What is Justice?

At my weekly appointment with my counsellor at the rape crisis centre this week, I talked about the anger I have inside me. As mentioned in my first post I was raped 10 years ago and to be honest I thought I had dealt with it in my own way. I got together my now husband 6 months after it happened, and although it was still quite raw and I was prone to the odd meltdown and tears (especially after wine) he pulled me through all of it, he was and is my rock even now 10 years on.

In May this year I saw “him” for the first time in 10 years and that’s when everything started to creep out of that dusty box that had been shut away in my head. It was gradual to start with, mostly without realising I started behaving like a complete irrational being. You see I was also with “him” for almost 2 years before I left him, and then he raped me. In the time that we were together he was physically and mentally abusive. So it wasn’t just the feelings surrounding the rape that started too creep out of the box but the insecurity, the low self esteem and everything else that comes with dating a complete head-fucker control freak. After going completely nuts at my husband and crying because I couldn’t believe my behaviour, it dawned on me why I was behaving this way, so I sought help. I found the Rape Crisis Centre, it was time to exorcise some demons. I wasn’t ready 10 years ago, but now with my beautiful family, friends and some maturity I knew it had to be done.

What I wasn’t expecting to happen just a few weeks into my emotional support sessions (whilst I was waiting for a counsellor to be assigned to me) was that in actual fact my initial feelings of dred and “why was he there?” were bloody good instinct, not just paranoia. You see I thought it was strange to see him all these years later and so close to home. Turns out he bought a house on my street. To say I was hysterical when I discovered this in June would be a massive understatement. Do you know what, I do believe everything happens for a reason, and after all the hurt, torment, nightmares and pain from this, I do feel like I’m coming through the other side. I’m fighting back with the love I have around me. We’re moving, but onto bigger better things. And this all happening now is making me finally deal with the box. After it was spewed out on my doorstep, every file was in a muddle and I couldn’t process anything, I didn’t know where to start. It is still all a work in progress and was a massive shock, that’s part of what this blog is about too.

Back to the title… this week I talked about my anger and processing it. “he” wasn’t prosecuted for what he did to me, he was arrested and interviewed but once it got to CPS they didn’t think there was enough evidence for it to go to court… “he said – she said” syndrome.

One of the things I think about a lot is justice, not in the law way, but in a Karma way. I want him to be miserable, to suffer like I have over the years. To admit that he did wrong. I can’t lie, I frequently fantasise about putting dog poo through his letterbox or telling everyone here that he’s a rapist, maybe even spraying it on his door! BUT I am not that stupid, I will never lower myself to that level. The best I can do is deal with my emotions and feelings, be a better person, enjoy my life and my family and in doing so, sticking 2 fingers up to him. He tried to control me for such a long time, now I’m in control. I’m going to fight my way through this blip.

click on this image for shocking true picture of rape and justice…

I am legend

So yesterday I wrote my first entry here, I’ll be honest I have no idea where this blog will end up, how long I’ll write it or what it will achieve. I do know that I felt great writing yesterday’s post. After I posted I had this image in my head of Will Smith in I am Legend, if you haven’t seen it, think post-apocolyptic scene, it appears that Robert (Will Smith) is the only human left on the planet. Every day he broadcasts over AM radio that he’ll be in a certain place every day in the hope that there are other survivors out there.

What I wasn’t expecting after my Lets talk about rape post went up late last night, was to log in this morning to a response and 2 followers. I can’t describe how that made me feel… but I’m going to give it a bash. I thought back to when I was pregnant but didn’t know anyone pregnant so I turned to the internet and met a fab group of Mum’s. I thought about when we chatted about the mundane, the serious and the outright funny, we all connected on a common ground, being Mum’s… all totally different people. The sad times when people miscarry a pregnancy but they have each other, someone else that has been through it too is there and that makes a difference. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not writing this blog for sympathy, I’m not writing it to wallow in self pity, it’s an outlet and this morning knowing that someone else understands what I’m talking about, well it made me feel a bit more normal. Empathy is probably a better word. Somebody else understands my need to write this shit down.

It got me thinking a little more about how much rape is a taboo subject. I did look up for support online back in June when that box was emptied from my brain, but I didn’t really find what I was looking for. I didn’t want to be treated with kid gloves, wrapped in cotton wool or read websites covered in daises like some sort of feminine hygiene product. I just wanted to know I wasn’t alone. I wanted someone to say, yep I totally understand that, I’ve been there. There is so much out there about what rape is but not so much about the aftershocks that ripple through the rest of your life, some big some small but they will and do, forever. I’m currently working out how best to deal with these and I guess I may be on a one woman crusade to make this subject approachable.

So back to the Will Smith analogy….

No more hiding from the raw truth

We’re not on our own, let’s sit down and talk about this

and get rid of this guy….

Let’s talk about rape…

Rape happens, doesn’t it? All the time. What doesn’t happen as often is speaking out about rape, and do you know why? Because people don’t know what to say if you’ve been raped, they don’t like to think about it, it’s not pleasant is it? But also because more often than not you will have been raped by someone you know. As many as 4 out of 5 rape victims know their attacker.

I’m not saying these are the only reasons, let’s not forget the self blame, the worry of not being believed, the trauma, the denial, the coping, the trying to forget it happened.

For me, it happened, and it happened over 10 years ago. The first year post-rape was the hardest, or at least I thought it was. It never really goes away but you do learn to pack it away in a little box at the back of your brain where every now and then the lid falls off the box and something seeps out into your conscious or subconscious. My subconscious is a bit of a bitch to be honest, sometimes when I’m feeling really chipper about everything in life I go to sleep happy and then WHACK… the subconscious hits me over the head with the lid of that box in the form of a dream/nightmare.

I’m a positive person generally… I try and be the best I can be and when I’m not, I look at myself and think how I can strive to be better, whether that’s my job, parenting, health, friend, wife and so on. Gradually with my big girl pants on armed with a smile on my face and love in my heart the little box has been opened less and less. Until June this year… it wasn’t just opened, I wasn’t just hit around the head with the lid… it was rattled around, tipped upside down and it’s contents spewed onto my doorstep.

Life can be a funny bugger sometimes can’t it? Just when you are on top of your game it likes to test you. Well I am tested and do you know what, my life is still amazing, I’ve the love of an adoring husband and children and I have happiness.

Yeah ok I crumbled momentarily at the thought of my rapist (ex-boyfriend) 10 years on suddenly reappearing in my life but screw him, I’m not letting him shit on my parade.

One of the things that frustrates me through all this, is how much I want to speak up but feel like I can’t. I’ve never been an attention seeker type… you know the sort, the ambiguous facebook status updates?! But I really do want to talk about it, like it’s not a banned or taboo subject, talk about it because it happens and it’s ok to talk about it, because so many women (and men) feel like they can’t talk about it,  who knows, you could be reading this thinking you wish you could talk about it too.

So there we have it, I’m here and I’m talking rape… because it happens.