For the last few years, I’ve found ways to convert the horror I lived into something positive. I’m not one to look for pre-ordained meaning, but I worked towards making some sort of good come out of everything, and that good was me; the me who I became. For the last few years, at least, the one feeling which was a constant, no matter how bad things got, was pride in having survived everything and having come out of it better and stronger than when I went in. I made meaning out of something inherently meaningless; it pushed me to become who I am today, and that person can do so much more than the one before.
And then I watched that episode of Grey’s Anatomy, and got flooded with images of my body looking broken, and I got flooded with the memories of how it came to be broken, and I just broke. The pride broke. My one constant good thing broke and got replaced by hate – instead of pride for surviving, I just can’t stop hating myself for it. It doesn’t matter if I close my eyes or not, the images won’t leave me. I can’t stop seeing myself bashed and bruised and bleeding. I can’t stop seeing him, them, do it to me. I can’t stop hearing myself cry and beg, and I can’t stop hearing them laugh, taunt, make jokes as I lay there in pain, I wish I was unimaginable.
I keep telling myself, and others, that it’ll pass. That once I start feeling better, then I’ll start feeling that pride again. That the hate I’m burying myself in for being alive, will dissipate under the strength of that pride I spent years cultivating. And yet, every single time I go through the arguments for pride, the arguments against, are so much louder.
My therapist said that it sounded like I was saying that I don’t believe that people who’ve been assaulted should live. And considering how often we get to hear that alongside any single sexual abuse case, I can’t deny that it has been socialized into me to some extent. That’s what I used to believe while I was being assaulted. That thought came to me every time I tried to kill myself; what life can I even have after all of this… it’s better to be dead. But right now, when I wish and wish I was dead, it isn’t because I think people who’ve been assaulted shouldn’t live. It’s because I wish that I wasn’t.
Let me explain… That same day, while I was telling someone about how I wished I’d never survived, they said a more tactful version of ‘but you got out of it intact”. And whatever control I still had over my emotions slipped further. Why? Because what part of me is still intact?
It’s almost been a decade. This August will be the decade anniversary of the first time I got slapped in the face, and the horror which ensued thereof. For a decade, I haven’t had a week without nightmares. I went from someone who loved and got excited by basically everything to feeling like I live life from a distance. My relationships started being unhealthier, or just more fake. Lies come so easily to me, it can almost be scary sometimes. I stopped trusting people, because why bother letting people in, when it was just easier to pretend. I locked myself up in my own head, not because it was the only place, I was safe, because my mind is where the assaults are stored now, and they like to come out and play. No, I locked myself in my mind because that was the only place, I had some control, and I could create lives and stories inside my mind. And I locked myself in my mind because it was the scary place which I knew, so it was easier.
Considering my mind has been attacking me, and yet I’ve been lost inside it for about a decade, I think it’s fair to say that my mind didn’t get out of it intact. My friendships changed, got ruined, exploded. From inside my perch in my mind, I saw things too clearly, and bye went my relationship with my family, who didn’t see enough to help me. Who I could never ask for help, because there would have been a cost and it would have been too high.
So, my mind isn’t intact, my relationships aren’t intact, but at least my body is…Right?
Sure, my body parts are all present and in the places they should be. But even I lost count of the injuries I have which may never heal. Or maybe I never counted, because I maybe don’t want to know how many permanent reminders, I carry with me. Did you know that if your little finger is twisted and pulled and contorted in unnatural ways, it can still hurt years later? My little fingers could tell you all about it. Did you know that with the right kind of impact on your chin, your jaw can get slightly dislodged or something which makes it so that you can only open your mouth a few centimetres? And that once it’s happened once, it can happen again with a smaller impact?
Well the number of soup meals I’ve had answer that question. Do you know what it’s like to have to think before any activity and take extra care after it, because there’s that one injury which has the potential of causing a lot of pain, and that with a few wrong moves, it can lead to incapacity? Do you know how easy it is to stop worrying about the potential wheelchair? Remarkably so, especially when you haven’t believed you’d actually live. Do you know how easy it is for sex to stop being fun when you have to navigate around injuries inside and around which are not easy to navigate? Yeah well, my vagina has stories on that too. Concussions, bruises, cuts, burns, more bruises, tears, and perhaps a hairline fracture or two. Injuries, scars, and more injuries.
So, my body isn’t what I’d call intact either.
Yes, I got out of it. Yes, it was impossible, and I died, and I brought myself back every single time. But I did not get myself out intact. What I did do is, make it harder and harder for people to notice how broken I was. Which made me more alone, and then I spent more time in my mind, and the loop continued.
I don’t know how to be proud of myself when the pain never ends, when the images won’t leave my head, when I’m avoiding sleep because that’s when he comes back to life and I no longer remember that it’s actually all over. I don’t know how to appreciate being alive, when I have this pressure in my chest telling me I’m never going to be okay. It’s hard to want to be alive when he’s dead and has escaped everything he did, but I have to live with it forever. This has already been a decade of my life, and I don’t see it ending anytime super soon. Which begs the questions- Was it worth it? How much longer will I be tormented? What was even the point of surviving?
So, no. Tomorrow when I wake up, I’m pretty sure I’m still going to wish I hadn’t. I’m pretty sure when I finally calm my panic about sleep enough to actually go to sleep, I’ll be dragged back through time, to experience my body break, and wake up to realize how much it also broke my mind. And that’s when the answer to the question “was it worth it?” will seem a lot clearer.