But I said no and he couldn't handle it.

I've been continuing on reading The Sexual Healing Journey for the second time. There was a part when it gives a sort-of questionnaire about what you were like, where you were and what your offender was like during the abuse. I wrote about the rape by Kirk when I was 13. It was interesting. For as long as I can remember, I've blamed myself for 90% of what happened. I really couldn't see him as at fault. My excuses were that how could he have known that I wasn't interested in sex at the time, I said, "I bet you don't have condoms" as a way to find any excuse not to have sex with Kirk. Other times, I'd think, "Well, I said no but I went along with it so it must have been all my fault." I would make excuses for him too-- oh, he was just another teen, he must have been picked on or molested when he was younger and he was trying to overcompensate. But looking at the play by play, the facts, how I felt about myself, how I felt about him, I finally saw it. He was 90% responsible for raping me. There were times where I felt like if he had just grabbed me and forced me into his van, I would have felt it was more like a rape. There were other times when people didn't believe what had happened to me that I had really wanted Kirk to just kill me after I was raped so that people would have believed me. They may have even saw me as an innocent girl with a bright future; instead I felt like I was a dirty slut without a chance to become anything. And people made it clear that they believed that I was a slut. Some "friends" even chose to hang out with him. My own brother didn't believe me because my brother was accused of raping a girl but she never went to the police, just passed it around school.

Doing this exercise from the book also revealed so many of the patterns that I have with my relationships. It's like figuring out a puzzle. I've seen the answer and you know, I don't like what I see. I don't want to continue these patterns anymore. It has affected who I have chosen to date, how I act in a relationship, and where I've had sex. I've chosen to date older guys and have done almost anything to keep them dating me. I also noticed that as a teen I had sex in my boyfriends' cars more often then I had sex in my own car. I didn't know Kirk well. I had met him once, a year before he raped me. I've also had sex with many people who I've barely known. I've allowed myself to be pushed into sexual situations. Later, the book goes into detail about feeling like I had the no right to say no to sex and how many survivors don't feel they have the option to say no. I know I've been in situations where I felt like if I did say no to sex, a guy might just get up and walk out on me and I'd never see him again. So, I would always say yes to sex. It didn't help that I had boyfriends who would put me on a guilt trip if I said no. This particular boyfriend was overweight and felt that if a girl said no it must be for some reason other than not being interested in sex at the time.

A short time after I was raped, I called a friend to have sex because I knew he wanted to have sex before he started high school. This friend was maybe a year older than me. As we got naked and got closer to having sex, I became anxious and was basically, in the corner talking about everything other than sex. I remember that he decided to not have sex with me. And when I think of that and the difference between how Kirk acted and how this friend acted, I'm just amazed. I think my friend was so much more of a man and a friend to say "Let's wait for another time." I mean I didn't have to say no in that situation. He saw the way I was acting and said to himself, "This isn't right." I have so much respect for that. I have to admit that for years, I felt guilty about that incident. Now I can see that there was no reason to feel guilty. My friend said no out of love for me.

One of the questions asked in this exercise was "What did you need from your offender? (i.e. affection, love, understanding, etc)." I feel that this really addressed some things for me. I wanted a lot from Kirk. I wanted him to like me. I wanted him to respect me. I wanted him to be my boyfriend and only have eyes for me. I wanted acceptance. What I feel my rape took away from me was that I didn't get to have healthy curiosity about sex. I know there were guys who I dated who let me just explore things like what does a penis look like when a guy is peeing compared to when he's ready to have sex or what are some interesting ways to get a guy hard without touching his penis but I feel like I didn't have the chance to really figure it out at an age appropriate age. The best example that I can think of is a friend of mine. We were all a part of the same group of friends as teens. She liked one guy and she rested her head on his lap one day. She was surprised to feel his penis against the back of her head. It was so cute and innocent.

I think one of the things that upset me about people not believe Kirk raped me was that people would say, "Oh, he could have had sex with anyone." It makes me think of all sorts of things but what I want to scream is, "But I said no and obviously he couldn't handle it!" This gets me onto an entirely different rant about society and myths about rape. But when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter how much ass he could have had. He was a manipulative prick and a rapist. And that's where I notice I'm still angry. So, that's my next thing to work through in my journal.

