I Tried Breaking Up With Memories
TW: Discusses rape, trauma
For more than a year, the memory of getting raped became blurry in my mind. It’s not that I all but forgot about it. I just skipped the details. It became an ordinary incident to me, not something I attached any meaning to.
However, before this, I had gone through waves of trauma. Everything linked to the person and the incident triggered me. I usually lose my breath (and that was terrible given that I’m asthmatic) or I’d break down in tears.
I remember this particular day he messaged. I had blocked his numbers and so I was surprised. But more than surprised, my emotions broke loose, and I had an asthma attack.
So it was convenient to blurt it out of my life. Blurt out the months of depression that followed. The feeling of stigma I felt from friends and the months I spent irritated, angry, and hating myself. The months I felt suicidal.
Redemption Call
I tried breaking up with memories, and I thought I succeeded, till last year December. I’d received a text from an unsaved number. It was from someone asking for forgiveness for the hurt he had caused me. I woke up to the text and was wondering what it was about and who it was from. Curiosity pushed me to call, and he picked up.
I heard his voice and regretted calling, but I stayed on the line. He apologized, saying he still remembers and regrets his actions. I was quick to say I’d forgiven him, but I don’t know if I had. It’s just something I had come to tell myself too often that I now believed it. I told him it’s fine, I’m past it, and I’m better.
As soon as the call hung up, I felt this heaviness in my heart. The tears were pooling and building up, but this time it was different. I felt redemption and pain simultaneously. I didn’t know which feeling was stronger, but somehow, something in the call had healed me and broken me at the same time.
Facing Reality
I now knew I hadn’t completely moved on. I hadn’t completely forgiven him. I was still hurting and now he opened the scars, I could feel them sting again.
A song I hadn’t played for years came to mind: Clean by Taylor Swift.
Rain came pouring down
When I was drowning, that’s when I could finally breathe
And by morning
Gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean
I played it while crying hard. I cried for hours, and after, I felt clean. I felt like I had moved past the point where I was too scared to face the memories. So I resolved to enter the new year with a brighter look, to face my fears.
Before this realization, I was off social media. I was avoiding people and was just on my own, sulking. I was too used to sadness that I was scared to experience happiness. I’ve spent the greater part of my life depressed and it had become the new happiness to me.
But I decided to give therapy another chance, so I reached out. For the first time, I was able to talk about the rape in detail rather than with an overall vagueness. And I was able to do so without feeling it was my fault. I’d learnt to ditch that idea people had drilled into me.
This is the second time I get to talk about it more positively.
A New Outlook
The new year started, and it’s been great. I’ve had low moments, but I’ve also learnt to accept my memories and deal with them. You can’t run all your life.
I’m navigating life one step at a time, doing the things I love, and letting light into my life. My life feels more meaningful like I’m not only existing, but I’m living.
I can soon see myself in a place where these memories will be survival scars. But for now, I’m taking it one day at a time while feeling all the feelings.
