Tag Archives: health

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.

MY VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT

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The following is the statement I made to the court on 25 June 2012.  My intention was to read it directly to cockroach boy, while looking at him.  Ha!  I couldn’t even look up from my paper to read it to the judge.  I was so nervous and my mouth was drier than the Sahara.  I think, in a way, that this actually helped me because it forced me to speak slowly.  Otherwise, I may have raced through just to be done with it.

I have mentioned many times how traumatized I was with every contact I had with anyone associated with this case.  The exception was a woman in the probation department.  She was kind and compassionate and helpful in ways that no one else was.  She encouraged me to be brutally honest about the effects of the attack and how my life had changed.  She told me I could talk as long as I wanted to.  She said it was important that the judge and the court hear and understand from me what I thought should happen to cockroach boy.   It was the first phone call I had with someone other than my therapist who was on my side.  Anyway, writing my statement was not easy, but this is what I came up with:

“Your Honor

The actions of the defendant have greatly affected me, and to a lesser degree, everyone in my life.  Before the attack, I was a happy, positive person:  I had a successful business; I was very physically active; I lived on an island that I loved and considered magical; I was 6 months into a new relationship with a wonderful man.  In other words, I had a fairly regular, normal life.

A little before 6 AM on 24 September 2011 all of that changed.

That Saturday morning I was engaging in my daily exercise routine of a seven mile walk when I was viciously attacked.  The attempted rape took place IN FRONT of the Hotel Del Coronado along the ocean sidewalk/path, not in some isolated portion of the island or on a dark street or under the bridge.  No, it occurred in a well-lit, populated area.  Of all the places I would have felt safest, this was one of them.

Completely unprovoked, and in the most cowardly way possible, the defendant ran up behind me and rammed both his fists into the middle of my back, and using the momentum of the rest of his body, slammed me to the sidewalk.  My telephone, which I always carried for safety, flew from my hand as my body propelled violently forward.  As I skidded along the pavement, my hips, hands and face sustained injuries.  Before I knew what was happening, he aggressively flipped me over onto my back and hooked his finger in the waistband of my skort and underwear, and I felt the terror rise within me as he ripped them off, for now I was naked from the waist down.  I kept fighting and screaming, but this did not stop him or even deter his efforts.  All I could think was, ‘there is no way I’m letting him rape me.’  I kept fighting, knowing that I was literally fighting for my life.  Then I saw his fists getting ready to punch me in the face to shut me up.  At that very moment, I heard someone yelling at him to stop, to get off of me.  He did not stop, nor did he get off of me, but it startled him enough that the expected punches did not come.  The man who was yelling got closer and closer until he was yelling in the defendant’s face, “GET OFF OF HER.”  Finally, he stopped, got off of me and ran up the sidewalk towards the street.  I immediately jumped to my feet and pulled my clothes back up.  I was later told that the man who saved me, and who I refer to as my guardian angel, was a guest at the hotel.  Instead of chasing after my attacker, he walked me into the Del, got hotel security, who then called the police.

Nine months later, I am still haunted by both the physical and psychological effects of the sexual assault.  I am in therapy and have been since a few days after the attack.  I have a strong support system but each day has had its share of challenges.

I have now experienced first-hand the roller coaster of shock to anger to depression, each phase accompanied by its own share of anxiety and fear.  Living in Coronado for 9 1/2 years prior to this vicious attack, I walked every day before dawn.  Since my attack, I still cannot walk near the Hotel Del Coronado or the beach and never walk before dawn unaccompanied.  As a result of my depression, which I am dealing with, I became suicidal; I came very close to jumping off the Coronado Bridge and might have actually done so had I not seen a friend’s car on the bridge behind me.

I now want to move away from Coronado because it no longer feels good to be here. I no longer feel safe.  I look at most men now as potential threats.  Walking 4 blocks to the store  if it is nighttime is no longer possible.  So many things have changed.  If I allowed the sadness for all these changes that are a direct result of the attack, I am not sure I would survive.  I now approach life in a very different way.

Perhaps the most starkly evident effect of all this has been my ability to work.  I am a self-employed seamstress.  I make custom home furnishings: slipcovers, window treatments, pillows bedding, anything for the home.  Since the attack, it has been very challenging to work as my concentration and focus are affected.  Jobs that would normally take several hours, now take several days, if not longer, if I am able to do them at all.  There has been a substantial loss of income, as a result.

