One of these days. . . .

[kiya]

I was debating making this a friends-only space, just because, . . . because.

But part of what's made me want to write it is because I used to be utterly, utterly unable to talk about it, and there are people out there who are still in that sort of place, and there are people who don't know about the place I was at all.

So there's something to saying it where it can be seen. Maybe a bit of catharsis or something, or consciousness-raising, or . . . I don't know.

But this is going to be long, and it may have material distressing to the more sensitive viewers, so I'm going to put in this nice little

There are times I wonder if I'd have been better off if I'd been able to talk about it sooner. Or at all. If going to a doctor and getting a diagnosis and maybe talking it out would have made it better. There are times I suspect I suffer or have suffered from some variety of PTSD or something like unto PTSD, and wonder if getting told that that's what it is would make me feel better. I looked up the symptoms once, you see, because I was curious, and as far as I could tell, I had all of them but one: I never dreamed of him.

Generally I don't worry about that overmuch; the flashbacks, which were the worst of it, I haven't had in a while now. Though I still startle quite badly, with full-bore fight and flight, and have no idea how to deal with that. And I wonder if some of that damage is tangled up in the space where some of my sexual responses aren't where I wish they were.

I don't think I've ever put the whole story down anywhere. I don't know if I'll be able to do it now. There's still something about the whole thing that my brain skitters away from wildly; it's impossible to look at it clearly or with a peaceful serenity.

It's only been ten years.

I have this problem with being slow to work out how I feel about things when I haven't thought them through before. I'm very resistant to change; I'm very unsettled by things being out of place. It would not surprise me if this is something that has only gotten worse as a result of the problems it got me into in the first place.

I hit puberty fairly late, I think; hell, it's arguable that one of my breasts is still in Tanner stage four, and I'm twenty-four. My parents didn't give me any of The Talk talks; I got books instead. Pretty detailed about the physical changes, clear and consistent, with generally a single chapter on the emotional stuff. I tended to reread the chapters on the emotional stuff most often.

I remember being a fairly experimental kid back then. I suspect this of being one of the things that I lost down the wrong Trouser of Time. Or had transformed into something else. I don't know; I really don't know. I think the only thing that can actually get me angry is that not knowing what it is that I've lost, or if I lost something, or if I gained something.

At the age of fourteen, I acquired a boyfriend by the simple expedient of being blindsided. I had a tremendous crush on a friend of mine; he was going to be at a concert of student bands held at my school, and I sorta decided to go hang out with him. (Through a somewhat more roundabout thought process; he was also going out with someone at the time.) He happened to have brought a friend.

The friend and I wound up spending most of the concert together. I'm afraid I don't remember anything about the music, because I was busy processing things. He seems to have put an arm around me. I wonder what that means. I wonder what I feel about it. I wonder whether I like it. I wonder if I want him to keep doing it. Or a little later, He seems to have kissed me. I wonder . . . . Slow to process, remember? Bad with changes.

I think it's pretty easy to see how the situation, over the coming time period, got a bit out of hand. It takes me a while to process stuff. And there wasn't the space to do the processing; by the time I'd worked out how I felt about the arm-thing it felt rather ridiculous to start complaining about it, ridiculous and unreasonable. I didn't know how to deal with it, and being an inexperienced but curious and somewhat whimsical kid isn't necessarily a good situation to be in when dealing with someone a good bit older who knows exactly what he wants. The years from fourteen to seventeen are much, much bigger than the ones from twenty-three to twenty-six. (It, uh, stunned me immensely when I realized that brooksmoses is more or less exactly as much older than I am as that first boyfriend was. What a difference a decade makes.)

It got to be that he started dropping hints about places he wanted to go. Which gave me a serious case of whatamisupposedtosayitis. I knew I didn't love him; I didn't know how I felt about him at all, to be honest, since I'd never had a chance to figure that out, and I'd not had enough time to figure out how to say, "Back off, damnit!" So what does one say to someone who tries out an "I love you"? I sort of grunted, generally. I liked it better when he quoted Monty Python at me; a cold day sitting on the Mall watching the seagulls fly backwards to the declaration of, "AlllllllllbaTROSS!" was about my speed.

