Comments | kaninchenzero: [Trigger Warning] I Don't Need Anyone to Blame Me

kaninchenzero

[Trigger Warning] I Don't Need Anyone to Blame Me

Feb 15, 2010 21:39

Seriously I mean it about the triggers here.Trauma work is good for me, right? I mean. I'm supposed to be learning how to feel and still stay safe. Mostly what I'm feeling though is hurt and fear and anger. Those last two turn into terror and rage a lot. Which in me become depression and anxiety and I wind up not doing much of anything. It's ( Read more... )

Comments 29

rikibeth February 16 2010, 17:31:11 UTC

I can see how the context would make it very hard to name.

I hope that naming it and writing about it will lessen the pain around it for you.

kaninchenzero February 17 2010, 21:36:19 UTC

Thanks. It will, with time. Other things have.

Yeah, it's--the word that usually goes here is 'funny' but it's so not--something being trans* in relation to rape culture. There were at least three sex/gender contexts at work there and all of them are correct in some ways and most of them are incomplete. It wasn't until I stopped trying to answer the completely irrelevant question of "Well what was I anyway?" that I was able to get to the actual issue.

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kaninchenzero February 17 2010, 21:37:57 UTC

I appreciate it a lot. It's nice--in a horrid way; it's awful anyone else has felt like this--to know I'm not alone.

shiyiya February 19 2010, 06:44:17 UTC

*hugs*.

So very tempting to rationalize it all away, isn't it.

kaninchenzero February 19 2010, 06:59:32 UTC

It seemed like that was so much easier for a really long time. But I think it might actually not be in the end. Right now it's raw and painful and it sucks. It'll get better than now.

shiyiya February 19 2010, 07:12:51 UTC

Yeah. I actually started to write "so much easier" and then realised I wasn't really sure if I believed it.

kaninchenzero February 19 2010, 07:32:49 UTC

Turns out, while I was rationalizing and denying and telling myself "it wasn't that bad really" it was kind of still there gnawing at me the whole time. Not actually all that good. So I do it. I just know it doesn't work so hot.

tigtog February 20 2010, 21:12:39 UTC

I couldn't believe what was happening and was frozen.

I believe this is almost THE most common response to having a partner abuse one in this way. The utter disbelief that they could be so callous and the brain racing so hard to try and comprehend whether it's real and whether one should push them away (and if one does then what will they do? how can you predict their response now that you obviously don't really know who they are anymore?) that the result is paralysing. How could this NOT be a very common and completely understandable response to such an assault?

You were not to blame for freezing and letting it happen. You were not to blame for this at all. I know that you know this in your head. I just want to say it forcefully to hopefully help you feel it deeper in your gut.

kaninchenzero February 21 2010, 00:01:41 UTC

No one has said this to me--about freezing being understandable. Thank you so much. You're very kind.

untowardlady March 1 2010, 11:26:22 UTC

I wanted to express how normal I feel it is to have difficulty expressing yourself and being able to say no or to articulate what is happening to you during a rape. It's certainly how my experience with rape has been. Rape has had, for me, a power to take away my voice and my ability to resist it. I feel this power is the most poisonous, and ultimately the most hurtful of its powers by taking away both my sovereignty over my body but also my sovereignty over my will. I just wanted to let you know you're not alone ( ... )

kaninchenzero March 2 2010, 20:34:46 UTC

I'm so sorry that was done to you. It is a monumentally shitty thing that this club we belong to is so large. But it is sort of comforting, in the guilt-inducing way that not being alone in having experienced something horrifying is sort of comforting, knowing I'm not the only person who's reacted this way ( ... )

attack_laurel February 22 2010, 16:51:29 UTC

(I clicked on through from FWD)

I know it makes no difference what I, a total stranger, say, but I don't think any of this was your fault. What you're saying in this post is what many of us feel - what did I do? How did I let this happen? - and it's trained in us, to feel like when bad things happen, we must have created or contributed to the situation somehow.

No. It's so very brave of you to explore this, and I wish you tons of strenght and emotional support.

kaninchenzero February 22 2010, 21:48:58 UTC

It very much does make a difference. For so much of my life I wasn't believed when I said I was hurting or unsafe or someone was doing bad things to me. It is lovely that so many people have taken the time to read and to write in support. It's also painful in some ways: Why couldn't I have had this my whole life? The parts of me that tell me what my abusers did say I didn't deserve it then and don't deserve it now.

I know they're lies. Everyone deserves this, just for being. No one has to do anything to earn it. It's feeling it that's the hard part. And it's what I'm working on in therapy.

I don't feel brave. People tell me I am often. Someday maybe I'll get to where I can believe them.

Thank you. I'm very glad we've met.