I have been in therapy for months now to process the trauma of being date raped when I was a teen. It has been a long, long journey with a lot of tears, anger, and healing.
I am thankful for every moment of this experience because I am feeling so much better in understanding the feelings and thoughts that I have about everything that happened.
To give you an idea of how a session goes, its like this:
I go see my counselor Kristin once a week. She asks me if I have had any Thoughts, Images, Cognitions, Emotions, or Sensations since the previous session. The answer is typically yes, as I seem to have things come up the day after a session. I then explain what it was I thought, felt, saw, etc. and then we go from there and work to process it doing something called EMDR therapy. It involves me focusing on the thought, image and feeling all at once while she taps on my hands to help my brain process the event. This often "unlocks" things I have shoved way down inside to protect myself through the trauma of the rape. When this happens, there is usually a lot of confusion and tears for me. Or anger. Then she uses this grounding technique to get me in a 'safe place' mentally (using imagery) and I head home. It is exhausting and it usually takes a day for me to feel normal and stable again.
This week when I went for my session, I explained that I have had some thoughts about the incident that I haven't had before. I am remembering things that are of little importance and details about the evening that I hadn't ever thought of. She said that was good that I was allowing myself to remember.
As we began to work tonight, an incredible thing happened.
For weeks and weeks now, I have had these conflicting feelings that this was my fault. Now of course logically I know that it was absolutely NOT my fault, but there was something going on inside me that had me feeling so confused because if I didn't want it to happen, why didn't I do anything to stop it from happening? I have tormented myself with that question!
So there we are, and I'm focusing on the incident and out of nowhere comes the memory that he was saying "Shhhhh. Shhhhh. Hush" and I had never remembered that - and of course it made me really angry and upset but then I remembered something even more incredible! If he was shushing me, that is BECAUSE I WAS TELLING HIM TO STOP! I had completely blocked out this dialogue! Then, I remembered what I was saying! I was telling him to quit! I was telling him that I didn't want this! That I didn't understand what he was thinking to do this to me!
Realizing that I DID try to stop the rape was exactly what gave me the concrete evidence that part of me needed to hear - that I absolutely did not want this or cause this to happen to me.
It was a huge moment for me. I cried and cried, because I am so relieved to put that doubt to rest. To have peace inside. I am so thankful!!
For anyone reading this that has something hurtful, something hidden deep, something that you've spent your life stuffing down or running from or hiding behind- I encourage you to recognize this and find the courage to face it. It may feel like it is bigger than you, but that is a LIE. The way out is through.
Thank you for your courage in writing about your experiences. Between experiences I had as college co-ed and those of my roommates and friends, I probably could use a little some therapy. I delve into literature instead. The Girls Who Went Away is a book that makes me so MAD when reading it. . . about those women who found themselves "in the family way" and how they were abandoned emotionally by their families, shunned by so many people who should have been there to support them. (Many had no clue what was happening to them, they only knew their menses stopped and they were pregnant). It is nauseating that we as a society tend to blame the victim and not the one who was the perpetrator. --We need to somehow find a way to fix this in society!
ReplyDeleteWe as women need to say, "I want something better for those of my sex".
I've said before that if I ever have a daughter, she'll know what it is like to be drunk (in a safe environment of home) before she goes to college and risks so much to be part of the culture that is college and young adult life.