The Nightmare is Your Reality

When was your first sexual experience? Was it kind, gentle and consensual? For so many, including myself, this was not the case. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. This is a hard month for so many suffering in silence. Reliving the nightmare, the feelings, the emotions of what was taken from us. For me, as someone who has been assaulted numerous times every week for over 39 years, starting with my mother and her satanic obsession with my body, led to her sending a variety of men into make me perform sexual acts not knowing at the time it was wrong. Then with my father convincing me that what he was doing to me was “pure love” all the while passing me around to his friends as well. Ultimately ending up in an arranged marriage to someone that would continue to assault and sell me before joining forces with my parents on different levels. The stalking, harassment and assaults continued for years even after I escaped and ended the marriage. They truly believe I am a possession not a person and I am their property to do what they want with. I am not! You see when these things start at such a young age you don’t know any different, the nightmare is your reality and not very many people could even fathom or begin to wrap their head around what happens behind those closed doors because to the outside world you look like a “normal” household. Always being told I wanted it or I asked for it. I now am starting to understand the damage they continue to cause and how what they are doing is absolutely wrong. Not always freezing at the sight of them, a certain smell, a loud noise, but also trying to give myself grace when I do freeze knowing that it is my body’s way of trying to protect me because fight or flight is not an option to stay alive. I am getting stronger at fighting back for my own freedom along with my daughter’s. I am working to change her legacy so she will not have to live the nightmare that once was our everyday life so her story will be believed. After many nights reflecting on everything that has happened these questions started to come to mind. Why is it that when assault happens we as survivors are the ones left with shame, guilt and the trauma that continues for decades while the ones that took something from us are not fazed and can go about their everyday life like it wasn’t wrong? We should not have to feel ashamed of what was done to us without our consent. We should be able to walk with our heads held high because we are not the ones who choose to do something so heinous and destructive. It should be on them- they should carry the weight not us! They count on us to keep silent but together our voices can shatter their lies and injustice. It’s time for us to stand together, flip the script and not be afraid to tell our truths out loud and be believed.