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