That was the day that started it all. It was the initial trauma that has never fully healed. I really needed to hit rock bottom to realize I needed to wake up and deal with it. To this day I can relive every moment. Looking up and seeing myself at the brink of tears in a mirror as my world changed forever. I was a little girl, there was literally a stack of barbies in the corner of my room. In quiet numbness I walked into the shower and watched the blood swirl the drain. Unable to sob or to feel anything at all besides broken... I forced myself to push it down, deep and pretend it was okay, that I wasn't hurting. When other family members came forward recently about similar traumas in their life my mom and dad took me aside and asked me if anyone had ever hurt me like that. The images flashed into my mind as I gave a firm and convincing "No." They both sighed in relief and held me, tears glistening their lashes. How could I admit I disappointed them? No, no. I take this to the grave.
Next time I willingly gave myself to someone he broke up with me the next day. When I started drinking, a drunken me subconsciously repeated the trauma expecting a different outcome. An outcome where I was strong and forceful and whole. One blackout drunk night during a period of my life when I was especially lost it happened again, I awoke to being strangled among other things. I didn't even remember when I fell asleep or who I was with. Theres a second when something like that is happening when you realize fighting it is fruitless; acceptance is your only defense. I put myself in that situation because I was broken and I didn't want to fix myself. As I stared into the high, blank eyes of my attacker I had realized I had already forgiven him before he even let go of my neck. Did I report it? No. Why? Because doing so would admit that first insult when I was a little girl really fucked me up, I wasn't as resilient as I thought and above all my parents would find out about everything, they would be disappointed in me, and I had taken enough disappointment for a lifetime after everything that had already happened on my 23rd birthday.
After that I stopped drinking. I really only drink when I'm with my boyfriend, he's the only one I trust. And when we stopped drinking he asked that I stop smoking, which happened in time.
I've finally accepted that it was something that actually happened and reliving the same circumstances would never bring about a different result.
It's been 11 years... I'm still numb to it but I accept it fucked me up which is a lot of progress.
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