The memories never leave.  Yes, they fade--the visual images blur, go together and become faded where they were once vivid.  But if I keep my eyes always occupied, I'm ok.  The sense of touch comes back from time to time, but if I studiously avoid all contact, I'm ok.   The oddest part is smell--I hate certain laundry detergent to this day.  But if I only buy a certain brand, I'm ok.  But the emotions, the feelings, my subconcious are there all too vivid.  There to stay, when I can only hope that one day they will leave forever.

It's something akin to being in prision and let out from jail where you've been ordered to do certain things, eat a certain way, go certain places at certain times and be certain places at certain times.  When your comings and goings have been monitered and so has your diet and sleep.  What you look like has been commented on and it's been made clear to you that you are nothing more than someone's charge and that you're incapable of taking care of yourself.  That is the worst.  Though it is not as traumatic or horrible as an actual prision and locational confinment, it is just as traumatic to the soul.  These things are awful because it is one of the ways he controled me.  At first masked by kindness and concern and in the end merely a way to control when he wanted me and when he didn't.

So when anyone suggests to alter or do anything with any of those things in my life I freak, become closed, become in a shell again.  It's irrational, but of course I know that.  But in order to get back to rational one msut go through the semi-irrational dream state.  Because that's when you're just coping to survive.

I now shudder at human touch.  I wonder why it took so long for that to set in, but it finally did.  I honestly thought I had escaped that horrid affect of sexual abuse.  At the same time you desperately want comfort you run from it, afraid to trigger a panic attack or painful memories.  It's late for it to set in but I think it comes with reawakening from this dream state.  It also doesn't help that those closest to me see this as compassionate love, and I don't know how to tell them otherwise.  That touch for me is now like piercing my nerves with red hot irons.  And I don't want to hurt them.

I hope and pray that the subconcious feelings will go away.  Maybe then I can truly start over, start again, without leaving all of my old life behind.  But if it also doesn't go away, I feel find a way to make a new life for myself, merged with the old one, that enables me to move on.  Of this, I am sure.  Trusting in God, my Savior, I know I will go on, no matter how hard it is. 

The Hijab

It's been three months since I've consistently worn the hijab.  Five and a half months since I was raped.  A month and a half since I've worn the hijab at all.  Three months since I've known for sure I wasn't pregnant.  Two months since I've felt all the coping mechanisms were gone.  And two weeks since I've felt they're coming back.  These days I measure everything--it's one of those coping mechanisms you don't realize you have until you've been doing it a long, long time.  The more time passes, the more I think I'm immune to what happened to me. 

But as I put my trauma behind me and start to re-discover emotion, I realize what the last months of trauma have done to me.  It's like I'm waking up after being asleep for a very long time.  My relationships are broken, neglected for months as I was controlled, and hiding.  People are confused at who I've become, who I was and now who I am.  It's slow work to rebuild these relationships.  Some I know are lost to me forever.

The reconnection is painful and hard yet comforting.  These people are a link to the better, normal days of my past.  Yet it feels like I can never be who I used to be before this.  It feels like I can't live up to their expectations of who Brisa used to be.  But these are the few people--those who stood with me through all of it--so I must fight every day not to shut down to them.

So I slip a little.  I dress different. Desperately want some semblance of normality.  I fight the checking mechanisms, fight the counting, fight the sorting.

Rubbing the necklace was a quick fix.  It doesn't fight the overwhelming tension inside of me anymore.  So it's little things at first.  Eating less.  Picking off nail polish.  And I'm thinking about putting on the hijab again.  But almost like an addict in whatever anonymous, my 45 days without the image is the most tangible sign of recovery I have.  The most tangible marker. So here's to hoping that I take one day at a time, here's to hoping I don't wear the hijab again out of fear, and here's to hoping--that I won't put it on tomorrow. 

Some days I don't even understand how or why anyone loves me anymore.  With all the trauma I have changed so much from who I used to be.  A carefree girl, dancing through life with ambitions and compassion and love for everyone around me.  I was innocent, naive, enjoying life because everything was sunshine and flowers.

