One of the biggest, weirdest things about having been assaulted/in an abusive relationship, is that I feel like I can’t even go sightseeing anymore.
Most of the time I’ve been sightseeing [since everything that happened], I’ve just ended up completely sobbing and losing it.
I kinda think this probably has to do with many things. For one, I just feel sort of embarrassed – embarrassed that I’m such a mess, and that I allowed the situation to get out of control… as though strangers somehow know or something… And I want to kind of hide from people in general (and that’s hard at tourist attractions).
I also feel nearly constantly distracted – just replaying those nights over and over, and how I got to those nights in the first place. To me, one of the most present/pressing things about how hard all of this is, is never being able to concentrate on anything.
And I think that becomes pretty blatantly apparent when I’m supposed to be experiencing something new, or learning about something new at some new place – I can’t take it in. I can’t see it. I can’t retain.
And that makes everything so exceptionally frustrating.
Another thing that I think is probably pretty specific to me, and maybe not all people who’ve experienced abuse or assault, is that one of his problems was that he’d get exceptionally angry anytime I wasn’t “normal” in the sense of what he expected from relationships.
The reason he first assaulted me was because I wasn’t ready to have sex in my bed. To me, that was my space. He and I hadn’t even been sleeping together for a week. I wasn’t ready, and he thought that was preposterous because, “that’s not how it works!”
I would get in really big trouble if I wanted to deviate from anything “normal”… If for him, I wasn’t ready for something he felt “wasn’t a big deal” or “should’ve already happened” in this imaginary timetable that he decided was normal, then I would get in giant trouble, which led to abuse and assaults, which has now led to me having all these issues with PTSD (which have led to even other issues for me in life, such as deferring school and such).
I never really paid all that much attention to people around me while sightseeing before (unless I was making new friends!).
Couples? Not couples? Families? Everybody was doing their own thing, and it was just sort of like whatever.
But now, I feel so aware of couples around me. Because weirdly every time I see a couple holding hands or being able to be “normal,” it’s as though I can hear the ghost of sexual assault guy in my head – like he’s pointing out to me, “Look at all these people who are normal! – who can handle all this ‘normal couple stuff’! You’re the weird one. You’re the one in the wrong. If you could’ve just moved a little faster in stuff that was ‘normal’ for me to expect from you, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. It’s your own fault.”
And I know that’s a little crazy. But that doesn’t stop it from feeling that way. I’m sure these people who are in couples are not giving me a second thought. And they’re definitely not thinking, “That girl deserves to be assaulted because she doesn’t like holding hands [so hella early in a relationship, btw] as much as we do right now.”
But it still just sort of feels like this overwhelming chorus of blame screeching in my ears – even if it’s all just self-blame. It’s like look at all these “normal” couples, and if only you’d been “normal” too, you wouldn’t have been hurt.
And logically, that’s wrong. I have a right to say no to things, no matter how “normal” they are. I’m allowed to feel uncomfortable moving fast on certain things (even if many other women feel differently). [These are things we go over in therapy.]
But still. Seeing people being “normal” makes me feel defensive (even if it’s just defensive to a ghost of a person not even actually there).
So, for those reasons, and maybe more, who knows, sightseeing has become one of my most giant hills to climb. There is part of me that feels like once I can sightsee again – that I will have reached some kind of masterful expert level in a video game of recovery in life… That that will either mean I’m better or basically better.
And Philadelphia specifically seems like the place, because I remember Thanksgiving of 2015.
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.
[This is from the sexual assault series.]