It was probably a mistake to accept the invitation to go over to his place to watch a movie. I think I knew it at the time, at least that there was some sort of risk involved, especially given the directions he had been hinting at. I think I sort of hoped that refusing to acknowledge that realm would help; I'm not sure why I thought that, given that he did not overmuch have a history of checking for consent. I just packed up a tape of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and caught the Metro into Bethesda.

As I get to this bit I realize that no, I'm not going to be able to say anything really about what happened. I can say that the flashbacks come from here, that the images would come to me involuntarily whenever I saw a man aroused; this can be really hard on a heterosexual woman's sex life. I can say that if he had pushed a little harder, a little longer, my ability to resist would probably have shattered, and it would have gone past assault into rape, and I don't know where the futures that went down that road go. I can remember winding my arms tightly around my belly, to keep the hands from going lower, I can remember being trapped by the weight of someone significantly older and stronger than I, and most of all I can remember the incredulity of the only verbalisable thought that I had, that I could have for some time around there: "But I haven't even started my _periods_ yet!" I can say I spent the years between fourteen and sixteen essentially neuter, and in a very deep dissociative state; I can't honestly say that I really remember them very well.

I saw him years later, in a bookstore. I bailed and hid, which says a lot about it, I think, given bookstores. Eventually I told Kevin some about it -- I haven't told him everything; I don't think I've told anyone everything. He wanted to go thump the guy, but he tends to have that response to people who have hurt me. It wreaks merry hell with me starting up new relationships, too, which is one of the reasons that I'm really glad not to have to worry about that sort of stuff anymore. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad in the future, given some of the stuff Brooks and I worked through when we got to that point in our relationship, but . . . .

I didn't tell anyone it had happened. Some of that was dissociation, some of that was that I was just curled up around the pain and couldn't deal with it at all. A lot of that was feeling that I couldn't trust anyone with that sort of thing -- sexual harassment I'd experienced in the past was dealt with with a nod, an amiable smile, and, "You know, boys will be boys." And I had the sense that I'd be dear-deared to death, be put in the box of "girl who was assaulted", and never get let out again. By the time I got sane again, got to be me again outside of that two-year discontinuity, I wanted to go and live and see what sort of life I could have, not be perpetually carrying around that particular spectre in everything I had to do. I didn't want him to be tried for it; he was young and stupid, I was young and stupid. I can't say, "No harm, no foul", but I think the magnitude of the effects of having a go at hanging the sign labelled "attempted rapist" on him and "assault victim" on me was . . . not productive.

Damnit, I want a little perspective. I lost some, back then, and the world around me has been pretty good at trying to take it away from me, because of all of the damn weirdness that comes of having had something like that happen.

Ten years, now. One of these days. . . .

What do I get out of this?
I always try, I always miss
One of these days you'll go back to your home
You'll never notice that you are alone
One of these days when you sit by yourself
You'll realize you can't shout without someone else.

In the end you will submit
It's got to hurt a little bit. . . .

One of these days. . . .

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Thanks for being brave, and for being willing to share that.

Two people who I love have been similarly assaulted or raped in their lives, and one of the hardest things was not doing anything, letting them work through (rather than going out after those responsible).

It's a bit surprising that you've been able to open up with your beloveds to trust and to hold those relationships. (sound of old adhesions popping, of scar tissue pulled loose)

What happened sounds awful. It has apparently affected your responses to others over the past decade. But only you can answer the question: how do you want that experience to affect your interactions with others (esp. males) over the next decade? Or longer?

[kiya]

It's a bit surprising that you've been able to open up with your beloveds to trust and to hold those relationships. (sound of old adhesions popping, of scar tissue pulled loose)

Yeah, well. I'm nothing if I'm not pigheaded. I've got a good bit of, "I'm not gonna let it damn well stop me!" response to . . . well, approximately everything.

What got me off on that was a thread on a newsgroup I read where someone made the comment that she'd seen a lot of people on places like talk.rape and such, saying that they figured they'd have been better off dead than having been raped or assaulted. People who let it shape their entire lives, let it define them.

This saddens me, and makes me very, very angry. And it's the sort of thing that made it harder for me to admit to this shit in the past, because, well, if rape breaks people by default, and I was only _assaulted_, well, then it's okay that I wasn't shattered by it, it's not so much a big deal, it's not like it was rape.

No matter that I never had the chance to have a relationship without it. . . .

