19 Years and Counting (Some Sensitive Material)

There is something interesting I have noticed since connecting with other survivors of sexual assault. There is this battle for supremacy on each other's experiences, and it isn't the "my experience was SO much worse than that!" It is almost always the other way around. I don't know why, or how, but it has been common for other victims to say things to me such as:

• "I mean I was raped...but I can't even imagine what you went through. That is just awful."
• "How can I even compare myself to you? It only happened once to me!"
• "How did you make it through? I am still struggling, and I didn't have it nearly as bad as you."

These are only a few of the statements that have been tossed my way on a regular basis. It is actually quite sad, because I have never thought of myself as any more of a victim than anyone else. It matters not the quantity of assaults, all it takes is one time.

It honestly doesn't even matter the details. A victim could have been drugged and woken up with zero bruises and no memory; she could have been a child forced into believing it was her duty to lay there and behave; a wife who has no way out; or a jogger blindsided violently. We ALL carry the shame and anger that is included with being a victim of sexual assault.

We are in this together.

Don't let what "experts" say about what is classified as an assault invalidate your story. It doesn't have to be some deranged TV-worthy experience, because that is really not the reality of sexual assault. Granted there are those stories that are gut-wrenching and almost impossible to comprehend, but the truth is,  the majority of rape victims are those whose stories wouldn't make the national headlines.

I promise you, your story IS important. 

Every time a victim shut's herself down because she doesn't think her story is worth hearing, she is letting another rapist win.

We are SHAMED into silence for a reason right? So that their indignity can be buried with us. So we carry that shame. 

Don't turn a blind eye to what is happening around us; what has happened to you.

Most of all, don't let small losses in the path of healing effect your overall journey. We don't all get earthly justice for what happened to us, but that doesn't mean we can't create it by spreading awareness. 

I am not sure what compelled me to write this other than I am currently passing a difficult anniversary of one of the last times I was sexually abused and raped. I sit here almost 20 years later, and to me, it is as if it still happened yesterday. I can still taste him, feel him, and it makes me want to vomit. 

Tell me, how familiar is that very feeling to my fellow survivors? If you pass that date, a date other people would just roll their eyes at, do you feel a shiver down your spine? Do you still feel as though its fresh, even for a moment? My guess is yes, because no matter how strong you are, you are human. 

The one thing that is amazing about me passing this anniversary, no matter the horror I see behind my eyes, I get to say that I have made it through another year of not letting him win. I have broken the silence, and I will stand with my fellow survivors, because they too deserve to break their silence and release that burden of shame.

19 years and counting.