Another Day, Another Battle (Trigger Warning)

***Trigger warning: I am writing about things that can be difficult for some people, just so you know…***

There are so many things that I’ve been working through at this time… back pain being the least of it, so it would seem.

Dealing with health issues is hard enough. But it seems like something far darker and insidious then just my health issues.

Yes, the back pain is bad. It hurts. It hurts a lot. Usually back pain can be debilitating.

Dealing with rape trauma… that is worse, largely because it’s emotional trauma. It’s hard to just get over the pain. It’s not something that you can repair or fix easily by strengthening muscles. It’s not something that can easily be diagnosed by poking and prodding. It’s something you live with for the rest of your life, like a scar. Unlike a scar, this will hurt for the rest of my life.

It’s something that happened when I was 13. It’s something that I can talk about with relative ease. Telling the story about what happened doesn’t bother me anymore. This is a huge step forward when it comes to processing PTSD. Being able to tell the story while maintaining composure because you’ve dealt with the emotion involved.

I have come to terms with what happened to me. I was forced to give an older classmate a blowjob when I was a Freshman. This guy wanted to use me so he could feel good. He didn’t care if I had actually drowned. All that was important to him is getting off. He didn’t even say anything. He used me like an object.

Saying all that doesn’t hurt me. It’s what happened. And I realized that I had come to terms that that had happened to me was when I reported it to the police, 5 years later.

The emotional scaring is still there though. It’s not something that ever goes away. There are times where the feelings from that time rear it’s ugly head. I start to have the attention span of a puppy. I have issues going to sleep, then staying asleep. I start becoming irritable and depressed. I also start to really dislike myself. Because no matter what, I still blame myself.

I should have been stronger.
I should have fought more.
I should have hurt him physically like he hurt me.

Even though I consciously know that there’s nothing that I could have done to stop it, I still feel like I could have. Then I feel bad because there are somethings I can not do, because the thought of it squicks me out. Sometimes it brings back all the feelings from that moment.

Frankly, it sucks. It sucks that someone took away my ability to have a more mentally healthy life. That I had to be more psychologically and emotionally damaged. I’m still angry about it. Someone decided that allowing me to be the thirteen-year-old I was. That I had to be their sexual toy.

And that’s something you don’t just get over. It’s something that stays with you forever. I have learned that it’s just best to try and take it one day at a time. Sure, it’ll set me back a little to the point where I don’t really have any concentration, but if I keep working through it I can eventually have the tools to combat it.