Tag Archives: healing from attempted rape

MY ACHILLES HEEL

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Everyone has one.  Mine just happens to be sugar.  In the grand scheme of things this, at first glance, may not seem such a bad one to have.  It’s not like I do drugs.  But the hold that sugar has on me is as strong as any drug would be.  I know that sugar is bad for me.  I do my best not to eat it.  I’ve even gone years without eating candy.  But I NEVER stop craving it.  Even as I am writing this I am popping jelly beans, one at a time, into my mouth.  They aren’t just any old jelly beans, either.  They are sweet tart jelly beans, only around for Easter.  (Thank goodness!)  As one friend said, it combines my favorite things: jelly beans and sweet tarts.  And to top it all off, they are pretty.

Last November I participated in a whole foods cleanse.  I successfully cut out sugar for an entire month.  The biggest ‘side effect’ was no more hot flashes.  You’d think that alone would be enough to stop me from eating, or drinking, sugar.  But no, it’s not.

This has been a lifelong addiction for me.  I remember as a little girl walking to the candy store to buy penny bubblegum, sweet tarts and  Sugar Daddys, those caramel suckers.  I used to see how many pieces of gum I could fit in my mouth at once.  I think my record was 10.  It’s not like you can really chew 10 pieces of bubblegum at one time, especially when you have a small mouth, as most children do.    It was such a waste of perfectly good gum.  My m.o., when I wasn’t stuffing my mouth full, was to put one piece at a time in my mouth, chew it until the flavor was gone, spit it out and continue until all my gum was gone. Then I’d go back to the store for more.

I am pretty sure it was 1968 when I had my first giant sweet tart.  Before that, sweet tarts only came in a package with little pieces in pink, yellow, purple and green.  My favorites were pink and yellow.  I didn’t really like the purple ones, but that never seemed to stop me from eating them.  Anyway, my first giant sweet tart was yellow, and my tongue bled from licking it.  It actually bled!  But did that stop me from eating it?  Hardly!  Eventually, I think my tongue developed calluses and I could eat as many as I wanted without a problem.

When I was on the swim team, most kids ate raw jello; that is, jello out of the box that was still in powder form.  I never cared for this.  It was not nearly sour enough for me.  That’s when I started eating powdered lemonade.  Of course, that was sour enough, but it caused my mouth to bleed if I ate too much.  Then I discovered Hawaiian Punch powder.  I did not just eat it from the packages that made, if you actually were to add water to it, 2 quarts of juice.  Oh, no, I would get the cans of it, and because putting in my hand to lick it up made my palms red, I started using a small plate.  That way I had clean hands.  Of course, my tongue was always red.  I seriously must have eaten well over 100 pounds of the stuff over the course of time.  I ate it well into my 20s and really only stopped because they stopped making it, and I could never find another brand that tasted as good to me.  At some point, too, I must have decided to stop eating so much sugar.

I do remember in my late 20s when I lived in Germany finding a really good candy that was similar to sweet tarts, but somehow better.  I thought I was gaining weight while there because of this candy.  Turned out it was the Bailey’s milkshakes I was having several times (or more) a week, but that’s another story.  Since I thought it was the candy, I decided to quit, to go cold turkey.  And I did it.  I didn’t eat candy for 3 or 4 years, and then one day I gave into my craving, and that was it.  By that time, sweet tarts had started putting blue candies in the rolls.  Those are definitely my favorite.  The bad thing about the rolls of sweet tarts was not being able to see exactly what number of which colors were in a particular roll, and there were never enough of the blue ones.  I would buy rolls, take all of them out, eat the blue ones first, then the pink, yellow, and maybe the green, and throw away the purple.  I was always bummed when there was only a couple of blues ones.  Then, for some weeks or even months, I’d cut back on my consumption.  It never lasted for long, though.

I really would like to be free of this addiction to sugar, in particular sweet tart jelly beans.  Luckily, as soon as Easter is gone, so will these tempting little pieces of sour joy.  It is so bad that just walking by the store that has them makes my mouth start to water.  I keep telling myself NO MORE.  And I’ll follow that directive for a day or two, and then I have to go to the store, and somehow those suckers jump into my grocery basket, and I continue to eat them.  If I was able to eat only a small handful each day, then maybe that would be okay.  But that’s not what happens.  I end up eating half the bag, which gives me a stomach ache, which makes me say that I’ll stop eating them.  Until the next day, when I wake up and my stomach doesn’t hurt anymore.  Grr….

I stopped eating sugar almost 4 years ago. I did really well for a long time.  It’s not like I never had processed sugar, but I was pretty good.  Even during Halloween and Easter I was okay as long as I stayed away from the aisles that carried my beloved sweet tarts.  I just didn’t go near them.  I was also in a relationship and I’ve come to realize lately that that made a huge difference for me.  I did not feel compelled to eat so much sugar because the pleasure centers that eating sugar stimulates were being filled through my relationship.  So I know exactly WHY I am eating it now and why I can’t seem to stop.  My intention, once I became aware of this, is to be gentle with myself.  I will continue to do my best to NOT eat it; and if, when, I do, I will not beat myself up.  I have every confidence in myself that one of these days I will just stop.  I’ve done it before and I will do it again.

