*This participant, like many others, shared with me that their essay came upon them in an instant after years of not knowing how to express their experience through words. I think it’s the perfect way to encapsulate the emotional purge that comes to us as survivors in a rare instant. My essay came about this way, and so did most of the other writers. Almost everyone shares this experience, and I think that says so much about our collective process. — Maren
***
It’s been 4 years since the last time it happened. 7 years since the first. In my head I had
processed all there was to process. I’ve had years of therapy and conversations with friends,
and the most recent telling of my family what happened. How could there be anything left to talk
about? But today some flood gates opened. What I thought I had mostly overcome had
overtaken me. How is it possible to feel so much guilt and shame over something that wasn’t my
fault?
In the back of my mind I know I wasn’t the one who did the raping, but I was the one who
left my door unlocked, I was the one who didn’t beg him to stop until 3 years in, I was the one
who didn’t tell my family that this person they let into their home had been doing horrible things
to their daughter, sometimes even when on the same couch as everyone.
This man has so much of a hold over me and my family. I wonder if he knows how many
fights and uncomfortable talks he has caused. I wonder if he knows that my brother and I didn’t
talk for a year because of it. I wonder if he knows my brother lost all his friends over it. I take
these things on as if it’s my doing. As if it’s my fault the sense of security and trust in our family
has been shattered.
The last time it happened was the first and only time I told him to stop. All previous times
I would just let it happen. I knew he could come into my room drunk so there was not much I
could do anyways. But the last time I told him no. I told him to stop and he made me pinky
swear to him that this would be the last time. How fucked up is it that he included such a holy
childhood promise in the most vile act.
He wouldn’t leave until I interlocked my pinky with his, which for some reason felt more
violating than some of the other acts he’s committed on my body before. Once the promise was
complete, he said “well I guess if it’s the last time” and proceeded to pin my face onto the bed
and keep my arms behind my back, unable to fight, while he raped me one final time.
That night I shook while sitting on the floor of the shower. I called every last one of my
friends, but it was 4am on Thanksgiving morning and no one answered except my childhood
best friend. I walked half a mile to her house in 45 degree weather in boxers, a tank top and no
shoes.
As I write this, I’m chuckling at myself for ever wondering how this is still lingering for so
long. I don’t know if all the therapy in the world will help me forget or ever fully process this. I
have been trying to be on a journey recently of regulating myself and not letting others have
control or a hold over me, but I hate him. I fucking hate him.
