Things I Needed to Hear as I Healed (Plus Some Things I Still Need to Hear)
1. Yes, you were raped. No, it is not your fault.
2. Just because you asked him to put on a condom while he was raping you does not mean that you consented. (Even as I write that I question whether it’s true, 3 years later)
3. When you go back and kiss your rapist on his couch 6 months later, you are searching for healing in the wrong places. It’s okay, you are learning. You will go home that night and your head will spin and those cracks that appeared 6 months ago will get a little deeper.
4. After a while, those cracks will start to fill in. The nights you spend sharing your heart with your friends, and the days you spend with your phone off reading poetry and singing loud will plant seeds. With time, they will grow into flowers that sometimes will bloom so big you won’t be able to see the cracks. On these days, your laugh will come back and you’ll dance around your room and smile at yourself in the mirror.
5. Some days you will feel very broken.
6. Usually those are when you find a new person that you think you might love or maybe just want to kiss and you try to figure out how to tell them about your cracks.
7. It will be hard because you are someone who likes to kiss people but also who is scared of sex and it will feel like you are letting people down by getting into their bed but not sleeping with them.
8. You will learn that there is a line in your heart where everything else feels good but sex does not and you will want to go in and erase that line. But please listen. Fucking people you do not care about will not erase that line. It will only make you sad and it will give your heart a few more cracks, when it’s over and you walk home alone and the pit in your stomach feels like it might just swallow your heart whole.
9. You are deserving of love. You are allowed to be with people who make you feel important and smart and beautiful. You are a kind person who has a lot to say and a lot to give and your assault has nothing to do with how deserving you are of love.
10. You will meet a person who will make you feel safe. He will help you learn to call your cracks boundaries. He will help you learn that sex is scary and will probably always be, but that can be beautiful when you are with someone you love. Sex with him will make you feel a little more whole, a little more capable of love.
11. When he leaves your life, it will feel as though he takes those lessons with him. He hasn’t. You can own your growth for yourself. The healing is in your heart, not in his hands.
12. Most days now you do not think about it. Most days are filled with other thoughts, and that is such a beautiful and powerful thing.
13. You will love far too many people who are survivors. It will make you want to punch things and throw up and scream. But it will also strengthen those friendships in the way that only pain can.
14. Please never question that you are a survivor of sexual assault. No matter what your story is. No matter that he was your boyfriend, that you don’t remember if you said no. Please believe your heart when it cries out that you were raped. Please believe your heart when it whispers that you are a survivor.