More Posts About Rape Part II

2008 June 16
tags: , ptsd, , , trauma
by Harriet Jay

Since my bear got me the laptop, I’ve been transcribing all the scribbling in my notebooks over the years. Here is a journal entry I made about a year ago, during a business trip, having a drunken Law & Order meltdown in my hotel room. Please note, this is not how I feel all the time. But I did want to illustrate what this shit feels like sometimes. It is not very hard to find some depiction of a horrible rape scene in media; it is a lot harder to find any kind of depiction of the long-term after-effects. Well, here’s some

A long time ago, I promised myself that if I was ever raped, I would write about it, every day. I imagined forcing my way into a newspaper office, demanding a weekly column. I am writing for the voiceless, I would tell them nobly, convincingly, my bandages and bruises speaking for me. Calmly I would explain the statistics, and say that newspapers would fly off the shelves, you know they will. That’s how brave I was, in college, in my mind.

So many girls stay silent, I thought. I’m not polite. I’m not quiet. If I suffer, everybody should. Too many people, men, women, children, your parents, they maintain the luxury of ignorance. They didn’t earn that luxury, anymore than I have the luxury of forgetting. It doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen that often. It didn’t happen that way, it didn’t happen that bad. It doesn’t happen to someone you know, it can’t be somebody you know. They would never do such a thing.

It was my self-righteous assumption that an inherent sense of rage and justice, an indelible sense of will would give me the ability all those other nice quiet girls didn’t have. I was wholly different. It wasn’t going to be that way, not for me. I wasn’t going to lay down for it.

It’s supposed to be somebody close to you. Rarely ever the crazy man in the bushes. That’s out there now, that information, clear as day, but people still think it’s the depraved sex lunatic, because they can’t look at those they know personally and think, you, you could do this thing, couldn’t you? I knew it wasn’t the man in the bushes, but I always thought my potential rapist would have some sign engraved on his forehead. He’d swagger in the room all bravado and sneers and talk about them bitches and hos and do everything but have an evil musical score accompanying him. I let things slide with the people I did know. So (name removed) thinks lesbians just need dick, that there’s no way a woman could live her life satisfied without it. Well, (name removed) is just a retard, that’s different. So (another name removed) thinks every relationship is subject to sexual force, said so in just those words. But everybody jumped down his throat after, I mean, they wouldn’t let him be that stupid. He’ll learn, yeah? I mean, quick, take a straw poll. Who around you supports rape? Nobody, of course nobody, it’s not the middle ages. Everybody you know thinks rape is wrong, so it can’t be anybody you know. They could never do something that horrible.

Forgetting, we are, that it’s not “rape” if she’s your girlfriend, or if you’re drunk, or if she didn’t get beaten, or if she didn’t report it, or if she said yes and then changed her mind, or if she was blacked out, or if she didn’t scream. Or if she just needed some dick, or if it’s just a normal part of every relationship. Then it’s not something horrible, it’s not rape; it’s just sex, and anyway, it was her fault. And people you know, they could do that, couldn’t they? They could make a mistake, but why would they think it was rape? I mean, she wasn’t running or anything. They could have never done it if she’d been running or screaming; that’d be just horrible. Nobody you know is that horrible, to do something like that. No, nobody you know could ever be a rapist.

I wait for the anger to sustain me, to give me the words to write the thing that will make EVERYBODY understand rape and rapists and bad and good and society and also how very brave I am, sobbing hysterically in this hotel room because it’s another cop show marathon so it’s another RAPEFEST marathon, which is how you know this show is made for a male audience because I am nauseous with the lack of regular murders and drug addicts, I swear to fucking god. The anger is there, it is, but it’s directed against the windows, the blanket, my goddamn stupid face that didn’t get bruised so I couldn’t report it and I didn’t really think I had the right because it’s not like I ran screaming or anything, just laid down and took it and waited for it to be over so it didn’t get worse. I didn’t realize that my whole life was not contained in that moment, because this right now, THIS IS IT GETTING WORSE. A year later, a panic attack on a work trip to another city, beautiful hotel, beautiful scenery, and all I can do is drink myself to sleep because in case you forgot, Harriet, your husband raped you and you just let him like one of those sniveling nice girls. You STUPID fucking CUNT you thought you were going to WRITE about this? You can hardly even BREATHE.

