[Trigger warning: Graphic conversation about Sexual Assault]

I’m sorry to interrupt your Sunday relaxation. If you are uncomfortable with vulnerability, please scroll on past. This may be tough to read.

You know me, probably quite well. You might not know that I was sexually assaulted some time ago. By a boy that I liked, who I was attracted to, who for all intents and purposes is a progressive, kind and respectful person. He probably considers himself a feminist and in some ways he probably is. He works in the community service and health sector. He volunteers often and is well liked by his friends. You or they might say “but he’s not like that“.

I have thought long and hard about making this public knowledge – for years now – and I still want to do it. At least once a week I think about writing a status on Facebook that would get it off my chest – would make it open and light rather than a dark and shameful thing that I carry alone and only speak about with close friends. I don’t want to feel careful about who I tell anymore. I was sexually assaulted. This happens. This happened to me. It happens a lot and it’s not OK.

I don’t want to tell people so they see me as a victim. I am strong and resilient and I think talking about this is evidence of that. This is bravery. Whenever anyone talks about sexual assault, it is incredibly courageous. People want to turn away from the fact that this type of thing happens: the pain of the victim and the realisation that people who are lovely and respectful and not like that can actually very easily do this to others, is much too hard to bear. I understand that. I do not blame you for wanting to turn away. To talk about such trauma for the chance of healing and at the risk of deaf ears is extremely brave. Those who do should be commended for it.

I feel stupid labelling my attacker an attacker. He did not come at me with a knife. We had breakfast with friends the next day as if everything was normal. He texted me for a week before I told him that what had happened was really unacceptable and that I was really upset about it. Some would respond to this amount of time passing as evidence that I’d just changed my mind about wanting it. That’s just not true. I didn’t want this to have happened to me – I didn’t want this to be my truth so I tried to make it not be. Ignoring the truth does not make it any less true.

I did not realise that what had happened was sexual assault. This is a very strange thing – when I look back at the event. It does look plain as day, now. My exact words were: This is not going to happen and his exact words were: I’m going to do it anyway. That is a no. A resounding no and an aggressive reply.

I’m sorry this is hard to read. This is still hard to write about and it has been a couple of years since it happened. I can tell you that I went into shock when I endured it. I could not believe that someone was saying those words to me in response to my words. I could not believe that the man I had kissed just moments before was pulling my pants down whilst I was trying to pull his hand out of them and simultaneously trying to hold the pants up.

In what ways this has affected me is much too much to write about in one little text box. I struggled to trust men in general for a very long time, despite how lovely and trustworthy I knew they were. This went against the deepest of my personal values and made me question whether I was a good person. I struggled to become aroused even with people I loved and was incredibly attracted to, for a very long time. For about a year, I did not want to be touched by anyone which was a shock to my friends who know me as a very affectionate person. I did not want to die, but I did not want to live in a world where this had happened. I was angry and scared, for a very long time. Often I still am.

The worst thing was that I did not trust myself anymore. I’d always thought I knew how I would react if someone tried to assault me. I did not react that way at all. I did not scream and kick and punch – I shut down instead. I thought I was braver than that. Oftentimes I tell myself that shutting down was brave or at least, the only thing possible for me to get through it. I’m holding onto that thought just like I held onto my jeans’ belt hoops – with quiet determination.

I hate that the effort I’m making isn’t so much about forgiving him, but about convincing myself that it was in no way my fault. I thought for a long time that I needed to forgive myself for letting it happen. If only I hadn’t kissed him. If only I hadn’t attended that party. If only I hadn’t been interested in another human being. I don’t know where that line ends.

Today, right now, writing this to you I feel bold, empowered, courageous and unstoppable. I am broken in a way, but I’m not interested in hiding that and somehow, showing the cracks in such a public way feels like relief. In spite of the sexual assault, I am a strong, confident and affectionate person. In spite of the sexual assault I do not default to a distrust of men who could possibly hurt me. In spite of the sexual assault I love and trust deeply. In spite of the sexual assault, I continue to be the person that I always strive to be.

Today, in spite of the sexual assault, I know I’ll be OK.

EDIT: Response to this piece has been incredible. For all of you reading this who are struggling through something similar, I wanted to pass on some resources that have been helpful to me and to remind you that it’s not your fault, you don’t have to do this alone.
http://www.kemh.health.wa.gov.au/services/sarc/have_you.htm#past

The wind grasped my skirts. I clutched at them wildly to get them under control. My face; beetroot red. His face; unfortunately positioned at my now exposed crotch.