MEN SHOULD STAND UP TO RAPISTS

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Men Should Stand Up to Rapists, Not Befriend Them

MARCH 11, 2014 BY  LEAVE A COMMENT

Leah Parsons, Rehtaeh Parsons Glen Canning,

Leah Parsons, Rehtaeh Parsons Glen Canning,

Glen Canning says it’s time to stop talking about ending rape and start showing through our actions that we do not stand for sexual violence in our communities

Shame is a powerful weapon.

Shame is what sexual predators rely on. Next to alcohol it’s their preferred WMD. What were you thinking, after all, being alone, dressing like that, drinking too much, trusting too much? You should have known better. You should have known what would happen. It’s the same approach pedophiles use when they tell their victims “we’re only doing what you want.”

I was invited to speak in Ottawa recently and share my thoughts on violence against women and the role men play. There are two things I’ve learned since my daughter, Rehtaeh Parsons, died last April and I began to speak at conferences and meetings. One, the audience will be almost all women, as it was in this case, and two, attempts to hurt and silence me suddenly appear when there’s anything mentioned about Rehtaeh online or in social media. She’s worm food because I’m a failure, according to one person’s post. If I don’t shut up I’ll join her, says another. Some choose words so disgusting I can’t bring myself to repeat them.

You see, according to them, Rehtaeh didn’t die from being raped and bullied, she died because I’m a bad father. I knowingly let her smoke pot, drink vodka, and raised her to be flirtatious and promiscuous. Rehtaeh wasn’t raped because someone raised their sons to be a rapists, she was raped because her father raised her to be raped.

Rapists rely on other men to excuse and justify their crimes against women. Other men who’ll laugh at their jokes, invite them to parties, play sports with them, introduce them to other women.

Almost every time her name is mentioned in the news or in an article those anonymous posters show up with their fake usernames and post all sorts of nonsense, innuendo, lies, misinformation and outright victim blaming. Rarely do they use real names and rarely are they women.

I’m not sure why some people feel a need to weigh in on issues they know little or nothing about. I reply if I can even though it’s almost always futile. Some people just have the wrong information while others are so out to lunch. I’m left wondering if they’ve read anything about this story at all. Patrick Doran of the Edmonton Men’s Movement thinks I’ve been using a “victim-card” to silence critics in the “…years since Rehtaeh’s death.”

It hasn’t been a year yet, Patrick.

I try to not to get hooked. I honestly have bigger issues to deal with than a handful of forgettable trolls. It’s the people who say nothing I want to reach, the people who are shocked by this story and don’t know, or don’t realize, they have a part to play. Men mainly. Not the ones trolling rape stories; I’m talking about the good ones. Men with hearts, families, compassion, decency and a sense of virtue.

Rapists rely on other men to excuse and justify their crimes against women. Other men who’ll laugh at their jokes, invite them to parties, play sports with them, introduce them to other women. Men who’ll give them jobs, feed them, and help them blame their victims even if it’s by indifference.

Men, good men, need to stand up and do to rapists and their supporters what we do to child molesters. Imagine the difference it would make if a man who jokes about rape and always doubts victims entered a room to silence, whispers, stares, and looks of disgust from other men. That is what we need to do as men.

We need to take an honest hard look at why we befriend rapists, why we believe them, allow them, tolerate them, and help them get away with the crimes they commit. We should be confronting them, exposing them, shunning them from our homes, families, teams, and places of employment. We need to use our voices to be a part of the solution and not let our silence continue to be part of the problem.

There is a stigma attached to rape. A stigma centuries old, created by devils, used against their victims to hide awful deeds. It’s time to put that stigma where it belongs. There is no difference between a man who rapes and a man who befriends and defends him.

We need to take an honest hard look at why we befriend rapists, why we believe them, allow them, tolerate them, and help them get away with the crimes they commit.

I tried to end my talk in Ottawa on a big note but couldn’t find the right words. The message has been said many times already. It’s time to stop talking and start doing. We’re still in a place where a 16-year-old will write on Rehtaeh’s Facebook page and wonder how she couldn’t have known what happens to girls when they drink around boys. A place where young women ask what they can do to make sure they don’t get raped.

Truth is there’s nothing they can do. Women who don’t smoke pot get raped as do women who don’t drink vodka and women with amazing fathers. I hate to think what some of those posters will say to themselves if someone they love ever gets raped because according to their logic it wasn’t the rapists fault, it’s the fault of the people who love the victim.

Piece originally appeared on Huffington Post 

SEX IS A FUNNY THING – PART 2

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As I said last time, sex after sexual assault is especially challenging.