Let’s be honest. ANGER sounds too strong, too normal, too healing to really encompass how I feel. The anger hardly gets through the rest of it, there’s no room with the fear and the nausea and the curling into a ball with animal panting noises. There is not a word for the way I feel. Okay, there is, the word is TRAUMA, but it doesn’t really cover all the specificities, like the hate for my stupid weak self and the fear that it will happen again because I am obviously STILL a stupid weak self and anybody could come in here now at any time and I’m just glad not everybody knows because otherwise I’d be fair game for every “it’s not rape if I don’t punch her in the tits” asshat to come along. I WAS RAPED BY AN ASSHAT. That is also a feeling, in there, somewhere. I was not raped by a big strong horrible creature with a death ray gun and a promise to kill my mother if I ever told. I WAS RAPED BY A FUCKING DOUCHEBAG. A ROLEPLAYER. I was raped by a guy who KNOWS THE LYRICS TO EVERY ZAPPA SONG. This is the lamest invasion ever. Torn asunder, invaded, traumatized, nauseated, attacked by A GODDAMN POTHEAD .

Yes, there is that too, rolling around in there. Trauma doesn’t cover what it means to be raped by the lamest fucktard ever. To be curled up in a hotel bed trying not to puke because some guy with bad hair and ratty clothes who smells like a I-don’t-see-why-I-should-wipe thought it wasn’t rape if you owed it to him, for dumping him and all.

Is this what I was going to describe to the editor when I barged into the press room sacrosanct and full of myself? YOUR READERS NEED TO KNOW SIR. HE HAS THE ENTIRE COLLECTION OF PALLADIUM ROLE-PLAYING BOOKS AND THAT CAN REALLY FUCK UP YOUR HEADCUNTLIFE.

Beneath the anger, the fear, the nausea, the bongwater smell, there is the memory itself. Within this morass of crawling and clawing and puking all over myself, this becomes almost the very smallest part. The memory is like a veil being drawn across my face. I feel a tickle my vision blurs, but beneath it I am invisible, anybody, any woman. The memory doesn’t need sharp corners and definition. The puking takes up more than its fair share of visceral, disgusting, stinking, body horror reality. I don’t need the memory. It doesn’t compare to what comes after.

That’s a lie. I remember everything. I remember every detail of how it felt. You don’t forget a thing like that, no matter how hard you try. But if I allow the memory to surface, if I examine its finer curves, the slow and silent draw of it, I will begin to shake., Tears come suddenly, like a hose. It is a very simple choice. Either the memory disappears or I do. I have disappeared. Come to on the floor with lots of scratch marks on my thighs, bruises on my legs from the wild thrashing. The puking, and curling under the blankets, and severely facetious attempt to write with HUMOR through CAPITALIZATION is preferrable.

I laid down for it.

Seven months ago, my husband raped me. I told him I wanted a divorce, so he anally raped me. He didn’t say it that night, but he’d said it before. “You’re not leaving till I get every part of you.” This was what I owed him, for leaving him.

Afterwards, he kissed and thanked me.

The next day, he apologized. His apology came too close to touching the part of my brain where I had boxed away the night before, where I had said, “Not until you are behind a locked door he has no key to do you admit what happened here.” So I couldn’t say anything, because I still had a week left in his home, before I could leave. Shelters? Oh yeah right. Those are for women without boxes in their brain, for women with bruises because they tried to get away, for women who do not think he will find them and do something worse, or do not have any other choice but to accept that. I had a choice. I could keep my brain boxed.

So all I could say to him was, why. Why are you sorry. I couldn’t say what it was. He would spend all night crying and screaming at me if I did, until I said no no, I was wrong, that’s not what it was, and then he would do it again. No, I would see if he would say it. Maybe then I could leave early, go to a shelter, validated that I had been hurt, that I had not deserved it. Why, Flint. Why are you sorry.

“Because you… asked me not to. But I did anyway.”

There is a word for that, I thought.

But I did not say it.

