Aurora's Blog

[*dance music plays*]

I know we’ve had all these moments along the way where it’s like, “I’m not crying myself to sleep anymore. Life is getting back to normal!”

And every little victory, or thing that wasn’t just drowning in despair seemed like this kind of big deal.

…But now, life is truly getting closer and closer to back to full total normal. And it’s not there yet. It’ll probably still be a while. But today, I woke up and thought, “I really feel like going to an exercise class!”

It wasn’t a whole “oh goodness. I gotta drag myself to this thing I don’t have energy for.” I woke up and wanted to go.

And then(!), I went. And I sorta kept up! …I’m not using the weight amounts I used to (yet!). And I’m still modifying some planks and things that I didn’t used to modify before. But. I generally kept up with the pace of class, at least (even if I was doing some exercises with modifications).

And the dope music was playing, and when we faced the mirror, I saw in my face that you can sort of kind of tell what I look like again, as the blubber kind of starts to come off, and my clothes fit a little better and everything.

I’ve got a long way to go, and I know that. But I’m starting to look like me, and I’m starting to feel like me. And I’m having so many little victories.

I also went to the grocery store today! I have been always having everything delivered. (Granted, living in Times Square, even at my healthiest, I’ll probably often use Amazon Prime when in New York.) But out here, I just walked over to Target. No big deal. I didn’t have to psych myself up for hours before I did it, or walk in fear, or avoid eye contact with anyone.

I’m no longer having moments of functioning like a human being, and thinking it’s time to throw a parade. Instead, I’m just functioning as a human being (and maybe having moments of otherwise, so it’s kinda switched around, which i find great).

And holy goodness is it nice. I can’t wait until I’m reeeeeally really really super back to me. (And I know I’m always me, but I don’t like this version as much haha. So, I’m on the good road [I think]!)

[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.

Picking up from yesterday –

So, for me, where is that line within coerced sex, between when it falls into assault territory and when it falls into just annoyingly bad behavior?

If I had to break it down into a sentence, I’d say it basically depends on whether you’re under threat.

– Whether some mix of his demeanor/his past/his words, etc. lead you to believe you’re in danger, and/or if he makes a threat to something/someone you care about and/or something/someone you need (e.g. your livelihood – such as threatening to take away your job).

I know we potentially spend a little too much in metaphor land when talking about sexual assault, but since it seems like that’s sometimes the easiest way, let’s take a trip there for a second.

If person A loves pizza, and is dying to get their friend (person B) to try a certain kind of pizza, but person B doesn’t want any (for any number of reasons(!)), and person A brings out pizza, puts it on the table, and they’re practically begging, “but come on. Come ON. Please. Pretty please? Pretty, pretty, pretty please?”

And the night fully becomes about pizza – but person B is in no way blocked from exiting, and is under no threat of any kind, and person B finally picks up a piece of pizza and shoves it in their own face, and in the middle of giant bites says, “Are you happy now?! Geez to goodness freaking gracious,” I find that to be a really unpleasant night, and not great behavior on the part of person A (especially depending how pushy they were/how frustrated they made person B).

Person B may have a fractured or non-existent relationship with person A after that, depending on how much the night affected them/how upset they are. Person A might be a jerk (or at the very least, may have been acting like one in the moment). But I think a really strong case can be made that person A didn’t really force person B to eat the pizza.

Whereas, if you’re like, “Hey, I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood for pizza tonight,” and they just shove the pizza right in your mouth anyway – whether or not you officially said the “magic” word “no, and/or if you pull back and say things like, “Come on. Please. Hey! Come on, man!” as you try to keep the pizza out of your mouth – they’re quite literally trying to force you to eat that pizza. If you described that to me later as “they forced me to eat the pizza,” I think that would be an accurate description.

There are other things in life our friends or loved ones kind of wear us down to do sometimes. If, for instance, someone really didn’t… I dunno, let’s say, wanna go to a theme park, and person A, who wanted to go, was like, “come on! Pretty pretty pleeeeease? Please please please?” for hours, or days, or however long on end, and person B was finally just like, “FINE! Oh my gosh, just to shut you up, come on,” and person B grabbed their keys and drove them both to a theme park, I’d agree that person B did not want to go. But I also wouldn’t say person B was forced.

I know it’s kinda nuanced, but I’m trying my best on this tricky subject.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

If you’re seeing this, FYI, this post is old.

Oh goodness.

I thought I was done with these – with the posts where I sob at my computer as I type. I thought kind of the chapter of sadness and despair and thinking all the time about sexual assault and all the fallout from it and everything was over.

As I’ve mentioned on here before, I gained some weight when everything happened. It makes sense and is a normal side effect after sexual assault. And as things got better emotionally, I started thinking, “great, now I can work on gaining this weight.”

