Tag: sexual assault

Life, mental health, self love, Uncategorized

Side note: A different side of blogging

selfpreservationtoselflove

I wanted to acknowledge, and apologise for, the fact that it takes longer after each blog for me to post another.

In all honesty this is because I didn’t anticipate how writing this blog would make me feel. I thought I was over it all and moving forward. To a certain extent, that is true. But it’s not the whole story.

Writing about my childhood was easy, it wasn’t hard to take a different perspective and find the good in all that happened because it’s like it was a different life. It was so long ago and because it doesn’t affect me day-to-day, I genuinely have managed to move forward and be grateful for the good.

My teen years were similar but harder.

By the time I got to my late teens – Magaluf – I was confident, almost cocky about my blog not causing me any pain. I felt on top of the world because I was proving that nothing could phase me.

Then, I wrote about Magaluf and that world I was on top of COLLAPSED. That posts effect on me was monumental. It made me feel like I had stood naked in a room of everyone who read my post or would ever read my post and described what had happened.

Since, I’ve been having a lot of bad days but a few good. I am writing about them in the hopes that owning the feelings will allow me to move forward with them. And then, I hope, from them. And of course, I am hoping that someone may understand and feel them too and then neither of us will have to feel so alone.

A few days after I wrote the post about the attack, I was scrolling through Facebook for photos of that time (to use in my next blog) and scrolled right into a photo of that old housemate. It felt like being that young, vulnerable girl all over again. For a few days, I am ashamed to say, I kept looking at that picture and hoping for answers or to at least see a sign in his face of what he was capable of.

I spoke to friends about this and was encouraged to stop looking, which I managed to do.

Then the anger started, I have been getting moments, sometimes hours at a time where there is so much anger flowing through my body that it hurts. All I want to do at those times is lash out but I know that I can’t.

That triggers the feeling of powerlessness for me, the fear that comes with that and the shame that comes with that.

Looking in the mirror at my own face has been a struggle – I feel like I don’t recognise myself right now.

I don’t really have the answers, or the ‘goods’ to share right now but here are a few things I’ve been doing to bring myself back;

  1. I’ve been forcing myself to look in the mirror, have photos taken of me. In the future when I look back to getting past this, I want to remember how I looked at the time.
  2. I’ve been getting myself out even when I am terrified of being there. I don’t want my life to pass me by.
  3. I’ve been opening up to my boyfriend and my friends as much as I can and trying to take their wise advise.
  4. I’ve been telling myself all of the things I would tell a friend in this situation. One day I will believe it.

I look forward to one day coming in here and writing about how I got through this and picking out the good in the situation.

But, for now, I am going to keep writing my story so that I don’t get stuck in one chapter.

img_7084
Taken today in my happy place – by the water

 

Life, self love, Uncategorized

Who holds all the power?

selfpreservationtoselflove

Before I get into writing this blog, I want to share how scared I am of it today. The part of my story that I am about to share is so personal and has taken a very long time for me to come to terms with- ‘how’ is a story for a different day. I am scared to the point that I am shaking and feel sick right now.

‘Why write it then?’ You might be wondering. I am writing it to release it into the universe and in doing so, free myself even more from it.

So, we left off in Magaluf. I was 19 and hardly knew anyone. For today’s story we are still there; I suppose a part of me will always be there.

I was settled into my life there; my job, my room, my apartment that might as well have had rotating doors as people left and moved in a lot. There was just one person left who had ‘always been there’ after a while- the guy who was there before me. We got along well most of the time; we watched movies, had dinner together, food shopped together, did general sober things. When one of us (or both of us) were drunk it was different, he would try it on all the time and I would reject him. For a bit of the time it was because I had a boyfriend but that didn’t last as he couldn’t handle my job as a jelly shot girl (now in a much busier bar), for the rest of the time I rejected him because I just didn’t see him like that.

He would get angry if I’d got with anyone and would often come in to my room naked and shove his d*ck in my face. I’d always tell him where to go. Then one day, he announced that he was going to be moving out. I was so excited for the day to come as I wanted his bedroom for some extra space and privacy; I also wanted the constant come-on’s to end. The come-on’s ending were secondary as I didn’t really perceive them as a threat, just an irritation.

The night before he moved out was a normal night, I went to work at around 7 got hammered with my colleagues and shot buyers and then went clubbing after. I got home and passed out in my own bed.

Waking up was not normal, I was not in my own bed and there was someone on top of me. I felt paralysed, I was already being hurt so didn’t see a reason to fight and get hurt even more. I didn’t shout because there was only one person to listen. I didn’t say no because ‘no’ clearly didn’t mean anything. I stayed quiet and compliant to save what small bit of safety I had left. Afterwards, I got up and went back to my own bed.

I told nobody and reported nothing- all I could think was that if I carried on as normal that things would become normal again. Besides, who would have even believed me? I didn’t even fight back. I felt worthless.

The next night, at work, one of my colleagues told me that my old flat-mate had been bragging to anyone who would listen about what had happened with me. She told me what she thought “he raped you, Becky. He is disgusting and is bragging about it”. I wouldn’t/ couldn’t accept those words yet so I shrugged it off and changed the subject. It had turned out that my other flatmate had been home at the time and hadn’t said that, so how could this woman be the judge of it?

After that, I had no trust in men left at all so I’d give them what I thought they wanted before they could just take it. That’s what I genuinely believed that they would do. I completely abused myself and my body before anyone else had the chance. I got into a lot more situations that I didn’t want to be in. But this time I had the power, right?

Wrong. That’s the thing about power. I don’t belive that anybody really has it.

People do whatever they can to hold on to their power for as long as they can, even if it hurts them. In my opinion; how can you be the one with all the power when you are so scared to lose it, when it’s hurting you to keep hold of?

And if that is power, do we really want it?

The funny thing is, I feel most powerful now with the knowledge that I have no power. I know my truth and I am happy regardless.

img_3017