If you can't be with the one you love, do you love the one you're with?

If you don’t know what exposure therapy is, it is a form of therapy that uses mental images, writings, or in some cases, a visit to the place where the event happened. It helps you face the trauma head on by taking you back and exposing you to the experience and events as they happened. Something I never did. Avoidance of those memories makes PTSD symptoms hang around longer, maybe even a lifetime. The therapist explained, by avoiding memories, thoughts and emotions those experiences a person cannot fully process the what’s and why’s of the situation.

Today was not a good day…last night I wrote about my rape experience because that was part of my “homework” for today. I tore it up, wadded it in a tight ball, and threw it in the trash like it was infected with something mysterious hidden in the vaults at CDC. I went back to my pad of paper and all I could think about was the wadded paper in the trashcan. I pushed my chair away from the table, retrieved it, and proceeded to take it apart and place each piece through the paper shredder. Did I feel better? No. I was drained and wanted to sleep. Did I sleep? No.

I did this one time before not long ago and shared it with one of my “triggers.” It was the first time I had spoke about it, let alone write about it. It was when I thought I could face the faces and somehow find forgiveness...I was so wrong. By doing so, it opened Pandora’s Box and everything that I kept to myself for over forty years was on the surface eating at my heart and soul. Black tears of revulsion and betrayal blinded me and left me in a void with no way out.

I don’t want to, and there’s no reason to describe to you in detail what happened that October night, other than there were three older boys in a private cottage, with no adults expected to be there. Two of them had been drinking before I arrived with my date, the polite and handsome boy I fell for at a home football game. It was our third official date and he wanted to stop by his friend’s place for a few minutes before going to the restaurant. I only ever kissed one boy before him and that was shy and awkward. My fifteenth birthday was the next week.

My date takes me home, I was terrified to move in the passenger seat. He pulls in my driveway and turns off the car, he’s crying too. Says he’s sorry. What the fuck? You rape me and you’re crying? It was eleven o’clock, right on time. Dad was in bed and mom was closing things up for the night. From the kitchen, she asked how my night was. I told her it was fine and went into my room and locked the door. I crawled into bed with my clothes and coat on, crying, too numb and too terrified to move. I waited till I knew for sure she was sleeping. My clothes went in the trash and I sat in a scalding hot tub, my blade out of my razor, I nicked at my thighs, my arms, my legs…and stopped at my wrist where I inserted the edge and pulled…all I had to do now was dig deeper and drag… The bloody water was welcoming me with Satan grinning on the other side…I was in hell. I am going to hell. The thought of my parents and my little sister seeing me dead in a blood filled tub stopped me. Not much mattered after that night, I was on a self-destructive path. I lied, I took drugs, I was sexually promiscuous, I shoplifted, and I hurt and betrayed the people I loved the most. It didn’t matter if I had a high IQ, and a future at my fingertips. I made up my mind I wasn’t someone who deserved anything good. Remember, I said I was going to hell.

My daughter-in-law is in the medical profession and she mentioned a while back about how she and the other nurses get disgusted when the same battered women come in the ER for treatment and not press charges against their husbands or boyfriends. It was one time I couldn’t hold back and got emotional. I explained to her that they couldn’t because hopefully, one day…just one day, things might get better and the sun will finally shine on their parade. I know. You see, I “dated” that older boy off and on for two years. Some of the times we spent together were great, then it became a dangerous game of truth or dare if I didn’t get a particular act right or if I got hurt, he produced tears of shame and wanted forgiveness. That was the game, I forgave him…I loved him…maybe this is what you do to keep a boyfriend. Normal? No. It’s that insane fraying piece of thread that keeps you dangling between hate, love, and madness.

At this moment, I am reminded of the short story by Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” She wrote it sometime in the mid 60’s and much of it seemed to hit home. When I first read it in high school, my first thought was how did she know, because it reminded me of myself. It’s about a teenage girl named Connie who confronts her self-awareness as she transitions into adulthood. At home, she acts childish. She argues with her mother and abhors her older sister, and when she’s out with her friends, she strives to be sexy and mature. Arnold Friend appears, he is older and threatening. Connie faces a new kind of danger and will not come away unscathed. Her life has irrevocably changed, and her future looks hopeless. Arnold threatens Connie and her family and implies that if bad things have happened, there will be worse things to come, and if bad things have not yet happened, then they most definitely will. There is much symbolism in this short story of psychological terror and what lies ahead for Connie.

So, this was a portion of today’s session...terrifyingly vivid, extremely humiliating, and so very ashamed of myself. Good night.