“Oh, hello”, he said, with a wispy, mocking smile on his bronzed face. I flushed a deeper colour still, not that he’d be able to see from where he was.

“No need to pout, I’ve seen it all before. I’ve got five sisters, see”. He turned away as some sort of gesture of respect and held out his hand to help me onto the boat. The damage was done with his previous words, but I took his hand. It was softer than I was expecting. I didn’t let my fingers linger on his. I made sure not to look him in the eye.

There was an awkward silence as he loaded my luggage behind us. I didn’t know what I was allowed to touch or sit on but I settled on a tarpaulin covered box across from him.

“Are you the only boy?” I tentatively asked, to keep a conversation going – away from my underwear.

“I’m sorry?”. He stood up as I asked, having finished tying down my cases with some sort of rope netting. Had I offended him?

“In your family. The only boy in your family”.

“Oh. Yes. I had a brother. A twin actually, but he passed away ten years ago.”

There were no other passengers. We were safely tied down, so it was time to push off. He threw the rope holding us to the jetty expertly onto the wooden boardwalk. It curled neatly around the pylon.

“Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that. What was his name?”

“Well”, he paused, as he used an oar to turn us toward the open water,  “my name is Andrew. We haven’t really started at the right place, now have we? I suppose we couldn’t have seeing as I’ve seen your knickers before I even know your name”. My face flushed again while his beamed.

I was speechless. He smiled cheekily and waited for my response. I stared at him, incredulous in my embarrassment.

I opened my mouth to tell him that my name was Doctor Thoreau and that I – not a Husband, not a Father, but I – paid his wages. Before I could utter a word my ears were inundated with a deafening noise.

“Blllllgggghhhhh barrrrrpppppppp blllllllggggggg”. The engine roared to life with one swift movement of his muscled forearm.

I stood up and let my skirts give in to the wind.

I locked eyes with the European boatman. He shifted uncomfortably and the smile ran away from his sun kissed face. The horizon was between my legs.

As sweet as a whisper I said: “What do you know about me now Andrew? Nothing I don’t want you to”.

I walked to my car in the cold air this morning and felt a great emptiness in and around me. It felt like an apocalyptic fire had ravaged the Earth and left the atmosphere empty and crisp and longing. Like it had cleared everything away. My insides mirrored the outside – or the outside mirrored the inside, I’m unsure. I knew that soon this emptiness would be replaced with heavy, unrelenting grief. It felt like nothing would ever be the same again. There’s an uneasy sort of clarity when things have been wiped away.

I’d had two hours sleep the night before. The ethereal nature of all solid things in my path was realistically caused by my delirium, but it felt like a new perspective. My hands on the steering wheel – ghosts. The trees passing by – shadows. The people walking on the sidewalk – memories. Nothing was real, I was drifting in a dream. Nothing mattered.

For hours last night I’d considered, seriously, that I might not have my friend in my life in the morning. I’d envisaged life without him and I’d pleaded for him to stay. I knew my words would have no effect but still I tried. Something worked. I never once thought to thank God, but someone must be thanked. I don’t know who they are yet. Perhaps it was just him, coming through and convincing himself to stay when so many things were telling him not to.

There is a long way to go, but goddamn I hope there is a long way to go yet. I hope there is a long way to go, with him filling the empty space instead of grief.

I told a boy I loved him, with all my heart – my precious, open heart – and he said nothing in return. The other end of the telephone line was pregnant with silence and then we said goodbye. I was relieved to have said it and I was relieved to have had no reply if it wasn’t matched with his precious, open heart. I told him we’d be friends only when I felt OK with my broken heart. This would be some time from now and he respected that.

Months came and went and I cried myself to sleep knowing my heart would take some time to heal itself. I regretted nothing. I had been courageous. I could ask nothing more of myself. Courage, it would seem, does not cancel pain.

A little while later, a romance blossomed with a new friend. Our first date was dressed up in staged friendliness – a transaction that would result in a reason to spend time in each other’s company without being explicit in our interest. “I’ll show you how to do this in photoshop if you’ll teach me how to cook that meal you made”. We were both unsure if our feelings were mutual but in that ambiguity there was excitement.

On our date, the morning turned into the afternoon. The afternoon turned into the evening. The evening turned into the early hours of the next day. We planned only to be in each other’s company. It was so easy.

