I’ve always wanted to have a consistent blog. Sometimes I find that my instagram captions are entirely too long. I’ve tried a couple of times in the last couple of years but ended up discouraged. I found myself asking, ‘who cares?’ But, the cool thing about having a website is…I can do what I want with it. So here we are.
Today is August 21st. This day carries a lot of baggage with it. It was on this day, 15 years ago that I set out for a fun night with my friends and was raped walking home at the end of the night. I’m always aware that the day is coming. It’s strange how we hold trauma in our bodies. For a long time, I just assumed I was subconsciously checking the calendar, keeping track of when the day was coming. But, the older I get and the more therapy and self work I do, the more I realize it’s a knowing in my body. Something about the summer coming to an end, the first cool nights.
I’m always wary of ‘trauma anniversaries.’ The yearly count of how many years its been since we lost a loved one, since covid happened, since 9/11. In my family, the day a loved one died is day spent year after year celebrating that person. We know that movie popcorn and a Pepsi celebrates the life of my Aunt Dee Dee. Of course, any time we have ice cream, we are celebrating my Grandmother. But I don’t quite know what to do with, ‘it has been ___ number of years since I was raped.’ There are incredibly dark ways for me to look at this. It is easy to slip in to, ‘wow, It has been 10 years and I am still not over it.’ For a long time, any negative thing that happened to me, any messed up relationship, any time I wasn’t chosen, there was a small voice justifying and equating any type of rejection to having been being raped. As I have come to understand that it truly was not my fault, everyone has the right to feel safe in their own body as they walk home or walk anywhere at any time…I’ve started the healing process. A lot of grace, a lot of softness, a lot of reflecting and a lot of learning. Like anything, it is about perspective and flipping things around and seeing how you can change and grow from the situation.
I listened to a podcast yesterday (Jay Shetty, of course) with a entrepreneur named Alex Hormozi. There was a part of the conversation where he talked about trauma. We spend a lot of time trying to find reasons for why things are the way that they are. What happened in my past is the reason this traumatic event happened because xyz. Someone is an asshole because they weren’t hugged enough as a child. Whatever it is. But finding the reason that something happened really only gets you so far. It doesn’t actually solve anything. It also, is just speculation. Maybe that’s the reason, maybe it had nothing to do with it. But, if we use trauma as a reason to change, we can learn and grow from it. We become stronger because of the horrible thing that happened to us (antifragility…look it up). This also means that there are good kinds of trauma and bad kinds of trauma, depending on what actions you take after the fact.
I was having a hard time admitting just how harsh I’ve been on myself since that night. If I were to say aloud to another person, the things I was saying to myself, I would feel like a terrible person. I would never treat another human the way I was treating myself. There are so many narratives in my head that I have been replaying for over a decade now. For months after it happened, I was asking myself ’why did I drink so much? If only I would’ve called someone to get me. Why was I even out in the first place? Did it actually happen or am I really crazy? Why don’t the police believe me? Why do I feel like I committed a crime?’ These obsessive thoughts and conversations in my head turned to darker ones when I realized this man was a serial rapist and did it to another woman. And another, and another. I felt like I had no value. Who would want to be with someone who had such an intimately traumatic event happen to them. Am I damaged goods? Am I just too much, emotionally, for someone to deal with?
Questioning my worth and value have been the ideas that have lingered and stuck around the longest. In therapy over the last couple of months, my therapist pointed out to me, “you are really hard on yourself.” It caught me off guard because no one had ever said this to me before. In New York, harsh criticism is celebrated, of course you should be hard on yourself. How else are you going to get ahead? However, this does nothing for us. It is extremely toxic.
I lost my softness that night. Holding people at a distance, giving people ‘friend vibes,’ keeping it surface level, never really expecting people to show up for me, doing things on my own because I don’t trust other people to do it correctly. These are all responses to my trauma. I’m expecting softness and calm from another person, not realizing that I am not giving these things to myself. Lately I’ve been about softness and self love. I’m not blaming myself for the traumatic things that happened in my past. I am thanking them for the lessons I’ve learned and the redirection when I need it.
I changed my major after I was raped. Initially I was in school for…get ready for it…recreation, park and tourism management. I wanted to be a Director of Basketball operations or something like that. After that night, I decided that I wanted to do something more impactful, something to help people. I changed my major to Human Development and Family Studies which led me to New Orleans for my internship which led me to New York City to nanny which led me to finding my art which led me to tattooing which led me here. I can’t imagine my world without my art. It is my purpose and I know it is leading me down a path where I can help other people heal through their own creativity.
And that softness and self love? You can see that and feel that in another human. In just the last month, I’ve had 4 different strangers tell me they loved my energy and could tell I was authentic. I’m attracting the right people into my orbit and I am excited about the opportunities these new connections will bring.
Things are looking up. I’m healing and I’m grateful for all of it. And maybe today isn’t 15 years since I was raped. Maybe it was the redirection I needed to find my purpose. Thanks for reading.