I think I was very lucky to have been in a loving relationship when my assault happened.  I cannot imagine how much more difficult it would have been, on so many levels, had I been single.  Right after my attack, and for longer than I would have thought, I was afraid of everyone.  And I do mean every single person I encountered.  Men, women, boys, girls – anyone and everyone scared me.  My rational mind knew this was silly, but the irrational part was in control.  As I also said last week, I know, and knew at the time, that sexual assault of any kind, whether it be rape, attempted rape or any other variation, it not about sex.  It is about power or lack thereof.  Another aspect that a lot of women have to deal with is feeling dirty or ashamed of what happened to them.  I never felt either of those emotions.  I was very clear from the beginning that I had done nothing wrong, that I had nothing to be ashamed of.  That being said, I was still unable to have sex with my boyfriend for some time.

For at least the first few weeks, I am certain I wasn’t even willing to try.  Oh, I was fine with just being held and kissed, but beyond that, I was unable to even contemplate it.   I was never repulsed by him in any way.  And although, I was afraid of men in general, I was not afraid of my boyfriend.  My body and mind instinctively knew he was safe, that I was safe with him.  Still, ‘convincing’ my body that more than just cuddling was okay definitely took time.  Because I was in shock, and stayed there for 15 weeks, I could not cry.  Nor, it turned out, could I have an orgasm.   And when we did attempt to have sex, though my body responded to him, I was still ‘blocked.’  For a long time, every time we did make love, I would ‘leak’ 3 or 4 tears.  I called it leaking because it wasn’t real crying, and all that would ever come out were 2 or 3 or 4 tears.  I may not have been actually crying, but, clearly, it’s what I wanted to do.  It still was upsetting to my boyfriend.  I was not rejecting him, but I think he still felt that way.  I was doing my best to not let it happen, but it always did.  Looking back now, I am not even sure how long this went on.  At some point it stopped, but I do not remember when.  And as for the lack of orgasm, I am happy to say that that eventually came back as well.

What I can say now, too, is that after my attack, our sex life was never the same.  It seemed to never completely recover.  Oh, things worked like they were supposed to, but something fundamental was lost that September morning, and, unfortunately, we were never able to get it back.  It is only with hindsight that I am able to see this now.  I can’t really think too much about how much almost every aspect of my life has changed since my encounter with cockroach boy.  It pisses me off and I don’t want to live my life in a pissed off frame of mind.

So I choose love and joy and happiness.  Is it always easy?  Of course not.  There are times I’d like to go to the prison he is housed in and, well, you can just imagine what I might do.  Thankfully, those days are few and far between now.  I have many more good days than bad.  Though I am still dealing with a lot of physical issues that I attribute to my attack, those, too, are improving.  I have great faith that though my life may never be exactly as it was before, it is better.  I am better.

SEX IS A FUNNY THING – PART 1

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Especially after a sexual assault.

Not that there would ever be a good time for an attempted rape to occur, but the timing of mine seemed especially cruel because later that morning of my attack, my boyfriend and I were supposed to be going to Santa Barbara.  We had been together for 6 months at this point and this was our first trip together.  We were going to see Don Henley and Emmylou Harris in concert.  It was for 2 days and 2 nights.  And because we would not be getting to our accommodations until late, my boyfriend made a reservation for that first night at Motel 6.  (The next day we moved to a lovely Bed & Breakfast in Summerland.)  Let’s just say of all the Motel 6’s around, this one had to be the worst ever.  I never knew they actually made sheets with a thread count of about 10.

When my boyfriend came to the crime lab, which, by the way, is in a secret location, to pick me up, I had not yet been ‘processed.’  That meant that we could only speak at a distance.  He was not allowed to hug and comfort me because any DNA evidence that might have been on my clothing or skin had to be preserved for the rape kit.  I remember telling him that I had not yet cried and thought that it would probably hit me a bit later that day or night.  Kind of funny thinking about it now since it took me 15 weeks to come out of shock.  That day, I truly  had no clue how bad it really was and how hard I would have to work to get through it.

When we left the crime lab, we went back to Coronado to the Police Station so I could look at a lineup of photographs.  It’s not like it is on TV, where they show a 6 pack of men who fit the similar description of your attacker.  In ‘real life’ I was shown one picture at a time.  I was not allowed to compare and contrast them.  I eliminated those that I was positive were not him, and was then left with two.  The one I ended up choosing was him.  What I told the police officer was, although the picture didn’t look exactly like him, it looked as close to what I remembered him looking like.  I also worked with a sketch artist when I at the crime lab.  I would love to see that picture to see if it looked like him at all.  When we finished at the station, Bill took me home so that I could shower and pack for our trip.  All I really wanted to do was lie down, but as it was already 2:30p, Santa Barbara is a good 3 1/2 to 4 hours drive, it was Saturday afternoon and we had to get through Los Angeles, and we had to go to Bill’s house for him to pack, I got in the shower.