“I’ve been wanting to hold you in my arms for some time now” he said when we eventually lay in bed together, physically closer than I thought humanly possible. He stroked my shoulder and I nuzzled that little bit further into the nook of his neck. I heard the words and I took them in but I’m not sure I believed them. I couldn’t see how I was going to be any different to his previous girlfriends (you sneaky insecurity!) but I was happy where I was at that moment – it would be what it would be. I soaked up every little joyous second and in the morning I was shocked when that continued. I wondered when the part would come where it became awkward and we both lose interest.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. I felt strange using the term ‘boyfriend’. I’d spent so long trying to convince someone that I should be considered their ‘girlfriend’; that our relationship was a relationship; and this man bandied around ‘girlfriend’ and ‘boyfriend’ like it was as obvious as I thought it was with every other. He trusted. He was courageous. He risked.

The other boy texted now and then. I thought about him occasionally and was still sad to not have him in my life. I was not ready to be friends, there was still pain.

One day, out of the blue, he texted to say that he’d appreciated the time we’d had together. Despite both our separate happy lives with our separate happy partners, he took the time to say that he regretted nothing. Any other person might smile when reading this but instead, my heart ached in response. His words were so incongruous with his actions, I simply could not let them in. It seemed random and I am ashamed to note that my first reaction was to think he wanted only to open up my legs, not my heart.

He went on to say that a friend had written about our time together. I asked why he would do such a thing. He replied that I’d had an effect on him that I never would understand and simply could not be forgotten. He sent me a link to a blog. I read the words. My heart broke again on the last sentence: “for what it’s worth, I love you”.

The words I wished for so badly to come from his mouth in that pregnant pause on the telephone, were written right there on the screen. There was relief in the tears I cried this time – to know that I wasn’t meaningless to him.

Days later I pondered whether the words were a consolation at all. Did they make me feel better about not hearing them the night I said them? I considered our relative positions when declaring feelings of love for one another. Mine was heart bared – everything to lose and everything to gain. His was from a place of safety – a girlfriend to go home to, no lonely bed if love wasn’t reciprocated. Did the words mean less because he said them when he had nothing to lose? I considered how courageous my actions were.

My love is courageous. My love risks all. My love does not get written as an after thought. It must be said.

Am I happy?
Ask me at 9am in the morning, getting ready for a job that I’m not sure I’ll have for much longer.
Am I happy?
Ask me at 10pm when I’m slipping into a warm bed with my precious loved one.
Am I happy?
Ask me at 2pm when I’m struggling to concentrate as the coffee and five hours of sleep are failing me.
Am I happy?
Ask me at 11am when I’m walking in the sunshine and patting all the carefree puppies I cross on my path.
Am I happy?
Ask me at 6pm when I’m driving home and I recall the affair, the sexual assault, the feelings of inadequacy that I know I need to deal with as soon as possible.
Am I happy?
Ask me when I know.

I’ve started online dating again. I feel ready to meet people and eager to investigate what makes others interesting – everyone is interesting in some way if only I believe it and search for it. So I will.

Whereas previously I’ve been desperate to find some connection in others because I was so lacking in confidence of my own self worth – I had to somehow receive it from others – I feel the journey of getting to know others worth taking the time for, now. If I were single for a year or two more, this would not be the end of the world. That idea terrified me not more than 6 months ago.

This site supposedly provides an idea of your compatibility with potential romantic matches based on the answers that you each provide to a series of personality trait questions relating to love, lifestyle, sex etc.

I came across a profile with an interesting black and white profile picture – a bulging bicep clearly visible due to a strategically positioned arm. I clicked, I was curious. We had a 97% compatibility which was the highest I had seen so far.

There was humour in the description, which was long. Sometimes arrogant, but also self-deprecating. It was written as if advertising some product – this person was versatile and would fit into your lifestyle and result in “domestic bliss” for you, the lady consumer. Clearly this person was serious, but not too serious that it appeared desperate. At several points I laughed out loud and appreciated the style of humour I was reading. I didn’t want to skip ahead – this person knew how to write; I drank in all of those words. It reminded me of my previous partner and the way he would relish the opportunity to string so many words together like this.

The book section was enormous! But not a list – it flowed like poetry. Bukowski, Hunter S Thompson, Irvine Welsh… hold on. This is weird. Could this be him? I kept reading. Next up this: a positively disastrous account of James Joyce’s Ulysses, just as I’d expected.

