More demons

So the last few days I've been thinking about how I can confront and overcome my fear of touch without causing myself too much distress at the same time. I still don't think it's possible - it's going to cause me anxiety, distress, will probably trigger memories and flashbacks and I'm totally dreading the thought of having to go through all of that. But at the same time, if I do not go through all of that I'm going to be stuck with this stupid fear forever. I HAVE to confront it in order to move on. Now the decision just seems to lie with how and when do I go about this confrontation? 

On top of all those though processes going on inside my head, yesterday was also a bank holiday, and I had the pleasure of working until 2pm. Nothing unusual about that except yesterday was one of those days when I find myself face to face with one of 'them' once again. 

There I am sat at my checkout, working away, minding my own business, when I look up and see him, one of my attackers, casually strolling towards my checkout. My heart stopped, my breath caught and my whole body froze, it felt like hours, but could only actually have been seconds. His eyes met mine and he paused then swiftly steered his shopping to the checkout in front of mine. I want to say that that is where I relaxed and carried on going about my work as normal, but my heart was pounding, racing, practically escaping from my chest with every beat. 

I kept him in my line of vision the entire time, my heart hammering, barely able to take a breath, until finally after what felt like forever he left and I was able to relax and breathe again. 

Afterwards so many thoughts were racing through my head - what was it that stopped him coming through my checkout, is he as afraid of facing me as I am of him? Will there ever be a day when I don't experience both a physical and psychological reaction to seeing one of them? How the bloody hell do I figure all this shit out and move on with my life? Input entirely welcome at this stage before I give myself brain damage from banging my head against a brick wall! 

Fear of touch

The more I think about the past, the deeper I fall into the black cloud, and although this seems like a bad thing, it usually culminates to a positive ending, for a little while anyway. 

The only way out of the black cloud is by working through and resolving all the issues that are holding you there in the first place. In doing this it does bring you to a better, more positive place in your healing. Although some would question if more than 15 years is a feasible timescale for recovery and healing? Sometimes I feel as though I've dealt with everything, all the feelings, emotions, fears, everything related to the rapes, and I feel positive about life, and positive that I can cope in future. Then there's the times when something triggers me, brings me back to a memory, a flashback, a feeling, bringing everything hurtling back, it's those times that I feel as though I will never fully recover from what happened to me. Those times that make me feel like this is me, this is the rest of my life, constantly waiting for the next trigger. Is that what it is always going to be like? 

One of the things holding me in the black cloud this time is my fear of being touched. Now I don't mean being touched by my husband, my children, my closest family or friends. Those relationships have been built up over many years, the bonds have been formed and strengthened and I've grown accustomed to how it feels to be touched by these people and I know to expect touch when I'm around them. 

What I'm actually referring to is touch from someone I'm not close enough to to have built any trust with, touch when I'm not expecting it, touch from a stranger or someone I don't know very well. 

In those instances, those situations, I have to fight every response within me that is telling me to run, and instead I freeze, my body will tense, I cannot breathe, I cannot move, think or focus for that split second until I can get myself to focus back on the present and by then the touch is over. 

How do you explain this reaction to the people who touch you though? Depending on what type of touch it was depends on the explanation I will give, if someone comes from behind and touches you, whether they touch your shoulder, back, arm, I will use the excuse that they simply shocked me, causing me to jump. In the instance of a hug from someone you are not expecting a hug from, they usually do not notice that you freeze, so long as you act out the hug realistically, they will probably not notice your held breath or tense body whilst they are hugging you. If you are with someone and you see them

moving to touch you, you can anticipate the touch coming and can brace yourself ready for the moment, I usually find myself tensing up in anticipation of being touched and holding my breath for a few seconds while it takes place. The anticipation helps you to prepare so you are not finding yourself shocked by the touch and although the feeling is not nice it isn't as scary as if the moment came as a shock. 

