Alexa,

He told you right there that he is a lying, premeditated rapist. And a practiced one. No one else needs to agree with you, the prosecutor doesn’t need to prosecute him…kudos for reporting him for yourself, for other women! He has been reported before which is why he knew just what to do re: the police. Therefore, and for everything your story describes, you are a likeable, relatable rape victim.

I was a 17 year old virgin when I was raped with a .357 stuck in my mouth, beaten to a bloody pulp while he asked me to tell him I loved him. I tasted metal for years but it was his bizarre request for me to say that I loved him that caused my skin to crawl. This was one, sick bastard.

Two months later the guy who introduced us told me that he had said he’d “get” me, that he liked to “ruin” virgins. Still, it took me years to accept that yes, I was raped. Yes, he was a serial rapist. In fact, he had been convicted of rape in a neighboring state more than once. This was in 1973. It continues. I am so sorry it happened to you.

Stay in therapy. Don’t think your conflicting, confusing feelings will resolve without time and hard work. You are worth it.

Why do victims of violence blame ourselves? Why do children feel guilty for being sexually abused? Why do grown men feel guilty when they are emotionally, sexually or physically abused? And why do we usually abuse ourselves before we choose to heal, if we choose to heal? I am not sure but we all do it. And please, please choose to heal! I can say from the other side, it was worth the pain. I was worth it all. Everyone is.

I was 17, helping someone I believed had terminal cancer. I blamed myself? Yes, I did! After all, I felt at the time I had been stupid enough to believe him, had put myself in the situation. I can’t believe I was so hard on myself. We all are. I was so torn up from the broken bottle he shoved inside me that I never had children. Still, I wondered if I had somehow miscommunicated! I mean, my body was visibly broken, bleeding yet I questioned if I had been raped, caused it. It is the way of the beast: the beast that you now must face and beat.

After denial, PTSD, dropping out of life, abusing myself with sex and drugs, placing myself in ridiculously dangerous situations, suicide attempts and septicemia, I worked through all the issues you mention and many more, tangentially related to the rape. I was a naïve kid who thought if I did good, only good would come my way.

Unlike you, I told no one I was raped for well over two years, other than my doctor and my dad. My doctor helped my body, my dad made sure the rapist was put away and we never spoke of it, again, but once. I quit my 1st group therapy because I felt my rape wasn’t as awful as the other women and men’s rapes. We needn’t compare. We are all unfairly, unjustly and wrongly hurt.

Because of years of therapy, private and group, because I faced my shadow self, I found out that I am braver than anyone I know. I still float in that feeling like dust in a sunbeam. I am brave. I was never weak. I just didn’t realize I am brave.

You will do the same.

You will heal. You will know a different you and be grateful for it. You will do it for yourself because you deserve it.

I am 60 now. The only time I think of that time in my life, at all, is when I read stories like yours on Medium. I am still learning. I like that!

I am happy. I have everything I want, even with a painful, life interrupting chronic illness. What I have and want is all inside of me and inside special relationships I choose to share. I’m healthfully married. I volunteer when my health allows. I miss my career. I’m normal and I’m not. I am joyful because I have and know the real me. I learned to be kind to myself, to hear myself, trust myself and love myself. I learned to forgive myself. I forgave my rapist in 1986. He has no control over any part of me.

I live a different life, uniquely mine.

What happened to us happens too often. Men who do this don’t misunderstand. Good men, most men, always know that “no” means “no” and never push, much less ignore and degrade. When you know this in your bones, you’ll be closer to forgetting him. He deserves to be forgotten but only when you’re ready. From now on everything is up to you. It will happen in your time with your choice and he has nothing to do with you anymore.

I have written other responses to stories like yours on Medium more eloquent, and less, than this one. Read them if you like. I’m writing my own story. I will publish it when it is ready. I am interested to learn why I am writing it again now, after reading stories like yours. It is complicated as are all our stories be they the stories of women, men, and children. Children: for every outcry, the perpetrator has hurt 40 others. I suspect it is the same for all perps who confuse rape with sex when it is about power, control, and violence.

I’m amazed at how quickly you faced this, how publicly you faced it. I feel great you found a therapist who gets it. I hid, you exploded. But I believe there is a process we all go through in our own way. It is tough. We all go through it at our own pace, in our own way but you can get where you feel safe, where you don’t obsess, won’t think of this rape or the rapist, at all. You won’t react to every situation in relation to this one. You won’t need anyone to agree with you to believe you were raped. You won’t need to convince anyone of anything. It won’t matter that this wasn’t prosecuted and you won’t fight not to feel a victim because you truly won’t be one. You will bloom into the most amazing Alexa, an Alexa you never imagined you could be NOT because you were raped but because you chose to use this undeserved rip in your soul to face all of who you are, shadow and light, and you chose to heal. At times, the healing process will feel harder than the rape, in a different way. You will succeed. You are one brave woman. Heal for you!

As Rumi wrote, “The wound is where the Light enters you.” Let it enter and heal you because that’s what you deserve.

I’m wishing you the best.