There is no doubt in my mind that had my guardian angel not shown up when he did, the defendant would have beaten and then raped me.  No doubt at all.  In addition, there was absolutely no hesitation on his part.  He knew exactly what he was doing.  The attack was more violent than any photos or police reports, or even my own words, can convey.  He may have been on his best behavior while in jail, but that’s because he is monitored, forced to take medication and there are no women for him to attack.  Statistically, chances are the defendant will never be ‘cured.’  Even with medication compliance, the chances of another vicious assault are very high.

Given all this, I believe he deserves and I am requesting he be sentenced to the maximum time allowed under the California statute for the crime of attempted rape.  We all know he would have completed that rape given a few extra minutes.  I can tell you, without hesitation, I might not be here any longer if he had.

The 24th of September 2011 was, without a doubt, the worst day of my life.  I may have been a victim of a crime that day, but I am NOT a victim.  I WILL get through this and in the end will be a much stronger person.  You are NOT worth my life.

Sincerely,

Tamerie Shriver”

Although, as I said at the beginning of this post, I was not able to read this directly to cockroach boy in the manner I wanted to, I did say to him while looking at him and he looking back at me, You are NOT worth my life.  And when I sat down, I asked my boyfriend if he (cockroach boy) had been looking at me the entire time.  He said, no, that he had only looked at me when I looked at him and told him he wasn’t worth my life.

Next post I’ll get into the details of exactly what happened in court and, even more interesting, what happened after, which was even more upsetting than being in court.

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

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Before I get to my journal entries, I wanted to tell you that I have been pushing the envelope of darkness, so to speak.  I am still (mostly) afraid of the dark, and going out into it to walk, unless I am walking with someone, is not possible.  Or is it?  Lately, as it gets lighter earlier, I have been going out before it is actually light.  Okay, only by a couple of minutes and only because I know the sun is coming up and it will only get lighter and lighter.  And when I walked at 4:30a the other day with my friend Mike, I was able to meet him part way down my block.  Of course, I watch out the window and can see him turn up my street.  Still, it feels like progress.  I also remind myself of my friend Erin, who was raped 30 years ago in an attack that was similar to mine, in that she passed him, spoke to him and then he grabbed her from behind, and she walks in the dark, sometimes alone, almost every day.  And then there are the odds.  I mean, really, what are the odds of it happening again?  As they say, lightening doesn’t (usually) strike twice in the same place.  I am still very cautious, though.  I expect that at some point I may be able to walk in the dark again.  But maybe not.  And maybe I’ll just continue to push it a little more each day, but never too much.

 

Back to the past and my journal entries:

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Feeling rather crappy today and I’m not sure why.  There is no rhyme or reason to the ups and downs of my emotions.  I walked 6 miles and still feel bad.  I feel okay as I am actually walking and then when I stop, all the crap comes back full-force.  I just want the pain and awful feelings to stop.  Why are they being so difficult to release?

10:25a  Had my shower and cried the entire time.  I can’t believe how bad I am feeling.  I’m back in bed, hoping I can sleep and wake up feeling better.  The thoughts that keep running through my mind are disturbing, to say the least.  It’s like I am in a battle with a part of myself that is determined to make me give into it.  I feel like I cannot not tell anyone this, even Susie, but Monday when I was coming home from therapy, feeling really, really, really low, as I was coming across the bridge, I actually considered stopping, hell, I almost stopped and, well, at the very least would have caused the bridge to be shutdown.  As it turned out, Mike was 2 cars behind me, which I didn’t know until he came up right behind me at the light at Orange.  As far as I can remember, I’ve never come so close to doing something that I don’t think I really want to do.  I continue to fight that annoying part of me that just wants to leave, to check out.  I am trying so very hard not to give in.

11:20a And now I just feel like I’ve been beat.  The feeling of complete hopelessness goes away to be replaced by a feeling of overwhelming exhaustion.   All I can do is sleep.

 

Monday, 23 April 2012

“8:15a  It’s another marine-layery day.  How delightful.  Oh ,that’s right, not so much.  Like I need depressing weather when I am already in a depressed state of mind.