(One of these days. . . .)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well. I'm
nothing if I'm not pigheaded. I've got a good bit of, "I'm not gonna let
it damn well stop me!" response to . . . well, approximately
everything

Just like someone determinedly rehabilitating a knee injury, post-surgery. I admire your perseverance... or pigheadedness, your choice.

.What got me off on that was a thread on a newsgroup I read
where someone made the comment that she'd seen a lot of people on places
like talk.rape and such, saying that they figured they'd have been
better off dead than having been raped or assaulted. People who let it
shape their entire lives, let it define them.

Even decades later, I suspect... that's arguably a greater evil than the original trauma, when one considers the missed opportunities for love, light and life in the lives of those folks. Decades of half-existence, versus a searing initial experience...

This saddens me, and
makes me very, very angry. And it's the sort of thing that made it
harder for me to admit to this shit in the past, because, well, if rape
breaks people by default, and I was only _assaulted_, well, then it's
okay that I wasn't shattered by it, it's not so much a big deal, it's
not like it was rape.

Non-consent is still non-consent, whether or not the perpetrator was ultimately successful in his intentions. Trust towards males was still shattered for you, it sounds like.


No matter that I never had the chance to have a
relationship without it. . . .

What can you imagine a relationship-without-it to feel like? Or can you?

[kiya]

[T]hat's arguably a greater evil than the original trauma, when one considers the missed opportunities for love, light and life in the lives of those folks. Decades of half-existence, versus a searing initial experience...

I have a really hard time trying to figure out how to deal with the feeling that a culture that imposes that sort of mindset is doing a greater harm than the rapist or attempted rapist did, since I can't figure out who, exactly, I should be hitting.

Trust towards males was still shattered for you, it sounds like.

No, not really; trust in people at all has always been a bit shaky for me. Ability to cope sanely inside a relationship has been the tricky bit.

What can you imagine a relationship-without-it to feel like? Or can you?

Feel like? I have no idea.

But it would be a place where flashbacks didn't come upon seeing a naked man; likely it would be a world in which I hadn't developed a strong preference for sex in the dark.
It would be a world where the concept of opening a sexual dimension to a relationship did not reduce me to a borderline catatonic state. Possibly a world where I was more sexually open, more able to consider a casual relationship.
A world where I had a more carefree attitude to sex, like back when I was an experimenting kid.
A world where I remembered what happened between the ages of fourteen and sixteen as if it happened to me, not someone else.

(Here goes the CD changer again:

Why do I love when I still feel pain?
When does it end, when is my work done?
Why do I love, and why do I feel
That I carry a sword through a battlefield?

("Joy", VNV Nation.)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

I have a really hard time trying to figure out how
to deal with the feeling that a culture that imposes that sort of
mindset is doing a greater harm than the rapist or attempted rapist did,
since I can't figure out who, exactly, I should be hitting.

Cultural aspects that associate sex with shame and thereby keeps the victims from coming out, or talking about their ordeals?

Ability to cope sanely inside a relationship has been the tricky
bit.

Given the trust basis of relationships, while some relationship aspects are likely to trigger mistrusting reactions, it looks like you would constantly reconciling opposite reactions within yourself.

Feel like? I have no idea.

But it would be a place
where flashbacks didn't come upon seeing a naked man; likely it would be
a world in which I hadn't developed a strong preference for sex in the
dark.

(nods) given the flashbacks, little wonder... a coping mechanism. Relationship-without-it wouldn't need the mechanism...

It would be a world where the concept of opening a sexual
dimension to a relationship did not reduce me to a borderline catatonic state.

*that* must be quite a roadbump for you and your new partners, if/when a relationship adds that aspect... possibly with chaotic end results? Yikes...

Possibly a world where I was more sexually open, more able to
consider a casual relationship. A world where I had a more carefree
attitude to sex, like back when I was an experimenting kid. A world
where I remembered what happened between the ages of fourteen and
sixteen as if it happened to me, not someone else.

Although knowing how to survive emotional trauma through disassociation can be a useful survival tool, I think. A gift as well as a scar.

And even without that childhood trauma... how easy would it be to be able to open up, to trust a casual stranger? Hmmm...

(Here goes the CD changer again:

Why do I love when I still feel
pain? When does it end, when is my work done? Why do I love, and why do
I feel That I carry a sword through a battlefield?

("Joy", VNV
Nation.)

Because you have a warrior's bravery? You fear aspects of love, but march on through a field of peril anyway?