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Personal Story: 'The Physical Implications of a Violated Spirit'

Anonymous

This is a lived experience of healing from an early event of sexual assault. Written by the survivor, they describe the ways in which their body has called out to have its pain heard, and how they have begun their healing from a violation, with a holistic approach to mind, body, and soul.


TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT & CHILD ABUSE


 

Mind, body, and soul: the physical implications of a violated spirit.


I don’t struggle to say the words, ‘I am a victim of sexual violence’, but I do struggle, deeply, with trying to describe the incident with words. To physically move my mouth and breath when trying to describe the moment-by-moment recall of the approximately twenty-minute window of time that changed my life forever, feels like pushing water up a hill.


When I was seven years old, I was a victim of sexual violence. More specifically, attempted rape and sexual assault. It wasn’t like how many people would assume. It wasn’t some deranged, sick adult pedophile who did it. It was actually another child. A boy, not much older than me.


Initially, I didn’t know I had just been "sexually assaulted". I didn’t know what those words were, I didn’t know what rape was, or attempted rape. I barely knew a thing about sex at all. But I knew during the incident and in the seconds, weeks, years that followed, that what happened was bad. It was very bad, very scary and very hurtful.


It wasn’t until I was about the age of twelve that it dawned on me that I had been sexually assaulted. Sex ed started in school, and so followed the albeit limited and hetero-male orientated education of sex and its related acts, and crimes. I had known all this time, but to have a name for it, and to be aware that this is something people go to jail for, sent me into a manic spiral of severe depression.

I wanted to tell no-one and everyone at the same time.

I wanted to share the grotesque burden of hurt and misery that haunted me with someone, but even the thought of saying it out loud, spewing it into reality and a conscience other than my own, made me feel sick.


After what must have been months of crying myself to sleep, wishing I was dead, wishing I could go back in time and undo the incident by screaming to alert someone, one day I came home from school exhausted and broken. Another day of being eaten alive by the poisonous rage that consumed every moment of my waking life, until I went to bed and was overcome with sadness and grief, wishing I could just drown myself with my own tears.


On this particular day, I stood in the garden in my school uniform, stared at the sky, and thought, ‘I want to be free of this rage. He does not feel my rage or my pain, only I do. If I let go, forgive him, I can free myself of this all-consuming anger’.


And at that moment, I did exactly that. I decided to forgive what happened, and I felt instantly better, like a weight had been lifted.


‘Hallelujah, I have cured myself!’, I thought.

Sadly, seldom is life that easy or fair.


Fast forward some time: I’m thirteen and I start my period. The first two were fine, no biggy, just some blood for five to six days, and a little cramp. Then period number three arrived, and I realised that this was going to be harder than I thought. The blood came thick and fast, causing pain that felt like an internal fire throughout my womb, inner thighs, lower back, and buttocks. I spent days on end frail, weak, and in agony. Rolling around in my bed with the hottest hot water bottle I could handle pressed against the flesh of my lower abdomen and back. Pleading for the prescribed painkillers to kick-in and relieve me. It felt like a punishment. Almost as if my uterus was bleeding molten anger.


I tried everything. Different combinations of hormones via the contraceptive pill, going au-naturel, and hoping I could just control it or that it would go away. I pushed the GP for a more in-depth investigation into my problem. This wasn’t just the periods, but the periods were the most difficult aspect. I also struggled for years with acne in varying degrees, slightly excessive facial hair, my weight, etc. Everything about my body just felt, and still feels, totally fucked.


One condition associated with all these symptoms is Polycystic Ovaries Syndrome (PCOS). After my second ultrasound scan, it was confirmed that the frequency and scale of cysts on my ovaries was consistent with PCOS. It only took more than seven years of suffering before this was finally diagnosed. At which point, the GP recommended the Mirena coil.


Rewind about a year before this, and I took the leap into therapy following an abusive relationship that left me traumatised and fearful of love, men, and relationships altogether. I knew that while I did not ask to be abused and never deserved to be so, there would be a deeper-rooted psychological element to my history of abusive relationships, which I wanted to bust so that I could eventually find myself in a healthy non-toxic relationship.


The journey into therapy pushed me to face many painful truths about my life, family, and relationships. In my opinion, any good therapist will know the importance of exploring their client’s childhood to understand the foundation of their present-day psychology. Talking about my childhood was something I was terrified of, even though I didn’t realise it at the time.


I knew I had to talk about the sexual assault that took place. But hey, that would be totally fine! I mean, I had already relieved myself of any pain this caused me that day I decided to forgive him in my garden, didn’t I?


So, one day I casually explained to my therapist that I had been sexually assaulted, but it was no big deal because I didn't cry about it anymore. In fact, I hadn't done so for years, and I had made peace with it all. Que the look of subtle skepticism on my therapist’s face, then came the dreaded question,


‘Can you describe to me what happened?’


Suddenly, I am as stiff and as cold as a corpse. My mouth is dry, my hands are clammy, but I manage to do so quietly and with no fuss, objectively explain nothing but the factual step-by-step playout of the incident. Like reciting it from a Police report. See? Totally fine. No tears. And then came the second devastating question,


‘How does it make you feel to remember that?’.

Now, I am no longer fine. There are tears. Thick, heavy tears that sting. I fall apart before her. My heart aches, my body aches, and I have connected again with a deep well of black sadness that I thought I was rid of long ago.