And the big question is – Am I being completely honest with Susie about how I am really feeling?  Not all of the time, but more than I think I should be.”                                               [ Note- I’m not sure what I was thinking when I wrote this.  And I wrote this prior to seeing Susie on this day.  At this point I had not told her what happened on the bridge.  I had not told anyone, including Bill.  And as a matter of fact, I did not tell him until some weeks later.  I was always afraid that if I was completely honest with Susie, she would have me committed to a mental hospital.  I did not write that afternoon when I got home from therapy.]

 

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

“5:30a  Had another very fast walk with Mike.  13 1/2 minute miles, which is pretty dang quick.  I’m planning on the 7:30a yoga class, so I am resting until it’s time to leave.

I am very hopeful that, once all of the stuff (SAMe, St. John’s Wort, and whatever that other pill I’ve been taking) is out of my system, Wellbutrin won’t be necessary.  I guess it’s a good thing that I told Susie what’s really going on with me since, it appears, the pills I was taking, at least the St. John’s Wort, was making me worse instead of better.  I just want to not feel like I do”.

 

So, the St. John’s Wort was making me suicidal.  I should clarify that.  It was making me even more suicidal.  Although I am not bipolar as my brother and my uncle are, it turns out I am in the bipolar spectrum and what that means is, just as there are certain drugs and/or supplements a person with bipolar disorder should never be given, someone who is in the bipolar spectrum has to be treated in the same way.   Had I not told my therapist what happened, there is no telling what I might have done.  As I said, I do not remember ever coming so close to doing something about my desire to leave this world.  It’s not like I ever had a plan or have ever thought much past the idea of not being here anymore.  This incident really scared me, and even though I did not tell Susie right away, I did tell her the next week.  She immediately knew it was what I was taking; something that was supposed to make me feel better, was making me so much worse.  I couldn’t just stop taking it, either.  I had to taper off of it.  Eventually, all of what I was taking got out of my system.  At that point, I was afraid to take anything.  My body has such weird reactions to medications and after this horrible episode, I didn’t trust anything.  In the end, I decided to go without any kind of medication.  Should I have tried a ‘real’ antidepressant?  Maybe, but I chose not to.  As I said in an earlier post, I thought that  I was not clinically depressed, but situationally depressed.  It was what I was going through and I felt like once I got through the therapy, I would be okay.  I was, however, open to it if Susie really thought I needed it.  I was lucky that I was being monitored and that I was finally honest with Susie.

IT GOT WORSE

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I think I’ve been putting off doing a new post because, first of all, I was getting ‘worse’ rather than better and, secondly, I wasn’t writing as much and there are far less journal entries.  The ones that are available are kind of hard to read, at least for me.   And I am now coming from a place of being completely healed from the attack.  At the time, though, I was so engrossed in my therapy that writing about it was the last thing I was capable of doing.  Of course, that was the very thing that would have been helpful, but as I’ve said many times already, my brain was not functioning properly.  I was doing the best I could from where I was.  So, several more entries…

 

1 February 2012

My neck pain is back with a vengeance.  After I came out of shock, the pain seemed to lessen.  At least  I could move my head again.  Now, though, it hurts as much as ever.  And yesterday I got a horrible headache, which still hurts this morning.  I thought it better not to go to the gym.

 

9 March 2012

I can feel myself slipping further and further over the edge.  It’s a terrible feeling and I’m not sure I can stop it.  I so want to isolate myself from EVERYONE, even, and especially, Bill.  Tomorrow is one year from the day we first met; not the date, which is the 12th, but the actual day.  We are going to Jimmy Buffett, which should make me happy.  I am hopeful that this weekend will not be a repeat of last weekend when I just felt bla.  I started taking 2 SAMe today because I still do not want to take a ‘real’ antidepressant.  Perhaps the higher dose will help.

Mother told me yesterday as we were hanging up that she loves me.  This seems to be what set me off this time.  I just want to feel whole and loved and that I matter and the simple truth is I just don’t.

 

15 March 2012

Once again court has been continued.  Cockroach’s bitch of an attorney still has not gotten his psyche evaluation done.  I wasn’t holding my breath that we’d actually be going to court on the 27th but I was hopeful.  Hopes dashed yet again.

