I'm not really sure what to say, so I'm just going to try to start with the facts. I'm almost 30 years old, I'm a woman who was born and raised in the US. I'm married to a wonderful man and I'm struggling with PTSD. I was diagnosed in 2014.
I've been sexually assaulted twice. The first time I was a kid, I'm not sure how old exactly I was. The man who did it was I think in his 20s at the time, he went to our church. He was a friend of the family. He was the bishop's son (like a preacher's son). I didn't even remember anything happening until I saw his face on the front page of the newspaper. He had been arrested for molesting teenagers at a juvenile center he worked at. I'm not sure, but I think one of my siblings knew what happened to me. I haven't really had the courage to talk with them about it though.
The second time I was assaulted, I was a teenager. A guy I thought was my friend walked me to our mutual friend's house after school. That's the last thing I can remember for a while. My friend told me that when she came home, she found me naked in her mom's room. The mattress had been pulled off of the bed and I was laying on it, bleeding. I said "I think I was just raped" and I drank a cup of tea. My friend wanted to call the police but I was terrified and insisted that I take a shower. She said she helped me into the shower and I had bruises all over my body. It looked like he had tried to strangle me to death. She said that there were bruises on the inside of my thighs and I was bleeding from my vagina and anus. She said that we tried to make me look normal, with makeup so no one would suspect what had happened because I was so worried I'd get in trouble.
For weeks afterwards I was really messed up. I can only remember bits and pieces of what followed. I found my clothes stuffed underneath my mattress, my shirt had been stretched out and I couldn't remember the attack, so I convinced myself that my sister had borrowed it and ruined it (we didn't get along at the time). I also remember that a chunk of my hair had been ripped out, but I tried to explain it to myself that maybe it got cut out at camp, like someone had played a prank on me. I thought maybe the bleeding I saw in the toilet was from my period or something bad that I ate.
I also stopped going to classes. I'd just lock myself in a bathroom stall and cry and throw up. I threw up so much back then, all the time, probably at least once or twice a day. All of this kept going for a year before I started to remember things again. By remember things I mean.. be able to store memories. It's like a year or so of my life is missing (actually I'm not sure how long because I don't know when the attack happened). My friend said she tried to tell me, and I remember arguing with her. She'd tell me "you were raped" and I would call her a liar, because I couldn't remember anything like that happening.
During the time I can't remember, I tried to kill myself. I only know this because I wrote about it in my journal. I have scars all over my body from self-harm. I used to cut myself, but I can't remember all of the times. This hasn't really been a problem lately.
There's a gap in my journal around the time around the attack. I'm not sure if I deleted it or if I stopped writing. Pages have been torn out of my sketchbooks as well. I know from reading my journal that I was really depressed. My parents were not very supportive, from a young age I had to fend for myself and they weren't home a lot. My mom would disappear for weeks or months at a time and I'd have to take care of my dad and my little sister. I'd come home while my dad was still at work, make sure my sister did her homework, do the housework, make dinner, do my homework, write in my journal, and go to sleep. I wrote in my journal about how much I wanted to die, but how I didn't want to hurt my friends by abandoning them. I wrote about my pain, my misery, how I felt like I wasn't a real person, how I felt trapped, how I felt afraid.
The person who attacked me went to the same school as me. He stalked me for a few years after that. He would show up at my house day and night, he would watch me and try to talk to me. He mailed me recordings of himself. He even apologized to me one time.. but I didn't remember what the hell he was apologizing for so I just said "you don't need to apologize. I'm okay, you didn't hurt me." He got angry at me and tried to make me understand what he did, but I couldn't really process it at the time so I just broke down crying and having a panic attack.
I struggled with bulimia, panic attacks, somatic pain, depression, and anxiety for over 10 years. Then recently I reconnected with my friend, and we got to be close again. She tried telling me a couple more times what had happened but I still wasn't really ready to hear it, so I would just assume she was mistaken about the past or I'd forget our conversations. Then apparently the person who attacked me added me on facebook, and my friend came to stay at my house and talked with me for days until I understood the truth of everything.