I’ve sort of been compartmentalizing things a bit in my head – as far as ways I’d been affected. And as therapy started going better, and my living space became more livable instead of just a cluttered sad dungeon, and being around people became more bearable, and on and on, I thought, “great, I can finally worry about weight.”

But now I’m to that and it just doesn’t seem quite as simple to lose as it did last time. I mean, for one thing, I have that stupid injury (my sprained ankle) which seems to be ever-present and never go away. And I dunno. It seems sadder this time.

(I mean, I’m not as heavy as I once was, but I’m heavier than I want. And the zippers on my super cute, adorable, size 4 dresses that I was so proud to wear don’t zip. And I can’t handle that.)

Then there are different possibilities, since I am injured or whatever, you know, if I need a jump start, I could always go get some lipo or some “cool sculpting” or any of many things that run the gamut from super invasive to less so, from very expensive to not as much. But then all these other things come along with that – money, for one. It’s like, “Okay, so if I actually can get back to feeling okay about my body, I’ll do it at the expense of going into even more debt (which I’ve already talked about on here.) (And really, even going about things the “right” way, ClassPass’s rates are way up, etc.)

Plus, aside from money, there are scars, and there’s delayed results! You don’t walk out of lipo looking amazing. You walk out looking swollen and it takes weeks or sometimes months to look settled and “normal.” (Oh yeah, I’ve been reading a LOT on RealSelf.)

And I’ll pick up here tomorrow.

If you’re seeing this, FYI, this post is old.

[This is another in a series of posts dealing with sexual assault and the aftermath.]

Granted, I’ve always felt kind of old. I mean, since I was a teenager, I’ve been nervous about the never-stopping hourglass of time.

I know I compare all of this to open heart surgery a lot, but they ring parallel for me in so many ways.

And, I remember even back then thinking, “I’m SO. OLD.” I was in college. I wasn’t that old. But having any time “taken away” from me just felt like I got older. (I mean, I did get older. But it felt exponential, when in the end, it didn’t turn out to be thaaaaat big of a deal.)

But now I feel old again (as if that’s ever stopped).

I look around and think “Oh my goodness gracious. Nearly two years have passed?! What?!? How? How, how, how?”

Also, just like the open-heart surgery time… Back then I felt “on the precipice” of something great. I was at my dream school. I’d been accepted to a hard major. I’d gotten my first job in TV. It felt like the tide was shifting from the life of a wanna-be-in-the-entertainment-industry high-schooler to this actually-getting-her-foot-in-the-door young adult.

And, I remember that feeling like, “But I was on the precipice!!! Why now?!

And I feel that way with this. Finally moved to New York (which at the time, I thought was my dream city), got into this dream musical theatre writing program, got a dream job of mine. It felt like “I am on the precipice!” You know, kind of moving from someone who has a day job in entertainment to someone who gets to be more creative and work on cooler stuff and who might be thought of as an up-and-comer.

And it felt like it all came crashing down.

And so now I feel all this “wasted” time, and it feels like, “did the moment pass me?” I worked so hard so often to not be behind, and now it feels like I’ve fallen behind. So, I dunno.

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

And we want to believe that we’re reading every signal correctly, and we’re all on the same page, and we’re not pressuring anyone, and we’re not being threatening and on and on and on.

And I think the vast (vast) majority of the time, I go out of my way to try to make sure I’m doing all those things to the best of my ability… But when there are teeny tiny things that you could see how oof, with some slight tinkering that could be a bad situation for someone, so I guess, maybe, maybe, maaaaaaaaybe I could sort of see how someone could accidentally get caught up in a situation they don’t mean to (maybe)…

So, then I think the though process for some people goes something like, “well, maybe, just maybe, it could happen to me somehow – I could be the ‘bad guy’ potentially.”

And if it even could maybe happen to us – that we could maaaaaaybe misjudge a situation and become an “assaulter” of some kind. well, then perhaps our brains are a little bit like “maybe we need to invent a world in which nobody can be one. ‘Cause if no one can be one, we can’t either…”

I *think* that’s why some are so quick to dismiss assault because we’re afraid of a situation gone wrong – of trying to be fun, or adorable, or silly, or sexy, or carefree, or something and accidentally being abusive, somehow.

And I know it feels odd that abuse could be accidental. And it feels like “no, this should all be clear.” And for the most part, it probably should be clear. And it probably should be hard to accidentally cross the line.

But I know it’s a fear (as I’ve heard many people talk about it). I think people maybe give empathy to the perpetrator, because people want someone to give empathy to them.

And I get that. I’ve done that(!) – given empathy where it’s maybe not really quite warranted. And that’s kind of kind, and human, of us to be empathetic…

And I understand the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” (even though sexual assault is so hard to prove) .

