Whispers

A Roller Coaster of Emotions

Happiness, terror, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, relief, a bit of nausea…that sums up my weekend.  Coupled by quite a bit of excitement and disappointment.

photo credit: Ben Hodgson via photopin cc

No, I did not ride the newest coaster at Cedar Point (although I would really love to do that!) I got together all of my courage and I told my mother about my rape.  After 32 years.

The Silent Sisters

I had to share this wonderful post from “22 going on 33“. It is stated just perfectly and explains how harmful the silence is for survivors of rape, incest, abuse.

Choosing to Have a Good Day

It’s been a good day.  It started with a great observation from my principal, which has had me stressed all weekend.  It moved on to some great collaborative work with a colleague of which I’m very proud.  Dinner out with Mr. OneWoman–always delicious!  Ending with a late evening workout and curling up on the couch to watch TV, exhausted, but in a good way.  Very satisfying all around.

The Healing Has Begun

© 2010 Matthew West, Sparrow Records

I’m just back from Wednesday night choir practice at the church, so I thought a song might be appropriate tonight.  You know how I love the songs!  This is another song from Matthew West, a great Contemporary Christian singer.  What I love about his songs is that even non-Christians can find meaning and comfort in them.  This one, “The Healing Has Begun,” has a very uplifting message.

Halloween Ghosts…

It has been a while since I have posted part of my story.  I have many new followers who may not have gone back far enough in my posts to read my story.  For those of you who are new, and may want to read my history, check here, and here, and here.

My relationship with Mark was always a turbulent one.  Looking back, I can see so many warning signs.  There were several episodes that in hindsight I can recognize as precursors to the rape that was to come.  One of these was a Halloween party.  So what better day to share this particular detail with you.  This day illustrates so well the attitude that Mark had toward me–his lack of regard for my feelings, his controlling nature, his cocky self-assurance, and his complete belief that I would acquiesce to anything he asked.  Sit down, get comfortable, and let me tell you a Halloween tale…

photo credit http://www.freestockphotos.com

Mark and I had been invited to a Halloween party at the home of one of his friends. 

Poetry that tears the soul

It’s been an incredibly busy week. Busy in a wonderful way, but busy nonetheless. I finally had a chance to go through the 98 emails that were in my inbox and found this clip on Unladylike Musings.  It’s slam poetry and this man’s passion and words went right to my heart.  I was in tears before it was over.  Very powerful stuff.

(Trigger warnings as usual)

Triggers

(A special trigger warning applies to this post.  Please take care of yourself.)

Survivors speak a lot about triggers.  We use trigger warnings on everything we write, we say something triggered us, we apologize for triggering others.  Trigger is both a noun and a verb.  And triggers are the bane of our existence.  For those of you lucky enough not to know, a “trigger” is something that brings out our memories of the trauma that we went through.  It can be anything and it draws us back into the original traumatic experience.  A trigger can bring on a full-blown flashback, or it can just set off a series of emotional and physical responses.  Because they are so common an experience for survivors, I thought I would attempt to write a piece about my triggers to help others understand.

Triggers can be anything.  Seriously, anything.  A smell.  A sound.  A seemingly innocuous object.  A place.  An action.  A time of day.  Our friends and family are often baffled by our reactions to what appears to be “nothing” to them.  Whatever the trigger is, for some reason our mind associates it with our rape or our rapist.  When we are triggered, it is a very distressing experience.  This is why we post trigger warnings.   The last thing we want to do is cause our fellow survivors distress.  A rape survivor sees the warning and can judge for himself/herself whether they are feeling strong enough to read on.  It’s a “spoiler alert” of sorts.

Owning Our Stories

This was a Facebook find today.  I think it’s an amazing statement.  We all have a story.  And many parts of that story are very, very bad for survivors of rape and abuse.  But it’s us.  It is part of who we are.  Too often we push that part of our story down and silence it because it is so very painful.  Bringing it forward and owning that part of ourselves takes great bravery and courage.  And with it comes power.  Power over our rapists.  Power over our past.  Power to change our futures.  There is a lot of wisdom packed into this one short sentence.

Courage

I apologize for the lazy blogging lately, but I’ve been really sick.  I still want to share any messages of encouragement that I find.  I’ve been chatting with lots of fellow survivors lately, and I’m finding a lot of messages that show their despair and desire to just give up on fighting this fight.  This is to remind all of you that the fight is worth fighting.  Please, please don’t give up.  You’re worth too much to this world.  Listen to that little voice, even if it’s only a whisper, and try again tomorrow!