Friday 18 June 2010

You save yourself or you remain unsaved

"I live in a world where two truths coexist: where both hell and hope lie in the palm of my hand"
- Alice Sebold

I have just finished reading 'Lucky' by Alice Sebold and I'm in tears. I just can't comprehend how strong and amazing and damn determinded some individuals are. I felt angry at her friend Lila for leaving her, for me that would hurt more than anything, sometimes it's people's reactions to things that hurt more than the events themselves.

Like when my Dad said 'well, you were drunk, so what' the first time I ever tried to approach the issue of my own rape with my parents. I KNOW that they really don't give a shit, and it hurts like fucking Hell.

I also know that's so many other people's reaction if I were to divulge the 'hard facts' as Sebold calls them.

He was your on/off boyfriend.
You'd been drinking.
You were staying at his house.
Etc etc etc

They all just point the blame firmly at my feet.

Sometimes I wish more than anything that I had got attacked in the way Sebold was. A stranger in a park. Acceptence, blame, progress, all that shit would be so much easier. She didn't know him, didn't love him, didn't trust him... I lost all that and I can't get it back. My last relationship was a complete disaster partly because it fell back into the same old destructive ways, partly because I just didn't love or trust him.

And maybe I don't deserve to be loved or trusted in return.

How do I save myself when I don't even believe, or have that grit and determination and outrage... I just have regrets and unanswered questions and guilt.

1 comment:

  1. Only you can shift that Rmma. Rather than restricting, losing weight, exercising, you figure this out instead. In what ever way you can.
    The invalidation from your folks surely doesn't help.
    What I can say is I was repeatedly raped by my boyfriend. Someone I loved, trusted, adored, wanted to marry and babies with.
    At the time, I was rejected by friends, told that he would never behave abusively.
    What matters now, is those who do trust and care for what happened.
    Open up, share, find a charity that may be able to offer you support and therapy for this.
    Tracey is a great person to ask as to where to turn.
    You can save yourself Em.
    I love that book, I read it years and years ago.
    Don't wish a brutal rape on yourself just for validation. Sebold didn't get it from everyone.
    You are as strong as any of us fighting this.
    Keep fighting because you ARE worth it xxxxx

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