[Content warning: This is a post belonging to the series of sexual assault posts.]
I used to think that sometimes the conversations that I had that would be a total mess when it came to sexual assault were a total mess because I didn’t know how to talk about it.
I didn’t have a lot of the vocabulary at first. Sometimes I’d try to sugarcoat my words, and then people wouldn’t really get it, or they’d think I was just having “normal boy troubles.”
…I wouldn’t want to “be dramatic,” or “be too mean” when talking about him.
And I always thought it was my inability to communicate these tough experiences and ideas that would sometimes make people react in non-empathetic, or not super appropriate ways…
And then, time went on and I’m kinda learning that no, it’s not always about how you talk to other people. Sometimes people just don’t know how to talk to you.
I try not to bring up sexual assault too (too) much anymore in my day-to-day life. For the most part, I think I’ve worked through what I’m gonna work through. I’m pretty functional again, so I don’t have to bring it up often to explain why I can’t face the outside world, or why I’m sorry that I just absolutely cannot concentrate on anything when someone’s trying to tell me something and I can’t hold a conversation to save my life (and all those types of things, since those (thankfully) aren’t big issues I’m having anymore)…
The farther in the past some giant life decisions get (such as deferring school), the less I have to explain those as well. So, there are becoming fewer and fewer reasons for it to come up in my normal day-to-day conversations – which is lovely! …But that doesn’t mean it never comes up.
The most likely way for it to come up nowadays is when someone asks some version (as nicely as they can) of “Holy goodness. It’s only been two years since I’ve seen you. How did you become such a giant, big, fat, exhausted monster?”
And then I try to explain, with as much neutral-ness as I can muster “Well, I was assaulted when I went to New York. Unfortunately, I didn’t handle it well, became pretty depressed, and my weight gain really spiraled, as I’ve been dealing with some emotional and physical issues. But! I went through trauma therapy, am getting my life back together, and have even already lost some weight from where I was at the worst of it. So, I’m back on the way down with my weight, not up. (Things are going in the right direction.) And don’t worry, before we know it, I’ll be back to the Aurora you know.”
And I feel like that’s pretty straightforward and to the point, and explains what’s going on? But alas! Multiple times now, it’s become “Who was he? How did you know him? What happened?” And on and on a million questions. My least favorite one (and the one that prompted me to write this post) was a – seemingly asked in a pretty darn accusatory “I bet I already know the answer” type way – “Were you drunk?” …just seemingly making the assumption I was. (I hadn’t been drinking anything but water.) (And even if I had been drinking, that wouldn’t make any of this okay.)
Why can’t people’s default response even just be “okay,” and moving on to a different subject? Sure, it’s nice when people have empathy and say something like, “I’m sorry that happened to you,” or “if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.” But I don’t even need people to specifically be empathetic. Even if they could just be neutral, I would take it!
I just used to be so sure I was communicating in the wrong way – that that’s why people didn’t know how to respond or how to react, but no matter how much better I get at being to the point, and straightforward (without softer, sugarcoating language) people still act like it’s interrogation time. And I don’t know why.