Driving to La Jolla, Bill asked me if I wanted to call my mother.  I said no.  What I meant was that I didn’t want to call her then, I wanted to wait until, oh, some other time, or maybe never.  He said that I had to call her and thought that I should do it while he packed.  So I did.  First thing I asked was whether or not my step-father was in or out-of-town.  He was out.  Then I really did not want to tell her without him there for moral support.  I really do not remember what I said to her except I tried to tell her in a way that wouldn’t be upsetting.  I doubt I succeeded, because, really how can you tell your mother that someone tried to rape you and her not be upset by that?

I slept most of the way to Santa Barbara.  It seemed easier than having to think about what I had been through.  We left La Jolla a little after 3p, hit traffic in L.A. and finally got to the concert around 7p.  We missed Emmylou Harris, but Don Henley had not yet gone on, so we at least got to see/hear half the concert.  When I think about it now, I was pretty freaked out being around that many people.  Really, I don’t know how I did it.  I think I was just on autopilot and doing my best not to fall apart.

I remember the room being cold when we finally got to it at 11:30.  And the blankets were just as bad as the sheets, so I slept in my clothes.  The bad thing was that my hip bones both had big abrasions on them and hurt to have fabric touching them.  Really, all my abrasions hurt.   It was a terrible night.  I had taken a pill (can’t remember now what it was, but my physician mother assured me it would be okay for me to take) that, instead of having the desired effect of helping me sleep, did the exact opposite and I was wide awake and having weird hallucinations.  At some point I did fall into an uneasy sleep, and then woke up really early, as usual.  I couldn’t wait to get out of that hotel.

We could not check into our B&B until late afternoon, so we drove to Santa Ynez to go wine tasting.  While there I got a phone call from the Coronado police informing me that they had apprehended my attacker the day before.  That was good news.  They also told me I needed to come back in to have my injuries photographed again once I got back to town.  It was all so surreal.  Even now.

When we finally got checked in, I remember lying on the bed, telling Bill that I knew rape was not about sex, that it’s about power or lack thereof, but that for a while I was afraid that it was going to be messed up in my mind.  He said he knew.  So he just held me.  And since I was in a lot of physical pain from the attack, we went in the jacuzzi, which both hurt my injuries, and felt good for my sore arms and neck.  I think I slept a little better that night.  When I woke up on Monday morning, I was so hoping it had all been a nightmare.  No such luck.  I told Bill he could just leave me there, that I did not want to go home.  I think we stayed in bed until we had to check out.  The drive back to Coronado seemed especially long.  I cannot remember now if Bill stayed with me at my house or if we stopped in La Jolla and I stayed there.  All I do know is that for the first two weeks I was unable to sleep alone.  Either Bill stayed at my house or I stayed at his or my friend Laura stayed at my house.  I wasn’t scared in my house, but I could not be alone.

 

WHAT WERE YOU WEARING?

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Believe it or not, this was a question I was asked by more people than you might think.  Even more surprising to me was the fact that most of those asking that question were women.  In this day and age!  By women who knew better;  intelligent women; women who work out and know exactly what one would wear to walk; women who, as soon as they asked realized how inappropriate and blame-the-victim type of question it was apologized.   As if what I was wearing had anything to do with being attacked.  As far as I am concerned, if I want to walk down the street stark naked (not that I do), even that is NOT a reason for some cockroach-type person to attack me.  There simply is no excuse.

I have to admit that even today I do wonder if I had worn yoga pants, if that would have made a difference.  I am pretty certain it would have, at least to a degree,  in that my new yoga pants were a size small and fit kind of like a tight glove.  As easily, and quickly, as he removed my skort, because it was loose on me and offered no resistance, my yoga pants would have probably stayed in place when he tried to pull them down.  Would this have deterred his attack?  Would he have given up and run away?  My guess on this would be no.  I mean, he didn’t run away when I screamed or when I continued to fight him, so why would my clothes not coming off easily have stopped him in any way?

What I did not know at the time, but now do, is when he saw me the first time on Ocean Blvd, my goose was cooked, so to speak.  He zeroed in on me because I was his ‘type.’  The girl he assaulted (if this is the correct word to use) in the month before my attack was tall, thin and blonde.  The fact that she was more than 30 years younger than I didn’t seem to matter to him.  He went up behind her and pulled her bathing suit bottoms down, fondled her butt and ran away.  Luckily, she reported it to the police, though not right away, and somehow they were able to pick him up and charge him, in her case, with a misdemeanor.  This put him in the system, and so the police in Coronado were familiar with him.  After my attack, when I started saying what he looked like, the police knew exactly who it was.  This contributed to his being apprehended that same day.  As soon as they put the word out, they picked him up soon after.

