4 little letters

First of all i want to say how moved and encouraged i am with the amazing comments i have received. i also want to talk about something that was mentioned about my posts. I never say the word rape. It's four letters. Yet these four letters fill me with a sickness that can't be compared with anything i have ever felt before. they smell of him, they bring his face right up against mine again. They make me feel less human.
I wish I had the strength that all of you women have shown. I don't think I'm that strong. I can't even say the word for heaven's sake.

1st anniversary

Sunday was the first anniversary of it..... I don't really know what i thought would happen. I got up. Did the normal things. There was nothing amazing about the day. I suppose i thought there should be a way of marking the day, of saying this is how i look and feel a year on. But no one knows. I really thought the pain would be less by now but it's worse. I'm tired. I'm tired of pretending everything is normal. I'm tired of living a lie behind a smile and laugh. I can smell him, feel him. I makes me sick. I wish this was a bad dream and i would just wake up. Someone pinch me please.

Am I going insane?

I think I'm losing my mind. most of the time I'm a rational human being who does what everyone else does. I get up, I go to work, I talk to others, I watch telly, I go to bed. Other times I feel like I'm not in control of anything. For example I had to go for a breast exam with a male doctor during the week. I cried all the way to the hospital. In the waiting room I had a panic attack. The thought of this man touching me was heart breaking. I felt ill and became incredibly irrational. I spent the day screaming at my family. This isn't their fault. Then I went to bed. I couldn't get up. I couldn't face the world or the people I've been so horrible to. All this because I was scared another man would touch me when I didn't want them to. How am I supposed to live a normal life when I can't conduct myself properly in public? I feel I'm taking two steps forward and one step back. I can't see the end of the road...........................

Relationships

I can't shake this heavy soul destroying feeling that this man has ruined every possible romantic relationship i will ever have. Before i was attacked i went out, had fun, the thought of having or not having sex was never an issue. I was never promiscuous but i did have fun. Now I'm afraid to look a man dead in the eye. I have had one sexual relationship since. This was a man who was 14 years older than myself and treated me like a princess. I told him the bare details of what happened before we had sex. He was supportive and caring and everything I hoped for. We went out for a month after that and he stopped calling. I wish I knew why. The reason I believe is that he couldn't deal with someone who had my history. Truthfully i don't blame him. How can i expect anyone else to like me and accept my past when I don't?

The worst of all

Three weeks after my attack, three weeks of pretending everything is fine. Then the realisation that man had gotten me pregnant. Was it not bad enough that i was feeling like shit besides having to deal with another life. I didn't know how to feel. was i angry that i was in this situation? Was i worried about the baby and it's health? Could i keep the baby without it being a constant reminder of my pain? all i knew is that I couldn't cope. I locked myself in my room when i wasn't at work. i didn't make eye contact with anyone when i was out. I thought a lot about everything. The end result was that i had to have the baby and put it up for adoption. It wasn't this little life's fault that it was conceived in an act of violence.

But someone up there had other ideas. At 7 weeks i lost it. It nearly drove me insane. I had spent so long thinking about this life inside me, coming to terms with it's existence. now it was gone and i was in bits.

What just happened?

Survival instinct. As i lay there i think i must have gone through what people trapped in a life or death situation must experience. I just knew i had to get up and survive. He had damaged me physically and emotionally. The first thing i had to deal with was the physical. Casualty doctors tests. i experienced it all as if i was out of my body looking down on a poor broken soul from somewhere else. If i had thought about what was happening, if I had lived it and wouldn't have been able to cope. The next step was the emotional. I did the wrong thing. i pretended that nothing had happened and that life was normal. It wasn't normal and still isn't. It's so strange to know that this is my life now. I wake up in the morning thinking about it. I go through the routines of work and existing really but always in the back of my mind there is a little voice constantly reminding me of what happened. I wake up every night in a cold sweat thinking about it.
I could have wet straight to the police. I could have gotten him arrested. I could have seen justice. I didn't. i rang my best friend. I say best friend now with a wee laugh. her response was that every one feels like that sometimes. I wasn't really raped i just wasn't in complete control of the situation.

What happened to me doesn't happen to everyone and it wasn't it my mind. It was real, this is real. I can't just pretend that I'm not a victim.

The beginning

My life can easily be split in two; life before and after i was raped. i have set up this blog because i need an outlet and i need others in my situation to know it's not the end of the world.

Who i am and where I'm from is not important. I could any woman you see walking down the street.

This is my story, or at least the beginning;
One year ago i was dating a man the same age as me. he was lovely so i thought. He had a good job, looked after his children, was generally a responsible man. He ticked all the boxes. Because of the jobs we worked and the distance between both of us it didn't work out. At this stage we had dated for 3 months. At the October bank holiday, two weeks after we broke up, he showed up at my door. I let him in. we watched Jerry maguire. then he kissed me. I pulled back, not wanting anything to happen. He grabbed me and dragged me to the bedroom. I was screaming but there was no one to hear me. i can't remember all the details. they have become foggy in my mind. he lay on top of me. No one needs to know all the details. His whole weight was pressing on me. He tore off my clothes. He bit me. He raped me. He was screaming at me to use the pain. Make the sex better for me. He climbed off after what felt like hours but may just have been 5 minutes. He told me to clean myself up and he left. I was left bleeding, cold, scared. That is where my life changed forever.