 

20 March 2012

Kind of ironic — I feel better about what I went through in my past, the past I’ve been stuck in for the last couple of months in my therapy, and still, I’m not ‘me.’  I can’t seem to do what I’m supposed to do.  I finally got my new computer (have been without for over 6 weeks) and I still haven’t cleared off my desk so that I can set it up.  I feel stuck in some other pattern or something.  I want to work and I don’t, can’t.  I want to sew.  I want to be working on my new website/project.  I want to be working on my new yoga bags (and eventually, I’m sure, a yoga clothing line).  I want, I want, I want, and what do I do?  Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then some more nothing.  I seem to have lost my drive and determination.  I also ‘lost’ my stomach ache that I had for over a week.  It was caused from my therapy and the events of my childhood that I was revisiting.

What I did today: yoga class, walked with Laura, went to Pacific Beach to get frozen yogurt, then to AmVets on the way home.  Every day I wake up and think, “This’ll be the day,”  that I’ll finally be back on track.  So far, though, it hasn’t happened.  Oh, and today should have been the readiness/fitness hearing for cockroach boy.  Instead, Mary Loeb emailed me the new dates which are 24 May, fitness hearing and, assuming we move forward at that time, 31 May for the prelim.  I made sure the new dates would be when Bill was not in Mexico.

 

21 March 2012

I had a very nice marriage proposal this morning on my second walk.  It’s too bad I’m not into older men, and by older I mean 93 years old!  Still it was nice.

I don’t understand why I can feel almost good one minute and the next feel all the despair I’ve been working so hard to get rid of.  I suppose it’s the depression talking.  I so want to be motivated and the best I can seem to do is get back in bed.

 

22 March 2012

I realize that what I am is not clinically depressed, but situationally depressed.  Whatever you call it, it feels crappy.

 

As you can clearly see, I was more depressed than I realized and I was fighting to not go on an antidepressant.  I took Wellbutrin back in the mid-90s and, though it did what it was supposed to do, it was a horrible experience and I was trying to not repeat it.  At the time, too, although I was depressed and  knew I was depressed, I didn’t think I was really depressed.  Funny how the mind works.  I should also mention that since I am taking these entries directly from my journal and it is my journal, I don’t have to explain things because I know what they mean or who I may be referring to.  For the purpose of this website right now, my only intention is to get my story told.  After that is finished, I will be filling in the blanks and there are a lot of those to be filled.  If I filled them in as I went, this would take a few years to get through.

Another thing I realize that I never wrote about in my journal was back at the end of January or very beginning of February 2012 I decided to compete in a half-marathon.  Because I was, at the time, still having so much trouble forcing myself to walk, I knew that I had to train for something so that I would have to get out there.  I chose the Safari Park Half-Marathon because it benefited the tigers.  The date of the race was 6 May 2012.   So during all this not-being-able-to-do-much-of-anything-period, I was also meant to be training for a 13.1 mile race.  It’s funny (to me) that I never wrote about it, but that’s just another example of how my brain wasn’t working normally.

 

 

10 NOVEMBER 2011

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From my journal…

“I feel like I am a ticking time-bomb and I am not sure when I’ll explode.  Mostly, I feel okay, and, at times, I can even ‘forget’ about what’s really going on.  What makes this so hard is not knowing when things will happen.  I put this quote on my Facebook this morning:

“There is sacredness in tears.  They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.  They speak more eloquently than ten thousands tongues.  They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.”  ~Washington Irving

If this is true, that tears are not a sign of weakness, but one of power, then I must be the weakest person on the planet.  I certainly do not feel like I have any power at all.  I have understood for a long time that I have no control over anything but my reaction to things.  In this case, I can’t even control my reaction because my brain chemistry is all messed up.  I feel more out of control than ever.  And I look fine to the outside world.  When I look in the mirror I still don’t see the real me.  I’m not sure where she is.  Perhaps locked away until it is safe to reemerge?

