i'm not here, this isn't happening
radiohead kid a was the cd of the moment. i had spent a week with a close friend, a bottle of tequila, a carton of orange juice, and radiohead on repeat. exhausting sex had ensued as well as talk of the missing two years of my life. my friend believed i had been assaulted as a child. said i was a "raped dream", like that was a compliment. i don't know why i don't remember the chunk of time from seven to nine. i remember the day before the last day of school before christmas break in second grade. and then i remember trying to kill myself by smothering myself between the mattress and the box spring. i was nine then. in the new house. there are plenty of reasons to block out that period. my best friend burned to death in a christmas tree fire. my alcoholic and early alzheimers (although we didn't know it then) grandfather came to live with us following a car crash that left him unable to walk. we moved for the first time. plus the first rush of hormones and childhood depression seems almost logical. but i was looking for answers. and sexual abuse seemed to fit. if i knew what happened, i could heal. but really it just opened me up. made me a cavern of vulnerability. maybe that is what attracted mark. i just typed his real name and left it. the sparks behind my eyelids start flashing and i feel like gushing forth but tears refuse to come. if only i could cry...
so i'm processing. i even made a cd to process to. the playlist is:
1. giving up - ana nalick
2. summertime - janis joplin
3. precious things - tori amos
4. roads - portishead
5. history (repeats itself) - aos
6. how to disappear completely - radiohead
7. breath - ana nalick
8. let go - frou frou
9. fair - remy zero
10. say goodbye - throwing muses
11. flower - eels
12. little girl blue - janis joplin
13. whispering pines - dar williams
14. hold on - tom waits
15. i shall believe - sheryl crow
16. hallelujah - leonard cohen
17. wait - get set go
tonight was spent with a glass of wine, a glass of water, half a pack of cigarettes, and this cd. the cigarettes assure that i keep breathing. which was a task once "how to disappear completely" came on. the song was playing when i woke up to find mark on top of me. it was almost instructional. dissociation, my selection from the fight, flight, freeze response trigger, came too easily. i watched him fuck me from above. his eyes closed. mine open.
i had been asleep. dreaming. woke slowly, pleasantly, still drunk and downtrodden from mono, not really present. my hips were moving involuntarily but not altogether unpleasantly. i had no idea what was happening except my head was spinning. then i heard him moan. breathing heavily. i opened my eyes. when i realized, if i realized, i was already above the bed looking down.
when i felt the weight of his fingers in my ass, i anticipated pain, but none came. only numb dull fullness. my body opened for him.
this betrayal of my body. even though i did not consent. had said no repeatedly and firmly earlier in the evening due to the lack of condoms. had gone to sleep with the matter settled. i awoke fucked, fucking, and my body responded.
i held my breath but my hips returned his rhythm. i wanted to cry or cry out or feel the searing pain of this violation but i couldn't. my body refused to feel but acted on its own.
once he finished with my ass and returned to my wet (goddamit, how could i be wet at a time like this) pussy, i closed my eyes, not able to watch anymore. i tried to just go back to sleep. pretend it wasn't happening. let it all be over. just let it be over.
he came inside of me. the warm wet seeping between my legs is the only sensation i can remember of the night.
later, when my period was six weeks late, i kept putting off pregnancy tests because i did not want to admit it had happened. even when i finally bought one, it was due to unprotected sex, not rape.
it took me over a year before i could get an hiv test. i knew i was hiv positive. only after working with wonderful hiv positive folk at gmhc and coming to terms with how i would live the final ten or so years of my life could i finally get tested. still, from drunken unprotected sex. not rape.
the first time i applied the term rape to the situation was in my hiv and society class. we did a blind writing assignment where everyone wrote about their first hiv test or why they hadn't had one yet. i wrote "i was raped. i knew i had hiv. i put off the inevitable confirmation as long as possible. when the test came back negative i wanted to cry, but was only numb." the group next to mine got my response. there was a lot of conversation and speculation about who it could be from. the professor handled it gracefully.
so tonight my goal was to cry. i shook and heaved and my mouth sobbed, but my eyes remained relatively dry. maybe i'll be able to cry in the bath.
so i'm processing. i even made a cd to process to. the playlist is:
1. giving up - ana nalick
2. summertime - janis joplin
3. precious things - tori amos
4. roads - portishead
5. history (repeats itself) - aos
6. how to disappear completely - radiohead
7. breath - ana nalick
8. let go - frou frou
9. fair - remy zero
10. say goodbye - throwing muses
11. flower - eels
12. little girl blue - janis joplin
13. whispering pines - dar williams
14. hold on - tom waits
15. i shall believe - sheryl crow
16. hallelujah - leonard cohen
17. wait - get set go
tonight was spent with a glass of wine, a glass of water, half a pack of cigarettes, and this cd. the cigarettes assure that i keep breathing. which was a task once "how to disappear completely" came on. the song was playing when i woke up to find mark on top of me. it was almost instructional. dissociation, my selection from the fight, flight, freeze response trigger, came too easily. i watched him fuck me from above. his eyes closed. mine open.
