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Survivor story
#352
Original story
Message to a Survivor
I remember feeling like I would never recover. That no one would understand me. That no one would listen and if they did nothing would change. My hope was my voice. I shut it out for so long but, as soon as I started opening up and seeking help my healing began. Hope is knowing your future is bigger brighter than what your abuser has stolen. I found hope with other survivors because they carried a weight I also did but have grown beautiful things from it.
Message of Healing
Healing to me is letting myself feel every emotion my past assault brings. Letting myself cry, lay in bed all day, scream at the top of my lungs, run until my legs feel like they’ll give out. This also means finding comfort in a friends arms and words. I realized I started telling more people about my trauma and through my words and writing I have found peace. Healing is a process that isn’t linear. Healing is repairing something broken but never forgetting what broke you.
I want him to know how it feels. To feel like prey. To walk into a room and immediately search for an escape. Just in case a stranger, enemy, or friend has decided I am at their disposal. To look into a mirror, no matter what clothes you have on and still feel completely naked. How it feels when no one really wants you but everyone thinks they can have you. What it feels like when your quivering fear tangles your tongue and all you have left are water filled wandering eyes searching for rescue. What it feels like to lose your sense of self. I want him to know what it feels like to be trapped everywhere you are. What the weight of someone else’s body feels like laying on your lifeless one. The humiliation that heats your cheeks and pricks your pupils. The kind that triggers flight. Like being stuck in a game of hide and seek, except you never agreed to play. Trying to be hidden with no place to hide. That the feeling of breaking your silence and jumping out of a plane with no idea how to release your parachute are one in the same. Wondering if you even have one to slow your inevitable free fall. Or if a fast splat is better than a slow hell. Heavy tears. Swollen eyes. Tired tonsils. Never. Ending. Nightmares. I want him to know what it feels like to dread opening your eyes. To watch your hands uncontrollably rattle. For your ears to become numb to the sound of the no seatbelt signal blaring in the car. To feel ashamed just to exist. Most of all, I want him to know he took a blissfully ignorant girl and boiled her blood. And the fire that heats her veins will continue to flame. And burn. Until every alike him feels consumed by the sting of the spark they so carelessly started.
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Grounding activity
Find a comfortable place to sit. Gently close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths - in through your nose (count to 3), out through your mouth (count of 3). Now open your eyes and look around you. Name the following out loud:
5 – things you can see (you can look within the room and out of the window)
4 – things you can feel (what is in front of you that you can touch?)
3 – things you can hear
2 – things you can smell
1 – thing you like about yourself.
Take a deep breath to end.
From where you are sitting, look around for things that have a texture or are nice or interesting to look at.
Hold an object in your hand and bring your full focus to it. Look at where shadows fall on parts of it or maybe where there are shapes that form within the object. Feel how heavy or light it is in your hand and what the surface texture feels like under your fingers (This can also be done with a pet if you have one).
Take a deep breath to end.
Ask yourself the following questions and answer them out loud:
1. Where am I?
2. What day of the week is today?
3. What is today’s date?
4. What is the current month?
5. What is the current year?
6. How old am I?
7. What season is it?
Take a deep breath to end.
Put your right hand palm down on your left shoulder. Put your left hand palm down on your right shoulder. Choose a sentence that will strengthen you. For example: “I am powerful.” Say the sentence out loud first and pat your right hand on your left shoulder, then your left hand on your right shoulder.
Alternate the patting. Do ten pats altogether, five on each side, each time repeating your sentences aloud.
Take a deep breath to end.
Cross your arms in front of you and draw them towards your chest. With your right hand, hold your left upper arm. With your left hand, hold your right upper arm. Squeeze gently, and pull your arms inwards. Hold the squeeze for a little while, finding the right amount of squeeze for you in this moment. Hold the tension and release. Then squeeze for a little while again and release. Stay like that for a moment.
Take a deep breath to end.