Picking up from yesterday –
I love the people who are there for me. And I soooo appreciate the gracious empathy of people trying to understand. But even some of the people who are trying to understand are making the same mistake as I am. They’ll compare what’s going on to a crunchy goodbye [that’s the word I’m using in place of “breakup” since I hate that word, in case you didn’t read yesterday’s post haha].
For instance, someone said something along the lines of, “I know how hard it was after my break-up to even go to our favorite restaurant alone. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”
And again, I so appreciate that empathy. And I so appreciate them making the comment insinuating sexual assault is on a grander scale/different to deal with than a breakup alone. And I don’t ever in 1,000 years wanna shut down or attack someone for feeling empathy and being kind and understanding…
But this is just not really like that
It’s like that in the sense that the sight of him makes my stomach churn, so I don’t wanna see him… Just as someone might not want to see someone they’d been with before…
It’s like that in the sense that a lot of things make me think of him and reminders are painful… But they’re painful in a different way.
It’s not like, “Oh, I miss him. It’s sad to think about this.”
It more feels like a pit of anxiety off the races. “If I’d never gotten involved around him, I might feel comfortable around men still. I might not have crying spells. I wouldn’t have to spend all this time in therapy and make various concessions about my time and money and schedule.” And on and on.
And I’m not in any way trying to diminish anyone’s pain about a crunchy goodbye. I don’t wanna take anything away from people’s horrific “breakup” stories. I’m not trying to say, “Well, if you weren’t assaulted, you don’t get to complain.” Of course you do!
A) I’m not the boss of you. B) I know all your feelings are valid. Your pain may be different, but of course it’s still valid and real. So, please, complain and feel all the feelings.
And while I believe that’s true, I also think we need to stop comparing fallouts or “breakups” (if you will) after assaults to “normal breakups”. It’s like we’re comparing being the victim of a traumatic crime to heartbreak – and it’s not that.
Both are hurtful. But they’re not the same kind of hurt. So, we can’t treat them the same.
The feelings aren’t the same. The intensity of the feelings aren’t the same (to me). The timetable isn’t the same (for me, at least). The way I deal with it isn’t the same.
And I’m sure I will possibly make this same mistake and fall back into this rut again, because they seem so comparable in various ways. But they’re not reeeeeeeally.
I think I need to learn that however I choose to heal from my assault, and however I choose to deal with it, it’s not going to really look like a crunchy goodbyes. And it probably shouldn’t. And that’s okay.
They’re two different things, and it’s important that I treat them as such.
(And I appreciate you here reading, being on this journey with me, as I try to figure all this weirdness out.)
[This is a post from the sexual assault series.]