Something else. [Trigger Warning]
Sep. 8th, 2009 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirby1024I was going to write a post about the rest of the road trip, but to be honest I'm not feeling it anymore. Instead, my head wants to write something else much more urgently. This is going to be a bit rambly, because there's a lot of thoughts in my head related to the subject. I'll try to order it when I'm done but I can't guarantee that it'll all make sense.
It has now been over three years since I was raped by another man. In fact, today marks exactly 3 years and 1 month.
It's probably a blessing that I don't recall the exact date. I don't get particularly crazy around the time, and I usually have plenty of other things going on, so the date normally flies by without much of a thought. But it's really important to me that you don't think that this is because I'm "over" it.
My rape doesn't come up in conversation much, and if you've met me in the last couple of years, you might not even realise that this has ever happened to me. It's because in the last three years I have built up coping strategies so that the issues surrounding my rape do not come up so often. But it's really important to me that you don't think that this is because I'm "over" it.
I sleep easy these days, perhaps even easier than the days before the rape happened. A lot of this is natural, since I've always been good at sleeping, but it's also partially because I had to learn some pretty heavy-duty techniques for forcing my brain to let me sleep. Also, despite efforts to the contrary, I still push myself extremely hard, making myself do a lot more things than I probably should do, so by the time I actually get into bed, I'm usually well exhausted enough to fall asleep. So I sleep soundly at night. But it's really important to me that you don't think that this is because I'm "over" it.
Because if you think I'm over it, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn't make sense. Like how I haven't visited the house of my best friends in six months. Like why my sexuality is still such a big thing for me. Like how I still, occaisionally, have to tap out of a session witherinkyan because something has just happened and I can't get back into it again. Like how I often have to switch away from a police drama that I love because the crime they're investigating will cause me to go off into a daze for a couple of days if I keep watching. Like why I'm very careful these days to heed trigger warnings, and to force myself not to read further if something presents itself.
You may not notice if I get triggered, because often I don't notice myself. That's the nature of my trigger response - some people might get anxious or panicky, but I, well, disappear for a while (the technical name is dissociation). I often liken it to a hard drive thrashing - it's like most of my brain's processing cycles suddenly become occupied with something else entirely, leaving cognition and interface processes starved of resources. If it's a really bad trigger, this can go on for a couple of days, and it'll often mean I'll seem very dreamy, very scatterbrained, and unable to pay attention to anything for long. It's my brain's way of escaping the bad juju, by just making sure I can't really think or feel about it.
I want to post this for an important reason. It's not to gain any sort of sympathy (although if you feel it's needed, I won't reject it), and it's not because of anything in particular that anyone has done (this is not a reactive rant), but because I don't get much of a reason to talk to people about this, and talking about it is hard. I spent a lot of time talking about it when it happened because I needed to talk about it to make it real, but these days talking about it makes it real - and if I try to tell the story nowadays, all the emotions just jump back into my head, and I end up in a daze for a day or two as the rest of my head retreats into dissociation.
But I want to put it out there, again, just so noone has the wrong impression. I am not over it. I can deal with shit a whole lot better than I was able to 3 years ago, but it's all a matter of learning limits, not finding shock-proof ways of living. The trauma is going to be with me for the long haul, and even intense psychotherapy is only really going to find me better ways to cope and adapt, not resolve the trauma entirely. I just want to put into people's heads again that sometimes I'm going to act weird, or I'm going to have to leave the room because the gamers won't stop talking about how they "raped" the other player, or if I say that I can't attend something because of the location or the guestlist (thankfully that's a rare one), or if you ask a question about the rape directly, that I might not answer directly, or I'll decline to answer. I try my best to manage but it doesn't always work out, and I don't need you to act in any particular way but it'd be nice if you could understand why, and why it still has an impact on me now.
All I ask, really, is that on the rare occasion that it pops up you forgive me my baggage.
It has now been over three years since I was raped by another man. In fact, today marks exactly 3 years and 1 month.
It's probably a blessing that I don't recall the exact date. I don't get particularly crazy around the time, and I usually have plenty of other things going on, so the date normally flies by without much of a thought. But it's really important to me that you don't think that this is because I'm "over" it.
My rape doesn't come up in conversation much, and if you've met me in the last couple of years, you might not even realise that this has ever happened to me. It's because in the last three years I have built up coping strategies so that the issues surrounding my rape do not come up so often. But it's really important to me that you don't think that this is because I'm "over" it.
I sleep easy these days, perhaps even easier than the days before the rape happened. A lot of this is natural, since I've always been good at sleeping, but it's also partially because I had to learn some pretty heavy-duty techniques for forcing my brain to let me sleep. Also, despite efforts to the contrary, I still push myself extremely hard, making myself do a lot more things than I probably should do, so by the time I actually get into bed, I'm usually well exhausted enough to fall asleep. So I sleep soundly at night. But it's really important to me that you don't think that this is because I'm "over" it.
Because if you think I'm over it, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn't make sense. Like how I haven't visited the house of my best friends in six months. Like why my sexuality is still such a big thing for me. Like how I still, occaisionally, have to tap out of a session with
erinkyan because something has just happened and I can't get back into it again. Like how I often have to switch away from a police drama that I love because the crime they're investigating will cause me to go off into a daze for a couple of days if I keep watching. Like why I'm very careful these days to heed trigger warnings, and to force myself not to read further if something presents itself.You may not notice if I get triggered, because often I don't notice myself. That's the nature of my trigger response - some people might get anxious or panicky, but I, well, disappear for a while (the technical name is dissociation). I often liken it to a hard drive thrashing - it's like most of my brain's processing cycles suddenly become occupied with something else entirely, leaving cognition and interface processes starved of resources. If it's a really bad trigger, this can go on for a couple of days, and it'll often mean I'll seem very dreamy, very scatterbrained, and unable to pay attention to anything for long. It's my brain's way of escaping the bad juju, by just making sure I can't really think or feel about it.
I want to post this for an important reason. It's not to gain any sort of sympathy (although if you feel it's needed, I won't reject it), and it's not because of anything in particular that anyone has done (this is not a reactive rant), but because I don't get much of a reason to talk to people about this, and talking about it is hard. I spent a lot of time talking about it when it happened because I needed to talk about it to make it real, but these days talking about it makes it real - and if I try to tell the story nowadays, all the emotions just jump back into my head, and I end up in a daze for a day or two as the rest of my head retreats into dissociation.
But I want to put it out there, again, just so noone has the wrong impression. I am not over it. I can deal with shit a whole lot better than I was able to 3 years ago, but it's all a matter of learning limits, not finding shock-proof ways of living. The trauma is going to be with me for the long haul, and even intense psychotherapy is only really going to find me better ways to cope and adapt, not resolve the trauma entirely. I just want to put into people's heads again that sometimes I'm going to act weird, or I'm going to have to leave the room because the gamers won't stop talking about how they "raped" the other player, or if I say that I can't attend something because of the location or the guestlist (thankfully that's a rare one), or if you ask a question about the rape directly, that I might not answer directly, or I'll decline to answer. I try my best to manage but it doesn't always work out, and I don't need you to act in any particular way but it'd be nice if you could understand why, and why it still has an impact on me now.
All I ask, really, is that on the rare occasion that it pops up you forgive me my baggage.