So back to what I was wearing…I was wearing what is appropriate to do a 7-mile walk, in the early morning, 24 September on Coronado Island, California.  It was probably in the low to mid-60s that particular morning.  It was cool enough to need a jacket, but not too cold  that I needed to wear long pants.  Plus, walking as fast as I did always warmed me up rather quickly.  And so what?  Who cares what I was wearing?  This should never be the question out of anyone’s mouth.  Ever.  There is never, ever a reason or excuse for someone attacking someone else, with the intent to rape or do any other kind of bodily harm.  The fact that it still happens as often as it does, and usually goes unpunished and even unreported is extremely distressing to me.  Part of the reason I decided to do this blog was to help in my recovery and healing, and also to get people to talk about a very unpleasant subject.  Am I making a difference?  I do not know.  I hope so.  What I do know is writing about my experience at the time and what I continue to deal with today, 2 years and 5 months after the actual attack, is necessary.

For the record, I was wearing a black tennis skort (my favorite, ever,) a tight-fitting white top with a built-in shelf bra, an aqua zip-up jacket (also a favorite) and New Balance walking shoes.  Everything I was wearing that day was ‘donated’ to the crime lab, and I never saw any of it again.  As someone pointed out, I really wouldn’t have wanted any of it back, given what had happened while I was wearing it.  True.  And I still miss that black skort.

OLD FRIENDS

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Yesterday, I visited some old friends.

After my acupuncture appointment, I drove to Ocean Beach.  A couple of weeks ago, when I was sick, and mentioned to Matt (my acupuncturist) that I would love a milk shake, because when I was little and would get sick, a milk shake always made me feel better.  I used to go to Fat Burger in Pacific Beach, but it has closed, and I had no idea where I could get a really good milk shake anymore.  Matt recommended Hodad’s in Ocean Beach.  Somehow, that day, I went instead to Pho for chicken soup, and never got my milk shake.  Yesterday, though, I decided it was time, even though I am no longer sick, to get that elusive milk shake.  Having never been to Hodad’s before, I had no idea there would be a long line to get in.  At first, I thought, ‘no way am I standing in line.’  And then I thought, ‘why not?’  Let’s just say it was SO worth it.  I got a veggie burger, which was really good.  I also got fries, and though they were good, I didn’t eat many of them because the milk shake was GIANT, and I had to do my best to drink all of it.  Of course, the shake alone could have fed a family of four!  No lie.  It probably had 9000 calories, but it was worth every single one of them.  The good news is I now know where I can get a fabulous milk shake and the better news is, Ocean Beach is a pain to get to and not on my way to anything, so I won’t be going there often.  The fact that is also a Hodad’s located in downtown San Diego doesn’t seem to matter.

So, after my yummy lunch, I went in the shops along Newport Avenue, and  I saved the best one for last – Vignettes.  The owner, Lori Chandler, was there.  She said to me, “I thought you fell off the face of the earth.  It has been so long since I’ve seen you.”  I said, “I guess you didn’t hear that I had been sexually assaulted 2 1/2 years ago.”  She had not and was shocked and dismayed.  I gave her an abridged version of what happened and what I had been doing, or not doing, for the last, probably 3 years since I was last in her shop.  Among all the things she said to me, the comment that stands out most was, “I am so glad to see that you made it through and out the other side.  You are a survivor.”

She also said that when something traumatic like this happens, your creativity gets stuck, too.  I never thought about it like that before, but she’s right.  Part of the challenge I had when I was right in the middle of the healing was my brain not functioning properly, which made working or reading a book, really most everything, so difficult.  I never even considered that my creativity was somehow ‘stuck.’  The rest of me sure was, so why wouldn’t that aspect also be affected?  Looking back now, I can so clearly see that this was the case.  It’s why blogging was impossible to do.   Even now, though I am working and able to (mostly) think again, I am not engaging in, really, any of the other creative pursuits I used to involve myself in.  Well, except I am doing a post every week on A Little of This That and the Other.  Pre-attack, I used to do a lot of photography and a lot of altering of that photography in Photoshop.  I can’t even remember the last time I did that.  I used to come up with ideas of things to make and then make them, like my tulle dolls or lamp shades or collages.  Wow!  Just thinking about it now is making me remember all of things I no longer do.  Is this just a ‘side effect’ of my attack?  Will the love of creating things, not related to my sewing, eventually come back?  Very interesting…

Since I am thinking about it in ways that I haven’t, perhaps this will jump-start my creative mind again.  I used to get so many ideas of things to do and things to make that all I could do was write them in my idea notebook, because I didn’t have enough time to try them all.  Either I haven’t been open to receiving new ideas or that pipeline has been shut off since September 2011.  I’m going to go with the pipeline being shut off.  And unless my brain damage was more extensive than I realized, I have every confidence that the flow will come back one of these days.  Soon, I hope.  I miss all the ideas, and being in Vignettes yesterday reminded me of that.

 

So, thank you, Lori, for your insights.  It was wonderful seeing you, and I promise it will not be another 3 years before I come see you again.