I am a wretched creature. I am no longer real. I have abdicated my personhood, my humanity. I sat there dumb and deaf and let him say that, just like the night before I had let him do it. Let? Did I let? Oh, jesus, don’t ask questions now. It doesn’t matter. It happened and you are a wretched goddamn creature who laid down for it.

There is the event, which was painful, and frightening, and caused me to dissociate from myself, floating over the trees outside. There is the after-effect, of running into him at the store, of having to spend an hour with him calling you a whore so he will sign the papers, of losing friends who won’t believe it was rape, who tell you if you didn’t call the police it obviously obviously wasn’t rape. There is the overwhelming recognition of the pathetic creature who cannot operate like a real human being anymore, who finds herself having a panic attack for no reason, biting her fist and sobbing on the floor. That is all a part of the package, a part of what we call “trauma.”

That is not the worst of it. Overlying it all, a neat little bow, is the knowledge that this is a part of me forever. No matter where I go, what I do, who I am. I could be at the bank, making dinner, putting on my socks, taking a pleasure drive, riding my bike, taking a nap, reading a book, and REMEMBER HARRIET YOU WERE RAPED. Yes, I remember, but I’d really like to play this video game right now REMEMBER HOW HIS HANDS FELT ON YOUR BREASTS. I didn’t really want to, I just wanted to take a walk WHEN GREGORY SAID YOU HAD TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR PART IN IT. Well, yes, that sucked, but I have some things to do and I don’t really want to think about Gregory DID YOU READ THAT ARTICLE ABOUT THE BOYS WHO GANG RAPED THAT GIRL WITH POOL CUES IN CALIFORNIA goddammit yes I did read it but I can’t function if I walk around angry about that all the time THEY GOT OFF YOU KNOW yes I know BECAUSE HER LEG MOVED IN DEFIANCE OF GRAVITY I read that part thanks but YOU DIDN’T CALL THE POLICE no I didn’t THAT’S WHY IT WASN’T RAPE it was rape NO IT WASN’T BECAUSE IT WAS YOUR FAULT I did not deserve it THEN WHY DID IT HAPPEN TO YOU AND WHY DID YOU LOSE ALL YOUR FRIENDS because all my friends were his friends and they were all dicks OR MAYBE YOU ARE A STUPID WHORE yes maybe OH ARE YOU CRYING LIKE A DUMB LITTLE BITCH maybe YOU ARE yes YOU DESERVE IT I don’t IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE NOBODY WILL CARE WHAT HAPPENED, ALL THEY’LL KNOW IS THAT YOU LAID DOWN FOR IT SO REALLY IT IS YOUR FAULT

Around my neck, trailing behind me, is a broken leash. All the world will know, for the rest of my life, that I was once a slave.

3 Responses
  1. Kari permalink
    August 5, 2009

    I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry I have nothing more eloquent to say in response to these posts. I’m just kind of dumbstruck at this time with emotion.

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  2. September 19, 2009

    sounds like my head when I start flashbacking.

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  3. Kirsten permalink
    December 21, 2010

    My ex-non-boyfriend-but-sort-of-boyfriend anally raped me earlier this year.

    A friend of mine sent me to your “A woman walks into a rape, uh, bar” and I’ve spent the last 3 hours just reading everything else on your site. I’m seeing a therapist and doing EMDR therapy, and so far it seems to be helping me cope… I think. I don’t know if coping is even a word I’m entitled to.

    Anyway. I’m sure a billion people have told you this, but reading your blog and your opinions and your story is helping me get through my rape. I can spend forever being incredulous and offended about people joking about rape around me, or be bitter that I cry all the time and I can’t have a normal relationship with my current amazing boyfriend, or I can remember that there are other women out there (like you) who have fought the fight and are creating the awareness to rape that our world needs.

    We’re normal people, right? Or… we were? I feel like an alien lately. I feel like nobody around me knows what I’ve gone through, nobody knows what my body does when they make rape jokes, and nobody knows how every little thing is a trigger or what I’m battling every day.

    Reading your blog makes me feel normal. Like I actually am in that 25% of the population who has had this happen to them. So… thank you.

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