About This Blog

The main reason I started this blog was to give myself a place to talk about the feelings I have interacting with others. 

Here is some background:

When I figured out I was raped, I knew I was raped.  That might sound like a silly thing to say, but culture has all kinds of ways to trick us into thinking that an assault isn't really assault and perpetrators have all kinds of ways to use that to hide their own raping asses.

If you can imagine the moment, there was a pause as my brain checked out the situation: "I said No, right?  Right.  But this is still happening...  Yeah.  That's bad." And then came a death in life that I can not adequately describe. 

Due to this death-in-life, I had less access to the truth.  I had to do this exchange with myself a few more times, even though I knew in the recesses of my brain that I had been raped.  "I said No, right?  Yeah, yeah, you did.  And it still happened, right?  Yes, it really did happen.  But that's like... you know... that thing that begins with r and ends in ape....

... Red Grape?  Um... yeah... yeah, I think that's it."

I knew it, but I didn't believe it right away.  But when I believed it, I wanted to tell everyone.  I don't know why.  Most people seem to report wanting no one to know.  Not me.  I wanted to stand up at the company meeting and announce it; I wanted to tell my boss why I was missing so much work; I wanted desperately to accurately answer the bartender's question about why I was looking so down and out.

So why did I not?  The very first person I told -without using the word "rape"- misunderstood.  He told me over instant messenger that sometimes that happens when we role play in relationships.  And, in my very confused state, I realized that while I was playing my "does A equal A?" tape, other people didn't understand the definition of A.  And that made me question whether A really did equal A, even though they really did seem highly related.  I told a few more people and quickly realized that this was news no one ever wants to hear.

"I have news!"
"Really?  What?"
"I was raped!"
"..."

I didn't know what to say after that; and neither did the other person.  The other person would just sit there not saying anything, until I'm sure they felt awkward and would say something about if I was okay.  And through my adrenaline pumped, wide eyed, panic daze I actually picked up that people were uncomfortable.  So, I modified who got to find out.

I spent the next several years finding a path back to some sort of balance, in all things, not just how to talk to people about my experiences.  I moved across the country 6 months later and I worked out a system when people asked why I moved. If they pressed after I said "Oh the usual, a psychic, darts on a map and shamanic journeying", I would ask, "Do you want the nutshell version, or the long, intimate saga?"  People who wanted the nutshell got a story about the weather and dead ends, which was mostly true.

People react to me in NM very differently than in VT.  There have been many things that surprised me, yet the experience of creepy interactions is not bound to one place.  I decided I needed a place to express my experiences and feelings about interactions I have.  Thus ensued the birth of this blog that is at times light hearted, deeply sad, poignant or angry.

I've always dealt with trauma by talking about it, but too, I don't see how the world can change if no one is able to see how vast the sexual assault canon is.  In the same way I wanted to announce at company meeting that I'd been raped, I want to jump up and down so people know, I am one.  I am one of many.

My story is not about shame.  It is not a story about my vagina, or sex, or why he said it wasn't rape.  It's about me and how I struggled to believe myself, deal with the world around me and what that says about the world in which I live, and you live too.


Edit 2/9/12:  I have hoped to have other people contribute posts to this blog.  I'd like more of a dialogue about creepiness in society and I'd also like to create a place for people to vent themselves after a creepy episode.  If you'd like to contribute to "I Found This Creepy" please let me know.  I'm pretty sure if you don't know my personal contact you can contact me through the site.