HONORING AND LISTENING TO MY BODY

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Finally, I had a good night’s sleep.  Because I have had a flold (since I had symptoms of both a cold and the flu, I decided it should be called a flold) and also had two weeks during which I had company staying with me, which meant I was staying up later than normal, when I would go to bed, I could not go to sleep.  Between coughing (is it possible to actually cough your lungs up?) and not getting to bed early enough, I would get a second wind.  When this happens I cannot go to sleep until very late.  My trick is to not look at the clock, even as I am lying there, not sleeping and though I do not know what time it is, I am still not sleeping. I, of course, still wake up early.  My ‘best’ sleep would happen between 5a and 7a.  I couldn’t work because I was weak and my back was killing me.  And my foot.  It was like my flold was in my back and my foot and in all my joints.  I couldn’t sit for very long, which meant I couldn’t really sew.  I tried to rest as much as possible.  That is also difficult when you have someone visiting.  Well, not so much visiting, as staying here while in San Diego going to doctor appointments.  The day Darlene was to arrive, I woke up sick.  I did not even realize I was sick until I coughed, and then I thought, “What?” and “Oh, crap.”  Of all the people who should NOT be around someone who is sick, it is someone who already has a compromised immune system.  Since there was no way to get ahold of her, I just had to await her arrival.   And since there was really no one else for her to stay with, she stayed with me, and I did my best not to breathe on her.  She was here for 3 nights and 4 days.  At the best of times I struggle with having someone in my house, though it is nothing personal.   Feeling as awful as I did, it was that much more difficult.  I did my best, though, and got through it.

I was still feeling terrible after a week and continued to take it easy.  I knew I was getting another visitor about a week after Darlene left and was hopeful I would be better by the time Kim arrived.  The week without house guests was no better as far as sleeping went.  I simply could not get to sleep.  One night, I thought I’d take a melatonin, and it did not really help.  Plus, it gave me weird, bad dreams.  So forget that.  The entire time I had been sick, I was, of course, NOT working out.  The first day, I did my planks and squats, but that was it.  No yoga, no walking, nothing.  Even going to the store was hard because my back hurt so much.  I decided I would just wait until I felt better before doing anything.

Kim arrived on Saturday night, and Sunday morning we did go to my regular beach yoga class.  I felt well enough, and I knew I was no longer contagious, so even if I coughed, no one was in danger of being infected.  Because I was feeling much better and because yoga had been a success on Sunday, I thought I’d go back to the gym Monday morning.  When my alarm went off at 5a, it was raining and I really did not fancy getting up in the cold rain and walking to the gym, so I went back to sleep.  I did manage to do my walk with my friend Mike yesterday morning.  We did 3 miles in 40 minutes.  Kim left last night and I thought I’d be good to go to the gym this morning.  Nope.  I was plenty well-rested, and like I said before, I actually like going to the gym; but clearly, there is something else going on in my body.  It just felt like I needed to stay in bed and pretend sleep instead of getting up and getting outside.

While I was still lying in bed I thought about what could be preventing me from doing what I say I want to be doing.  I don’t think it’s the dark.  I’m not afraid of it anymore, though I can’t say that I feel safe in it, not like I used to, before cockroach boy happened.  I don’t think that it’s because it’s cold out.  Okay, it’s not that cold (55 degrees) but it’s not that warm, either.  This morning I was awake and wanted to go, but I didn’t.  And I doubt I’ll go for a walk later in the morning because that’s just not what I do.  I’ll be working and not want to stop.  So what I decided is to simply honor my body.  As I am not 100% yet, why push it?  And because I have a real need to move my body, I just have to trust that when the time is right, I will be out there again.  My job is to not beat myself up because I need more time, and whether it is attack related, or just my body telling me to rest more, I need to listen to it.

HAS IT REALLY BEEN A YEAR?

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Time flies.  And it seems to fly faster the older we get.  Remember being a kid and the days just dragging by?  Unless, of course, you were waiting for the bell to ring at 3p on the last day of school before summer vacation started!  And the truth is, time flies, whether or not you are having fun.  Well, according to the calendar, it has been a year since my boyfriend of almost 2 years broke up with me and, more or less, broke my heart.  As my heart, and all the rest of me, was still recovering from my encounter with cockroach boy, it was particularly difficult to deal with.  What was very clear to me, almost immediately, was that he had, in fact, done the right thing.  Oh, it’s not that I wanted to be alone.  Actually, I hated it, and, truth be told, still do.  What was right about it was I would have eventually broken up with him.  It probably would have taken me years to realize this because we really did have a great relationship in a lot of ways.  Was it perfect?  No, but it certainly was perfect for me, and I suspect, for him, right up until it wasn’t anymore.  Because of all the intense therapy I had done, and all of the crap from my past that had been dealt with during that therapy, I had grown.  A lot!  So much, in fact, that I had outgrown him.  I truly was no longer the person I had been when we first met.  Is this a bad thing?  No, it’s not.  Do I wish this ‘change’ had never occurred?  A part of me does.  A larger part knows, though, that it was necessary for me to experience and go through what I did to move me along my path.

