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Survivor story

#352

Original story

Message to a Survivor

I remember feeling like I would never recover. That no one would understand me. That no one would listen and if they did nothing would change. My hope was my voice. I shut it out for so long but, as soon as I started opening up and seeking help my healing began. Hope is knowing your future is bigger brighter than what your abuser has stolen. I found hope with other survivors because they carried a weight I also did but have grown beautiful things from it.

Message of Healing

Healing to me is letting myself feel every emotion my past assault brings. Letting myself cry, lay in bed all day, scream at the top of my lungs, run until my legs feel like they’ll give out. This also means finding comfort in a friends arms and words. I realized I started telling more people about my trauma and through my words and writing I have found peace. Healing is a process that isn’t linear. Healing is repairing something broken but never forgetting what broke you.

I want him to know how it feels. To feel like prey. To walk into a room and immediately search for an escape. Just in case a stranger, enemy, or friend has decided I am at their disposal. To look into a mirror, no matter what clothes you have on and still feel completely naked. How it feels when no one really wants you but everyone thinks they can have you. What it feels like when your quivering fear tangles your tongue and all you have left are water filled wandering eyes searching for rescue. What it feels like to lose your sense of self. I want him to know what it feels like to be trapped everywhere you are. What the weight of someone else’s body feels like laying on your lifeless one. The humiliation that heats your cheeks and pricks your pupils. The kind that triggers flight. Like being stuck in a game of hide and seek, except you never agreed to play. Trying to be hidden with no place to hide. That the feeling of breaking your silence and jumping out of a plane with no idea how to release your parachute are one in the same. Wondering if you even have one to slow your inevitable free fall. Or if a fast splat is better than a slow hell. Heavy tears. Swollen eyes. Tired tonsils. Never. Ending. Nightmares. I want him to know what it feels like to dread opening your eyes. To watch your hands uncontrollably rattle. For your ears to become numb to the sound of the no seatbelt signal blaring in the car. To feel ashamed just to exist. Most of all, I want him to know he took a blissfully ignorant girl and boiled her blood. And the fire that heats her veins will continue to flame. And burn. Until every alike him feels consumed by the sting of the spark they so carelessly started.

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