To be fair, I’m not positive he raped me. The doubt is what
kept me from telling anyone for a year. The doubt is what made me sprinkle it
into conversation with a light-hearted tone when I finally felt ready to tell
someone.
What I do know is that I feel broken. What I do know is that
I struggle with trust. What I do know is that I find it impossible to be
intimate: either the loud voice in my head yelling ‘HE’S USING YOU! WHY WOULD
ANYONE CARE ABOUT *YOU*’ stops me before anything starts, or I end up subconsciously
contorting my body into bizarre shapes, squishing my thighs together as tight
as I can. “what are you doing with your legs?” someone once asked. I cried for
hours the next day. What was I doing with my legs?
It is possible that on the morning of my surgery two and a half years ago, I put my panties on inside out. It is possible that at a certain point during the day while I was still groggy from the anesthetic, I unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans myself. It is possible that on this same day, I experienced random, non-menstrual vaginal bleeding. To be fair, it seems far more likely that these three things all happened than my doctor taking advantage of my unconscious body.
The factor that can’t be ignored is the uneasiness I felt
when I went to the bathroom and saw all that blood. I have tried all this time
to brush it off as my dramatic nature or something. The shame I feel to accuse
(within myself) my doctor of committing such a horrible act. The shame I feel
to compare what *might have* happened to me with what really does happen to
half of the world’s female population. How Dare I? Who Am I To Say Such Things?
These thoughts have been crippling me all this time. They have
changed my life for the worse. I am the world’s champion of pushing people
away. I would rather spend all my time alone because spending time with other
people always feels forced and fake. I like who I am, but I can’t comprehend
why anyone else would.
To be fair, maybe these thoughts have nothing to do with my
being sexually assaulted (or my impression that maybe I could have been). But
in any case, I’m finally admitting to myself that I do need help and that not
being able to figure out my emotions on my own isn’t a bad thing. That there is
an alternative to crying every day. That sometime in the future, I may consider
myself worthy of a loving relationship with someone whom I truly believe has my
best interests at heart.
This realization has been such a long time coming for me. Please
don’t tell me to get my hymen examined. Please don’t tell me the answer lies in
me trying to see the glass half-full rather than half-empty. Don’t tell me to
drink less alcohol. Don’t tell me that therapy is a joke.
To be fair, maybe I should cut down on my three drinks a
week. To be fair, maybe therapy won’t benefit me. Maybe I’ll spend hours of my
time and hundreds of my dollars for a stranger to stroke my ego and call me a
victim and I won’t grow from it at all. But to be fair, maybe I will. These are
my lessons to learn. Can’t you just support me in that?
