[Trigger Warning] I Don't Need Anyone to Blame Me
Seriously I mean it about the triggers here.
Trauma work is good for me, right? I mean. I'm supposed to be learning how to feel and still stay safe. Mostly what I'm feeling though is hurt and fear and anger. Those last two turn into terror and rage a lot. Which in me become depression and anxiety and I wind up not doing much of anything. It's not good for the writing. But it's not the working on it that's fucking me up except that I keep taking things out and looking at them and those things have been fucking me up for years. Some of them I didn't even think of that way; I get so used to everything hurting it's hard to notice the individual stuff unless I pay attention.
Lately I've been paying more attention. So a few days ago (this has been occupying most of my attention for a little while) I ran across Asher Bauer's post at Carnal Nation about his having been raped by way of notemily's tumblr. I had the usual thoughts along the lines of "Dang I hope he got some good help after it must be some hard writing that." And then a small voice murmured "Oh. Something like that kind of happened to me."
Wait, what? Panic. Train wreck. I wasn't. There was that one guy who didn't want to take no for an answer and was kind of really gropey but he eventually did and so maybe that was close but it didn't count. That's not it. Oh. That. That? Really? That wasn't.
It was fifteen years ago. It was in the middle of the day, in my own home, in my own bed. I hadn't started doing anything about transition except research but I'd come out to a few people including my girlfriend. I am pretty sure she thought of me as male. (I am not entirely certain how I identify my pre-transition self. "Trying to be a man and doing a bad job of it" is how I usually say it but I don't think I was a woman either. At the time I mostly thought of myself as androgynous. Not that I didn't have sex and gender but I was definitely not those I'd been assigned and I wasn't where I should have been. Also I am avoiding the topic which I've been doing for a really long time now. Back to it.)
I was in bed reading as I am wont to do. My girlfriend came in and yanked my pants down and got me hard and pulled me into her and used me to get off and then she walked away.
I never felt good about it. It always felt wrong. But I've never thought of what she did to me as.
I mean there are lots of reasons it wasn't. I loved her. She loved me. We'd had consensual sex before and after that happened. I didn't say no. I didn't say anything. I didn't push her off me. I didn't fight at all. (What, I was going to hit a woman I loved? No...) I didn't move at all. I wasn't penetrated. I did ejaculate. She wouldn't. She isn't the kind of person who would. She didn't have a weapon. She didn't threaten me. She didn't say anything. She didn't hit me. She didn't hurt me. Much.
See?
Lots of reasons.
I never forgot about this. It isn't a repressed memory that is just now resurfacing (though I have those some too); I just have been telling myself all the reasons why what was done to me wasn't. I still do. Still am now--it is a struggle like few I have had getting this written and I still have not actually typed the words. I have told exactly one person in fifteen years about this. (She says it was.) I feel like I don't even get to think of what happened to me as. It was just the once. Other people's assaults are real. Mine wasn't.
Except it was. I didn't want to have sex. My desires were not considered. I was never asked what I wanted. I never said yes. I was raped.
And I want to erase this whole thing. Delete it, make it never happen, not put it where anyone can see. I don't want anyone to know any of this. Because I blame myself. I didn't stop her. I didn't say no and I should have though I couldn't speak at all at the time. I didn't struggle physically though I couldn't move either. I couldn't believe what was happening and was frozen. It's my fault. It was bad enough when it was not-rape, when it was just... sex I didn't enjoy and in fact felt really icky about. If it was rape then it's my fault. My responsibility. I was raped and it was my fault.
I am so ashamed. Of everything. That I was raped. That I let it happen. That I said nothing for so long. That I was in denial about it so long. That I blame myself. That I have no intention of confronting the person who raped me ever. That even if the statute of limitations hadn't run out years ago (Google tells me it's ten years in the state where it happened) I wouldn't consider for a second going to the police. I'm ashamed and I'm afraid of what you will all think now that you know this awful thing about me. I'm afraid you'll hate me. (I know you are better than that. The fear is me. The fear is because I hate me.)
But I don't want to carry this as a secret any more either. It hurts. It eats at me. So I am putting it out there.
Even though I've been doing this social justice thing a while and reading and writing for and commenting at feminist blogs and I know how much bullshit it is when rape victims are blamed for having been raped I am doing it to myself. I know those reasons up above there are crap but I am still doing it. I have been blaming myself for fifteen years. Because I don't really believe I deserve anything better.
I had trauma in my life already. I want to just say oh well this is another one for the pile but it's actually kind of big. It feels big. I don't know if it really is or if I'm blowing it out of proportion--can you tell I don't trust myself much? I've been in denial about it a long time. Calling it what it is is a first step, right?