I finished reading. I opened the image gallery. Mother fuck! This is him. In all his ridiculously photoshopped glory. Black and white photographs with some ironically coloured part of the image – this is his humour. There’s even a fucking image of his 6 pack out of focus while some Goddamn classics are stacked in the foreground. That curly hair, those beautiful eyes, the cheeky eyes. My stomach dropped when I realised this was him. The man I spent two intense years with, desperately in love, through terrible and beautiful times. Here he was again, a stranger once more. Seeking love from other strangers.

97%. Life is funny sometimes – what does this mean? What is it within that measly 3% that caused the complete incompatibility of our personalities? If 97% compatibility can’t work….what the fuck will?

I was confident that I could compartmentalize tonight – quarantine things from others. I was sure I would have a good time with you, knowing what this is for you and what it is for me. I know you’re a respectful, lovely person and I know you care about me. I don’t think you’d ever do anything to humiliate or belittle me and you’d never do anything to hurt me.

I shaved my legs. I wore a short, tight dress. I put on my heels, red lipstick and a smile. I saw how affected you were when you entered my apartment and I was validated. You looked incredible and I wanted to tell you just how much. Instead I ate my complimentary words in some attempt to retain control over the situation. Like you’re some situation. How absurd. I think my eyes betrayed me regardless of my silence.

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping things under control. Then your hand was under the table, holding my heel in your palm. It surprised me and I had to suppress the sharp intake of breath the action had caused.

I regained some distance and we entered the cinema. The chairs were the special, bucket kind. The sort that affords theatre goers a lot of personal space. You remarked on this and it still didn’t occur to me that physical contact between us in public was something you wanted. I had assumed that any touching between us couldn’t possibly be loving and that’s what I thought that was. If it’s behind closed doors, at home, then it is in the realm of sensual touch and that I could handle.

Your hand caressed the inside of my wrist. It was electric, here, in this crowded cinema, with the sound of ice cream wrappers and popcorn being chomped by oblivious strangers. You whispered in my ear: “I love this part of you, right here”. I melted.

How could I possibly hold myself together when such words of endearment echo in my mind? You didn’t say those words in an animalistic way. You said them because you legitimately enjoy that small, soft part of my body. That you could notice little things like this about me and so unashamedly share your joy about those pieces of me, is truly heartwarming to me.

How do you enjoy me so, but still find it easy to feel comfortable saying this is the limit – right here – this is where it ends? This is the box you fit in and this is the box I fit in? How? I’m not box shaped and neither are you.

Jessie was his name. I was “Jessie’s girl”. Whenever I thought about him, I would hear that song and place myself in the middle of the story; and hope that the other character’s longing for me was felt by him. I was young, but Hollywood had a hold on my heart and I ached to be needed and wanted just like I’d seen in the movies and in those songs. I was sucked in by it at that age and I succumbed to that little gendered role playing. That’s what Hollywood told me was romance.  This was what it said I should yearn for.

Jessie and I hung out every Tuesday night when our Fathers played Baseball together at the local Football ground. It was always cold – I guess Baseball is a winter sport. The Football ground had lots of interesting places to explore and Jessie and I would find all the secret hollows in the bushes where kangaroos had laid down to rest at some point. I crushed on him, hard from the night I first met him.

He was slightly older and I thought he was such a badass. He was an outsider: someone who had had such a different upbringing to my own and I found that incredibly attractive. He had a fire inside him unaffected by his estranged family, their reliance on government handouts, the months living in the family car, the holey hand-me-down jumpers. It wasn’t his first kiss and I wasn’t jealous – I was excited. My eleven year old self thought he’d teach me a thing or two.

Jessie had been talking about kissing me for weeks but there hadn’t yet been a good time. Parents or siblings were around, he’d had a cold: excuses. I was relieved every time and disappointed, too. He could not admit he was as nervous about the kiss as much as I was. He was the tough, older boy. Of course he wasn’t nervous, he’d done this millions of times.

Hollywood did not prepare me for the anticlimax that was my first kiss. The final innings of the Baseball game was upon us. There were no Parents or siblings around. We were both without illness. Soon, the siren would sound and time would be up – our parents would call for us and we’d go back to our contrasting lives and homes. Now was the time to do it.

Unlike any other on-screen kiss I’d ever seen, we were next to a giant skip bin, filled with construction rubbish, dirt and dust. I have no idea why he chose this place to kiss me. Despite the location, my tummy churned with anticipation and my face burned with the blush and the cold night air. He put his arm around my waist and drew me into him. I guess he was affected by Hollywood’s cues too – what kind of thirteen year old boy knows to do this?

