i read a comment on a reddit post that said, "the guilt was eating at her, but she realized the teeth marks were hers." and that stuck with me.
i do not want to be a burden. i do not want to take up so much space. i do not want to need so much help. i do not want to be fighting against my own brain. i do not want to fall short every time. i do not want to feel like a shitty mimicry of a human. i do not want to feel overwhelmed simply by existing. i do not want to cry over stupid shit. i do not want to only be able to stomach certain textures. i do not want to have sensory problems. i do not want to have support needs.
i want nothing more than to be free and free means not here and not here is not an option anymore.
trigger warning for SA, adding a cut so anyone can scroll by <3 i'm not discussing the event itself, just mentioning it
part of being assaulted i think is never getting closure. part of being assaulted more than once is living a life with more questions than answers around a particular time in your life.
this isn't even about the assault itself. it's about my life AROUND it.
i went to college ready to be something different. i made it out of high school by a very fine thread, and i was grieving the intense heartbreak over losing friendships i wanted so badly to keep. i was optimistic, far from home. but i was also VERY sheltered. i've unpacked in therapy the ways in which my upbringing affected the way i view(ed) the world and how that has opened me up to very specific flavors of trauma and misfortune (thanks mom and dad).
when i was assaulted, i was in a relationship. she was...wonderful. overwhelming. all encompassing. it's one of those things where i can look back and say she was just...everything, everywhere, all at once. i would have loved to do taxes and laundry with her, but i didn't know it at the time. i was still too scared of my body to love her in the ways i wanted to.
i never got closure. i broke up with her because i thought my rape was me cheating on her. a phone call late at night, me 5 hours from home in tears over a decision i didn't want to make.
that was 8 years ago. she got engaged last fall.
i'm happily in a long term relationship now. this isn't me pining over someone, not really, but part of the fact that i was assaulted at 18 is that my brain is just...still there. the imprints of her hands are still in my flesh, because my brain has parts of it that never moved past that time. so randomly it's like the ghost of her shows up, nearly a decade later. i've moved on. she's moved on.
but sometimes...i wonder who the version of me that still loved her would be. which, really, is me wondering who the version of me that wasn't raped would be.
would we have still broken up? maybe. but it would've been later. gentler. mutual. or maybe we wouldn't have. i think i would have proposed after graduation. she would have been there, even though i graduated through covid. we would've stayed at her aunt's nearby.
we used to joke, the mortician and the physicist. our two dreams jobs we knew we'd never actually achieve. we would've been the botanist and the social worker instead.
if i'd gotten to stay, i wouldn't have ended up in my next relationship. the one where i was used for my body in ways that actually irreparably fucked my relationship with it. but i also wouldn't have found the one after that. the one that made me feel safe again, that lets me be myself despite my flaws and my needs and complicated bouts of big feelings. her absence gave me his presence and i am grateful for that.
but. i miss her. i hate that.
i just wish i'd gotten to say goodbye. a real one. a meaningful one. i wish i could have thanked her for loving me. i wish i could've even just explained that it wasn't her, that she had done nothing wrong. it kills me to think she could have blamed herself at all for it. she got caught in the blast radius after rape and god i'm so fucking sorry.
i'm so glad she's happy. i'm so, so fucking glad, but my 18 year old self misses her. my 25 year old self is tired of being haunted by a past i will never see again. i want to face the sun.
i relate to what you just posted about setting up systems that work for you until it suddenly doesn’t for one reason or another, like yes it’s operating as intended but that hurts right now - and i don’t have anything helpful to say but just that this makes sense to me and i hope you feel better soon
YES that's exactly it, i'm sorry you understand it too. we'll both get through it but it's hard right now <3
okay long post now but i think the thing that bugs me the most is like. realizing that i really don't have any connections i can lean on??? like??? i'm so bad at being responsive and attentive, so now when my household is busy i'm all by myself with my brain quaking in its boots telling me that everyone hates me. like... this is EMBARRASSING.
i think having multiple friendships is too exhausting for me and im realizing that i have actually MUCH shorter limits than i thought i did, so i have literally my best friend and my partner and then a circle of really good friends who don't communicate outside of set times, which works for me! but then when my best friend is busy or my partner is busy im like 🧍🏾♀️ cause the structure i've built is designed to leave me alone lmfao. i got what i ordered but the texture is bad type shit.
and it's literally no one's fault!!! i just have rotten egg brain!!! so i can't even be like mad at someone or anything!!!
but here i am with a migraine and exhausted to my core, feeling like because my best friend is understandably preoccupied with their friend who is visiting that actually they don't want me around. LMAOOO WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT. it's not true!!! i know it isn't!!! i hate it here fr
and on the autism front, tell me why i had an entire meltdown over nothing. i'm tired and have to mask a lot and that's exhausting when my organs all have the suds but what am i crying over dude like. i think i just like knowing when new people are coming and going so i have like a finish line?? but that doesn't mean cry????? that's so stupid????