Trauma work is good for me, right? I mean. I'm supposed to be learning how to feel and still stay safe. Mostly what I'm feeling though is hurt and fear and anger. Those last two turn into terror and rage a lot. Which in me become depression and anxiety and I wind up not doing much of anything. It's not good for the writing. But it's not the working on it that's fucking me up except that I keep taking things out and looking at them and those things have been fucking me up for years. Some of them I didn't even think of that way; I get so used to everything hurting it's hard to notice the individual stuff unless I pay attention.
Lately I've been paying more attention. So a few days ago (this has been occupying most of my attention for a little while) I ran across Asher Bauer's post at Carnal Nation about his having been raped by way of notemily's tumblr. I had the usual thoughts along the lines of "Dang I hope he got some good help after it must be some hard writing that." And then a small voice murmured "Oh. Something like that kind of happened to me."
Wait, what? Panic. Train wreck. I wasn't. There was that one guy who didn't want to take no for an answer and was kind of really gropey but he eventually did and so maybe that was close but it didn't count. That's not it. Oh. That. That? Really? That wasn't.
It was fifteen years ago. It was in the middle of the day, in my own home, in my own bed. I hadn't started doing anything about transition except research but I'd come out to a few people including my girlfriend. I am pretty sure she thought of me as male. (I am not entirely certain how I identify my pre-transition self. "Trying to be a man and doing a bad job of it" is how I usually say it but I don't think I was a woman either. At the time I mostly thought of myself as androgynous. Not that I didn't have sex and gender but I was definitely not those I'd been assigned and I wasn't where I should have been. Also I am avoiding the topic which I've been doing for a really long time now. Back to it.)
I was in bed reading as I am wont to do. My girlfriend came in and yanked my pants down and got me hard and pulled me into her and used me to get off and then she walked away.
I never felt good about it. It always felt wrong. But I've never thought of what she did to me as.
I mean there are lots of reasons it wasn't. I loved her. She loved me. We'd had consensual sex before and after that happened. I didn't say no. I didn't say anything. I didn't push her off me. I didn't fight at all. (What, I was going to hit a woman I loved? No...) I didn't move at all. I wasn't penetrated. I did ejaculate. She wouldn't. She isn't the kind of person who would. She didn't have a weapon. She didn't threaten me. She didn't say anything. She didn't hit me. She didn't hurt me. Much.
See?
Lots of reasons.
I never forgot about this. It isn't a repressed memory that is just now resurfacing (though I have those some too); I just have been telling myself all the reasons why what was done to me wasn't. I still do. Still am now--it is a struggle like few I have had getting this written and I still have not actually typed the words. I have told exactly one person in fifteen years about this. (She says it was.) I feel like I don't even get to think of what happened to me as. It was just the once. Other people's assaults are real. Mine wasn't.
Except it was. I didn't want to have sex. My desires were not considered. I was never asked what I wanted. I never said yes. I was raped.
And I want to erase this whole thing. Delete it, make it never happen, not put it where anyone can see. I don't want anyone to know any of this. Because I blame myself. I didn't stop her. I didn't say no and I should have though I couldn't speak at all at the time. I didn't struggle physically though I couldn't move either. I couldn't believe what was happening and was frozen. It's my fault. It was bad enough when it was not-rape, when it was just... sex I didn't enjoy and in fact felt really icky about. If it was rape then it's my fault. My responsibility. I was raped and it was my fault.
I am so ashamed. Of everything. That I was raped. That I let it happen. That I said nothing for so long. That I was in denial about it so long. That I blame myself. That I have no intention of confronting the person who raped me ever. That even if the statute of limitations hadn't run out years ago (Google tells me it's ten years in the state where it happened) I wouldn't consider for a second going to the police. I'm ashamed and I'm afraid of what you will all think now that you know this awful thing about me. I'm afraid you'll hate me. (I know you are better than that. The fear is me. The fear is because I hate me.)
But I don't want to carry this as a secret any more either. It hurts. It eats at me. So I am putting it out there.
Even though I've been doing this social justice thing a while and reading and writing for and commenting at feminist blogs and I know how much bullshit it is when rape victims are blamed for having been raped I am doing it to myself. I know those reasons up above there are crap but I am still doing it. I have been blaming myself for fifteen years. Because I don't really believe I deserve anything better.
I had trauma in my life already. I want to just say oh well this is another one for the pile but it's actually kind of big. It feels big. I don't know if it really is or if I'm blowing it out of proportion--can you tell I don't trust myself much? I've been in denial about it a long time. Calling it what it is is a first step, right?