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.
Well, rape will mess you up! Abuse does, doesn't it. There is a future after abuse though, I found it and you will too.
ReplyDeleteKeep writing, get the poison out, but please believe it does get better.
One day, only a very few years ago I swallowed 300 Tylenol PM. I was so close to death but a wonderful team from Atlanta General Hospital saved me. It took a while but now I'm so happy they did.
Keep going, keep fighting through, it wasn't your fault and life will get better if you allow it to.
Hugs,
Andrew
I am an incest survivor so had years of abuse to live through and deal with. You can do it. Please hang on.
ReplyDeleteI know it doesn't feel like you will ever be yourself again, but you can be. I won't lie and say it will be easy. I won't tell you to forgive and get on with your life. It isn't that easy and it won't work that way. Denial doesn't work either.
Find a therapist that you can trust that is trained to work with rape victims. Keep writing. Tell a close friend or a perfect stranger about what happened to you. Start talking and keep talking until some of the pain eases.
Find someone to trust but don't trust everybody with your pain. Find someone that lets you be whatever you need to be and feel whatever you need to feel from day to day. Find a group of people online if you don't have a support group in your town. You don't have to do this alone.
Wow, first let me say I know your pain. My rapist died while we were fighting in court. We were married at the time. I never managed to get the kind of closure I'd hoped or imagined I might have managed. He died fighting the divorce.
ReplyDeleteThat was seven years ago that I filed.
I never thought I'd recover.
He and his parent's had hunted and stalked me. Cleaned out the bank accounts, destroyed my credit, left me with more trouble than I could ever hope to deal with. MY dreams, hopes, plans for the future? Gone. My life as I'd known it? Gone. The career I'd spend year building and becoming one of the best in my field? Gone. My mental and emotional health? Yeah, you got that right, gone.
A year after filing for divorce he'd violated the restraining order and put me in the hospital. He and his parents knew EVERYTHING about me and were in fact above the law, using my personal information to make certain I'd never have a moments peace. The courts were incapable of doing anything to protect me, and my lawyer wasn't really pushing to get anything done.
I was in so much pain I was more than ready to die, I wanted to die. I was homeless, penniless and suffering Major Depression, Post Traumatic Stress, Anxiety and the realization there was nothing short of a miracle I could do about any of it.
That was six years ago.
I was terrified of everything and everyone. I thought death would bring me the only kind of peace that would last.
Had it not been for the intervention of three amazing women I'd have long since been dead. I had to have everything changed, in effect what was left of my life had to be erased or I'd never have any peace at all. I had to apply for disability because they assured me it was going to take me time to recover.
It was still hell as I waited again for things to start moving in a better direction. I finally got legal protection from my Husband and his parents even when the divorce was still going nowhere, and also finally got disability. Still took time to escape where I was at the time and get a place of my own. Making the whole thing worse, he died while fighting the divorce.
I lived where I am now for two years only going out at night to get groceries from the one 24 hours grocery store that has a police substation built into it. So it's nice and quiet with plenty of cops around. Last year I started getting out more, bought a bike, and have been riding that.
Life as I thought I knew it? Long since gone. The person I was? She's long gone too.
BUT. I've found something I'm passionate about. Cycling. I'm even starting to make friends again, and I'm being super careful. I'm growing, healing, and finding out who I am and where I want to go. I'm starting to make plans/goals for things I'd like to do. I NEVER would have imagined where I am, let alone the things that are important to me now.
Trauma changes people. You will NEVER be the same, but as my therapist pointed out, the woman I was is the one who made the choices that got me in so much trouble. Yes, it was without question the loss, betrayal, violence against our hearts, minds, bodies and souls that ended the life we knew. All we can do is learn from that, heal, become stronger, and make a new life for ourselves. We have to somehow find the strength to go from being victims, to survivors.
I'm not going to tell you it's easy. It's NOT! Is it worth it? I think so. I have goals now, things I want to do, things that are important to me. I have some hope for a future. Sure I've lost everything. I don't know that I'm EVER going to trust anyone to get that close to them again. I'm still at the place in my own healing journey where the thought of anyone touching me makes me want to throw up.
ReplyDeleteBut I have hope. I have some things I want to do, for ME. I'm going to ride my bike one day across the Golden Gate bridge. I'm going to go down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and touch the earth, feel the life down there close to it's heart. I'm going to walk through Muir woods. I'm going to stand on the beach and watch the sunset.
Give yourself permission to heal, to grow, to find out who you are and what is important to you. Give yourself permission to live. Find something you're passionate about and give yourself permission to throw yourself into it. Give yourself permission to love yourself, that's so important I can't even put it into words.
There are a whole bunch of us unfortunately that know exactly how it feels, how it felt. There are also many of us that are somehow taking small steps forward, and that's the thing, small steps. You don't have to know where you're going, how you're going to get there, or what the suture will bring. Take small steps, and find a road that works for you. Let yourself heal, grow, and find out who you are, and then go from there.
Does it hurt? More than anything I've ever had to live through. More than I ever thought was possible. And I still hurting? Yeah. How does it feel? I'm still trying put that all in perspective. It takes time. Here's something I wrote a bunch of years ago that will probably be hard to read.
http://samstrip.blogspot.com/2005/08/warning-triggers.html
I'm not going to lie to you, it can be a hard road.