As always here is your friendly trigger and content warning. Assault and survival will be discussed. Take care of yourself. Here is Walter to care for you.
February marks one entire decade from my first assault. I think it’s been sitting in my brain and disrupting my sleep. It’s made me quick to break down the last few weeks, because muscle memory is still very real. While it takes a lot of work to get your heart and mind to function at a relatively normal speed again, it takes a very different kind of work to get trauma out of your physical being.
Here’s the thing about it marking one decade: It marks 10 entire years that I have continued to survive, and I’m choosing to celebrate the crap out of that.
Ten years ago, three years ago, five years ago, it doesn’t matter where you start the marker, I was in a grave. Almost literally. I had dug myself deep into a hole in the ground where I was storing all of my trauma and myself. With the help of two amazing therapists, supportive parents, a wonderful boyfriend, and the most incredible friends, I was able to start to dig. They did what they could to dig their ways down to me, but it was truly all on me to dig my way up, which isn’t as easy as digging down. Digging down gravity and grief are on your side. They put their weight on the shovel and push with you and for you. Digging up you have to claw and scrape. Your nails break. You don’t get any tools, but hands and feet. You move one layer of dirt from above you, it has to go somewhere. You have to shift it underneath you before you can make more progress moving upward. But one day, dirt starts to show roots and grass, and then comes in the brightness of the sun that you have neither seen nor felt in so long that you’ve lost all concept of time.
As your bruised and bloodied hands reach open air shock can start to set in. Maybe it would better to just stay where you are. Let the rain wash dirt back onto you. But you have made it so far. And of course you are so tired. It is always okay to rest, but never forget what you’re doing or where you’re going.
Finally, after days or maybe hours or maybe years, you reach the open air. You breathe for the first time since you can ever remember. The air is a shock to your lungs, but a welcome one. You may still cough to get the dirt out of your lungs, but you are out. You are out of all of that darkness, though some of it may sit in your lungs and ears and sinuses forever, you are out of all of that darkness.
Now what?
Step 1: you must begin filling the hole. Throw in the old dirt. Throw in bits of the nest you’ve built to live in. Throw in things you know you must part with. Those sweatpants from the Sexual Assault Treatment Center? They go in. Photos of the people that put you in this hole? They go in. Habits you’ve developed to survive, that are causing you damage? They go in. Everything that was a part of you in that hole, throw it in.
Step 2: start laying your foundation. Daily rituals to remind yourself you’re out. Healthy habits, that may seem simple to other people. Showering every day is a beautiful piece of a new foundation. Eating dinner on the couch instead of avoiding it or eating it in bed. Going on a walk. Reading books that make you feel safe. Silly tv shows. Friends that hold you when you can’t stop crying. Friends who show up with flowers or food when you might have forgotten beauty or to eat.
Step 3: decide what you want to build. For years you’ve been focused on survival. You may have lost some parts of yourself that you truly loved. Maybe you used to write or paint or dance or bowl. Maybe you used to invite people over. Maybe you went to the movies alone. It’s possible you’ll want to rebuild parts of who you were before things happened into your beautiful new future. Maybe you don’t. That’s okay too. Maybe who you have become is so different from who you used to be that it’s better to get a whole new start. This future is totally yours to build. This is important though. Now that you’ve dug yourself out, your goal is not to reach air and breath and survival. You can now think about two days from now, three years from now. You can set goals beyond the next minute and hoping to want to be alive again. You have a fresh opportunity to dream, to grow. Because while you’re building why not plant some things around your foundation? Some activism you’d like to grow. Some strength you’d like to grow more of. Some boundaries that need put up, but could be a beautiful hedge.
It’s so important to remember you have reached freshness. You fought to get here, and my friend you are so worthy of that fight. It takes more time than anyone would like it to, but it is worth every moment. Let yourself dream. Get ridiculous. The future is yours, and it has been waiting for you to expect it.
I’m so glad you’re here.
A Broad Abroad 