You know, I don't really know how I feel personally about the trigger warnings that the feminist blogosphere has been talking about lately, but I am also definitely not an asshole, so have a:
[TRIGGER WARNING]
Ok, so the point of this blog was to try to give voice to everything I was thinking and feeling in remembering, and then acknowledging, and then trying to heal from being raped. And I am going to try to be as honest as I can possibly be, but you know what's harder than writing a blog about being raped? Getting yourself to figure out WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE FEELING about the rape. Because I am so epically good at pushing all those feelings and emotions down (I couldn't even remember what really happened for nearly 3 years) that by sheer force of habit I am totally unable to easily grasp what I myself am going through. It's a little like getting hit by the waves of an invisible sea. You end up suffering from these symptoms, that come out in weird ways and at weird times, without ever being able to see or understand or get any grasp on the disease.
So, here's what's going on: nothing good.
I am in the middle of finals. I have four of them. I am really behind, because this is just how shit goes. I am tired and cranky and stressed. And what happens when I am tired and cranky and stressed? I become very bad at taking care of myself. All the work I have been doing to try to manage my disassociative disorder and get healthy did not just fly, it like warp-speeded, out the window.
So not only am I trying to handle stress and really study and fucking memorize the Federal Rules of Evidence (which: ehhhhhhhhhhhh), I am also fantasizing about starving myself. I have daydreams of putting a gun up my vagina and pulling the trigger. I wish to cut huge chunks of flesh out of my sides and throw them to the ground. I want to take a machete and split my entire middle open and let my innards bleed out. I spend a good chuck of time every hour telling myself how fat I am, how disgusting I am, how I would love to do nothing more than escape this body. I can't make it stop. When you're raped, you can never get away from the scene of the crime. So, for me, I just immediately revert, when I am tired, to imagining doing brutal violence to my body, because that crime against my body has been written all over it and in it and it feels like it has even gotten into my veins and the marrow of my bones and I want to make it go away. I want it to stop.
I don't want to do this anymore.
But, you know, I don't really have a choice, do I?
I want to make it clear that I am not in danger, and that I am not suicidal, and that no one need worry. This is just how rape survival goes. At least for me. And there is an endpoint to this, sort of, and my last final is the 30th, and I can rest and again begin the work of healing. And this is lucky, because many women do not have endpoints to the other stresses in their lives, and they are in a war zone or a continuing dangerous situation or are struggling to feed their families or don't have as good a support system or live in a culture that blames them for their own rape or any of the other horrid things women have to face every day. More than anything, more than even how much I want to hurt myself, I am grateful.
So, if the blog is a little erratic, I apologize; this is going to become an annoyingly self-serving space for me (ahaha, as opposed to how it is always ANYWAY, right?). If you keep reading, then thank you. And come April 30th, I promise: I will personally, and with great emotion, have a drink (or several!) to toast you. Girl scout honor.
Good for getting all that on paper. I've had a lot of those explicit, violent thoughts and for me they are about wanting to concretize pain and create an experience that was physical, public and awful then be relieved of it through the process. So, no, they aren't actually options that would work as visualized because of the consequences being final or painful in ways that would not actually ritually remove the internal pain.
ReplyDeleteI think that school and the pressures of performing in that type of environment or rather the type of performance that school demands can really intensify pain and for me, made it harder to take care of myself. Part of it is the unusual workload of school, and the inflexibility of it. You are one of a hive and not an independent professional who can shift deadlines or whatever. For me, school and thoughts of self-harm often were concurrent things and not unrelated, I think.
to be super cliche, just imagine my cat dangling from the frame of my closet door by her front paws (hang in there, baby - and this actually happened, i'm not just mocking the cat). and know that there is nothing erratic or annoying about your blog (which of course you know, but just so you know i know) - i've finally had a chance to catch up on it and your recent posts have been some of the most provoking and dead-on, fuck yea pieces i've read in a while - pretty damn impressive. hugs.
ReplyDeleteYou have this reader's full support to use this blog, however erratically, in whatever way helps you best to deal with your things. I love reading your posts, I will always read your posts. This bit where you wrote about wanting to harm yourself and the inability to escape your body? I want to hug you now so hard.
ReplyDeleteAwwww, yay! Internetty hugs are accepted!
ReplyDeleteThanks, ladies! It helps. It really does.
Your blog, use it as you will! May I recommend a drink NOW? It won't make you dumber, I promise.
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