the first time i was raped

 so, if the title wasn't clear enough, this will be about rape.

if you have experienced rape, please be cautious reading this post, please protect yourself and your mental health. some of this things may be triggering or cause flashbacks if you've been through a similar experience.

your safety is the most important.

i've never told this whole story to anyone before. i've told parts of it. but stories deserve to be told in their whole. you can't acknowledge the truth without acknowledging the WHOLE truth. when you leave out or dismiss parts, say they're not as important, it makes that part stay there and hold on still waiting to be seen and heard.

so. here it is. in the whole.

the first time i was raped i was 18 or 19. i don't remember exactly when, i already had my son, but hadn't moved for college yet. it must have been late 1999, early 2000.

my brother had graduated from community college and taken a job as a sheriff deputy a few hours away from where we grew up.

one weekend he invited me to come stay with him and his roommate. a rare weekend away for me, the closest thing to a vacation a single teen mom could get.

the night i stayed, my brother ended up getting called into work, so he got his roommate to agree to take me to dinner so i wouldn't be stuck just sitting in their apartment with nothing to do.

the roommate and i drove and hour over the 4th of july pass for dinner. it was a fairly nice restaurant. i remember it was all wood walls, like, logs of wood, and maroon table cloths. any place with a table cloth was fancy to me.

i had never met my brother's roommate before this. he was a regular dude, early 20's. nothing particularly stood out about him, i don't even remember his name. his dad was the sheriff so that's how he had met my brother and they ended up roommates i guess? never really new how that happened.

the guy was super intense right from the beginning. during dinner the conversation somehow turned to his plans for marriage and how he wanted to get married and settle down right away. it was a LOT. i remember my antennae perking up and being annoyed right away. being a teen mom, i had very quickly come to recognize what i called "white knight syndrome" where guys would try to "save" me or "rescue" me from my perilous plight. it was incredibly insulting. i was in college, had my own apartment, i was raising my son. i didn't need RESCUED. i didn't need SAVED. i wasn't baby daddy hunting to get some guy to take care of me, I WAS TAKING CARE OF ME. 

it had happened a few times before and i already knew very well how angry guys could get when you have to break the news to them that you're not a damsel in distress and you're not particularly interested.

this time was just a little more tricky since we still had to drive an hour back to their apartment FOR THE WEEKEND

i knew how to be polite but not answer questions, change the subject, try to avoid the inevitable awkward conversation of "no, thank you."

by the time we got in the car to head back over the pass, the guy was saying that i was the perfect woman and i was a perfect mother and would make the perfect wife. it was so incredibly uncomfortable. i had known this guy for 2 hours: one driving, one dinner. and he was telling me i would make his perfect wife??

i was creeped the fuck out. i was so uncomfortable but had no other way to get back to my brother's apartment and no way to get home and no way to...anything. i don't even know if i had a cell phone then. or maybe did but it wouldn't have had much reception. there was no uber, no lyft, i had to ride back with this guy so i just tried to keep as quiet as possible.

on the drive back the guy "suddenly remembered" that he had promised friends that were out of town he would feed their dogs for the weekend, it was on the way.

i don't know where we were. we turned off the highway and he drove 20 minutes up a dirt road into the mountains to a cabin.

any alarm bells that had started to go off were quieted when we got to a really nice big cabin/house. lights were on, inside was very nice. very country cabin, big kitchen leading to a great room with a nice couch in front of the fireplace to the left, and a kitchen table/chairs to the right. he went right in, all the alarm bells went away, this was ok. it was a real house. these were real dogs. it was ok.

 i sat down on the couch while he fed the 2 huge dogs, shepards i think, and he offered to pour me a soda (i wasn't 21 yet). it tasted weird to me, but it was a ginger ale and i didn't like the taste anyway.

but it turned. something started to seem odd. he was too familiar with the house, moved around like he was comfortable in it. it was a regular country house. i had several friends that had grown up dirt roads in beautiful cabin homes. i was a city girl through and through. but country homes were always so beautiful and elegant to me. but he was too comfortable...it felt like...like he had home court advantage.

things get hazy from there. i remember starting to feel not right. there was a bedroom to the right of the couch and there was a bed straight ahead as you walked into the room.

