Victim.
As I live through this new
vocabulary, which I
had somehow managed to never
befriend in all these years
of pain, trouble, disappointment, heartbreak,
disenchantment, depression even…
I struggle to accept, this
truth, this world view, this reality
which has smacked me
right across my face, my soul,
my body, my heart, revolts…
In anger, no no, rage
or with the earth shattering,
heart wrenching pain, that clenches
around my lungs, making my screams
pour through my eyes,
my clenched fists,
breaking the walls of my silence. Till I can no longer bear them.
Victim.
I don’t really know, how to
react, respond, reach out or search within,
Is it resilience or is it avoidance?
Is it grieving or is it spiraling?
Every answer that I had learnt
had not prepared me for these questions,
and I fail to reconcile with the me that is,
the me that was or will ever be.
How many me did I lose? How many would I lose further?
Victim.
Yes, yes I am one.
Made powerless by the past,
which I can re-live, rewind, but
can’t change. Hindsight is
a bitch, who gnaws softly
and suddenly snaps a chunk of flesh off,
leaving you to bleed, but not letting you die.
Victim.
How could I, the warrior,
the rebel, the fighter,
the brave-heart, the eternal optimist, be constricted into this word,
which defined another,
and never me. When did I become the other?
Victim.
I struggle, to accept this stamp.
But this is my stamp. For now.
For now this is who I am.
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Survivor!! many of us here do not think of you as a victim, but as a SURVIVOR of a crime. It was NOT your fault! The criminals who do this to good hearts like you are very manipulative, they trick you. You can think you know better and you do but they look very specifically for a weakness or vulnerable time, you are NOT to blame. You ARE a warrior, you ARE a Brave Heart! The feelings you have expressed so eloquently are very normal and reasonable.You may not be able to change what happened but you can try to heal. Please try to talk to a professional counselor or therapist about what happened. You did not deserve it and at your own pace in your own way you can overcome it.There is no right or wrong pace. You have many supporters here who send love and strength to you! To us you are not a victim even though it’s very normal to feel that way!
Thank you so much for posting this here! I think this expresses so well what happens after an assault – the confusion, the lack of identity, the second guessing, not knowing what to do next. Please know that you are not alone in those feelings. No one thinks it will happen to them and I don’t think anyone knows what to do. The good – and bad – news is that there is no one right way to respond. That is, there’s not a set of people to tell or way to react. So the good part of that is that you can’t do it “wrong”… but the bad part is that there’s no handbook. I think talking about it does help, but knowing who you can tell – and who you want to tell – is hard.
The one thing I will say that tends to help is finding a therapist who you can work with. It might take a couple of tries but it can be really helpful. Your use of the word victim is interesting; I struggle applying the word “survivor” to myself and have wondered many times what that means. But I think that it’s really important that we define our own experiences and use our own words. That doesn’t mean I’ll never use the word “survivor” to describe myself, just that I struggle with it now. And I’ve wavered on that for a long time. I would encourage you to explore these kinds of things with your therapist. You get to define your experience and what comes next. And who you are in the future. I believe in you. Sending you love, Alexis