So, at the point I was finally able to come to terms with being raped it was the start of 2014. I had a breakdown, I didn't really get out of bed for a month or two. Then I had trouble sleeping. The worst week of it I was up for about 5 days straight until I collapsed in the living room. My life is so different now than when I was attacked. I don't speak with my parents anymore, as they are rather toxic people. I'm only in contact with my younger sister, the rest of my siblings are kind of difficult to deal with because they don't agree with my decision to cut contact with my parents. I live in another state and I'm married. I have a college degree now. I feel like I built my life up from scratch, but then when I found out the truth about myself I felt like I was a teenager again, scared, nauseous, and depressed. I felt like myself again but I don't know if I like myself.
I love my husband, I love my sister, and I love my close friends, but I feel guilty. It's been almost a year since I found out about the attack and I feel like I need to be doing more to move forward from this. I've been reading a lot of books and trying to work on dealing with my triggers and learning grounding techniques. I saw a few therapists throughout 2014 but eventually I felt like I wasn't really getting much out of therapy. I've been having a lot more good days lately but I'm scared I'm going to backpedal at some point. I don't really know how to talk about this stuff with the people in my life, I feel like I am alienating myself or like they're going to get sick of it and just leave.
So, I guess that's why I am here. I want to do better. I want to be better. I feel like every day I try to tell myself that I should feel lucky, that I have survived so much, that I am one of the lucky ones, but I don't feel lucky. I feel angry, I am pissed off! I am terrified and I am sad and I am trying every day to find reasons to stay alive. Some days it's easier than others, and lately there have been more and more good days, but sometimes I just feel like it is SO HARD to hold on. I feel overwhelmed by the wall of emotions I have to climb in order to find my way back to rationality, and I feel like I'm burdening people in my life by talking about it. Because, really, who of them wants to hear that I was woken up by a nightmare, or that I can't sleep, or that I feel sick to my stomach over things that happened years ago?
I can count the number of people who love me on one hand. And I love them, I really do. But I don't want to lean on them too much or put them through being around me sometimes. I'm scared that if I do that, I'll find myself alone and broken again.
I've been sexually assaulted twice. The first time I was a kid, I'm not sure how old exactly I was. The man who did it was I think in his 20s at the time, he went to our church. He was a friend of the family. He was the bishop's son (like a preacher's son). I didn't even remember anything happening until I saw his face on the front page of the newspaper. He had been arrested for molesting teenagers at a juvenile center he worked at. I'm not sure, but I think one of my siblings knew what happened to me. I haven't really had the courage to talk with them about it though.
The second time I was assaulted, I was a teenager. A guy I thought was my friend walked me to our mutual friend's house after school. That's the last thing I can remember for a while. My friend told me that when she came home, she found me naked in her mom's room. The mattress had been pulled off of the bed and I was laying on it, bleeding. I said "I think I was just raped" and I drank a cup of tea. My friend wanted to call the police but I was terrified and insisted that I take a shower. She said she helped me into the shower and I had bruises all over my body. It looked like he had tried to strangle me to death. She said that there were bruises on the inside of my thighs and I was bleeding from my vagina and anus. She said that we tried to make me look normal, with makeup so no one would suspect what had happened because I was so worried I'd get in trouble.
For weeks afterwards I was really messed up. I can only remember bits and pieces of what followed. I found my clothes stuffed underneath my mattress, my shirt had been stretched out and I couldn't remember the attack, so I convinced myself that my sister had borrowed it and ruined it (we didn't get along at the time). I also remember that a chunk of my hair had been ripped out, but I tried to explain it to myself that maybe it got cut out at camp, like someone had played a prank on me. I thought maybe the bleeding I saw in the toilet was from my period or something bad that I ate.
I also stopped going to classes. I'd just lock myself in a bathroom stall and cry and throw up. I threw up so much back then, all the time, probably at least once or twice a day. All of this kept going for a year before I started to remember things again. By remember things I mean.. be able to store memories. It's like a year or so of my life is missing (actually I'm not sure how long because I don't know when the attack happened). My friend said she tried to tell me, and I remember arguing with her. She'd tell me "you were raped" and I would call her a liar, because I couldn't remember anything like that happening.
