@SumOneSomeWhere I saw the YouOKsis hashtag but didn't pursue it. I'm not okay with it because I didn't expect it to bombard me so suddenly on my feed, but I'm so glad you're okay. I didn't follow the Weinstein story either. I appreciate the heads up to the more to come, though. :)
I can generally handle the random outbursts of sharing of sexual assault and and such, but I think yesterday it was just too much and I just panicked and felt like I couldn't escape it. Heck Chitoshi, turn the computer off! Haha.
this campaign, in a way, makes it feel like what happened to me is viewed on equal grounds to a cat call or smack on the butt.
@TexCat Sexual harassment is most definitely wrong I agree, and I have also lived it. I completely agree with how you feel and I think that's how I felt. I feel like it was done with the best of intentions, and it's possibly meant to try and bring awareness, and it does that.
Maybe I'm oversensitive to this topic because of my experiences? I feel like Sexual Harassment being in the same meaning of hashtag as sexual assault (presumably rape included) makes what happened to me seen the same as a cat call, or a lewd gesture my way, or a smack on the butt. Like I feel like it invalidates the magnitude of what happened to me.
We could go in circles all the way down a long long road of "who's had it worse," but I almost feel like seeing those and seeing that hashtag about what has happened to my friends then actually finding out that mine is worse than what they're showing makes me feel like I can't share?
I wonder if maybe because they say "me too" because a strange man asked to drive them home maybe activates that I'm jealous of them? That they didn't experience it? I'm happy they didn't go through what I went through. I'm sad for those who have gone through what I have had and worse, but I didn't have a choice.
I couldn't get out of it and I'm paying a steep price because I relive it and things like this send me reeling. My T today said eventually I'll be able to handle it and that I'm regulating fine for someone who is only eight years out of such a traumatic event, but I feel set back.
I cried yesterday for hours because of the pain I felt on behalf of all of my friends on my wall who shared, but I also mourned the fact that the worst thing that happened to the ones who shared what happened pales in comparison to mine while knowing that others have it much much worse, and that's why I'm now avoiding social media until this blows over.
I think I could have handled it better had I been prepared for the hashtag to emerge, but that's the nature of the internet, and that's how it happens.
It's very different to be in this corner of the internet on this site and know the magnitude of the problem, and it's a much different thing to see an almost in-your-face scenario of "you're right, every girl/woman you know has had some sort of sexual harassment/assault/rape happen at some point in their lives."
I relived my trauma yesterday through some of the stories that I didn't feel invalidated by. It was difficult because for some reason for me, it's okay that I was raped, but it's not okay to find out that what I experienced isn't the norm and the world felt unsafe today.
For some reason I also feel like by saying that I felt invalidated somehow invalidates the people who feel violated by the sexual harassment that happened.
I guess I can truly say I feel a conflict about how I feel because I don't want to invalidate anyone, but I'm raging at the fact that I'm in pain and I can't share it because my story is much worse than some of what my friends shared, and that isn't going to change, I can't go back, and I can't justify my anger because it's not at them, it comes from a much deeper wound that I am still working on healing.
TLDR: I feel enraged, but I think it comes from a much deeper psychological wound. I feel invalidated, but I worry that I'm invalidating others by feeling invalidated and does that mean I'm invalidating myself? The mixed feelings gives me anxiety, and my threshold was crossed yesterday. It's going to take me a little to recover from this.
I meant to say "what I experienced is the norm"
