Surviving

(Trigger warning: rape) If I were talking to anyone else, I’d tell them it wasn’t their fault. But for some reason, maybe a feeble attempt to own what’s happened to me, I believed I did it to myself. I knew he was angry and would be more dangerous that night; I went anyway. I’ve hated myself so vehemently that I chose the lion’s den over my lonely bed.

Like most things in my life that hurt and can’t be controlled, the rape still seems to me a grander form of self-harm. I tell myself I am over the rape. What lingers is the shame from my inability to numb the fear of abandonment when he chose to kick me out soon after. The fear taught me an important lesson that night. That I cared so little of myself; I’d rather be at the mercy of someone I loathed -at the hands of someone who had just assaulted me, in fear of being alone.

Over ten years later and that self-blame has shifted. I was responsible for the choices I made in seeing this person, yes, but not responsible for what he chose to do to me. And for that I have a right to be indignant. My hatred is justified and it is mine. Whether I choose to clutch or surrender it is up to me. 

But what I feel toward him or my trauma is not as important as how I treat myself today. No longer blaming myself is a step up for now; It’s OK if I can’t say I love myself yet. It’s OK if I don’t even like myself. One day I will master self-love, but today I am content with self-compassion. I live a life worth living again. This is surviving.