I didn't intend to start writing this.

I dug out some old sketchbooks from a few years back. I looked through them, and I felt like they just radiated pain. I was almost scared to touch them, they were radiating negative energy. I hate to look back at the person I was. I get even more worried that I'm still that person. I spent so long in such a bad place. I acted out, I cried for attention, I took fits, wrote melodramatic prose and drew depressing pictures.

I feel like other abused people are valid, and I'm just difficult. I don't know how people stood to be around me when I was younger. I'm sure I must have been unbearable company. When I hear of other abuse survivors, they seem so dignified in their recovery.

I didn't really tell people about my situation; I just acted out and went in circles, hoping they'd notice. I was acting as an abused child does, hoping they'd notice what was happening at home. Instead, they must have just thought I was an obnoxious melodramatic girl, with nothing better to do. I feel the same way, writing this now. Why should I bother expressing myself, and how I struggle to deal with these feelings? Someone will come across this and think 'for god's sake - get over yourself.' 'How long ago?'

It's strange; that a survivor can develop such crazy tactics. I must have developed this self-hating persona to protect myself. I do feel at war with myself, my body is traitorous. I wanted to be a child, and my body was sexual. It makes me shudder with disgust thinking about it. My muscles are flinching at writing these things down; determined to close it all back inside. Some part of me is trying to keep me quiet and keep me wallowing in self loathing.

I'm sure other survivors don't make fools of themselves. I'm sure they don't act out and make spectacles of themselves. I'm sure their tutors and work manager's don't look at them with pity or annoyance. I'm sure other survivors deal with this better. They all seem much more brave and dignified. Their pain is valid; mine isn't. If I ever came to terms with my pain, I'd have to cry and that would be too dangerous. I've come too far in my life to do that. Even if I cried for a little while, if I really took ownership of my feelings of rejection and hurt, I'm scared I'd cry and not be able to stop. I'm supposed to be 'better' now.

But how do I feel I 'should' have dealt with it? I can't actually answer this. I just feel this constant sense of needing to justify myself to people. If someone close to me had died, people would go 'aww.. poor thing', but admit that you've been raped, and people develop odd twitches and avert their eyes. I don't always want sympathy - but I do want people to acknowledge my grief as valid, and let me hurt publicly, without having to hide like a leper. If I ever felt sniffly the morning after a bad nightmare, it'd be great to say 'I had a bad dream about my rape', and at least let people know what the score was. Hiding it away and mumbling 'nothing', lets the hurt seep out in unexpected places where it's most often innappropriate. That's when people start saying 'she's melodramatic.' I loathe that word.

I cried when a girl scuffed all my new animal erasers in class when I was small. If I could have said 'I'm crying because I got raped again last night,' I wouldn't have seemed half as idiotic at the time. I feel like melodrama is the price I've paid for not being able to say what's really bothering me.

The thing about a sex crime, is that the survivor is left with equal amounts of shame and guilt. Even though it's the same as a mugging, or a theft, it's very intimate. People still see it as sex. I hate not being able to talk about it. I didn't have a choice - and I shouldn't be ashamed. But people I tell would feel uncomfortable, because like it or not, I was involved in a shameful sexual act. It takes two; and I was one of them. But do I really have to remind people that someone held me down?

Melodrama is the price I've paid because society can't face what happened to me. People say that they feel 'uncomfortable', and that it's awful to hear about. My god... if people can't even hear about it - then what would they do if it happened to them? How on earth would they cope? ...Who would they talk to?

If you sat a rape victim next to someone from 9/11, say who lost their legs getting out the buildings, and they both got interviewed for TV... Chances are, the person from 9/11 would speak of the sheer horror of getting out the building alive and losing their legs in the process. If that person then said that whenever they heard a fire alarm, they were paralysed with fear; or they had nightmares of the event; what would the public think of her? Look at the effort made in New York for these people. Look at the lengths the firefighters went through.

The rape victim speaks, and people would probably cringe in their seats. The rape victim talks of losing their dignity, and in some situations, their hymen the attack. They talk of having nightmares, and that the smell of oil reminds them of the rapists hands and can paralyse them with fear. How many viewers would sit and listen, and not change the channel? Would the public proceed with the same caring display as seen in New York in 9/11? Would they take as much trouble to challenge potential rapists, as they do chasing potential terrorists?

Would someone say to a 9/11 survivor, "It's your fault for losing your legs, you were wearing the wrong skirt,"?

Would they be held equally accountable as the terroists for their building coming down?

I'm aware that this view might make me very unpopular, but at least those victims can talk about it with the support of everyone in their lives. Even mentioning that you've been raped, is such a giant step in a survivors life, that is often met with fear, disgust or rejection. I see both situations, rape and 9/11, as terrorism.

To be a rape survivor is to live your emotional life in the shadows, constantly trying to appear normal while you're dealing with your grief on the inside. We do this out of fear for those people that feel 'uncomfortable' with us.

I'm not picking on any other different survivors. I just feel that many other traumatic experiences are treated with respect, while we're invisible. We're the ones that people shove into the corners. We're hushed up and made to feel ashamed of ourselves, when we weren't to blame at all for our attacks. We just don't get that simple public support to help us through the day.

The difference it would make, to have people face it, would be staggering. Especially considering one in three women has been raped. Coming back to my 9/11 comparison, people idenitifed so strongly, because it was the whole world's problem. It could happen to you. People knew people in the buildings, in the planes... Who around you is a rape survivor? When did you last discuss it with them? Take a guess how many around you are victims, yet would never tell you? Think you don't know a rape survivor? Think again.

One third of rape survivors never fully recover. Silence kills. I've seen it happen myself. If people would just understand the self loathing that follows rape, and that just by acknowledging someone's suffering, even if it means you feeling uncomfortable for a little while, you could change someone's world?

Rape is a worldwide problem. It happens every second of every day, to all sorts of people, in every culture and in every coutry. It doesn't matter what gender you are, or what colour your skin is. It isn't because of religion, or the price of oil. After all, your odds are one to three. Chances are, you might find yourselves among us someday.

So how about it? How about allowing us the dignity of grieving for being hurt? How about people standing up to put a stop to rape being common? Where are our firefighters?




Notes



1. 'The Woman in the Amber Necklace', After Silence', Nancy Venables Raine.

2. 'The Woman in the Amber Necklace', After Silence', Nancy Venables Raine.

3. 'The Woman in the Amber Necklace', After Silence', Nancy Venables Raine.