That Horrible Word... Rape

Below is something I wrote in a personal diary just six months after I came to the realisation that I had been being regularly raped by my boyfriend. See to me I had always thought of rape as something that happens in an alleyway at night by a big scary monster. So when the guy I thought I loved, overtime gradually put more pressure on and cut my ties with friends and family and eventually stopped letting me decide what happened to my body.. well I didn't understand. I knew I was unhappy and hurting but I had been overtime brainwashed to never question his motives and to go along with everything he said whether I wanted to or not. Something that shocks me still to this day is the word "rape". I still, over two years on, very rarely say the word and I really struggle to associate that word with me. I have recently realised that if I struggle to say this word then I am unable to fully come to terms with everything... so my first step is to share more and eventually I will be okay with saying that I have been raped.. this a really tough journey but this journal shows how far I have come and hopefully in 6 more months I can look back again and be proud of the progress I have made...

"Rape. It's a horrible word. A word that is used with such caution. You have to avoid saying it as even the word feels dirty. It is dirty. But not the word. The word is just describing how the act is dirty. See I feel that way. I feel like you have made me dirty. You made me lose all sense of love for my body. You made me terrified to even show a glimpse of skin in fear of every part of me being sexualised. You made me feel so uncomfortable in the person I am. You made me feel like I was only good for sex. And even though now I know that is not the case I am still, 6 months on, having to consistently remind myself that I have more worth than just being a sexual object. I feel that with every thought I have of you is wasted and it chips away at me every single day yet somehow you are going on with your life as if nothing has happened. You have changed my life completely and even though I have transformed the disgusting impact you had on my life into something positive you have left a mark on me and however hard I scrub myself in the shower I feel like you just won't come off. You completely took away my basic rights as a human. You wouldn't have treated an animal that way so why me? I'm sure people would say that I need to do something about it but the thing that you know is that if I come after you then my life will be ruined further. It has taken me 6 months of; counselling, antidepressants, self harming, suicidal thoughts and as much support from my friends and family as they can give without them ever really understanding how it truly feels; in order to be able to look in the mirror and two out of the seven days I can look back at myself and not feel ashamed. You did that. But I managed to get it back up to two days and gradually my aim is to get it up to seven. See when you have all of your dignity and freedom stripped away and then suddenly you have to get better before life runs away from you or before people start to ask questions, you then learn to feel happiness from something as minor as being able to look in the mirror and be happy with what's looking back. See even now that I have met someone who truly has shown me what love is and that sex is about that trust between one another and not about how much pain they can inflict on you and how far they can push your boundaries and how much they can get out of you before you break and then you apologise for "letting him down"; but even now sometimes after we make love I have this horrible feeling inside. A feeling of being ashamed. Being ashamed of having sex. Sex is something that should be beautiful and embraced and it should all be about that mutual trust and love. However, when someone takes that away from you, it doesn't just change sex, it changes everything. When I walk down the street, I assume that every guy who is looking my way is sexualising me and then if I don't wiggle my bum as I walk I feel as if I am letting them down. That is stupid I know. But that is what you did. You have made me feel like my only use as a female is for men's sexual pleasure and if I don't keep that up then I am failing. Failing as a woman. And failing as me. And that saddens me as as a women I am meant to feel empowered and strong".

I can very happily say that most weeks now I hit all 7 days ...