A record that will never unstick

I know people may be bored of hearing my voice. It’s been over a year since I wrote THAT blog. 17,000+ people read it. Mainly educators. 

Some people have stood by my side without faltering. I am in awe of them. They truly lived by their words. Some are people I now call friends. Many are people I still don’t know well but who have taught me to believe in the goodness of humanity again, have helped me to trust the kindness of strangers once more. 

I cannot ever express how much that support has meant, not just to me, but to every person who had ever had an experience of sexual assault. When they saw the responses you all gave you made it clear that the voice of the survivor matters. You empowered them alongside empowering me. 

I feel like I am forever traipsing back and forth across the muddy cesspit that is my trauma, dragging myself through the horror again and again each time I remember, each time I see another statistic, each time I listen to a young person recount the SAME harrowing details. 

For you it must seem tedious is extreme. 

You must secretly roll your eyes and think 

“You need to move on!” 

“Get over it”

“Change the record”

“Let it go”

“Be thankful for the positives”

And it is nothing that I do not already scream at myself EVERY day internally. 

I don’t enjoy replaying or reliving. I don’t enjoy the sick, stifling feeling I get when I find myself thinking it all through AGAIN. 

I am not a total masochist. 

So I apologise, to you and to myself, for the perpetual trauma loop. 

I don’t know how long it will stay with me. 

I don’t know when I will be able to hear certain things, speak to certain people or trust certain instincts again without regressing right back to the girl huddled in the corner of her shower, rocking and crying for 5hrs straight. 

It is not me attempting to be petty or dramatic. I find writing it down makes me less angry and bitter though and I am desperate not to become those things. My kindness and open heart are gifts that I don’t want to lose. 

So, if you are still listening then thank you. If you believe and have always believed then please know that your strength is not wasted. It supports me through every flashback and heartwrenching low. 

If you still doubt me then please, do not destroy my trust further by lying to me, placating me or hedging your bets. Speak and then leave. I have no room for more mistrust in my life. If you are in any way compassionate understand that a friend who thinks I would be capable of fabricating such a thing is not a friend I need. For they don’t not know me and do not see that, despite my penchant for flippancy, episodic depression, overly dramatic statements….

I am a good and HONEST person. 

I hope that I have proven this repeatedly with not just my words but also my actions too. 

This record may remain stuck for some time. Trauma does that. It won’t let go until it is ready. 

I will still laugh and smile when I can. I will still fight passionately for others and to be a force of good. I will still post pictures of gin and cats and my garden and I may seem like I am forgetting 

But I’m not. I won’t. Ever. Because you don’t. Anyone who has ever felt this way know that. 

You learn to leave space for the hurt but it doesn’t ever leave.