Hi y’all. I know I’ve been M.I.A. for awhile so I wanted to take a second to acknowledge my absence, elaborate on it, and provide some imagery for what it looked like (check out photos below).
I started this blog to connect survivors, to openly discuss my experience with sexual violence and my emotions surrounding that trauma so other’s experiencing and feeling something similar could feel less alone. I’ve always talked openly about my sexual assault (however, the same is not true about my molestation) and thought that talking about it had healed me. I was speaking openly about sexual assault, I had taken numerous hours of self-defense courses and was now on my way to teaching others what I had learned; I was as healed as I’d ever be… or so I thought.
But the truth is, I’m not healed. Yes, I’ve moved along on my healing journey, but I am far from healed. I have put in some of the work by speaking out about my experience and taking self-defense courses, but I haven't really dealt with my trauma at all. I may be perceived as this strong, badass survivor who fought off her assailant and dealt with her molester when really I just feel like I got lucky. I’m lucky that I started fighting and kicking and my assailant ran away, I’m lucky that I wasn’t raped. I’m lucky that when I fidgeted in bed my molester stopped touching me, I’m lucky that he didn’t touch me on my actual pubic area and instead over my clothes. I don’t feel strong and brave, I just feel lucky. I’m lucky that my instincts kicked in and were able to protect me. Most of the time I just feel like I got lucky that it didn't turn out worse for me.
But instead, I put those feelings out of my mind and started writing as if I had this survivor things all figured out, but that's far from reality. But as I started writing about my experience with sexual violence, it all started to hit me and it all started to feel so real; I started to get triggered regularly and I realized that all of the trauma is still there and I haven’t dealt with it as much as I thought I had. I was writing as if I had done the hard work, gone through an incredible healing journey, and was no longer affected by my trauma when the truth is that I haven’t really dealt with my trauma at all. All I’ve really done is suppress it. For years. For 11 fucking years, I suppressed all my feelings around this trauma and carried on with my life as if what I had gone through didn’t affect me or change me. But it has. I am a different person than I was when I was 15-16 years old and all of that trauma is still so deeply ingrained in me and now it’s all coming to the surface and suddenly I feel like I’m drowning. I’m overwhelmed with so many emotions. I need to write for my blog because I made a commitment to myself to write and spread awareness and connect survivors, but I don’t want to write and I make excuses for writing and I realize it’s because writing is re-traumatizing and I’m fucking triggered. I feel out of control and I don’t know how to get a grip on anything and I’m falling apart and I can’t stop crying and I NEED HELP.
So I stop. I stop writing. I decide I need to take a break from writing and focus on my mental health. I'm going to practice self-care and seek out help from a therapist because I don’t think I can do this on my own. And now it’s been 2 months since I’ve published a blog post and a month since I’ve written anything at all. And I have yet to find a therapist because they make it so fucking difficult, but I’ve decided I need to keep writing. I need to talk about my feelings of being triggered and re-traumatized because maybe there are other people who have felt or are feeling the same way. But instead, we don’t talk about that part of our trauma. We don’t talk about it because it’s hard to talk about it. And we don’t talk about it because talking about it means admitting that we don’t feel like we have it all together or under control. And because talking about it means we are going against the social norm of not talking about such taboo topics of sexual violence and how these experiences make us feel afterward — scared, alone, not worthy, dirty, tainted, damaged, and so much more. Because we try to ignore the fact that this shit happens every fucking day to what feels like fucking everyone. Too many people are affected by sexual violence and harassment for us not to be talking about it. And yes, we say #MeToo and we are starting to talk about how we are affected by sexual violence, but maybe we need to start talking about what it feels like to live life after experiencing sexual violence. Maybe we need to talk about how this trauma affects us on a daily basis rather than just putting forth this image of strength and courage. Because I feel like maybe many survivors feel like I do, like they aren’t as strong as other people paint them out to be, and maybe in order to really believe and understand our true strength we need to acknowledge the trauma, the pain, the doubt, and the triggers that we live with once the dust settles.
So here I am. Writing. Because I’m traumatized and triggered and I know other survivors are too and I think we should talk about it so we can all feel a little less alone and a little more heard and understood. And so we can finally believe that we are as strong and resilient as everyone else views us.
I’m not ok and I know others are not ok, but we can listen and support one another and lift each other up, and together we will be ok. Together we can pursue fearlessness.
In fearless pursuit,
Emily
I love you!