Rape and Shame

 79. RAPE AND SHAME

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite you join me on a short walk through my journey of healing from the trauma of sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end so that you can enjoy my gem of positivity.

I know the feeling of shame only too well. It started with the first violation of my three year old vagina by the traumatically cruel adult penis. That particular perpetrator taught me that sex was a shameful thing, because if I tell on him I would be punished.

To me, anxious shame feels like my stomach has gone into free fall. It’s that feeling you get when you’re in an elevator that has just started going down, and the world has shifted beneath your feet. You’re helpless and everything is your fault.

Every further rape as I have grown up into adulthood, has simply compounded that shame. The thought that I am so dirty that other people must be able to see my dirtiness too. It’s a pervasive a dirtiness that can’t “just” be scrubbed off. Believe me, I’ve tried; even with steel wool until my vagina bled.

The shame of what all those vile evil acts of sexual torture has seared a deep and lasting scar on my mind, body, and soul. It’s like I’m going to suffocate from the sheer weight of this shame. That my chest is being crushed and I just can’t catch my breath.

And now, I am in therapy. And I am being taught a new reality. Slowly I am learning that the shame was never mine to bear in the first place. That just because toxic people have tried to make me as despicable as themselves, doesn’t mean I have to take it on board and carry their sludge. 

The shame belongs with the perpetrators, and the perpetrators alone. Even those do-gooders in society, who said the rapes were mine by choice to own, and are even crass enough to say that I’d asked for it. Their opinions still don’t make the shame mine. That is my new narrative, and I’m holding on to the truth. And that is proof that I am healing.

Have you felt that dreadful, choking, suffocating shame? The shame that you put on yourself from the actions of a cruel, demeaning perpetrator? You are not alone. It is an inbuilt trauma reaction to something that you had no control over. But you don’t have to stay crushed under this burden. You have done nothing wrong. It was not your choice, no matter what society tries to guilt trip you into believing. And as you learn to put the shame fairly and squarely on who the shame actually belongs to, the perpetrators, you will find yourself where I am at right now. You will be stepping along healing, too.

This time the gem of positivity is an affirmation:

I will not allow anyone to guilt trip or shame me into believing I am less than who I am.

This is a truth that I am learning to believe. Perpetrators, and even society, would like me to think that the shame of the sexual traumas are mine to carry. But it’s not. Believing that the shame is mine makes me less than I know I am. I am strong. I am resilient. I am a survivor. And I will not let anyone else shame me into believing that I  am not. And these are your strengths too.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk in my journey of healing from sexual trauma. Don’t forget to leave a comment on one thing you are doing to defeat your feelings of shame. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby