Nightmares

To be honest, I've had nightmares my whole life.

I'm used to it. I always expect them.
I used to have my dog to get me through them. Then a boyfriend. And now my husband. Don't get me wrong. He tried to help so much....but he's only human. He wants to sleep. He wants me to heal. 

It used to be nightmares about childish things. The boogie man. Getting in trouble. After that? Scary things that had happened while I was growing up. 

Now? Now I have nightmares about  something very bad that happened to me when I was 18.

Something that haunts me constantly. 

Something I was told to keep quiet about.

Something that hurts me to the very core whenever I think about it.

I was raped.

Even writing this, I want to cry. I want to press the delete button, snuggle under my blanket, and go back to the pretend world where this never happened.

Anyone I tell is shocked. Outraged. Upset I never came forward, mad that it happened, or one person....mad that I let it happen.

I want to clarify:

I did not want to get raped. My choices following the rape were not so I could get raped. It tortures me. I wish I could change it. I wish I could change how you see it. I wish you hadn't said those thing too me about how it was my choice.

I wish you loved me enough to support me, and love me as I tried to grieve for that loss of safety I felt. The loss of childish innocence.

I wish you'd let me tell people. Let me talk about it. Allow me to move past it so it could become part of my past instead of something that pops into my head when someone says something or makes a hand gesture or laughs like that monster did.

To be fair, you may not have known how to handle the situation.  Maybe you were as scared as I was.

Regardless, I want to urge people who have been through anything like this to speak out. Be loud. Write about it. Talk about it. Do whatever you have to do to feel a little better and a little safer each day.

I'm trying. It isn't easy. But I'm trying. 

Xoxo,
Mama Wolf