We talk about it in the session, and again in other sessions. Each time, I am gifted with the clarity that I never freed myself from it that day in the garden after school, but only refused to look at it because it was too ugly and too painful. And so, all the pain, the anger, and sadness sat festering inside me like a disease for all these years.


We talk about being compassionate towards myself, as a way to heal... Healing. Something I had forbidden myself to do for so long because it hurt too much.


I talk about a scene from a TV series called ‘My Mad Fat Diary’ where the main character, Rae, is asked by her therapist to visualise a ten-year-old version of herself sitting next to her, and what she would do or say to her now. I remember watching that scene and crying fiercely. I thought it was because of my empathy for Rae, and how I felt like I was feeling her pain with her. I know now that I cried so hard because the seven-year-old me inside of me was crying out to be seen; to be heard, to be told that everything was okay, and to have her shame addressed and consoled.


Shame. This was not a feeling I had so far acknowledged in relation to my assault. So far, I had only known sadness, anger, and grief. But shame was there all along, and it was the most painful of them all. And the most liberating to identify, feel, weep for, and heal from.


The chaotic landscape of the psyche and all my trauma means that my journey with therapy is not a straightforward one. It is stepping forward, stepping backward. We explore many topics, usually more than once, including my PCOS. My therapist’s approach to therapy is inclusive of (but by no means limited to) exploration of not only the mind and body but also of the soul. The spirit. The part of us that can’t be seen (yet) on scans, graphs, and blood tests. Often, I feel, it is the part of us that we ignore. Mainly because mainstream psychology and science do not account for it in the way our physiology is accounted for. But I firmly believe it is not separate from our mind and body, and when we are hurt physically or emotionally, we are also hurt spiritually.


I remember vividly the moment in one of my sessions where my therapist asked me to describe what my periods felt like. I described the pain, using the usual comparisons to fire, anger, and blind red rage.

I can’t remember the exact moment where the penny dropped that the literal anguish felt by my womb, was connected so deeply to the anguish of my soul.

The agony of my period pain was a reflection of, even a manifestation of, the spiritual wound to that part of my body, which had been so hideously violated. The reason it feels like my periods are furious is because my body is furious. I liken this now to when you are so angry, maybe during an argument and you’re shouting and screaming, then all of a sudden, tears well up from your eyes and you cry uncontrollably. That’s what I imagine my womb to look like during my period. It remembers the torment that was inflicted upon that part of me, and it never got the chance to heal. I never healed.


This revelation came with a mixture of emotions.


Firstly, it felt devastating. All this time I thought I had dealt with that suffering, not knowing that it was literally calling out to me to be addressed each month when I was bed-bound by my menstruation.


I felt angry all over again that not only had he taken away a huge part of my childhood happiness, but he had also crept in and violated my life every day since. Every time I had to cancel plans with friends because of my period. Every time I had to feel eyes judging me as I walked around the office with a hot water bottle stuffed down my waistband or cried in front of my managers and colleagues because it just hurt so badly. Always dreading the inevitable monthly bleed that left me incapacitated. Always knowing that people judged me, assumed I was exaggerating for attention. All this, because of the grotesque actions of one person, who does not suffer what I now suffer.


After this, I felt relief. I finally had an understanding, something beyond what a scan or doctor could ever unveil, as to what my body is enduring. It is a message from my body, and my spirit intrinsic to my body, that there is pain to be addressed and healing to be done. I am no longer at the mercy of a subtly misogynistic healthcare system whose view, in my experience, is always,


‘Sorry love, just part of being a woman. Not much we can do, I'm afraid’.


Now that I know my resolution will never be in hormones, coils, and painkillers, I can finally stop trying to put the flimsy plasters medicine offers me, over the gaping wound of my body’s soul.

I am completely empowered to heal myself.

Of course, I will need some guidance along the way. I have sessions in the pipeline with a spiritual healer, and I intend to pursue treatments involving reflexology and reiki. But what is most important, is that these are not people doing things to me to just make it go away. I will not be passive in the process of healing. I am about to embark on a journey where I have the power to heal myself through acceptance, love, and compassion for myself. To become connected with a part of my body that I dissociated from for so long because I knew deep down there was so much pain festering there.

This is not to say that medicine should be disregarded when it comes to treating conditions and ill health. It's to say that our health, at least in my understanding, goes so much further than the tissue, bones, and blood that form the bodies which are home to the soul. We are minds, bodies, and souls. When we see all three and are connected to all three, we can become so empowered to make changes to ourselves and our lives that we might never have otherwise thought possible.


We can heal from trauma.


We can flourish and be filled with love for ourselves and our life. We can draw ourselves out from even the darkest corners of our existence and be surrounded by light and love every day.


I look forward to my journey of healing. I know it will be tough and it will hurt. But I am excited to finally allow myself to heal because it is what I need. I’m excited to be the one who finally hears my spirit, tends to its need, and is freed in the process. To finally move from a place of hopelessness and suffering to one of enlightenment, love, and good health.

It is always darkest before dawn.


 

If you've also been a victim of sexual violence, you can visit the Getting Support section of this website, where we've provided links to the many online resources and help centers.


If you've been touched by this story, you can get in touch with us via Facebook or Instagram, or Email us at gettingloose@hotmail.com.


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