During the time I can't remember, I tried to kill myself. I only know this because I wrote about it in my journal. I have scars all over my body from self-harm. I used to cut myself, but I can't remember all of the times. This hasn't really been a problem lately.
There's a gap in my journal around the time around the attack. I'm not sure if I deleted it or if I stopped writing. Pages have been torn out of my sketchbooks as well. I know from reading my journal that I was really depressed. My parents were not very supportive, from a young age I had to fend for myself and they weren't home a lot. My mom would disappear for weeks or months at a time and I'd have to take care of my dad and my little sister. I'd come home while my dad was still at work, make sure my sister did her homework, do the housework, make dinner, do my homework, write in my journal, and go to sleep. I wrote in my journal about how much I wanted to die, but how I didn't want to hurt my friends by abandoning them. I wrote about my pain, my misery, how I felt like I wasn't a real person, how I felt trapped, how I felt afraid.
The person who attacked me went to the same school as me. He stalked me for a few years after that. He would show up at my house day and night, he would watch me and try to talk to me. He mailed me recordings of himself. He even apologized to me one time.. but I didn't remember what the hell he was apologizing for so I just said "you don't need to apologize. I'm okay, you didn't hurt me." He got angry at me and tried to make me understand what he did, but I couldn't really process it at the time so I just broke down crying and having a panic attack.
I struggled with bulimia, panic attacks, somatic pain, depression, and anxiety for over 10 years. Then recently I reconnected with my friend, and we got to be close again. She tried telling me a couple more times what had happened but I still wasn't really ready to hear it, so I would just assume she was mistaken about the past or I'd forget our conversations. Then apparently the person who attacked me added me on facebook, and my friend came to stay at my house and talked with me for days until I understood the truth of everything.
So, at the point I was finally able to come to terms with being raped it was the start of 2014. I had a breakdown, I didn't really get out of bed for a month or two. Then I had trouble sleeping. The worst week of it I was up for about 5 days straight until I collapsed in the living room. My life is so different now than when I was attacked. I don't speak with my parents anymore, as they are rather toxic people. I'm only in contact with my younger sister, the rest of my siblings are kind of difficult to deal with because they don't agree with my decision to cut contact with my parents. I live in another state and I'm married. I have a college degree now. I feel like I built my life up from scratch, but then when I found out the truth about myself I felt like I was a teenager again, scared, nauseous, and depressed. I felt like myself again but I don't know if I like myself.
I love my husband, I love my sister, and I love my close friends, but I feel guilty. It's been almost a year since I found out about the attack and I feel like I need to be doing more to move forward from this. I've been reading a lot of books and trying to work on dealing with my triggers and learning grounding techniques. I saw a few therapists throughout 2014 but eventually I felt like I wasn't really getting much out of therapy. I've been having a lot more good days lately but I'm scared I'm going to backpedal at some point. I don't really know how to talk about this stuff with the people in my life, I feel like I am alienating myself or like they're going to get sick of it and just leave.
So, I guess that's why I am here. I want to do better. I want to be better. I feel like every day I try to tell myself that I should feel lucky, that I have survived so much, that I am one of the lucky ones, but I don't feel lucky. I feel angry, I am pissed off! I am terrified and I am sad and I am trying every day to find reasons to stay alive. Some days it's easier than others, and lately there have been more and more good days, but sometimes I just feel like it is SO HARD to hold on. I feel overwhelmed by the wall of emotions I have to climb in order to find my way back to rationality, and I feel like I'm burdening people in my life by talking about it. Because, really, who of them wants to hear that I was woken up by a nightmare, or that I can't sleep, or that I feel sick to my stomach over things that happened years ago?
I can count the number of people who love me on one hand. And I love them, I really do. But I don't want to lean on them too much or put them through being around me sometimes. I'm scared that if I do that, I'll find myself alone and broken again.
