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I wish I could make the pain stop forever. Freeze it and leave it somewhere in space and time long forgotten. I wish I could look in the mirror and not think about how broken and wounded I am. I wish I didn’t have to have a phantom of my attacker in the backgrounds of my relationships and other life events. But wishing never solved anything... time to start picking up the pieces time to silence his voice And though the pain may linger for awhile it will not last forever, even though it feels like it may. Healing and happier days must be worth this much pain. They must be wonderful care free days. And they must be worth fighting for.

“is that why they call me a sullen girl? Sullen girl? They don’t know I use to sail the deep and tranquil seas until he washed me ashore and he took my pearl. And left and empty shell of me.“ -Fiona Apple, Sullen girl. Fiona Apple was a victim of rape at the age of twelve and wrote sullen girl . The song not only touches on the rape itself but also talks about the judgement she faced due to her behavior after the incident. unfortunately that is a harsh and truly unforgivable reality. Isn’t it? And everyone in the same exact breath turns around and asks why don’t they ask for help? Or why they don’t come forward sooner? Because your to busy bashing us. Because your to busy calling us whores. Or deeming is weak. Because your to busy feeling uncomfortable to help. Your to busy throwing your jeers and insensitive ignorant words around the see the pain we carry in our hearts and souls. I have four words for you... How.Fucking.Dare.You. we are in pain. We were dragged into terrible dark places and had our minds twisted and bodies violated and hurt. Confidence shattered afraid to love, afraid to feel physical contact, and all society, or friends and sadly enough even family members have done is judge us, mock us. How dare you! victims of sexual violence/assault/rape etc..are made to feel afraid of the scrutiny they will face rather than the perpetrators feeling afraid. This is one of the things that made it hard for me to come forward, even though I know my family. However I don’t think they quite don’t know what to do or they feel uncomfortable so they say whatever they think will make me feel better. sometimes it makes me feel like I have no place to turn. I don’t have many friends either and the ones I do have don’t understand the pain. But I to have faced the insensitive and hurtful remarks. In an earlier blog post I mentioned a friend who said he could see why people rape or commit sexual assault after I told him what happened to me. I also know some family members would put me under their microscopes if I dare breathe a word about what happened to me. But venting aside.... i do talk to an online therapist and though I like her she can only do so much. but there is another wonderful therapist I have been seeing. Music. It really has been a wonderful tool for me. Artists like Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, and Siouxsie Sioux have helped me deal and cope with my feelings of my own sexual assault through talking about their own experiences through their music. Sometimes when I think back on what happened to me and it becomes to much I’ll plug in my tunes. It helps me focus on something good and creative or helps me through my most raw and agonizing emotions. Even if I feel enraged or Incensed I turn on some Otep or System of a Down and handle whatever shit I need to handle. When I feel mellow and need a little pick me up I listen to ABBA, or Amy Winehouse or sometimes mellow isn’t a bad thing so it’s a little Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong. Yea..my music tastes are all over the place. But for me music has been a savior and almost like a friend. And an alternative to some of the horrible things I think about doing at times. Music also makes me feel safe I feel safe from my demons whom I can’t hear screaming because Jefferson Airplane is signing about the elusive white rabbit i feel safe from my neighbor who triggers me in more ways than one. Who has time to think of him when Blondie is singing about the man from mars? I feel safe from society when David Bowie is singing about the star man in the sky or when Leonard Cohen is singing about lovely Vienna and the waltz. I think another part of the reason music is so comforting is because it was made by artists who have faced or are still facing their own struggles. Some who have even been swallowed whole by them. Music is something society tries to put into its strict bullshit idealism of what it should and shouldn’t be. Real Music is art, pain, laughter sadness, light, darkness, triumph and hope and for some salvation. Although, sometimes I do need the support of another human being. But unfortunately it’s difficult to know who you can trust. This has been something that has been on my mind for awhile so the emotions are fresh and raw in my head so the blog reads like a rant and may jump from topic to topic and I apologize if it doesn’t make sense. But until then onwards and upwards!

It’s been two years. Two years of crying at the drop of a hat, two years of wincing anytime I’m touched, two years of fighting to survive. Everyday in those two years I have held back tears when someone looks like you, when I realize what was taken. Two years isn’t a long time, but for me it’s been excruciating. I know your eyes still light up, and I know that you can smile and mean it. Meanwhile, every small smile takes more energy than it should. Every time I laugh, it sounds fake, it feels fake. When I get that moment of calm, not needing to run around to deal with all that keeps me busy, I waste that moment on you. I waste that moment wondering where you are, if you are near me, if you are planning your revenge. I wonder how that crooked smile, that tooth gap and the ridiculous tattoos could ever hide this evil. You got into my head, you made me feel special. You took every part of me I had never given anyone, and instead of keeping me together, you threw everything out the window. You smashed me with your hammer and made sure there was no whole pieces left. Every time I cry, every time I sleep, you are there. You are there making me feel useless, making me feel unremarkable. You are making sure I cannot stand on my own, making sure I can barely stand at all. I may never truly see you again, but you’re there in every man who walks near me, in every person who threatens me. Your reign will never end, your power much stronger than you get credit for. For someone who has no intelligence, you are smart enough to control me, control me from your apartment in another state. I cannot keep tabs on you, you made sure of that but you, you can keep tabs on everything I do, no matter how much I try to hide, no matter how strong I get. You will always have the upper hand. You will always be the reason I cry at night, the reason why my happiness is hanging on by a thread, one you can cut at any time. You hold my entire being in your incapable hands, you stand by ready to destroy me again, ready to break me completely. You wait for me to take my last breath, so you know you did your worst. Some days I want to just give in and give you this satisfaction, others I fight tooth and nail just to avoid the sharp edge of my old friend.

