Anyway, I write about this today because it is not easy for me open up to people in most circumstances, particularly in a face to face situation. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten better at doing it through therapy and learning to open up about my feelings, etc as I've grown in my recovery.
Well this afternoon I was sharing my personal story, pretty much from childhood through today and I shared explicit details about my sexual assault experience to a level that I never have before outside of my last Trauma Therapists office. And the experience turned me on my head a bit. I'll admit it, I was thrown out of my comfort zone in a big way.
I think most of that is because I didn't think it through before hand, which in reality turned out to be a really good thing for me. If i had known ahead of time I probably wouldn't have gone there, it wasn't something I would have willingly planned to talk about. The truth is though, that I did know I might be talking about that incident in some form today but never once did it occur to me before hand that I would actually share that level of detail...
The experience reinforces the already understood need for me to continue to open up and share my story publicly. I keep getting feedback that clearly illustrates the desperate need for open and honest dialog about rape and sexual assault...particularly from a male victim's point of view. Male victim's of molestation, rape & sexual assault by their very nature suffer and slowly die inside...in silence.
There is a general feeling that it is NOT OK for this kind of thing to happen to men or boys in our "macho" society. They must not have "fought back hard enough" or deep down they were "probably gay and wanted it to happen"...those are typical of the stereotype views when such things happen to males in America. I felt tormented by those thoughts in the back of my mind for years. Certainly I questioned my sexuality and the answer kept coming back to the fact that I simply liked girls...
I will say this, having this experience physically beat out of me any potential hateful or prejudiced attitudes I may have had forming inside of me at the time this occurred...age 12. From that day forward, I was a much more sensitive, caring and compassionate person..toward OTHERS. Any hateful or angry feelings I had I reserved exclusively for myself. I could not forgive myself for "letting" this happen to me.
I desperately wanted to be able to take back those bad choices I made on that terrible day, have a "do over" or "Mulligan" as they call it in golf. But unfortunately in REAL LIFE there are no "do overs"...you live with the choices that you make. Even if you're just an innocent 12 year old trying to pretend that you belong with the adults....
My dilemma with all this today is not whether I need to continue share my experience with rape, I think that it's obvious that I do. But to what level? So much of my self loathing has to do with the details...where it happened, why I was there in the first place, what was I thinking, etc. Up until now, I have chosen to leave out such details in all accounts...the only time I've every really talked about it openly was in therapy with a professional trauma therapist. And my reactions were bordering on hysterical...
Today I experienced NONE of those reactions. As I just mentioned, I hadn't planned on sharing those details, they just came out on their own. And though I felt distant and detached from the person I was talking about (me) I still could feel the emotions associated with the memories and felt OK with it. It was clearly time for me to share that part of my story with others.
The real question is do I share those details regularly now as part of my story, whether it's here on THE SHOCK or one on one. Is there value in going there? THAT particular questions is one...I will need to pray and meditate on for awhile. I think the answer will be obvious and I already have a hunch which way it will go...
So it was a day of heartbreak. Huh, you say? It's true, any time I recount that experience it truly re-breaks my Heart. I know, I know...I sound a bit dramatic but seriously that is really the way I feel. It is so damaging and I was SO broken by that experience that talking about it any time re-creates all that chaos and anarchy inside of me all over again. Hence my real hesitance in going there as a matter of course.
Certainly this was good for me in the long run. It has taken me further down the healing road as I would expect it to. Progress in healing, like in recovery is made in leaps and bounds at times, then in little snippets at other times. Often, there isn't any rhyme or reason to it..it just is what it is. But I sense the experience is good and I remain committed to growing and healing, so let us see what happens, eh?
