What I Know

I know I was sexually abused by men in my family when I was a young girl.

I know at least one of those men raped me.

I know I didn’t know what sex was at the time.

I know it felt like I was being eviscerated.

I know I believed the man raping me was actually killing me.

I know I spent many nights as a child in abject terror, lying alone in my bed.

I know I was waiting for a man to come kill me.

I know I practiced holding my breath so that when he found me, he would think I was already dead.

I know the man I feared was already in the house with me.

I know I showed my mother the injuries I sustained from the rape.

I know my mother helped me ice my injuries and then, did nothing else.

I know that as a child I needed to believe my parents were good people who loved me.

I know that not knowing about the abuse saved my life.

I know being abandoned in the trauma harmed me more than the abuse itself.

I know the silence and denial in my family made it impossible for the truth of what was happening to me to be known.

I know how insane that made me feel.

I know that I survived and am sane.

I know that my body and trauma symptoms have long been telling the truth.

I know my parents were incapable of loving and protecting me, and I know that was never about me.

I know the people who harmed me will not take responsibility, and I know how hard that is to live with.

I know how lonely and scary it is to choose myself and the truth, and risk losing belonging.

I know the shame of having been sexually abused and raped as a child is not mine to carry.

I know my well-being was sacrificed to keep that shame secret.

I know the insides of grief and rage.

I know that I require truth to live, and I know this is not true for everyone in my life.

I know how denial tries to erase my own knowing.

I know how to find my way back to reality through my body and my symptoms.

I know how to hold the terrorized, traumatized child inside me without needing her fear to be any less.

I know my body saved me twice—first when I believed I was dying, and after, when I couldn’t survive knowing about it.

I know to believe my body.

I know how to let little drips of pleasure in, and when pleasure makes me dissociate, I know how to care for myself as I return to my body.

I know my daughter is safe.

I know how to say, “I’m sorry,” and, “Thank you.”

I know how to be accountable for harm I cause, and I know how to show up in repair.

I know that boundaries are how I stay safe in my adult relationships.

I know I am not alone, even when I’m brutally alone.

I know I am loved.

I know how to dance like my body is a living prayer.

I know how to create beauty, and I know how to revel in it.

I know the feeling of love cracking my heart wide open, and I know the terror that almost always follows.

I know what it is to grieve an entire life.

I know how to celebrate that same life.

I know it was the offerings of strangers—their music, art, writing, wisdom and teachings—that held me when I had no one else and helped me come back to myself and life.  

I know how to pray to Goddess and listen to spirit and ancestors.

I know I am alive, and I know how miraculous my life is.

I know that my healing is unending, and that what I know will continue to change.

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