i had been asleep. dreaming. woke slowly, pleasantly, still drunk and downtrodden from mono, not really present. my hips were moving involuntarily but not altogether unpleasantly. i had no idea what was happening except my head was spinning. then i heard him moan. breathing heavily. i opened my eyes. when i realized, if i realized, i was already above the bed looking down.
when i felt the weight of his fingers in my ass, i anticipated pain, but none came. only numb dull fullness. my body opened for him.
this betrayal of my body. even though i did not consent. had said no repeatedly and firmly earlier in the evening due to the lack of condoms. had gone to sleep with the matter settled. i awoke fucked, fucking, and my body responded.
i held my breath but my hips returned his rhythm. i wanted to cry or cry out or feel the searing pain of this violation but i couldn't. my body refused to feel but acted on its own.
once he finished with my ass and returned to my wet (goddamit, how could i be wet at a time like this) pussy, i closed my eyes, not able to watch anymore. i tried to just go back to sleep. pretend it wasn't happening. let it all be over. just let it be over.
he came inside of me. the warm wet seeping between my legs is the only sensation i can remember of the night.
later, when my period was six weeks late, i kept putting off pregnancy tests because i did not want to admit it had happened. even when i finally bought one, it was due to unprotected sex, not rape.
it took me over a year before i could get an hiv test. i knew i was hiv positive. only after working with wonderful hiv positive folk at gmhc and coming to terms with how i would live the final ten or so years of my life could i finally get tested. still, from drunken unprotected sex. not rape.
the first time i applied the term rape to the situation was in my hiv and society class. we did a blind writing assignment where everyone wrote about their first hiv test or why they hadn't had one yet. i wrote "i was raped. i knew i had hiv. i put off the inevitable confirmation as long as possible. when the test came back negative i wanted to cry, but was only numb." the group next to mine got my response. there was a lot of conversation and speculation about who it could be from. the professor handled it gracefully.
so tonight my goal was to cry. i shook and heaved and my mouth sobbed, but my eyes remained relatively dry. maybe i'll be able to cry in the bath.
posted by Jane Vincent at 10:53 PM
6 Comments:
**Hugs** It's the best I can do from so far away. And any words I can offer would sound trite. **Hugs**
Wow. I'm hopeful that much recovery will follow.
Oh god. I read this yesterday, but I just flashed back to when it happened to me. It was a week later before I could even begin to emote in any way. All I can do is ignore it, and come back to it, bit by bit.
I couldn't cry until I told a close friend, and we shared hugs. Maybe that will get you there if the bath doesn't work.
I wandered in to your world tonight, for the first time in a while thanks to far too much drudgery at my own work. Now that I have finally been able to close my own mouth, and can form words..all I can do is cup your face in my hands and kiss your forehead tenderly. No words need spoken.
My goodness, you speak to me! I understand the whole dissociation thing and have experienced it myself but didn't know what it was until some months later when my therapist told me about it. That and the whole "learning to say yes" thing really struck a chord with me. I will keep reading.
Hi,
It's funny you write abou your experience in a way that people may conceive as emotionless. Hormones are a funny thing, what I mean by that is the fact that when you were being raped your body was going through the actions, but your mind was numbed. The guy may have attempted having sex with you in your sleep. At hat point you may have responded favorably to his advances. I find that he is a coward and should have asked you if he could go ahead and not just started. I honestly don't think he realizes what he did to you. The only way would be for you to let him know. I think at some level, you were shocked and digusted, that he would take the liberty, but maybe at the time you just saw him as a disrespectful asshole, as opose to a rapist. I am saying this because, had he not done this to you, you may have had a relationship with him, an let him have sex with you. I don't think rape is always as traumatizing as society makes it out to be. I believe rape can simply be a lack of respect and overzealousness.(if that s even a word lol). I am not surprised at your lack of emotion, I know many girls that were raped by guys they liked, at most it ruined their relationship, but the girls themselves don't seem as angry as I was when i heard it. Anyways a few of them even developped rape fetishes, that were quite exreme. Which I believe is a way to go back in time and to control a sexual experince they once had no control over. But what do I know.. lol I just enjoy it, it's kinky...lol.
P.S on't take my last comment as me laughing at these women. I was raped twice once as a child and once a 17. I understand the gravity.
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