Okay, I retract normal and offer healthy - but I wish healthy was the norm!
I have never been to a Take Back the Night or any other survivors events. I am of the group that didn't report a rape because I thought it was my fault. I went over and over in my brain trying to identify what I did to deserve it. This was after I moved out of our family home. What I did realize was that I didn't know how to protect myself. I learned victim behavior in our home. Even later I started to think that in our home, one was bully or victim. I decided to join the victims by rape -a family rite of passage? Maybe. I had expressed my bully when I was younger and left to watch my siblings. Perhaps I was rejecting that part of me.
All I know for sure is I had the classic response - fill the tub with hot water, and try to scald the shame and the filth out of me.
We are silent because we know it is our fault. Women are evil temptresses and men are helpless to resist us. Therefore it is our fault. I remember once, when I was in my mid teens, I ran from the bathroom to my bedroom (15 feet?) in my underwear. No one was upstairs, except Mom. She had a serious talk with me about modesty. My brothers could not be allowed to see me like this. So she knew. She knew there was something wrong with us. She knew it was not safe in our family.
And so it had to be my fault. It was raped because my hair was long. I cut it. It was my fault because I looked like a woman. I gained weight.
No one knew what happened to me for years. When I finally told my mom, she told my dad and was very nervous that he should still accept me. Not sympathy, but was I still acceptable in my sullied, unfixable state? I know her nervousness came from fear. Women are not good enough.
And we wonder why we are silent. I think it takes courage to get out on the street. And it may be a way to find others to lean on, to talk to, to reassure each other that we aren't damaged goods.
I am really curious about your ideas.
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