It's OK...We Know Each Other

Yesterday I was back to posting on the subject of rape again. Not something I had planned at all...no it was quite accidental...or was it? Probably not but that is neither here nor there. 


In my second post on the subject "When I Hurt Hard", in the second paragraph I mention just sort of off the cuff that we rape victim's seem to "know" or somehow "sense" each other's presence....without ever having met. Of course the more I thought about that, I realized it was certainly true in my opinion and because  of that it is worthy of a mention in a post on it's own.


I may do this in two posts because as is typical of me...the inspiration for posts comes whenever it comes...it doesn't matter if I am in a meeting, on the toilet or as the case is this morning...just 40 minutes away from needing to leave to visit the Ladies at M-Ville, where I read the Bible to folks who are mostly in their 80's, 90's and several over a 100 years old.


But as I have learned from HARD experience...if I don't follow the muse right now and write something...I often will lose it forever. And I think it is too interesting and important of a subject for me to want to risk losing it.


The reason I talk about my rape today is because of a woman I used to work with in the mid to late 1980's. We became very close friends for two years and by all appearances were boyfriend/girlfriend...but we never were. Why? because she could never get close to anyone and I had a funny feeling that something had happened to her.


At this time I was not openly admitting to myself or anyone else that I had been raped but it was always there and I often would see a look in some woman's eye and just know in my heart..."it happened to her too..." I always wished I could ask her/them but of course I never dared.


Well I felt this way about T (I will call her T) the moment I met her. so we spent two years doing lot's of stuff together, even traveling but we were never boyfriend/girlfriend and had no physical contact other then a rather awkward but sweet kiss one New Years Eve. The one thing we did was talk and we talked a lot about our pain, fears and lives. She told me rather early in our relationship about what had happened to her.


From the age of 5 or so until she was nearly 18 her father's sister (aunt) molested her and threatened her if she talked. It was awful. Later in life her family suspected something had happened to her and dragged a confession out of her only to call her crazy and a liar when she told them the truth about who it was. She was an incredible person because she got help anyway...her doing that showed me the way to go and I owe her a great debt for being there and listening to me.


She was talking one evening about the abuse and I have no idea how it happened but I just blurted out that I had been beaten and raped when I was 12...I swear I heard her say (I knew it!) under her breath but she always denied saying it but I know she did because I know she KNEW.


It was the very first time I had EVER told anyone about it...this was probably 13 or so years after the fact. I had been silent all those years. She later did admit that she did suspect something tragic and sad had happened to me but didn't have a clue specifically what it could be.


So I thank you T, wherever you are for freeing me after all that time...


I suspect that I will perhaps continue in the same vein later today if the inspiration stays with me but I need to pull some jeans on and getting my reading voice together because it's one of my favorite times of the week...I get the privileged of reading the Bible to an incredible bunch of "girls" at a local assisted living home. Half of them are between 98 and 2102 years old and still as sharp as tact's...So i need to get going.