this horror and change the way things are in Ireland, someday things will be better. Some day I will love myself again.

Desperate

So when I started writing this blog it was so that I would have a place where I can say the things that are going through my head. Last night I couldn't sleep. At about 6 this morning I gave up, at this point I was exhausted and all I wanted was some peace. I wrote a letter to my friends and family and downed some tablets. After a few minutes I got freaked out and made myself vomit.

I'm so  useless I can't even kill myself properly. I never thought it was possible to hate yourself this much.
Of course the whole reason I feel this way is because I had sex at the weekend, yes sex with my friend. A friend who is very important to me and I happen to share a house with him, now things are awkward and I feel like a slut and it's also making me have flashbacks to the night I was raped and I don't want to associate my friend with that.

I'm afraid of how low I am.

What's the point?

I'm finding it really hard to be patient this week. I've been waiting for so long to find out if he is going to be prosecuted or not. I need to face him to see what he has to say for himself, although I don't imagine I would get much satisfaction. I've had a really tough weekend with other stuff going on and I'm head wrecked from everything. I don't see any good future for myself. I don't see how I will be myself again. The dreams of meeting someone and sharing a life with them are gone. What else is there only a life of pain, of being messed up in the head forever. 


I'm never going to be the person I thought I would be, I don't ever see when I will be happy again. I don't ever see anything good coming from my life so what's the point. 

Tears have started to fall

I'm finally crying for the first time since it happened, I'm really crying. I had a therapy session today and had a breakthrough and then I read something that just touched me and since I haven't been able to stop crying.

I'm crying for everything, for what he did. This really did happen to me, it's real it happened. Oh my god it happened. I'm crying for what was stolen from me that night, I'm crying for the me I lost. I'm crying for the pain I've been going through for the last 7 months. I'm crying for the horror I went through that night and for the last 7 months, all this time blaming myself, hating myself when I shouldn't have been. I'm finally feeling something other than self hatred.

I can't stop crying and it's such a relief but heartbreaking at the same time. I'm no longer numb. Oh god this happened and it happened to me. It really happened.

I was drunk when it happened

I was drunk when it happened and I hate myself for it. I thought I could trust him, he was a friend of a friend. I hate myself for putting myself in a vulnerable situation. Aaaaah, why did I have to be so stupid. No wonder I blame myself. No matter what anyone says I shouldn't have put myself in that situation. 

Will I always feel this way? Will I always hate myself for this. I feel like I should be the one on trial. I'm an awful person. Did I really deserve all this???? 

New Therapist

I've been to about 4 sessions with my therapist now and am finding her alot better than my previous one(she was very very bad). She's letting me take things at my own pace and working on building up a trust with her which is good. She still doesn't know what happened to me, she knows that a trauma occurred 7 months ago but doesn't know anything more than that although I'm sure she has guessed. 


I can't seem to tell her what happened I can't even admit to myself what happened, I just can't say it. As the sessions go on they get a bit more in depth and I'm happy with the pace of it but surely I should be starting to tell her what exactly the trauma is so I can work through it?? 


I don't know how I would start it, I asked her today what she needed from me in order to help me keep taking steps forward however small and she said that I was in the driving seat and it was up to me what speed I want to go at but for me to think this week about what I would like to talk about next week but I just don't know how to just spit it out I just panic at the thought of it and I know I'm going to have to at some stage. I know that's going to be the most difficult part the thought of talking about it just sends me into a panic, like I'm back there again. Will I ever feel safe again?

I'm sick of the nightmares

I just want one night when I don't have any nightmares. Just one night. It's been over 7 months and I haven't had one night where I haven't had a nightmare. I'm so tired from it. I'm exhausted from them. I have to get up in the morning and put my face on for the day and it's so exhausting. I just want a break from it. People forget that I'm going through so much, it's not their fault they just don't understand what it's like (thankfully), they expect me to be fine and when it shows that I'm not then they seem surprised, they don't know the half of it. If only they knew what was going on in my head 24/7. I need a break from it all I'm exhausted from it. It's like the worst pain you have every had and there's no painkiller for it. Maybe tomorrow will be better. 

Emotional Day, thankfully

I've had a very emotional day today. For some reason I just keep crying and I don't know why. I suppose I'm glad I am emotional because I haven't been able to for the last 7 months so it feels like a bit of a relief. I'm sad for the little girl in me who grew up disliking herself so much that she needed to be flattered by a guys attention. I'm sad that it led me to being raped. I'm sad that this has happened to me. I sad that I'm hurting so much. Most of all though I'm relieved to be feeling this way because it means I've stopped hating myself so much. 


I've started to hate him a little bit, all along I've felt nothing but fear towards him, now I'm starting to hate him. I want him to feel just a bit of the pain I feel every day. I want him to tell me why he did this, why he didn't listen. Why didn't he let me leave. I want to look him in the eye and tell him what this has done to me...as if he'd care. 


When I start to feel better I will do everything in my power to raise awareness and to speak out, if I can prevent one girl from going through what I'm going through by raising awareness then it will be soooo worth it. I'm looking forward to the day when I have healed enough to speak out. I am not ashamed. 

Not worthy

My heads all over the place this week. I don't know what's going on. I'm having crazy dreams and awful nightmares. I know this is my subconscious trying to process but it is crazy. I'm exhausted today and I feel overwhelmed with sadness and I don't know why. One minute I'm laughing the next minute I feel like crying. In my therapy session this week we spoke about my feelings of self worth. I have always felt unworthy of peoples respect or friendship or love so I had to be the best of everything, the best worker, daughter, sister, friend and even victim. My therapist asked if these feelings would have anything to do with what led me to be in a situation where  I was vulnerable.  


You see this guy came on to me and I went with it and this led to us being on our own where he took advantage. Now I know that what he did was criminal but if I had more confidence in myself would I have needed to be flattered by a guy coming on to me and therefore would I have let myself get into a situation where I could be raped? This is something that has been in the back of my mind since it happened and it was very hard to admit this out loud and since I've just had this overwhelming sadness that if I didn't feel this way about myself then it might not have happened. It's very hard to accept. 

7 Months since it happened

Today its 7 months since it happened. I don't know how I feel, much the same as I did last week or last month. Things haven't gotten any easier. I am still having awful trouble sleeping and when I do I have really bad nightmares, I cant function at work properly and have constant cuts on the inside of my mouth from biting it in my sleep and jaw pain from tension, Im feeling really sorry for myself today and I dont care I dont have the energy today to fight this overwhelming sadness I feel. Wow these are some depressing words I never used to be like this, I miss the old happy me.