But my goodness, from the other side now, I understand in this visceral way how hard it is to hear people (especially your perpetrator) get the benefit of the doubt over, and over, and over (and over) again… especially when oftentimes I’m not given the benefit of the doubt at all. “Well, you must be exaggerating… lying… crazy” “Why would you be alone with a man?” etc., and the never-ending barrage of accusatory or ridiculous questions. So, it’s nice I guess that we want to be human and have empathy, but why do we often only have it toward the perpetrator? Can we not see ourselves in the victims? Are we that sure it couldn’t happen to us – that that would never be us? Or are we so afraid that someday it could be, that we must take this super strong stance that the victims must’ve done something wrong? Because if it’s their fault, and they made some fatal error that weeeeee would neeeeeever do, well, then maybe we’re safe…

And everything I’m saying is revolving around how we relate to the people in the situation. But should we maybe stop trying to have ourselves at the center of our thoughts and just think about the people involved? Does it matter if it could happen to us or not, if it happened to some other human? Can we just be empathetic, no matter how it relates to us?

I’m tangenting (shocking, I know), but back to my original point… When I’m saying that potentially we go pretty easy on most perpetrators, I’m not trying to say we lose empathy for people, or we bathe in skepticism…

I’m just saying I have no idea what the answers are… But this is a little hypothesis I thought I’d kinda just raise for discussion here.

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

…I think there are a number of reasons.

I’m not an expert in sexual assault. I’m not a doctor or someone who really knows what she’s talking about when it comes to this stuff… But I still have a slight hypothesis as to at least one reason people are so often empathetic with people accused of harassment or assault… And I think it’s maybe because we don’t want it to be us…

A somewhat fair number of stories of sexual assault seem to be told as a “night gone wrong.” Oftentimes, it’s even with people who know each other. And I think – especially as the conversation about assault gets louder and louder – that people are afraid they’re gonna kind of “accidentally” assault someone.

…And that’s a weird thing to think, right? That someone could even do that accidentally? But I have a number of friends – even guys I’ve slept with before, so I know(!) how kind and attentive they are in bed – who are either a) scared of “accidental” assault or b) have a “gray area” story, usually from when they were younger [and we didn’t talk about this stuff as much], and a girl potentially felt taken advantage of because maybe he didn’t realize how drunk she was, or maybe he didn’t realize how hard he was pushing if she was unsure…

I know so many people with one or two iffy stories in their past, and nobody wants to feel like they assaulted someone…

Even I can think of little things that make my kind of take a second take, as I’ve been delving oh so much about consent and the issues surrounding it…

2 examples below:

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I don’t get drunk very often… But one night, I was drunk. And I was out with friends, and we all were drunk. And on of my suuuuuper hot drunk friends (whom I’ve known for years) was like, “Make out with me!” And I was like reeeeeasonly sure-ish that we both were un-drunk enough that we still had our brains about us enough… But I didn’t really think to say, “Wait. Am I taking advantage of you? I know I’m drunk too, but still. Are we for sure the same level of drunk, and is it an acceptable level to make out with you?” I just said “OKAY” And we did. And it was really freaking fun.

And a group of us fell asleep at her house and in the morning, we both talked in the morning (soberly) about how fun the night and making out was.
So, everything seemed fine. But in a different universe, that night could’ve potentially maybe gone a different way.
That story doesn’t seem like a big deal, and thankfully in that instance it wasn’t. I’m just saying, I see. I see how a situation that doesn’t seem like a big deal could turn into one if the night goes another way.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I’ve also thought about how I used to wake up in the morning next to the dude I was so madly in love with, and be like, “Hiiiiii, would you like to have sex this morning, pretty, pretty, pretty please?” And sometimes he’d be a little sleepy or grumpy-ish or whatever… But I always kind of thought we were playing a game in which I was the super cheerful one like, “What if you had sex with me just a tiny little bit? Like, what if you just gave me one orgasm, preeeeeetty please?” – kind of moving around and putting my face close to his face and all that…  And he’d be playing “grumpy morning guy” who was like “hmmmm… hmmm, and then YES!” and he’s grab me and it would be wonderful. To me, it was SO wonderful, and it was this fun morning routine.

I’m as certain as one can be that’s how it was for him too. Because he’s joked about those mornings with me, and how much he loved it. He’s said how ‘mornings aren’t the same without it’… He ‘misses those days “when the biggest eyes in the universe would be starting him in the face,”‘ and all that. So, considering he doesn’t bring up any issue with it (and has only ever talked about how much he loved it, and misses it), I really do think it is a “fun game” (as opposed to coercion). But I think you can see how between two other people, in another world, it might not be this “cute morning routine/game.”

And I guess that’s one of the most important things – the nuance of it all. Because all the little things do matter. And a lot of nuance does get lost in this world. So, if people hear something that sounds even a liiiittle too similar to something that happened to them, they get a little defensive and freak-out-ery potentially.