So how do you manage to overcome this fear and deal with it? Will I ever be able to cope with being touched by people I'm not close to? Is the only way to overcome this fear really just being touched by people? Why does the very thought of that prospect terrify me? Why do I feel physically sick just thinking about it? Has anyone got the answers to these questions? 

Why does this feel so important to me right now? I know that this fear is what is currently holding me inside this black cloud, but I just don't know if I am strong enough to confront the fear right now. It's holding me back, I know it is, I know that it is preventing me from trying new things, I know that the fear is affecting my life in a negative way, what I just don't know is how or even if I can find the strength to fight and overcome that which is keeping me captive?

Self Harm

Why do people self harm? Why would one person feel the need to hurt themselves? There's so many reasons behind this destructive practice, I can't answer for anyone else, I can only talk about and relate to my own experiences and my personal reasons and that's what this blog will be about. 

I started hurting myself when I was 14 and although I've gone periods of time without cutting I've never really been able to stop completely, and I've never been able to shake the compulsion inside me that tells me to cut. I've gone as long as a year in the past without hurting myself, but even during that year it wasn't that I didn't think about hurting myself, or want to hurt myself, I was just strong enough at that point in my life to fight against those urges. 

You see, sometimes when I get a build up of anger, or hurt inside, it hits a point where I need to release those feelings, that's when I cut. As the blood starts to run I feel an instant release, almost like all the anger and the hurt is in my blood and by getting rid of that, I'm also getting rid of the bad emotions. 

Self harm is something that I definitely would NOT recommend though, it is the most destructive, addictive, vicious cycle I have ever found myself in. I wish that I could get out of this but it just isn't as easy as simply stopping unfortunately. Self harm is the only way I've ever known how to deal with these feelings and emotions, it's a punishment for all the bad things I let happen, it's a release for all the bad feelings and emotions I experience, it's a way of making invisible pain visible. 

The pain that rape causes is hidden, no one can see it, no one can heal it or fix it, but when you cut yourself, there is suddenly a visible wound to focus on, all the hurt becomes focused there as you slowly watch it heal and vanish. While you have something real and physical to show for the pain you are feeling it's that little bit easier to deal with the burden. Cutting is highly addictive though, if you think you can do it once and stop, you'll be disappointed, you cut once and you are suddenly gripped by this need to do it again and again and again, it's so hard to stop. 

I wish that I'd found a different way to deal with my pain when I was 14, self harm was and is one of the biggest mistakes I ever made as I'm almost convinced it will plague me for the rest of my life unless I find another way to work through all the pain, emotions and feelings I hold inside. 

Since Thursday I have struggled from hour to hour fighting the need inside me that tells me I have to cut in order to feel better, there was a small moment of weakness, which was my biggest downfall because as soon as you have that moment of weakness you are dragged into the black cloud and it becomes ten times harder to fight the urges. I'm fighting, I'm resisting and I'm trying my damned hardest not to give in, but the battle is not won yet and so the fight goes on..........

15 year anniversary

15 whole years have passed since that day, 5475 days gone by, 131400 hours spent wondering how different things might have been had I made different choices that day. That's almost half of my lifetime and its a hell of a long time to spend living in the shadow of the past, full of regrets, guilt, blame and fear. 

So I'm sat here today, 15 years on, reflecting on that day, a day that forever changed me as a person, it would seem now that I have never really moved on from that day, although many times I have convinced myself that I actually have, that I have dealt with the guilt and the blame, that I have come to terms with the pain, that I can forgive the total betrayal of my trust. But have I really? 

Because surely if that is the truth then I wouldn't shy away from the touch of others, I wouldn't have this irrational inability to completely relax myself, I might be able to turn off the memories when they turn up unwelcomed, I would not search the face of every stranger in case they might be him, I would not freeze in fear when I spot one of his relations in the street. If the truth is that I have moved on and dealt with all the emotions, feelings and memories related to that day then why do I still do and feel all of the things listed above? 