Till next time.
Venus

What I Saw

I've been working on the triggers of the three rapes, with the help of The Sexual Healing Journey. It's difficult for me to write that. I don't want to admit that I've been raped three times but that's the truth.
This picture is of what I remember when I was raped at age 13. When I think about it and it's now been 13 years since it happened, I think it's OK that I don't remember all the details. The book, mentioned above, has questions to work on the triggers, including things like "What time of day was it?" "What acts did you do? What acts did your offender do?" And those must have been the times when I dissociated. I don't know those answers. It took me a while to figure out that I must have been on bottom because I had a bruise on my back. This image is where I went. I think there were children playing. I think I heard the BART train go by. This is the side of the van and the window that I could see out of.
The book talks about even feeling pleasure and excitement during the abuse because it was a way to survive. I feel like I used this. The book goes into how this is a survival skill and it's best to work through the feelings of low self-esteem and all that goes with using this survival skill but also overcoming it to have a healthier sex life.
When it comes down to it, this is not how I wanted my first time. I was scared. I didn't want to have sex but I was curious about it. I feel like this experience was so unnecessary.
I have written a lot lately about how I'd like my first time to have been. I would have liked to have been more religious and have dated and appropriately explored sex. I like doing these writing exercises because I think about how I can overcome these things that happened in the past and I can start to incorporate some things into my life. When I've mentioned doing these writing exercises to others, they've had difficulty with it. "It'll never come true," they say but that's not the point. It's an examination of expectations and fantasies and considering how some aspects can be incorporated into life now.

Venus

Friends and the Guestbook

I've neglected uploading photos on here. I can't believe it's been a year.
I'm reading, for the second time, The Sexual Healing Journey I read it in December and now I'm reading it again. It's an intense book. I didn't realize it the first time. But sometimes, it'll go from fact to examples of people's abuse. It catches me off guard.

As I'm working on through the book a second time. Some more memories have come up. I have worked on many aspects. Today, I realized that the whole situation had been one great example of "trust no one." I couldn't trust men as lovers and I couldn't trust women or men as friends. Many friends turned around and called me a slut. Luckily, I was friends with many people outside of school so my school friends didn't really know about what happened and couldn't judge me about it, the way everyone else did. I think all of it ostracized me even more from the little town I lived in and made it easier to leave for college.

I had a friend, Heather, who tried to get me out of my room and out with some friends for the two weeks that I spent in my room after the rape. Later, she proved to be very mean. One night when we were out with some friends playing in a park, she had said when her first time was when she was 17, possibly indicating that it was with the boy I liked when I was 12 (oh, what pain). I told her that I was raped for my experience of intercourse and it was the same day that my dad moved out of the house. A little time later or before ( I can't remember) , Heather was dating a guy from her school and they broke up. No one knew why. They had made silly rumors that she had broken up with him for marijuana. And I told me a friend, "No, she's been over here, dating my brother." My brother went to a different school than her. I knew this would start a rumor and at that point, I didn't care. Things have never been the same with her.

When I checked my guestbook from a website I had then, the guy who raped me named Kirk had written a note to me. It went:
_______________________________________
From: kirk@fuckyou.com
You know it wasn't rape. You wanted it, you slut.
And what does it have to do with your parents divorce?
__________________________________________

I still have an emotional reaction to seeing this and it's been at least 10 years. It makes me shake. My stomach reacts. I just want to cry but nothing comes out.
I can only imagine that Heather went home and told Kirk about my saying he was the one who raped me. And for whatever reason, she told him maybe my email address or at least the name of my webpage. They had become friends at some point and he had moved away-- much to my relief. Since the rape had happened in his van and he lived nearby and he kept getting jobs where I would inevitable have to see that fucking van on a near daily basis, it was just a constant reminder of the terrible things that had happened. But what a cowardly way to get in touch with me-- not giving me a chance to talk directly about what happened. In the end, I know what happened and he will never admit any wrong doing (because hey, what rapist would do that?)

I know I tell you this in bits and pieces. I want to write out the whole thing but it has been very difficult. The basics are that a 17 (almost 18 year old) boy raped me in his van after I had turned 13 years old. He worked at the bowling alley down the street from where I lived.

Three years after this happened, I went to file a police report. In the end, the police said that there was a difference between "rape" and "regretting sex" and they couldn't prosecute. I believed them at the time. But when it comes down to it, I know the difference between my body being violated and what "regretting sex" might be.
I once again blamed myself. I blamed myself for just about everything that happened. I blamed myself for being there, for letting it happen, for being in denial. What I told everyone afterward was how I really wanted it to be and not how it was. I really wanted it to be that this was someone who I knew for a long time (a year or so) and that we had liked each other, that this was just so wonderful, and that I was so cute that he just had to have me. It was all a lie. A lie that protected me from seeing the truth. A friend named Danie(short for Danielle) said it was wrong. I hated her at the time for saying this because she ruined my lie for a moment. But in the end, she was right and she was the ONLY one to ever say, "Hold on, something's not right here. Let's look at this situation."

And that's it for now.