We were only six months into the relationship when my sexual assault happened.  At the time, I asked him, “Does this mean you aren’t going to like me anymore?”  He told me, “No.  You are precious to me.”  And I believed him, and that belief allowed me to focus on myself and my healing.  No one, least of all me, knew exactly how long that would take.  I probably thought it would take a few weeks or, maybe, a couple of months.  It never occurred to me that it would take as long as it did.  I went to therapy, every Monday, week after week after week, for 13  months, and I hated every minute of it, though I loved my therapist.   It was incredibly hard and physically painful for lot of it.  Through it all, though, I had this amazing, loving, supportive, incredibly encouraging boyfriend.  I cannot imagine how much more difficult it would have been had I not been in this relationship.

When I inquired it he thought the breakup was a delayed reaction to my attack, he said, “No.  Yes.  I don’t know.  All I do know is I’m exhausted from having to deal with it.”  Okay. Well, so was I.  Still am.  Because I am still dealing with it.  Certainly not in the same ways, but the effects are ever-present.  There are certain books I cannot read and movies I cannot see.  Although I am not afraid of it, I do not really walk in the dark anymore.  When a stranger approaches me, especially at night, I wonder if he is going to attack me.  When I get sick, yet again, I curse cockroach boy for the trauma my body has suffered and continues to suffer.  I live with the thought, in the back of my mind, that one day in the not-too-distant-future, he will get out of prison, and though I do not believe he will come after me, who knows what he’ll do?  I certainly never expected to be attacked in the first place. One of the things I do tell myself, and something that allows me to carry on from day-to-day, is because it happened once, there is just no way it could happen again.  Don’t know if this is actually true, but I HAVE to tell myself this or I’m not sure I could go on.  It feels like all of these things are a part of my being now.  Will they fade in time?  Will they go completely away?  I have no idea.  I hope so.

What I was then, and will continue to be is grateful to my ex for sticking around  the way he did.  I know it made all the difference in the world to have him stand beside me, to not walk away.  It wasn’t easy for him, and even though I knew it, at least to a degree, I wish I had been more aware of how it was effecting him.  Would that have made a difference in the end?  No way to know.   All I am really certain of is he was/is a good man, and I miss him.  Still.

 

TOO MUCH EMPATHY?

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Back in October when I went to see “Captain Phillips,” I wrote about the reaction I had of being (somewhat) traumatized by the events in the movie, even though I was never kidnapped.  What I am discovering now is certain books and movies are incredibly upsetting in ways I have never experienced before.  While I was in Atlanta for Christmas, I went to see “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.”  I, of course, knew about apartheid while I was growing up, and you’d think I’d remember how bad it really was in South Africa during that time.  I guess, though, that being so far away and so removed from it, it simply did not have any effect on my life.  When I lived in Europe in the late ’80s, a time when Americans were still not allowed to go to South Africa, there was an agency in Cape Town that wanted me to come to work.  Since I was in Spain, I could get around the fact that I was technically not permitted to go there.  In the end, though, when they found out that I was 29, it was decided that I was ‘too old’ and they withdrew their offer for me to go.  Anyway, I was plenty old enough to know what was going on.  What I did not know was the extent of just how bad it truly was.

The movie made that very clear.  I left feeling extremely sad, but not necessarily for the reasons one might expect.  Of course, what they, both the blacks and the whites, endured over the many years that apartheid was the law of the land was beyond horrendous.  In the past I would have felt sympathetic, and that would have been the end of it.  I would have felt bad, but, really what did it have to do with me?  Now, however, what happens, what I feel, on top of the sympathy and empathy is a sense of knowing exactly what the people who lived through that kind of trauma are going to go through emotionally, for possibly the rest of their lives.  And I also know that most, if not all, will not get the kind of therapy that is needed to heal from such trauma.  That breaks my heart.  Even writing about it is hard for me.  I have no way of knowing if this is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life or if it will fade over time.  I am hopeful it fades in time because it is a hard way to live.

The acute feelings that seeing (even in a movie) or reading about traumatic, tragic events brings up in me makes me think that my brain still has some healing to go through.  I do think it is mostly healed because I am able to focus and work, things I was unable to do while I was in the process of getting through it.  I am able to do most everything I did pre-attack.  And while there are worse things than being highly empathic, I always feel like I am on the verge of tears.  After the movie, on the way home, I tried to explain to my parents how I was feeling, without sobbing.  I guess what I am trying to say here is the kind of knowledge I now possess because of being sexually assaulted isn’t necessarily a good thing.  As hard as I work at being happy and putting it all behind me, I think there is an underlying sadness that hasn’t yet gone away.  These days it does not take much to push me over the edge.  So, I will continue to avoid certain books, or at least skip the parts I cannot bear to read, and I will not see some of the movies I might otherwise enjoy.

