What Happened to Me
My father raped me when I was a young girl. My mother knew shortly after, when I showed her the injuries he inflicted on my body during his brutal assault. She responded by protecting her own interests and the secret, silencing me and trying to erase the truth.
I was abandoned in the trauma, left alone for decades in the insanity of all that is not true. I was sacrificed to maintain the pretense that the trauma never happened.
I suffered in the insanity. Truth—no matter how heinous—is regulating for me. Being so totally cut off from reality—my entire life existing inside a lie—almost killed me.
But it didn’t. I fought to get outside the denial each time its gravity pulled me back in, and I learned to believe myself and my body again. I listened, night after night, day after day to all the sensations my body holds. I learned how to witness them. I learned how to relax around the pain and let it be.
I grieved. I loved. I integrated the nightmare piece by piece. I integrate it still.
And I started to let myself play. I let in beauty. I created comfort and care. Pleasure came back to me. I can feel it in my body again, and I revel. I know: This is why I am here.
My body saved me. It helped me survive when I believed my father was killing me and after, when I became a threat to my mother. Then, it slowly brought me back to life. I am profoundly grateful for my willingness to trust my body. I had only faith in myself and life to go on.
I lived. I have the truth now. I am whole and myself. I have never been saner or more well, and I fucking love my life. I love every second that I get to live it even when it hurts.
I exist, and that is so much more than enough.