Maybe being raped is something that you never ever 'get over', maybe its something that changes your life so dramatically that full recovery is simply impossible, maybe you can only ever deal with small parts of the emotions, the guilt, the fear and the blame but never all of it?

Some days it's easy to feel incredibly positive, to know in your heart that what happened was NOT your fault, to understand that you aren't to blame, to not question the what if's. Those days it is possible to shake hands with a stranger, to hug someone you might not normally, to hold your head up high and to know that the smile on your face truly reaches your heart. 

Other days, you wake up and you almost have to force yourself to get out of the safety of your bed, when shaking hands with a stranger makes you cringe, when a hug or a simple touch can cause your entire body to freeze in fear, when you want to walk around with your head down low so people cannot tell that the smile on your face does not reach as far as your eyes and is simply a mask to hide the pain you feel inside. The black days are the ones that you have to fight so much harder to survive, when every fibre of your being is telling you how much you deserve the pain because it was your fault, that you deserve to hurt and that you need to be punished. You seem to spend those days fighting the urges to hurt yourself, and to succumb to the dark cloud that is hovering waiting to swallow you up, because you know from the past that once you allow that black cloud to swallow you up, it can take days, weeks, even months to fight your way back out and into the light again. All you can do is hold on as tightly as you can to stop yourself being swallowed up, fight the urges inside you telling you to cut, and pray for tomorrow. Because tomorrow is a better day. 

Today might be a black day, but tomorrow can only get better xx

Flashbacks and nightmares x

One of the throwbacks of dealing with something as traumatic as rape is the development of post traumatic stress disorder - here's a little bit about PTSD and its symptoms

PTSD can develop immediately after someone experiences a disturbing event or it can occur weeks, months or even years later.

PTSD can develop in any situation where a person feels extreme fear, horror or helplessness. However, it doesn't usually develop after situations that are simply upsetting, such as divorce, job loss or failing exams.

Someone with PTSD will often relive the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and they may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt. They may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find concentrating difficult.

These symptoms are often severe and persistent enough to have a significant impact on the person’s day-to-day life.

One of the hardest things about PTSD is having to hide it from people, alongside PTSD come flashbacks and nightmares too. When 95% of the people in your life have no idea what has happened to you, it becomes necessary to hide the flashbacks from them in order to avoid the questions that will surely follow. 

Nightmares are far easier to hide because they happen only when you are asleep and usually alone, or with someone who already knows and understands. There's nothing worse than waking in the dead of night, shaking, sweating, often crying, your heart pounding in your chest, then you have the agonising decision to make - are you brave enough to get out of bed, walk about to bring yourself back to reality again? Or do you lie there too terrified to move, listening to the sound of your heart pounding and your raggedy breathing while desperately trying to fall back asleep? See the fear nightmares cause us is completely irrational, we know that this person is not likely to be in our home, the likelihood of being chased through the streets by them isn't very high at all, yet the terror you feel during that nightmare lingers long after you awaken. 

Flashbacks on the other hand strike whenever they take the fancy, they're not picky about if you're awake, working, reading, in church, in school, they just bombard you whenever they want to, the tiniest trigger can cause a flashback to floor you, suddenly, without warning. A smell, a song, a taste, a touch, simple things we used to take for granted, can suddenly send you hurtling back to the moment you were being raped, no warning, no mercy shown to where you are, what you're doing or who you're with. 

For anything from seconds to minutes you are paralysed by that memory, although when its happening it does not feel like a memory, it actually feels as real as it would if it were happening to you right at that very moment. 

When a flashback hits you feel the breath automatically catch at the back of your throat, you cannot breathe, you cannot think, you cannot move, you are reliving one of your most terrifying memories right there and then and you cannot just 'stop it' from playing out.

There are ways however to ground yourself, one of the easiest being touch, touch the things around you, to remind yourself that this is the present now, that what you're remembering is the past, it's not happening now. You have to keep telling yourself that what you're experiencing is a memory, it is not real not matter how real it feels at that moment. 

