simeone says

There are planned milestones in life, the anticipated moments that we know will be remembered as something important. Moments, whether they be positive or negative, that are so important we remember the anniversaries of these days as if our life is separated into “life before” and “life after”. I remember with distinct detail everything on May 16th, 2014, the day I graduated from college. I remember what I was wearing on February 12th, 2008, the day I got my driver’s license. I remember how I felt on October 24th, 2014, the day my dog passed away. I anticipate that these moments will be joined by future events that I envision for myself such as marriage or the completion of an advanced degree. A date a did not plan on, yet has been just as memorable as any, is September 14th, the day I was raped.

The fact is, it never gets easier to say that, hear that, type that, or admit that. On the list of significant days in my life, this is one I leave out and that is because, well, that is how it feels it should be. Not because it’s negative. There are plenty of other negative events that happen which we share with people and the significance of the event and its date are understood. Being raped often is omitted from the list because it makes people uncomfortable, even without sharing any of the details. Today, I choose to share this date with anyone who is reading this because it is an important part of my narrative and I strongly believe admitting that could eventually be an important part of someone else’s.

Two years ago, I sat at my computer typing “rape stories” into my Google search engine because I was searching for something to identify with. I was looking for someone else’s words to validate what I was experiencing, what I was thinking, and what I was feeling. I had no way of knowing then what the next two years would be like. I never thought that this date would become a date I would want to talk about. I thought this date would always be one I would look at with resentment and anger because it changed my life; it changed me. This year, I find this date has left me feeling a strange form of thankful. For me, is a reminder of progress and the lessons I have learned. I do not want to be a cliché and say that bad moments only bring us out stronger and we should see the good in every experience because I cannot honestly say those things. I can honestly say that we never come out of an experience, either good or bad, the same. And here is what September 14th has taught me.

Some people won’t get it. This was the hardest lesson to learn. Some people are not capable of being what you need them to be. Other people simply do not want to. The person who helped me get away from my rapist and one of my closet friends at the time are two people I no longer have any meaningful relationship with. While I felt angry or let down by the people who did not show up in the ways I wanted them to when I told them about being raped, I also have realized that this is not a reason to write people off. People are constantly changing and growing. It is ok to let people go and be open to them coming back.

Some people will. There are great people in this world. The people who have rallied around me and provided support, in any way that they knew how, amaze me. (If any of you are reading this, I want you to know you are all MVPs and I love you all!). It has been nothing short of a blessing to have the people who listen to what I want to share, or not share, about being raped as many times as I need them to. Some of them are friends I’ve had for a while and others were people I did not even know on that September night, but have met since. While some people won’t get it, there are people who will believe you. They will support you. They will listen to you. They will remind you of who you are even when you feel like you might never be that person again. They will help you find the resources to get through it. Being raped allowed me to see just how kind, selfless, and strong the people I have in my life are.

There is no “over it”. One of the first people I told about my experience exited my life with the phrase “you will never get over this”. Naturally, I spent a lot of time waiting for the day our paths would cross and I would be wearing a smug smile and my souvenir tee-shirt from the land of “OVER IT”. And then one day I realized this person was right. I will never get over this and, contrary to what they led me to believe, it’s not a bad thing. Why? Because over it means you reach a day where you no longer acknowledge an experience as having an impact. Being raped did have an impact on me. Yes, there were negative impacts but there have also been positive impacts as well. I have had an experience that has made me a more empathetic person, allowed me to feel genuine gratitude for the life I have made and the people in it, and has made me more confident in my ability to face any situation.

The second reason I believe being “over it” is a bad thing is because to be over it would mean never acknowledging that there are still bad days related to the experience. The fact is, there are and there still may be some day in the future and I should not have to feel guilty of that because I am claiming to be over something. While I do not believe you get over being raped, I do believe you get to a point where you learn to grow from it.

The path is not linear. As someone who majored in math, I am used to thinking of well thought out solutions to problems. So being raped provided a different challenge because you cannot just take steps A-Z and say, “Viola, problem solved!” Even once I acknowledged that I would never reach “over it” and that was ok, I still was frustrated. I was frustrated that I would work really hard and some days it would still bother me. This frustration stems from the expectation I had that things were only ever going to go up. “I’m putting in the work…this will get better”, I thought. Unfortunately, this experience is less like a linear equation and more like riding a roller coaster with a blindfold on. There are ups and downs and you that take you by surprise. And that’s ok. That has nothing to do with how hard you are trying.

You don’t have to explain yourself, but you should. You owe no one an explanation for your bad days. I’ll say that again for the people in the back. You owe no one an explanation for anything you are feeling. While you do not owe anyone an explanation of why you would prefer they ask before they touch you or why you sometimes a smell will bring back unwanted memories, I think it is important that you explain the best you can. You will inevitably encounter the types of people I described in my first paragraph, the ones who don’t get it. But for the people who are willing to listen, you are helping create a conversation behind an important issue. When you tell someone about a loved one dying, even if they have not experienced it, they can empathize with you because they themselves have loved ones and will inevitably be in your shoes one day. Rape is not something that is an inescapable experience that we will all have. That’s part of what makes it so uncomfortable to talk about. That’s why I’ve learned if you find the people to trust, it helps you and them to explain what it is you are experiencing.

Help is not a one size fits all. When you start sharing your experience with people, there will be opinions on what course of action you should take and in what time frame you should do it in. We don’t always wind up accepting the help we need right away and that’s ok. Help is not effective unless you are willing to receive it. I’ve also found it to be true that what works for some people, or even most people, may not work for you. As important as it is to find help, it is equally important to keep trying until you find the right help for you.

The definition of strength. Before being raped, I always had in my mind that being strong meant not letting things bother you. This definition then morphed into “strong” being the state of not talking about the things that bother you. I’ve now come to define strength as being about to own your experiences and the things that bother you and deal with them in an honest and meaningful way.

This is not an exhaustive list of all the things I’ve learned on a nearly 2-year journey and I’m sure that is a list that isn’t finite in nature. While I wrote this with rape victims in mind, I really think this can be for anyone. We search for other peoples’ words to help justify our own feelings about our own stories. We all have something that we are embarrassed about sharing for fear of what other people would think and problems we are afraid no one will understand. I want this to be me saying to anyone who finds that to be true that it is ok because it does get better…you get better. The world is working for you in ways that you can’t even appreciate yet. You have the right to own your story, whatever it is. No one can define that for you.