Two years
Almost two years after I was raped, I mentioned to a friend that I have a hard time visiting my hometown, where the rape occurred. He looked at me blankly. “You know, because of what happened?” Still nothing. “Because of the whole rape thing?”
This is how I refer to it: The Rape Thing. I’ve made it into an object, a knick-knack that might someday collect dust in the back of a closet. This is my way of putting an end to the recurring dissociative episodes in which the events of August 22, 2015 are still playing out, and I still cannot escape. When I name The Rape Thing as such it is finite and it has ended.
“Because of The Rape Thing!” My friend made no attempt to hide his lapse of memory: “Wow, I kind of forgot about that. Yeah, that makes sense.”
I haven’t forgotten about The Rape Thing. I don’t expect that the people in my life think about it all the time, but I certainly do. What happened to me two years ago altered my life in every way. The results are not exclusively or even overwhelmingly negative; fighting my way through this trauma has helped me to identify and defend the things that are most important to me. I don’t doubt that I am a better artist now — not because of any wisdom gained, but because I have rededicated myself to my artistic practice, rebuilt my life in a way that supports that work.
I’m not in therapy anymore, but when I was, I had to do recurring screenings for depression and PTSD. The PTSD one I had to do every month, and the depression one every six weeks, which meant sometimes they fell on the same day. I can’t remember which one asked if I thought I would be better off dead. Probably the depression one. And while depression, which I’ve struggled with since long before anyone laid their hands on me against my consent, has sometimes made me want to fade away, PTSD has made me determined to live. To thrive. To be exceptional, and in so doing prove that I don’t deserve what happened to me.
To say that I am grateful for The Rape Thing is a lie. I wish it had not happened. Being raped took away parts of me, ways of experiencing the world, that I will never get back. But I am better for it.