I've never tried to run a blog before, so I hope that the messiness of this blog won't deter you from reading what I have to say. I want to start this blog by saying that I think that sexual assault or R (or anything that could fall in this category) is NEVER the victims fault. Never ever ever. But at the same time I still feel that this doesn't apply to me. What happened to me has changed who I am as a person and how I think about the world and the people in it. It has made me a much more cautious person and a much more clingy person. I will never say what happened changed me for the better, because that is not true. What happened has stolen my life from me and no matter how hard I try I still feel like I will never be able to get it back. But even though this all happened to me, it must be my fault. I mean, I must've let this happen to myself because how else could it have happened? I was always told that I should always be in control of my body and I couldn't be in this moment and that's on me. I wouldn't ever wish sexual abuse on anyone. The pain that this has brought me is immeasurable and I don't think anyone should ever have to suffer through what I have had to, but I wish that my attacker could feel the pain that he has brought me. I wish that he knew what he has put me through. Every day I wake up and have to face my attacker. I pray to God that when I see him he doesn't make any comments to me, but I can bet on at least one sexual whisper in my ear when my back is turned, and I can guarantee he will "accidentally" press himself against the back of my leg. It's been almost two years since he left the scars on my body and stole the hope I had for the future. I thought that I was past this pain, but lately I feel that it is getting bad again. The nightmares have returned and the urges to hurt myself have increased. I have been trying not to think about bringing pain to my attacker but thats all I can think about lately. I want him to hurt the way I hurt, and ache the way my body aches. I want him to wake up in the middle of the night like I do and feel unsafe in his own skin. I want his life to be flipped upside down like mine was. I know that he doesn't deserve this pain. No one does. I wish I could get these thoughts out of my head and oh god do I wish that I could stop feeling bad for my attacker because I want him to feel like I do. I came to this site hoping to find people who feel the way I do and I hope that people can help me find my way through this. I can't live with this type of pain anymore. I can't deal with the nightmares anymore. I hope that my first post doesn't scare you away and I hope that this community can help me find the person I used to be. Thank you

So Hello, I am new, I am hopeful, I am MrPep. I feel like our cruise ship capsized and I finally washed up on this Island. I'm looking for My spouse I know she is around here somewhere. I am looking at all these new faces, what's interesting is I know every single one of you, I love you all and I feel at peace for once. Thank you for having me.

This week was a bad, the worst one I have had since the memories started to return. I survived it with few new scars, but only because AS was here, I made a post about my father and his blog, and what he published about me. A full page of fictional material created to sublimate my life into something more comfortable for him I guess. Either way, it hurt more that he refused to validate my existence, my story, my trauma, and turned it into something that vilified me and made HIM the victim. I had such an outpouring of love and support from my brothers and sisters here on AS that I was able to turn the blow to my already wounded psyche, and today I am in such a better and stronger place for it. Hugs to everyone on the house! ((((((AS))))) Friday I had my first discernable panic attack. We were on the freeway, luckily I wasn't the one driving when it happened. It was raining a little bit, nothing out of the ordinary for Washington, and traffic was a little thick but not too bad. Out of no where I became convinced we were about to crash into another vehicle. We weren't even close to the other cars on the road, but that didn't seem to make a difference. We were going to hit them, and I couldn't breath right. I started to sweat, and my heart started to pound, and my mind went fuzzy, and my vision started to blur around the edges. For the rest of the afternoon, when we were in the car I was absolutely certain we were going to crash into something, another car, an overpass post, a curb, a tree it didn't matter, if I could see it, we were going to smash into it. The feeling lasted long after I had gotten home, ready for work, and had in fact driven myself to work... sweaty palmed and hyper alert. It was the most concrete evidence I have to date that I am ultimately vulnerable to these memories of "ancient" history, at least emotionally. Like I said, a very bad week. But after my wife came to me, woke me up, angry and upset having just read an entry on my fathers public blog condemning me as a sl*t and a w**re, and a manipulator, and a monster, I woke up feeling ashamed, angry, weak, pathetic, loathsome, and dirty. As soon as my wife left for work, I went into the kitchen and picked up a bottle of rum. I looked at it for a very long minute... then put it back in the fridge. I am not that person any more, I will never conquer my demons if I am not 100% in control of myself. I would rather be a slave to my demons, I didn't create them. Acknowledging what happened to me, and joining the After Silence site, has by far been the hardest and most rewarding thing that I have done in recent history, and I hope that I can contribute as much to the others here as they have already contributed to me. Thank you for validating my existence as a viable human being, giving me strength, understanding, and hope. God Bless us, every one.