There are a lot of things that really suck about being assaulted.
One thing I’ve talked a lot about on here is how it’s affected my relationships (not even just relationships with men, but with everybody – (also women), my friends, strangers, etc.). And one of the biggest relationships that has been affected is my relationship with New York.
And I see it all the time in the way I talk about NY, but it was more prominent to me than ever when I went to Boston.
When it rained in Boston, it wasn’t a big deal – at all. It was fun. I love rain. I just ran inside the Pru, no worried.
(When I first moved to NY, I even snapchatted the rain, so excited. “Look! Weather!”)
But when my bus (when I got back from Boston) got into Chinatown and it was raining, it was like, “UGH. Seriously? Rain? Of course it’s raining – signifying all the grossness and sadness out here in this dump.”
And in Boston, I even saw one of those kinda “hey, I’m walking here” guys on the street.
And I SMILED.
“Hahahaha, oh isn’t that adorable? It’s like I’m in a movie about “Mass-holes. Tehehehe, oh the local feel of this place is so great. Doop do do.”
And when I pass those people in New York, I’m like, “OF COURSE. Freaking jerks. Everybody’s so rude in this stupid rude city. Ugh ugh ugh. [Crazy muttering to myself.]”
I’ve said on this very blog before that attitude is practically everything in life.
And that doesn’t change the fact that PTSD is real and challenging. And assault is horrible, and dealing with its aftermath is kinda arduous (or at least it has been for me).
And I know “having a good attitude,” isn’t a magical fix to making real mental health problems disappear… But I could be a little nicer to New York still.
I can decide to love and adore my dream apartment, and try to soak up the city as much as humanly possible – even if I’m disappointed that some guy took advantage of me here.
(I almost said “jerk” instead of guy, but it sounded too mean. All this time later, I’m still worried about being “fair” to him, or not giving people overall bad labels when they do some bad things… [*mildly rolls eyes at self*])
Anyway, he can be awful. And that can be awful. And that can be not what I wanted to happen in NY.
…But it could’ve happened literally anywhere. A different version of it actually happened in Boston! And I still love and adore Boston.
Granted, I know the situations are different for various reasons, but I’m just saying, I potentially should start to listen to the (sweet) platitudes of “don’t let him take New York away from you, and don’t let him take you away from us/New York. Like… I have to find a way to love New York again, and I could start by not disparaging it quite so much…
[This is from the sexual assault series.]