Kim recommended I watch some YouTube videos about sexual assault in the military.  The one thing I took away from “Angie’s Story’ was her saying that PTSD does NOT go away on its own, that without help, you will always suffer.  Also, that it took a year (oh, crap) for her symptoms to fully manifest.  So then I think, okay, fine, I’ll just go about my life until that happens, except that isn’t how it’s working.  It’s like I am half in, half out. I can’t move forward, I can’t pretend or will myself past this, so I sit, stuck in the now.  The fact that I get out of bed every day is quite an accomplishment because all I really want to do is stay there.  Right now, the symptoms I do have are manifesting themselves as depression, though I am not depressed.  Going on an anti-depressant doesn’t seem the way to go because it will be masking the very feelings I need to feel in order to move through the trauma.  Talk about a catch-22.

And then I go back to the fact that I wasn’t actually raped, that, really, I wasn’t hurt very badly at all, that physically I’m healed, so why aren’t I healed emotionally and mentally?

I am so close to starting to write about this on my A Little of This That and the Other blog.  I feel like I am alone and I know that’s crazy.  I am feeling an overwhelming urge to talk and write about this on a much larger scale than I have already.  I think the biggest ‘issue’ I am having is reconciling what is going on with what I believe.  If I believe everything happens for a reason, that there are no mistakes, no accidents or no coincidences, then what happened, happened for a reason.  That I can accept.  And I’m pretty sure the reason is to move me to the next chapter in my life.  I get that, and can even be grateful.  What I am NOT getting  is why I cannot override the negative with the positive?  Why, even as I’m saying the words, the opposite feelings are what keep showing up?  Why I am unable to ‘will’ what it is I want?  Why, if our thoughts create our future, that what I think today, creates my tomorrow, what thoughts did I think to bring this violence into my life?  I KNOW I never thought these thoughts.  And, really, how much trauma can I possibly endure without checking out completely?  Yes, I am determined to stick around AND I can’t help but think I have already passed my breaking point, and so far, have been stronger than that very small part of me that doesn’t want to stay, that doesn’t want to be here.   When does it get better?  When does the pain stop?  All I can think right now is the pain is so unbearably acute  that I can’t feel it at all, that that’s the reason I’m not crying, the reason I can’t allow myself to feel anything.  For now, I guess that going through the motions is as much an accomplishment as anything.  I am doing the best I can and I feel like I’m not doing much of anything.  Round and round I go.

9:45a  What if I really don’t deserve to be happy?  What if only certain people are destined to have all they want and the vast majority are meant to lead lives of mediocrity? To be forever searching, but never finding?  To always be mostly unhappy?  This is a world that I do NOT want to live in and a reality that I cannot, no WILL NOT, accept.  With God, all things are possible.  It doesn’t say, with God, some things are possible or a few things or even most things.  It says ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.  I have to believe this.  I cannot, and will not, let one incident in my entire life determine or dictate who I am and how I’ll live the rest of my life.  No way, not how.  And still, I wonder…

12 noon – Well, I did it.  I made it official.  I posted on my blog, came out to the world, so to speak.  I declared my intention to write, although I mentioned photography first, and then writing.  No matter, it’s out.”

 

It’s funny, in an interesting, ironic way, that I ‘came out’ about my desire and intention to write, but made no mention of the impetus behind it.  And going through my journal of that time last year is actually a lot more difficult that I thought it would be.  At the time, I both knew and didn’t have a clue as to what I was really going through.  I so wanted to be healed and finished with the entire process, never realizing that length of time it would ultimately take.  Looking back, I think I thought if I didn’t ‘hurry up and get better’ that that meant I was weak or that there was something far worse wrong with me than ‘just’ having been sexually assaulted.  Remember, this was only 5 weeks or so after the attack.  And one of the things that did come out in therapy was my tendency to be incredibly hard on myself.  I cut myself no slack.  I thought if I wasn’t perfect, no one would stick around.  It took me a while to, first of all, even understand it, and secondly, to start being more gentle and loving to myself.  Something far worse came out, as well, and that was the hatred (yes, a real hatred) of myself that I wasn’t even aware of.  I would have laughed if you had told me I actually hated myself.  Turns out, I did.  There are reasons why that manifested and I will get into them at a later date.  For now, suffice it to say that this made my healing from the attack that much more difficult.  In the end, though, I did what I had to and worked through it and was able to put that piece behind me.  I’m telling you that EMDR is the most amazing thing.  Without it, I certainly would not be where I am today.  That is also a subject for another day.