But I think that these feelings stem from the fact that it has been difficult for me to love.  Of course I still love those closest to me.  But, inside me it is hard to give when I feel numb and empty.  When I feel like so much has been taken from me that there is nothing left.

I think that time can only fill this back up--this empty hole inside of me.  I am confident that eventually this will happen, it God's time.  But it shows how significant a role love plays in each and every one of our lives.

It is what goes hand in hand with trust and respect and honor.  It's these things that make a true relationship.  He always said I love you.  Way before I was ready to say it back he kept saying it over and over again.  Even when I told him that I wasn't ready for that, it was too soon, I didn't want to say it back he kept saying it all the time, wearing me down, saying he couldn't understand why I couldn't say it back. I told him it made me uncomfortable.  But eventually I said it, to make him happy.  It was backwards--he charmed me into saying this, making me trust and respect him because of his false words.

That horrible night though he said very, very different words.  Words that were horrible and the very opposite of love.  After that he never told me again that he loved me.  He wouldn't say goodnight to me and wouldn't ever treat me well again.

I've learned one thing--trust and respect must come before love.  Because without those two things there is no foundation.  Emotions are funny things.  Right now mine might be based on months-old feelings and logic.  But deep inside I still really know who loves me, I still love them, and I take comfort in this without question.

Sunglasses and a hijab.  It's funny how something that's seen as a sign of oppression in the Middle East is a degree of freedom for me in the US.  To the casual observer I become Brisa--not the person I really am.  Which is ok, because sometimes we all need an anonymous place to go where we can share our true thoughts and feelings without free of emotionally hurting our loved ones or damaging ourselves by sharing too much of what happened to us.  Because oversharing oddly hurts just as much as undersharing.

The shame that comes with being raped is unique to the crime.  I know it is not my fault in any way that this happened to me.  But it is the shame of the crime that keeps me silent and hidden under an alias.

I never wanted to get married early in my life.  I am a career-driven, ambitious woman who doesn't mind being single and independent.  But lately I've had this deep, odd desire to be married.

I think deep inside me I feel that marriage and having consensual sex will somehow erase my shame.
The other day I had a dream that I married someone.  Now.  That day.  At school.  It was the oddest thing.  I have had a thing for that person, I'll admit that, but it wasn't someone I'd ever consider marrying.  But I think it was the fact that my subconscious was alert to one thing--that deep inside I wanted marriage to somehow protect me and cover me from any accusations of "slut" or other words that will be thrown at me in a court or in an investigation.

It scares me how much this assault has affected me.  Physically I can handle it but emotionally I wonder how much is me just maturing and healthily responding to trauma, and how much this is doing to me and affecting me in a way I never wanted to be affected.

But slowly, one day at a time, I sort through everything and figure out who I am--now.  I don't know exactly who I am right now, but I know that I am innocent, guiltless, free, and strong.

It's funny what emotions start coming back first.  You think it would be the primal ones--anger, fear, pleasure.  But it's not.  Instead guilt, sorrow, loss.  Interspersed by euphoria that's horribly because you can't figure out why you'd be happy in life.  Is being happy pushing the pain down and trying to disassociate you wonder?  Or is it just trying to keep on living?

I'd have to say that it's just how I keep trying to live.  In an odd chain of events once I accepted this--accepted it was ok to feel again and decided to face the pain, no matter how hard it was.  Then the instinctive emotions kicked back in, things I was so afraid to express--fear, anger, sadness.  It's almost a relief to start feeling a little angry--because all of my friends were--and I wasn't--and I couldn't figure out why.  But that's what happens when we accept our true emotions.  Things get scary.

I attended a panel the other day on title IX investigations.  There were old professors and a few law students.  The saddest was to see the three young girls there--including me--who were undergraduates.  They asked questions about what to do about their own cases and investigations--because we want to do everything we can to keep ourselves safe.