ONGOING ISSUES

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In November, there was an article in MORE Magazine called, “A Hidden Cause of Chronic Illness,” written by Alexia Jetter.  It was about the long-term effects of domestic abuse.  I was not, nor have I ever been physically abused by a partner, BUT the information was enlightening to me.  Ever since my attack I have had one physical thing after another come up.  At first it made sense, sort of, that this was happening.  While I was in therapy and was in quite a lot of physical pain, not to mention the psychological and emotional turmoil I was experiencing, it was at least understandable that I would have stuff come up.  And, really, for the most part, my body did remarkably well, considering all I was dealing with.  The truth is, until cockroach boy was sentenced to prison, I did not get sick.  Not even when my boyfriend did get sick (now I know it was my attack that caused this) and stayed that way for close to 2 months, and even with all the time I was spending with him then, I never got sick.  So when I did get sick after the court date (just a cold, but annoying nonetheless, especially because it was summer,) it made perfect sense that the entire 9 months before, my body was, essentially, keeping me where I needed to be to get myself healed.  And if you’ll remember, 5 days after my therapy was finished, my back went out and I spent 96 hours not being able to move at all.  Again, I realized that my body had been holding onto the physical trauma until I was through the emotional work and could then deal with another aspect of the entire process.  I got through that, and then about 2 months later, my boyfriend broke up with me, which resulted in more trauma, both emotional and physical.  In this case, my emotional sadness and heartache manifested itself into my foot, resulting in a neuroma in my right foot.

So I have spent the last 10 or so months having acupuncture to heal my foot.  Some people choose to have surgery to deal with this type of injury, but I opted for the alternative route.  Besides not wanting to pay for surgery, and already knowing how my body responds to surgery, there was no way I was putting myself through another traumatic experience when there was another option.  Being injured proved very challenging for me.  After my attack and the sharp decrease of my physical activity, I had had to learn how to, basically, walk again.  As I mentioned in the story of the day of my actual attack, I went from walking 60-90 miles a week to zero.  That was a huge loss.  My walking was not only my physical exercise, but it was also my praying/meditating/me time. Even after I was able to walk again on a somewhat regular basis, it was just not the same.  And then my injury occurred and I was once again sidelined.  I was still doing yoga, at least to the best of my ability, modified to allow me to practice in spite of my hurt foot.  But, at least for me, yoga will never be enough exercise for my body.  I started getting depressed again with the lack of ‘moving.’  Luckily, I realized what was going on and looked for other ways to move my body without walking.  I rode my bike to the store or uptown to the book store or library, activities I normally walked to do.  I joined the gym again, and rode my bike there, as well.  I sometimes just rode my (beach) bike around the island, though that was a more leisurely activity than anything else.  And I kept going to acupuncture each week.

After my attack, with the loss of my ability to exercise in the way I was used to, I gained ten pounds.  I was pretty much able to limit my weight gain (in that year and a half) by walking, in time, as much as was possible.  Then when Bill broke up with me almost a year ago, I gained ten more.  You have to understand that when I was attacked, I weighed 135 pounds, and at 5’10” that was thin.  So I eventually ended up at 155 (maybe even a little more, but as I do not have a scale, I am not exactly sure) which really isn’t too much for my height, but it is too much for me.  My clothes did not fit and I was not comfortable in my own body.  For me, exercise and moving my body is as necessary as food and water.  Without that outlet, I am not happy.  Something had to change.  I was still self-soothing and it was definitely taking a toll on me.  In the summer and fall it wasn’t so bad when my clothes did not fit; but once it got colder and I needed to be wearing something besides loose dresses or yoga pants, I had to make a choice to stop what was clearly not working and do something different.

What I did was a whole food cleanse with Elizabeth Hirsh and Charlette Preslar.  It was 14 days and it changed my attitude about food and my body.  I cannot say that I am exactly where I’d like to be, but I am more accepting of where I am.  Although the cleanse was not a weight loss program per se, I did lose some weight.  And I am happy to say that my jeans fit me again.  I learned a new way to eat, and though I am not 100% good, I definitely have incorporated the recipes we used on the cleanse.

Back to the article about the hidden and long-term  effects of domestic abuse…although I do not know of any studies that have been done about the hidden effects of sexual assault on our bodies, I KNOW this is the case.  Since my attack I have had more things happen and I been sick more than I have in the last 20 years.  I have no way of knowing if and when this will stop.  I am ever hopeful that, in time, these things will at least lessen.  It is very frustrating not knowing what else may come up.  All I can do is continue to put one foot in front of the other, literally and figuratively,  and believe that it is possible to completely heal.  Clearly, I am not there yet.

On 3 January this is what I wrote in my journal:  “Not sure why I am surprised that I am still healing from my attack.  Matt (this is my acupuncturist) pointed this out to me this morning. I guess I think I should be all better by now.  The mistake I seem to have made was in thinking I would be finished when my therapy was done.  Ha!  Joke’s on me, except it isn’t so funny.  I suppose the best thing I can do for myself and my state of mind/sanity is to just let go of all and any preconceived notions I’ve had or continue to have around how long or exactly the path my healing will take/is taking.  I keep thinking I’m done/it’s done and clearly this is not the case.  So, I’ll say again, I am not sure why any of this comes as a surprise.  It will take as long as it takes and no amount of wishing it were different seems to be working.  Well, rats!”