i did NOT want to have sex with this guy.

i had *just* had a baby. sex was traumatic and scary and life changing for me. i did NOT want to get pregnant again. i was also still very religious and conservative back then. i was not into casual sex with someone i had JUST met.

also, i didn't like the guy. i had no plans on ever seeing him again, ever. i just wanted to get back to hanging out with my brother for the weekend then home to my baby and work and school.

it didn't go that way though.

i told him no so many times.

i remember "just the tip" and "just a little more" and not much else.

i don't remember leaving that cabin.

i don't remember going back to my brother's apartment.

i don't remember much else of that weekend.

there was a cave in at the mine where the roommate worked and he was stuck underground the whole day, keeping me safe away from him until i left to go home.

i tried to tell my brother.

he assured me his roommate would never do that.

i somehow reasoned that the roommate breaking his leg and being stuck in a landslide was enough of a swift karmic punishment that i should just stuff it down and pretend it never happened.

because i thought i deserved it.

i mean, i was a teen mom. i was damaged goods. i had baggage. i was trash. i had sex outside of marriage before, obviously it meant i was "that way." i was LUCKY someone like him would even take me out to dinner. i was LUCKY someone "didn't mind" that i had a kid already, i was LUCKY someone didn't care that i was damaged goods.

these are the things that lived in my head. these were thing things people whispered that they thought i didn't hear. these are the things the ladies in the church said to try to be reassuring. this is the way my mom treated me. hell, my own brother didn't even believe me. he believed some roommate he'd had for a few months over me, his sister.

i was LUCKY any man was willing to sweep in and rescue me and that very thing infuriated me more than anything.

i've spent a LOT of years with those voices in my head. i was admittedly a bit quick on the eject button any time a date talked about taking care of me. being fiercely independent and PROVING i didn't need someone to take care of me became my main focus.

hell, it still is.

i've been trying to prove to everyone for 20 years that i don't need someone to take care of me. ESPECIALLY with someone who would treat me like that guy did.

well, i did not see that coming.

there's an old writing legend of the story taking a turn even the writer didn't see coming.

what do you know, that's a real thing.

i'm really struggling with control right now. it's been a month of unemployment and i've been on a few interviews but have yet to land anything.

i'm scared. i'm fucking terrified.

and i'm going to have to ask for help.

i'm going to have to say i can't do it on my own.

i knew that was going to be hard because i don't like to give up control, who does?

but it's been more than that. there's a looming sense of failure. there's a fear of needing rescued.

this feeling that saying i need help now somehow means i deserved to be raped then.

whew. that's a hefty one to unpack.

that's what happens when you stuff trauma down for 20 years. i doesn't go away. it just hangs out waiting for you.

i've been carrying that around for 20 years. that feeling of: if i fail it means i deserved it. i should have been grateful. i did need a white knight. i should have been glad someone was willing to tolerate my damaged, less than self.

whew.

but here's the thing.

it doesn't matter how "damaged" i was. it doesn't matter how much "baggage" i came with. it doesn't matter ANY of it. it doesn't matter how lucky some people thought i should feel.

I DID NOT DESERVE TO BE RAPED.

full stop.

i said no. i did NOT want to have sex.

end of discussion.

anything happening NOW, twenty years later, does not change that.

needing help now, in the middle of a global pandemic and record unemployment and record deaths and political and social unrest and unexpected unemployment does not mean i deserved to be raped then.

needing help anywhere between then and now would not have meant i deserved it.

time to let that one go.

worst case scenario game

 one of the best and worst parts of having a writer's brain is the creativity. the imagination. the ability to think of 100 different scenarios and possibilities.

when you're trying to problem solve or trying to find the right words or having a discussion with someone, the ability to see a thousand different possibilities is an amazing thing.

when you're alone, and left to your own devices, however, as with any gift, it can turn into a curse.

there's things in life i'll never have the answers to. dates who have never showed up. people who made vicious comments out of nowhere. communications that have ended without resolution.

when you can think of a million different reasons and plot lines and scenarios, your ability to think of all think of all those possibilities quickly becomes...it's worst case scenario game lightning round.

