being brave, part II

so. what i'm going to say is pretty scary. i have been trying to get up the courage to write this for a long time.

you know how i'm all about being honest on this blog? saying the good, bad, and ugly?
i haven't been honest. i haven't been open.

i have butterflies in my stomach. i might chicken out.

i'm afraid for several reasons.
1. any person who reads this will think of me as completely different.
2. i'm afraid of backlash.
3. i don't want to be seen as a victim.

well if this is so scary, then why am i sharing? i want to share this because i know that one out of any four, if not more, women, (and yes, some men too) have gone through what i'm dealing with in some form. i want those men and women to read this and know that they aren't alone and that there is help and hope out there.

ok.
several months ago, i almost ended my life.
yes, i know what some of you may be thinking. suicide is selfish. how could you even consider doing that to your loved ones. let me tell you, if you are thinking these things, it is because you have never been so low that those things didn't matter. when the only option that sounds reasonable is for life to be over, you aren't thinking about being selfish. you're thinking of an end to your pain.

when i was 14 years old, i was sexually assaulted multiple times over a period of about six months. he was a neighbor boy, a year older than me. i thought he was going to be my first kiss.
it's a very long, messy, terrible story that i'm not really ready to share. but it involved enormous amounts of betrayal, guilt, pain, self loathing, the whole bit.

so then at 15, i actually attempted suicide. when that didn't take, i went on to date many boys who used me, belittled me, and who only proved to me that no one could be trusted and that i probably wasn't worth anything.

i have spent the past eight years cycling through repressing, remembering, shutting down, shutting others out, blaming myself, using obsessive compulsive behaviors to trick myself into feeling like i have control, denying, and trying to hide. sometimes i would really think everything was going to be ok, that i was finally over what happened. then, i would see his car, or hear a song that reminded me of him, or even on several occasions, run into him at the mall or the movies. i ran away to college and tried to forget everything, but every time i dated someone who tried to feel me up, it all came back. it was always there, just beneath the surface of my smiling confidence.

i slept through high school. my mom, concerned with my parent teacher reports of me "always sleeping through class," took me to our family doctor to test for anemia. no one knew i had depression. it didn't even cross the doctor's mind.

meanwhile, the boys who had been involved bullied me at school, peed on my house, and made their message clear that i was to keep quiet about everything. one boy who was involved used to scream "you're disgusting! whore!" when he saw me in school.

i used to see him with his girlfriend in the halls and wonder if she knew him in the same way i did. i doubted it.

i didn't know how to open up about this. poor travis wasn't sure how to handle it, but after things got really bad a few months ago, he basically "forced" me to go to counseling.

i meet all the criteria in the DSM-IV for PTSD.

my counselor's name is jessica and she is wonderful. i highly recommend therapy. i'm doing better than i have been since i was that 14 year old girl. it's just nice to have a safe place and a safe person to open up to. right now jessica is helping me to understand the things that trigger the memories and understand that the reactions i have- panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, fear, etc,- are not me, but reactions of PTSD. i've been going to counseling for about eight weeks now and it's really helping. next week, travis is going to come with me and hopefully i'll start learning how to open up to him about everything and let him in.

if you are a survivor of sexual assault or molestation, please know that your life doesn't have to be defined by what happened to you. it wasn't your fault. you don't have to live in fear or deal with it all on your own. i wouldn't have believed that a few months ago, and maybe you don't right now either, but please, please, don't think you are alone.

i know that some of you may read this and think, wow, she really over-shared this time. this is not the appropriate venue for her to work on this. to those people i say, you are part of the problem. our culture needs to address these things, instead of blaming the victim and keeping everything swept under the rug.

i want to say a quick thank you to travis. it really is a miracle that we are together. i never thought i would find a person who cared so much and was so selfless. i never dreamed i could trust someone like i trust travis.

also, a thank you to two dear friends who reminded me why i wanted to live. you both know who you are.

if you have questions or want to talk about a similar experience, please email me. collette.charles7@gmail.com.