Anger & Acceptance

April 9^th 2017

That is when it happened

It being that I was assaulted

Two men assaulted me

Two United States Marines

Assaulted.

We use that word because it is so much easier to say than the “other” word

Raped.

April 9^th 2017 I was raped.

It has been two years since then and I still have not healed. There are times when I really tried to get better and other times when I completely gave up. I have seen more than one counselor, never going back for a second time because I didn’t want to talk it out. I didn’t want to have someone tell me that they understand what I am going through or that they can relate because they too were sexually assaulted.

They can’t relate.

No two people would have the same reaction to such a traumatic event.

I didn’t want to hear that it happens to a lot of women because that just discouraged me even more.  Why isn’t this as big of a deal as it should be?

I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone. Not even the two men who did it to me.

The rape itself was horrible enough but the aftermath of the rape was far worse than I could have imagined.

I looked at my broken, bruised, naked body in the mirror the weeks after and I didn’t even recognize the women staring back at me. I had been reduced down to nothing. Just a worthless piece of meat that men could objectify and use as they pleased and then just toss to the side like it was nothing.

Who was I? Better yet, Who am I now?

I would say that in the “5 stages of healing” I am at stage 5. Acceptance.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I am not still angry, because I am.

It does however mean that I am ready to write it out and move on from this.

I have an amazing support team. My mom in particular is my rock and without her I don’t think I would have made it out alive.

I don’t mean suicide.

In all of this I have never once contemplated taking my own life. However, I have given a lot of thought to just wasting the rest of it, lying down in my bed and never getting back up. Just withering away in self-pity.

She wouldn’t let me do that.

She thinks that I am so strong and brave but what she doesn’t know is that it is because of her that I am brave and it is through her that I get my strength.