He looked me in the eyes and planted his lips on mine and pressed into my face. It was lovely. It was clumsy, but it was lovely. It’s hard to kiss when you are smiling. He gave me another. The siren sounded and he pulled away, looking urgently towards the field.

“Shit!” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that second one”. He squeezed my hand and ran towards the Club house, leaving me standing next to a skip bin watching my Hollywood moment disappearing into the bright lights. That was the last night that I was Jessie’s girl. I never saw him again.

This is not my story. These are not my words. I could not alter this story as it’s perfect just as it came in.

______

All the doors are locked

Our dog stares out into the dark at the sounds of a different house

And I miss you

The rain falls in our house through the roof to a small green pot that sits in the middle of the kitchen floor

Do you miss me?

Will I ever sleep again in that house, with the doors wide open breeze flowing

Safe because nothing can hurt us when we are standing together?

And I miss you

I know its not right because I’ve never felt so wrong

God damn do I wish I never felt this way

Constant knots in my stomach

Sweet saliva fills the back of my mouth

I’m retching over an empty foreign toilet bowl

And I miss you

I wonder if that pot rests alone tonight

It’s filling the only sound in our now locked house

Or if you are there, retching and writhing in a bed of pain like mine

And do you miss me?

I sometimes hear birds singing sweetly at all hours of the night from my apartment window. I’ve read that the parent-bird does this as a way of protecting it’s babies from nocturnal predators such as cats. They sing from a nearby tree to entice the hunters to a different tree to that which houses their nest of helpless children. Now when I hear those birds singing “happily” at night, I know that they’re actually frightened and trying desperately to protect their precious ones from harm with a distraction. It doesn’t sound so sweet anymore.

I remember that I saw you having the talk with mum and dad on the back patio as the sun went down. I watched and listened from the kitchen window. Every serious conversation they ever had with us had a hint of hilarity associated with it. It never fit their image or my idea of them to have serious conversations.

Your silhouettes were framed by the purple and orange of the setting sun behind you. This has made this image forever burnt into my brain as if it were a dream – hazy, beautiful and with a sadness that doesn’t need any explanation.

You saw me there, watching from the kitchen window. I couldn’t see your face because of the location of the sun but you complained that I was listening. Mum and dad told you that it mattered to me too.

I don’t remember what was said specifically. I think you were pretty nervous but at the same time relieved that they cared and something was being said. It wasn’t a secret anymore. Mum and dad knew and they weren’t turning a blind eye to it. I don’t remember how they found out or how long they’d known before they said something to you. I hope it wasn’t long.

We weren’t close like I’d wanted us to be, for so long. I think now, at 23, you’re finally letting me in again. You’re finally able to trust me. I guess you never did that to begin with, really. We didn’t know each other.

I see those scars on your thighs now, long since healed – and all I see is a frightened, lonely, little girl that I neglected for years. I was too caught up in my own nightmares to see yours playing out right in front of me.

You’re not ashamed of those scars – you don’t hide them. I always wonder whether you explain to your lovers – if you say anything about them at all. Do they even ask about them?

Where did you do that little sister? Did you do it in your room, with your closed door without the lock? Did you cut deep enough for the blood and the pain to come and hope family wouldn”t – or would – interrupt you? Was I the singing bird that distracted our parents from you? Did they miss the real danger here and focus on the wrong cry for help?

I was only in the room next door, little sister. How did I not hear this? I was only in my own head. I didn’t see your pain through my own. How did I let my head get so full of darkness and self pity that I didn’t see you drowning just next door? I think about how many nights I must have sat alone in my room, staring at the wall, wishing I felt anything other than despair, while you were less than three steps from me, behind that wall I was concentrating on, cutting into your own flesh because you wanted to feel something, too.

You’re such a beautiful person and I’m so proud of you. Beyond words. I look at you – a grown woman now, and I still see that precious little girl who I wasn’t there for when she really needed it. Despite those physical and, no doubt, psychological scars that you carry around with you, you’re so self assured and loving. Your personal strength has always been an inspiration to me. In a whole lot of ways, you’ve been the big sister who’s been strong for me and put me together when I’ve fallen apart. You’re still my precious girl, you’re just as fragile. How are you all of these things but still fill me with such strength and conviction of character?

You inspire me, little sister. You’re the best person I’ve ever known. I’ll never let you down again. You’ve never let me down.