I've given up on getting justice.  Justice is in God's hands.  I don't think I have the strength to see him ever again.  I cannot see the man who tried to control and ruin my life.   But I will do everything in my legal power to keep myself safe, even if it means facing him at trial.

Rape--especially rape when the assailant is known to the survivor--is not like physical assault.  Someone has shamed you, hurt the most private, intimate part of you.  Assault is about fury and anger.  Rape is about emotional abuse, making the victim feel powerless, dishonored, and used.  Taking something away from someone.

So no, I don't feel bad that I feel so scared to take the stand.  But I can and will stay safe and will fight against any retaliation that I face.

I am beautiful.  Inside and out.  Someone told me that the other day, and to be honest, I started crying.  It's the strangest thing and makes little sense even to me, but I didn't feel beautiful anymore.  I felt ruined, tired, hurt.

But I am beautiful.  I'm by no means perfect, but people like me.  I'm not the type that needs everyone to like me, but after something like this, it means all the world to feel beautiful and loved.

Maybe the way to get over the pain is to feel what others are feeling.  I don't know.  But I didn't know that something so simple could be so healing.  Who would have thought? It's just a word after all.

But words in our society mean so much.  I was called things that I can't type here.  Those words that were told me will be forever engraved in my mind, locked away in a deep space where I pray one day they will not play over and over in my head.  But I've also been called words that have warmed my heart, pushed the hurtful words a little deeper.

Healing comes from the most unexpected things.  I've found it in things I've always taken comfort in.  I've found it in pounding the sidewalk way too much then is good for my ankle.  I've found it in the people around me, in things I've read.  And I've found healing and peace in God.  Because when it gets tough I need to remind myself that HE is in charge.  HE holds me in the cradle of His hand, under His wings, protected and safe.

And when the going was the hardest, He carried me.  His Word comforted me.  And when I was hurting to badly to be able to form words to pray, I know the Holy Spirit interceded for me as I sat helpless at God's feet.

I don't know what I would do without my Savior.  Though this is horrible and I wish so much I didn't have to face what I've had to face, He is there comforting me.  Giving me healing in the odd places.  And telling me I am made in His image and am beautiful.

And His voice gently whispers to me along the wind telling me to go in peace, because I am His.

"So wake me up when it's all over.  When I'm wiser and I'm older...all this time I was finding myself and I didn't know I was lost."

I never thought that it was possible to feel so much pain and yet be so numb.  So much pain that it's almost what makes you numb.  I'm sorry, I keep saying, I can't tell you what I feel, how I feel about different people, what seems like the best option because--I can't get past the pain.

The pain isn't going away because I'm not facing it.  I ignore it, act happy and bubbly on the surface.  Everyone says you seem "too okay".  Until I say that I can barely attach emotionally to anyone.  Yes, there are people I trust--but because I know it is the logical thing to trust them.

Some days I feel like a robot trying to push all the pain away so I can keep running.  Running from the troubles, just dealing with it when I have to legally.  But I think I'm starting to become ready to face it.

Face that I was physically hurt.  Beat up by someone I loved.  Face that someone had no concern for me, that I was just his object and his to do with what he pleased.  My brain can't wrap around the fact that someone thinks that way.

Face that I was emotionally abused.  That I was disregarded in front of his friends.  That he didn't respect my parents.  That he called me clingy, fragile, weak--and told my friends that.

Face that it's ok that I'm shocked that this happened to me.  That I feel broken, used, tortured inside.  Face that it's ok I'm not the girl I was a year ago.  Start believing that I'm not a mess or fragile or weak.  Because I got out.  I reported it.  I'm protecting myself.  Start believing that I am God's child, created in His own image and made to do something great. Because God has plans for me.  Plans to build me up.  Plans that won't harm me.  Plans that are perfect for me, so I can serve Him with everything.

Because maybe facing the pain will be part of that plan.  God didn't bring this evil into my life, but I truly believe that He can turn the evilest and darkest moments into good use.

And if I face the pain, I can love again.  I can recognize when people love me.  I can start responding to others emotions again.  But most of all--I want to wake up one day, realize this is over, and love again.