The “R” Word
*trigger warning: rape*
“What you just described, that is, in fact, rape,”
A tear dropped off my bottom lashes. The pressure brewing inside my lungs, concentrating itself in a tingling, churning fashion underneath the thick mass of my rib cage, subsided only slightly. I felt a slew of emotions rise and crash into my consciousness. I was only able to nod my head in understanding because my voice had been snagged.
Could I even repeat it? Rape. To this day, the word makes me want to run to the nearest toilet and throw up. It makes me want to sprint as fast as I can for as long as I can. To sprint until the precipitate of pent up emotions inside my chest is eradicated through rapid breath.
But I was still sitting there. On a sagging couch in a tiny room with a desk and a sweet lady gazing at my sympathetically. I let out a whimper, I could not keep it inside me. It was a cry. A cry because for the past year, I had been with someone who raped me. Why, why, why? I was furious with myself for staying in a putrid, toxic relationship. I was suffocating in that relationship, as I was suffocating in that chair, thinking of the night I was raped. The night that he raped me the first time.
My best friend. Whom I loved up until he pressured me into having sex with him. He took the soft, delicate compassion of my spirit and crushed it with every thrust of his sickly, pasty white pelvis. The psychological balance of my sanity tipped over like a flower vase. The contents poured out. I lost my voice and I was frozen to that bed in a state of extreme vulnerability. Vulnerability that was being violated.
I am furious that I did not immediately, and consciously, know it was rape. Oh, but my body knew. My mind knew. My heart just did not want to accept it. The PTSD took some time to show itself physically and mentally. My depression worsened to the point where I actually began to notice it. My anxiety bounced through the roof. I was still in love with this person, but soon I did not want them to touch me. I did not want them to kiss me. During sex, I would not want to be there anymore. Yet, I would still remain there, silently, doing nothing, as he touched me and penetrated my body. Soon, I developed a gag reflex in response to any sexual activity as a result of the repeated trauma.
It was rape. The soft words of my therapist, as they punched and squeezed my gut, offered me solace. A solace that I clutch on to as the sister of my assailant calls me a liar. As the friends of my assailant harrass me on social media.
I sit on the couch across from a painting of a huge purple rose bud, blooming with great vibrancy, and repeat the word, “rape”.