Trying to explain to people why you just froze, why for that moment in time you just stopped everything, it's not easy, I usually find myself creating some intense pain somewhere, usually my chest or my stomach, a pain that is intense enough to take your breath away and cause you to double over unable to focus or concentrate. A pain that really exists only in your heart and your soul, intangible, unsubstantial, invisible pain, with no actual wounds to show, nothing palpable to prove that the pain is there, that the pain is real. Just gut wrenching, life changing, agonising pain, deep inside you where no one can see.  

Often you can muddle through the days effectively hiding this hidden side to you, the one thing preventing this from being possible at all times is the flashbacks, those paralysing snippets of memories that floor you anything from hourly to much less frequently. Until you can master the flashbacks you are unable to master your life again, the flashbacks will rule until you take back their power from them and become a survivor instead of a victim. X

Learning to trust

So my next blog post was meant to be about learning to trust again, when your trust has been shattered to nothing, is trusting again even possible? 

My answer is Yes, and No! Trusting people suddenly becomes so much harder, near impossible at times, it takes so much longer to build trust that it did before. But it is possible to build a relationship or friendship and to build on the foundations of trust, albeit very slowly at first, baby steps, I've talked about those a lot in this blog! 

What is even harder than learning to trust others though, is learning to trust yourself again. When your head is telling you that all those bad decisions you made in the past caused the trauma you experienced, you suddenly find yourself questioning every decision you make, right down to the clothes you wear and the way you act. Everything becomes a shaky mess because you no can no longer trust the decisions you are making for yourself. 

It doesn't help matters when you find yourself once again in a situation you have no control over, when you realise one night that you are in a dark room and the memories of how you got to be there are very fuzzy, when the last thing you remember is being a bit drunk and falling down some stairs in a club and twisting your ankle. When you suddenly realise that the reason you cannot move is because someone is on top of you but you're not sure who and that as that person jumps up and mutters that there's someone coming and you suddenly recognise the voice but by then he's gone, yet somehow you still cannot make your body move, in fact everything is so fuzzy and surreal it feels like your just dreaming instead. 

It's only when you wake the following morning in that persons house, when you realise that they had sex with you, when you realise you have no idea if you even consented to this or if they actually used any protection, when you're sat there wondering if its actually rape if you can't remember what happened or if it was simply a drunken mistake? 

I've since answered some of these questions myself although the protection one I'll probably never know the answer to despite stupidly never getting checked afterwards for even the morning after pill. I've also come to the conclusion that my drink was spiked that night, the few drinks I'd had alone could not cause the type of memory loss or inability to move that I'd experienced that night. 

It's so easy to blame yourself for these things, I shouldn't have drank, I shouldn't have worn a skirt, the list could go on and on, but at some point in your life you have to understand that it's not your fault and you weren't to blame for what happened. 

Luckily for me I met my husband shortly after that experience, unfortunately at the time I was in yet another destructive relationship where I was simply allowing myself to be used for sex, I mean, isn't that what a relationship is about anyway? My every experience had pointed to this already and I'd started to believe it. 

Except Luca and I became friends for a few months whilst I was in this so called relationship, and as Luca and I got closer as friends and I started to feel something more for him, I realised I had to get out of the situation I was in already if I wanted anything to happen between us. 

Luca and I took things slowly, I told him what had happened in the past, and up until that moment I'd never had anyone respect my decisions, if I said no, it meant no, and trust me when I tell you I tried that out more than once, not because I was scared, simply because I was testing the boundaries, I was testing him, I needed to know that he would listen to me and respect me, only then would I be able to trust him. 

The trust came slowly, maybe that's why it became such a strong foundation, because it was built slowly, with love and care, it wasn't thrown together carelessly. 

It was a lot longer before I was able to finally trust myself, I didn't realise that in order to make that step I needed to let go of the guilt and the blame that I was carrying with me, but I guess I'll have to leave that part of my story for another blog post!