Pain

Pain

Hello and welcome to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite you to join me on a short walk through my journey to heal from sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end, so that you can enjoy my gem of positivity.

The pain I’m talking about specifically in this post is both emotional and psychological pain. Yes, in a rape there is no doubt we suffer physical pain. That’s a given. However society does not realise how sexual violence affects us emotionally and psychologically (a fancy word for mentally).

To me, the emotional trauma of the assaults I have experienced, is blood red. But not a gush arterial blood, which would mean the pain ending soonest. No, I’m talking the slow and relentless drops of venous blood. Insidious slow, without any sign of ceasing.

 I see it this way because I also associate this type of pain with suicide. I’ve tried to end it myself so many times. The pain literally screams inside my head and I think I can’t  cope with the pain any more.

I have to say, I’m being brutally honest about this pain for me. And I’m sure that if I feel like this, there are others, like you the reader, who experience this same kind of pain. It really does mess with the mind.

Emotional and mental pain cannot always be seen, except in suicide, and attempted suicide. There is self harm, like cutting, burning or purging, to show the outside world the pain and suffering inside.

Society is crass enough, even now, to believe that these outward signs of mental and emotional agony are merely “attention seeking behaviour”. Yes, I have actually had that said to me on more than one occasion, and by multiple people. That because the cuts and bruises of my rapes have healed, I am all better now. That there is no residual effect in the body because the world can’t see the physical signs anymore.

That type of thinking of the people around me, makes the pain even more real than before. It pushes my pain ever deeper, making it that much harder to heal. And I want to heal. I don’t want to always feel like I’m on a rubbish heap, thrown out with the rest of the trash. I don’t want to feel like I’m not even human, because of this pain inside me.

I have had people who hear my experiences that they never thought another human being could treat a fellow human like that. In the tortuous pain inside, I take it then that I must not be human at all, since those were the ways I’ve been treated. That pain on the inside grows, engulfing me entirely. Those are the times I most try to end this emotional and mental pain for good.

Pain of any sort is hard to live with. I won’t argue with that. Society refuses to recognise the emotional and mental longer lasting effects of rape. We who have survived the initial traumatic violations of our bodies are placated with pats on the head and a “there, there, dear”.

I want to heal from this pain. I sincerely do. But I can’t do it without the support of the people around me. So I need to educate these supporters at the same time as trying to heal. Some days are better than others now. I’m not drowning in a tide of blood all day every day.

So healing is possible. Just not as fast as the horrors that induced the pain to begin with. But it is possible. And if it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you too.

This time my suitable gem of positivity is a quote by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf”.

And how true this is of internal pain. I can’t stop the waves of mental and emotional pain from washing over me. But I can still learn to heal so that these waves don’t dunk me under each and every time. I want to learn to surf those waves of pain. Don’t you?

Thank you for taking this painful short walk with me. Don’t forget to leave a comment on your vision of healing from your pain. And until next time, breathe - and believe.