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