spooky

I've told countless people some version of what happened to me this past Halloween. I've never written about it, though. I've also never thought of presenting it as anything other than a list of clear facts, whether it was because I was being interviewed by police or otherwise rehearsing. Since my court case is long lost, I suspect I can now say whatever I want about it, without worrying about whether I'd say it the same way a week from now.

I'm not sure what convinced me that I hadn't fully allowed myself to heal from being raped after a Halloween party, but slowly I have realized I am different now. It is similar to how every time I return home from college, the house is just a bit different. A new knick-knack here...the broken clock on the mantel was put out on the curb?

My therapist at college was worried about us meditating together, because victims often struggle not to replay their trauma when they close their eyes. My other therapist ( for when I returned home over winter break) had the same concern. Maybe I am no longer traumatized, as I can meditate as I did prior to being raped. Or maybe it matters that I haven't meditated outside of therapy since. Maybe the trauma is just under my skin, where I can't see it.

But now, I know I am different. Maybe I can close my eyes and haven't taken a semester off but I haven't had sex sober since Halloween. Maybe it's just because I am no longer dating a man who consistently tells me I am beautiful that I do not feel that way. Or maybe it is because my body has been made even more disgusting to me. Either way, the realization has set in that I am desperately seeking a validation from men that they can never provide to me. Was I like this before my body was violated by a man? Or prior?

Was this really the first time my body was violated by a man?

Or was that when I was walking home from school and a car-full of boys parked up beside me and verbally harassed me? Or the countless other times I have been verbally harassed on the street? Or the time a man grabbed me in a DC metro station? Or the time a man threatened to kill one of my friends (also in a DC metro station?) Or was it the time a boyfriend stuck his finger up my ass after I told him not to? Repeatedly?...

Every time I think of Halloween, every time I get into a fight with my father, every time I think of Kavanaugh or another like him comes up on CNN, each violation whips through me and I feel like I am about to burst. Each incident feels equal and inextricably linked. It is the same pain and loss coursing through my foreign body.

Maybe that is how I have changed.