(TW: Mentions of past rape and sexual assault, proceed with caution. Mentions of self harm, profanity, emetophobia, and talk of anxiety and panic attacks.)

Well now I found out the most lovely piece of information last week. I won't go into details, as that is a story for another day, but the meat and potatoes of the situation is that when I was fourteen I was assaulted by my then brother in law. I have basically spent the last ten years since then more or less successfully repressing the incident in my mind where it will no doubt manifest as brain cancer. I was able to do this because when the assault happened he was not long for this world. The cunt was dying of lung cancer and to the best of my knowledge shortly after my eldest sister canned his ass for beating her he croaked (hopefully in a ditch). Well I was happy as a clam when I thought he was dead because it meant that there was a Crips chance in Compton that I was never going to run into him at some far flung point in history.

Well my family was gathered at the table and we somehow got onto the subject of him and his overall worthlessness as a human being. (Don't ask me how we got to that topic, the minute anyone brings him up I start playing the keyboard cat song in my head to drown it out.) Well one juicy little factoid managed to get past my meme barricade.

The miserable cocksucker is still alive.

Now I haven't the slightest idea how he managed to survive lung cancer. Maybe he froze his head like Walt Disney or some shit. Either way when I heard this I proceeded to get up from the table and as calmly as I could, with my whole body feeling as though it was covered in ice, walk to my room and stare at the wall like it was Breaking Bad.

Well this didn't go unnoticed by my sister (the same sister who had the rotten luck of being married to that repulsive creature) she sat on my bed and asked me what was wrong. I decide to pull a Rain Man and stay mute for fear that if I opened my mouth I would either vomit or tell her about the rape. My parents know, I told them while I was in the hospital for a suicide attempt. (Again another story for another day.) But I have never built up the femme cahones to tell my sister. Because A: I don't want her to blame herself or feel guilty for what happened. It was a random act of violence that no one could have prevented or saw coming. And B: this is going to make me sound like a cockhead but I'm scared shitless that she won't believe me. She hates him just as much as we all do, but I don't want her to suddenly do a 360 and say she thinks I'm lying. The thought of telling her sends me into a spiral of panic and I just can't do it.

So I sit silent as a dead person and she once again asks me the loaded question of why I was suddenly acting so strangely. I manage to choke out that I wanted to talk to mom and as soon as my mom is in the room I cling to her like a baby kola. She comforts me as best she can and I don't completely loose my shit. I manage to stuff the emotions down (because repressing emotions is one of my many talents, which also include mistaking sponges for cheese and fucking up every relationship I've ever had) I'm not joking about that by the way, I'm so bad at relationships that I can't even jill off without my hand hating me.

I got off topic there moving on.

So I hold it together for the evening and bide my time until everyone is asleep so I can engage in my favorite pastime. Which is self-injuring. I don't sleep so most of my nights are spent listening to music and treating my body like meat. That night was no exception. Only instead of feeling a giddy high from the carnage I felt fucking nothing. My whole body and mind and soul had gone numb.

This numbness lasted the past week. I feel my emotions crashing against this wall in my mind, thumping around like flies on a window, yet I don't feel them. Well, I didn't feel them until today when it suddenly hit me like a freight train that the guy who brutally raped me when I still too young to comprehend the gravity of the situation, the guy who told me time and time again while I was crying in pain that I liked it and told me not to worry because blood is normal when you fuck a virgin, was walking around somewhere out there on God's green. I went from joking with my coworkers and drinking an iced tea to panic and nausea in about five seconds flat. I counted. I ran to the bathroom to throw up and get my shit together. I successfully suppressed the urge to self harm in the bathroom (I never self harm at work, its a I don't shit where I eat kind of scenario. ) I then lie to my very nice boss and ask if I could go home. And now here I am.

I see my therapist on the thirtieth so I just have to hold myself together until then. By hold it together I mean not run into traffic or hang myself with my own hair. Maybe suffocate myself with a pillow? I that possible? Asphyxiation of the self with a pillow?

Hmm