yes, things are different when my friend is busy having other friends. that's literally how it works. so why is my brain kicking trash cans over and screaming
i feel like my confidence has hit an all time low.
physically, i'm so unhappy with my body. i know being in a relationship i shouldn't feel the way i do, but there's something about the world seeing me as like...not that desirable that fucks me up. i just want to feel...idk? conventional? normal?
i'm surrounded by people whose bodies i'd love to have. i find myself body checking more and more. every morning i look to see if maybe somehow i'll wake up and be okay with the shape im in. hasn't happened yet.
i want to be thinner. or to have a bigger chest to even it out. i hate looking at my swollen neck and shoulders and flat chest and pudgy stomach. and it sucks having all of this but being at a very healthy weight.
i want to be able to exercise when i have time and energy to, but im in so much pain that i can't.
mentally, i just don't have confidence in my abilities lately. i feel stupid, and useless. im terrified my boss is going to hate me. we're 3 years apart and she's almost done with a doctorate and i don't even have my masters. i feel like i ask stupid questions because sometimes i have to repeat myself to understand the reply. i hate being adhd. i hate being autistic. i hate feeling like i dont deserve my professional life. i hate that my last job ground up the little security i had in my skills. i hate that im so anxious over negative feedback, or that it hurts my feelings. i want to be so much more than i am.
personally, i struggle with how my friends see me. my partner and my best friend are the traditionally attractive, physically and socially desirable, personable ones. the ones people gravitate to in literally every aspect. im sad. i just want to be more like them. i want people to want to talk to me, or be friends with me. but i know part of it is my fault for being too quiet, not saying much in social situations. logically i know that. but sometimes even when i am trying it feels like no one wants me. it makes me sad to feel like im living on an island, watching everyone laugh on their boats as they drift by.
idk. im trying to keep myself going and busy but it's hard. and eating is hard. but i don't want to slip into bad habits and skip meals and push myself. that's not going to do anything anyway, losing weight by not eating isn't the body i want. so it's not the goal here. but eating is hard, because it feels like everything i put in my body makes me hate it more.
i dont want to burn out. i feel like after only 6 weeks of a new job i havent earned that. what do i even do, sit at a desk all day? (though my therapist points out, i also: have to code switch, have to mask, have to pretend to be the person my boss wants me to be, have to help students, have to manage my own projects, live in a disabled body, deal with ocd and severe anxiety, etc)
i also am so tired of switching medications. it is so fucking demoralizing feeling so broken that meds barely help. these new ones make me less depressed i guess but i feel like my anxiety is out of control now. i just want to feel like a person. it feels like im on life support some days, and it feels like a waste of resources. all of these medications to help me function like a normal person and they dont even fully work. maybe im just not compatible with life lol. not in an "i need to die way". just in a "i need to get over it and deal" way. idk. it's embarrassing having a list of diagnoses. idk why people online self diagnose as if any of this is fun. as if i WANTED any of this. if i could be normal all of this would be so much easier.
i have to get dressed for work now. so. go me. i guess.
i think i learned something really important in therapy today.
i think i thought that, after all this time, the affects of my assault just...went away? obviously i know i'll be dealing with this forever but i mean that i thought i was a lot better.
j really messed me up. n really messed me up. and poor ny & hp have to deal with it now.
there are parts of what i've gone through that are shifting the way that my brain processes what it means to be safe, what it means to be comfortable, what it means to be healthy. it feels like i'm regressing but only because the adrenaline is finally wearing off. i'm finally not running anymore, which means that everything can catch up to me now.
i find comfort in soft femininity because it opposes the masculinity that hurt, barbed into my skin, left scars. i fear that i'll be forced into finding 'my place' beneath a man, under his will, submissive. even when i know how gently i'd be handled, how delicately i'd be treated, i can't help but see their faces, hear their criticisms.
i'm afraid of the body i see in the mirror because i know how much they hated it, but how much they felt entitled to take from it.
i realized that j never really understood how bad what he did was. there was no part of him socialized to understand that he was committing the same crime in different packaging. that, after everything, he was no better than the rest. and now, 7 years later, i'm STILL dealing with that.
sometimes my brain turns me into someone i don't want to be. i get scared. i lash out, much like a vulnerable animal. i leave before i can be left, i shout before i can be shouted at. my fear makes me...unapproachable. difficult. frightening, sometimes. i don't like how my mouth feels against words coated in metallic vitriol, voice pitched in thinly veiled mania and hysteria, how i treat people like the enemy because i'm so used to being alone that i can't recognize what help looks like.
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