The truth about rape

You'll never be the same

Being raped isn't like in the movies. There isn't going to be some guy who comes along and makes it all better. The nightmares don't go away, everything just becomes...normal. The flinch when a man touches you, the panic going off in your head like a siren you can't turn off because all your brain can think is danger! Help, no not again. Being alone with a guy becomes almost impossible for a while, and yeah you eventually can stand being in a room with the opposite gender, but does it mean the intrusive thoughts go away? That you don't plan your escape root anymore or have to watch every move he makes because you'll be damned if you have to go through months on end of crying yourself to sleep, of scrubbing your skin so hard in the shower to feel clean that your skin is angry and red yet you can't get rid of the disgusting feeling that makes your skin crawl. Your nights are broken up with your screams. Never able to escape the nightmares that aren't just nightmares. They are memories that you have to relive every moment you are alone. Imagine having to do this alone. Too ashamed to tell your parents who are always angry, always at each other's throats. You have too much responsibility to let yourself recover probably because you have to help your brother. You have to let him have the childhood that was taken away so violently from you. Now imagine this is happening to you at twelve years old. You see how fragile and innocent they still are at that age, it's disgusting to see child brides in other countries. Men speak of how their innocence is being ripped from them, from children. But what about me. What about my innocence? Am I not seen as a child? It doesn't make you stronger, I'm sorry but it doesn't. It makes you close up, isolate yourself. Sometimes you can't tell if what you're seeing is real or not but to you it's real. It's not some hallucination in that moment what you're seeing is really happening to you, do you not realise how terrifying that is to sit in a dark room seeing things come out of the shadows when you're at the age where you still believe in monsters. I learnt too young monsters live among us, walking in broad daylight not being seen by anyone but you. Because too young, you learnt how to read people. To avoid the beatings, to avoid being raped or touched by a man twice your age. You learn to run and to keep your mouth shut because no one is going to believe you. You learn to cover cuts on your skin, you learn to fake happiness. You were so young. Too young. Because when you thought you finally found someone who felt like home, they turned out to a be a prison. No woman should ever experience losing a child, via her own choice or not. But a child, losing a child. Forcing a life inside something so small then leaving them to have to rip it out along with some of their soul. That's the worse kind of monster. Your cuts get deeper, the wanting to be left. To grieve. Only for it to happen all over again. No life taken this time, but you break. Again. You flinch at any touch now. Criticised for your defensiveness around men, because, no one knows. Why should such an innocent and young girl be defensive and scared around men when no one sees the damage they've already caused her. How can they not see the light that's gone out in her eyes? That she can't deal with negative emotions. Because, she pushed everything down. Never dealt with them, just let them be. Boiling into a cluster of mental illnesses. Nothing's real anymore, there's just numbness and pain. Reality and fantasy blurs into one. Sleep becomes a distant memory and fighting for sanity becomes a regular battle. A losing battle at that. But still, with all the pain and numbness, she has to stay. She can't let her brother grow up like she did. She can't violently take away his childhood by ripping his sister from his grasp. She can't let his mother slip further into anger. Into drink, she can't destroy her in the simple ways she was destroyed. She must exist til the day she can live again.