Tag Archives: sexual assault discussion

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.

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!”

A NEW YEAR

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One of my resolutions for this New Year is to be better about posting on this site.  Once I finished with my story, with what I had written while going through the healing process, I was at a bit of a loss as to how I should proceed, and, clearly, since I have not posted since the middle of October, I am still having trouble with which direction to take.  Because of that, and because there is much more to share about the ongoing issues I am experiencing as a result of my attack, and there is a lot more to my larger story that I haven’t even touched on yet, it is my intention to post at least every other week.  And I’ve decided I need a specific day, and since it is Wednesday today, this first day of 2014, that will be my posting day.   I would love to say I’ll post every week, but I realize I need to get in the habit of actually writing (instead of just thinking about writing, which is what I’ve mostly been doing) before there is even a chance that I can do it more often.

Last year at this time I did a post about choosing a word for the next year.  Well, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and because I did not want to pick TRUST again, though it would be appropriate, I went through my angel cards and 5, yes 5, cards more or less ‘spoke’ to me.  They are, in no particular order:                                                         

FAITH

                                                                   PATIENCE

GRATITUDE

FORGIVENESS

PEACE

      I guess this means that I have my work cut out for me this year.  And, really, that’s okay. because it means I am still here, still plugging away, doing my best to not let what happened to me determine the rest of my life.

       I wish everyone a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous New Year!!!

AN UNEXPECTED TRIGGER

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Recently, a friend of mine asked, on a scale of one to ten, ten being completely okay, where would I put my healing?  I said a ten.  Because, honestly, I do feel like I am all better.  But, really?  Can I, will I, ever be all better?  I have to believe this is the case, and I would say that it IS true for me now.

I went to see “Captain Phillips” on Sunday.  I even skipped my beloved beach yoga to go to the 10a showing.  By the way, it is a great movie and Tom Hanks did a wonderful job.  Imagine my surprise when the movie triggered in me flashbacks, of a sort.  Obviously, I was not kidnapped by pirates, but something in me definitely resonated with the story.  I can only guess it was the trauma they suffered from the ordeal.  When they were in the life saving craft and one of the pirates looked out the window and saw three American Naval War Ships, all I could think was, Wow, you should never piss off the Americans because they WILL hunt you down and do whatever is necessary to defend their citizens and property.  I also thought, why would they not just give up?  Could they not see there was no way they were going to get away, either with Captain Phillips or with what they had already done?  Why wouldn’t they just surrender?

This is what happened when my guardian angel was on his way to save me from cockroach boy.   Clearly, someone was coming, and even more clearly, there was no way he was going to be able to follow through with his intention to rape me.  Yet, he did not stop.  He did not even get off of me, he just continued with his ‘plan’.  It was not until my angel was leaning over and yelling in his face to get off of me that he finally, I’m sure reluctantly, got off and ran up the sidewalk to the street.  I know now that he was in some kind of zone, as were the pirates.  Watching it on the big screen, but seeing myself in a similar situation was rather upsetting.

The other part of the movie that really hit home for me was after he had been rescued and was on the American ship.  He was so obviously in shock, and I do understand that they were all just following protocol, but the way he was treated reminded me of how the EMTs treated me.  I never mentioned this before because I never wrote about it at the time.  It has never left me, though.  You have to remember I was in a lot of physical pain after my attack, as I had been slammed to the cement and then fought with my attacker for however long.  My back hurt, I had many abrasions and cuts, and I was in shock.  Just as in the movie, they wanted me to sit down.  I didn’t want to because my back hurt and it was more painful to sit down.  Basically, they ‘forced’ me to.  I was told they wanted to take my blood pressure and other vital signs.  I told them that whether I was sitting or standing, whatever reading they got was going to be off the charts and not what my normal blood pressure would be.  I felt like no one was listening to me and it did not feel good.  In the movie, the ship’s doctor said, “I need you to sit down.”  It was just the way she said it that brought back my memory of the paramedics and how they responded to me.

It seems ironic to me that the most innocent of things can now trigger in me the very thing I worked so hard to get through.  I can understand how seeing a movie about rape or some other kind of physical assault would be hard, if not impossible, to watch.  (Actually, I do not think I could even see that type of movie now.)  I guess that there are some things that will be with me always.  I do hope in time this type of thing happens less and less.  The truth is the me that was attacked that day no longer exists.   You know the adage, ‘what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.’   Well, cockroach boy did not kill me and I AM much stronger.

HARD TO BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN TWO YEARS

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Yes, I have been neglecting this site.  Not for any really good reason.  I guess because I pretty much finished my story, I kind of stalled on how to proceed.  The truth is my story is nowhere near finished, not really.

Today marks the second anniversary (there must be another word that I could use that isn’t so ‘positive’) of my sexual assault and the first anniversary of this website.  I was curious to see what I had written last year in my journal about the launch of this site, and because I was doing my best to clear the clutter out of my house, that particular journal got put in a box in my garage, which meant I had to go and find it.  Imagine my surprise when I saw what I had written!  Nothing.  Nada, zip, zilch.  Really?  How can that be?  Well, last year at this time, though I was close, oh so close, to being finished with my therapy and dealing with my attack, I was still very much in it.  The closest date to today that I wrote was on 28 September 2012 and all I wrote was:  “Mostly, I feel like a big, fat fraud, pretending to be happy.”  Clearly, I was still struggling.

And if I am truly honest with you, and with myself, I still am, to a degree.  Oh, it is nowhere like before, and I definitely have more good days than not, BUT I am still dealing with the aftermath.  I am working on forgiving my attacker, and believe it or not, forgiving myself.  I have been told my numerous people that I am too hard on myself, and this is one example of that.  On the one hand, I KNOW I did nothing wrong; on the other, though, I think I somehow blame myself for what happened.  Still.  And this drives me crazy.  It seems so illogical.  Yet it is still there.  Not always, but enough to make me aware of it.

I have been feeling ‘off’ the last week or so, and waking up this morning there was no question of what day it is.  I wonder how long this will plague me.  Will I always remember this day?  Or will it fade in significance over time?

This is what I wrote in my journal this morning:  As I was drawing my angel card this morning, I ask that the perfect card be given to me, and my reaction to drawing ‘COURAGE’ was, Oh My Gosh!  This is the one word that has been used over and over to describe me and my reaction and/or handling of my attack.  And the one word that I have trouble seeing myself as being.  It feels surreal, like it didn’t even happen and at the same time, it is ever-present in my life.  It’s not that I necessarily or particularly dwell on it, but it is definitely there.  I think physically I feel it the most.  I still have a lot of neck pain, and though it is not debilitating, I am still very much aware of it.  I realized this morning, too, that I haven’t completely forgiven myself for ‘allowing’ it to happen.  That’s what I tapped on this morning – forgiving myself, Bill, the police, the EMTs, the D.A., his attorney and my attacker. I must forgive, not because any of it was right, but for myself, for my peace of mind, for my emotional health and well-being.  I DESERVE to be pain-free, emotionally, physically and in every other way.  Two years of my life have been dominated by an event which, in all likelihood, was just a few minutes long.  How is this possible?  How can 2 or 3 or 5 minutes out of a lifetime be that important?  525,600 minutes in a year and I continue to let those few minutes determine how I feel?

All I can say is I am doing my best to continue to heal what is still left to heal.  It is an ongoing process.  I am hopeful, however, that in time it will be less and less so ‘present’ in my life.  It is just one event in a lifetime of events, it is in the past and I choose to live in the present.  I choose, as Milton said, heaven.  I choose to release the regret, the blame and the guilt.  Through love I am made whole again.  I choose love.