it's been 10 years since my dad died. national news level died. there were a lot of questions and investigations and a gag order on the case and then it just...went away.

i never found out what happened.

there were so many questions, so many theories, so many different ideas- was it gang activity? was it something related to the governor? was it something to do with the union? was it the guy that had threatened to kill me after he was deported following a traffic stop? was it an accident? was it intentional? what started the fire? how did all three NOT make it out? medical reports didn't match what people were saying. timelines didn't match up.

maybe they all did in the end. maybe there was a completely basic boring answer in a report no one bothered to tell me about. i'll never know.

and when you have a brain like mine, that's hard. it's been a lot of work to not become obsessed or turn into a gerard butler movie.

 

 

 

 

i had to come terms pretty quickly. i didn't have the time or energy to be curious or worry about getting a real answer. i had kids to raise. i had to make sure there were groceries and sports equipment and a "normal life" after a year long campaign of trauma.

it was a LOT dealing with so much death in such a short time. 

suddenly, here i am 10 years later. 

i think the biggest lesson i'm still learning is how to wrangle that worst case scenario mindset.

yes, the ability to create a all the different possibilities and options and choose your own adventure avenues is amazing.

but of all those scenarios and options and paths my mind has wandered down about my personal life, what's going to happen, all the time and energy i've spent worrying and letting anxiety wreak havoc in my mind, NONE. absolutely NONE of them have been true or real. i could have never thought up the path my life has taken in the last 10 years.

i've spent so many hours. SO MANY HOURS. so much energy. so much time worrying. playing the worst case scenario game. 

and i have had so many completely different absolute worst case scenarios happen anyway.

all the worrying and imagining did was take away the energy for when i actually needed it. i was so exhausted worrying about what was going to happen that when something DID happen i was already drained.

this year in particular i think has been a little bit of that for everyone. the news stories are so outrageous and world events are things writers all over are laughing because they know their script or plot with any one of these events would have been rejected as "unbelievable."

i didn't expect to be fired in the middle of a global pandemic for standing up for mental health care because 5+ months of self-isolation mixed with nationwide social unrest due to police brutality led to massive widespread brutality and the government is being dismantled right in front of us and there's not a damn thing any of us can do about it for MONTHS and we just have to...yeah...you get the point.

that is not even a possibility i could have dreamed up 6 months ago.

and yet, here i am, one week in to being unemployed.

i am terrified.

my brain has moments of not being my friend right now.

that worst case scenario lightening round is right there. i've spiraled a few times already.

it's a real quick trip some really, really dark places.

when you start wondering if it would really be so bad to hope maybe you're one of the bad/quick virus cases...it's time to take a moment and step back a little bit.

i'm learning to not listen to that option. that's all it is, one of the thousands of options.

and just as quickly as i can spiral in the positive direction, maybe i'll find a million dollars on the street tomorrow...

but that's wasted energy too.

i'm learning to just take a breath, and do what i can right now.

 

right now i can apply for jobs. right now i can follow up on financial aid paperwork. right now i can have a dance party in my livingroom. right now i can practice yoga and meditation and work on helping my brain be kinder and not do those exhaustive spirals in either direction.

 

i can channel that energy into writing. into creating, but i need to stop letting that energy run me down and dominate my thinking.

funny how it keeps coming back to writing. it always does. you'd think after 40 years on this earth i'd quit fighting the thing that has been a part of me since the beginning. 

BUT, my extremely slow learning curve aside, the point is that i am learning. i am recognizing behaviors that don't work for me anymore. i'm working on changing them.

it's hard. that anxiety spiral is right there. a six shooter on each hip of terrible things, locked, loaded, always ready to go. 

well, isn't that a particularly interesting analogy for someone who does not like guns, at all.

the thing that is the worst for me, my most dangerous behavior, i just compared to an object i strongly regard as dangerous and deadly.

i'm sure a shrink would have a field day with that.

i think it's time to retire from the worst case scenario game, at least personally.

how long have i been saying i'm tired y'all? 

maybe it's time to stop exhausting myself.

maybe it's time to just focus on today. today i can do what i need to do and that is enough.