Like, in the example above, if one partner doesn’t feel fully free to tell the other “hey, but for real, I need to sleep longer”… If the same words and body language are done – but the second partner felt super pressured or coerced or threatened – it’d no longer be an adorable game between people who loved each other. You know what I’m saying? [Probably. I feel like I’m always an over-explainer when I talk about this stuff. Aye, aye, aye. Anyway –

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I know it’s sort of like, “Well, all things would be different if the details were different.” And that’s true… I dunno… I just – we all want to think we’re good people (I think? Or at least most of us do.)

And I’ll finish this up tomorrow.

Picking up from yesterday –

That doesn’t mean I won’t ever deal with PTSD again, or that I won’t be in therapy, or that I won’t ever, ever, ever have any more thoughts on sexual assault or abuse or anything like that (that I’ll share). But I won’t want to talk about it often, and in my daily life.

But aaaanyway, anyone who’s reading this blog has come into my space. You’ve come to my blog address, or you’ve subscribed. You’re here to read about what I have to say. And even still, even knowing for some reason (it’s so nice of you, thank you), you’re here for my thoughts, and even knowing some of those thoughts on this issue might actually be helpful somehow to some people – that I might say something someone identifies with and might be helpful to them, I’m still sometimes think, “How dare I talk about all this stuff? I’m just excusing myself for going through a hard time.”

But I’m not. I’m grappling with the ways my own behavior has affected my relationships and life. I am taking responsibility for the things I do that are my fault. And at the same time (while trying to take responsibility for how I interact with the world while trying to cope with/learn to manage PTSD), I can also be very sad about ways I’m affected by things that have happened to me…

Brains are so complicated. And while we are resilient creatures, that doesn’t mean we’re incapable of becoming hurt. And I just feel like so often we put this insane, impossible pressure on ourselves to have “no excuses! No excuses ever!” that we sometimes don’t get to actually even get to the root of a problem – to try to actually fix it from where it stems, because we’re too busy covering it up and looking away, since how dare we be affected by something?

I think we’re allowed to not “have excuses,” – to not think we can do whatever we want with zero consequences – while still having issues and problems and things worth looking at, talking about, and working on.

(I don’t know if that even makes any sense. But that’s kind of what’s rolling along in my head today.)

[This is from the sexual assault series.]

Picking up from yesterday –

So, sometimes you just have to do your best, and do the hard work at home and in therapy (if you choose to go to therapy), because the goal is that you do the work to the point where whatever you are dealing with – you do reroute your neurons (or however that works, I’m not a doctor), and you do learn techniques so no one knows about your tragic past(TM (trademark – not my trademark, it’s an internet thing… never mind), unless you decide to tell them… So, it’s not just like [*sharp look/zoom in*] oooh, yeah, that person is damaged fo’ sho.

I feel like I’m having a hard time getting across what I want to say. But basically, I just feel like so often anytime we want to talk about what’s going on (even if we just wanna talk to ourselves!), we shut it down with “no excuses, no excuses to be “bad” or “weak” or mess up, or whatever…. I’m strong. I’m fine,” as if needing to work something out is somehow not being “strong.”

I also feel like sometimes we shut ourselves down with something like, “So and so had it worse! If I didn’t grow up in a war town country then I don’t deserve to talk about my [whatever].”

For the most part, this blog is filled with patient readers who (even in the midst of my gajillion posts on this stuff) thankfully aren’t really yelling me at me to just shut up already, or anything. And yet, oftentimes when I post, I think, “I need to just suck it up already. This is so lame with my ‘excuses’ of why it’s all affecting me so much, or how I got to be who I am, etc.”

And yes, to some extent, I will have to “suck it up,” to some extent, at some point. I want to – in the not tooooo too terribly distant future – kind of end this specific life chapter on the blog (hopefully). I want to move on, and talk about other things, and do other things.

One of the things I’ve sort of struggled with a bit in therapy is that if my therapist is being calm and empathetic and understanding, when trying to explain to me how neurons are wired differently growing up as a survivor of abuse – how the way I grew up informs things (even in the now) that I didn’t even realize, a lot of times, I’m quick to think, “No excuses!”

As in – we’re grown ups, so we all have to just magically burst through whatever happened to us in childhood and “be better” now – just poof, just like that.

And I’m not saying we should excuse behavior. It shouldn’t be like, “Oh, it’s totally cool that that person’s a jerk because [whatever personal tragedy befell them].”

But I do think it’s okay to say like, “Man, I have really noticed myself snapping at people [or some other behavior I don’t like]. I should bring that in, and talk about it” – and then really talk about it.

Of course, there are times and places for self-reflections. Sometimes you just gotta live out in the world as best you can. Sometimes, in the last year and a half, if I’ve been overly-anxious in a situation with a lot of people after having PTSD from being sexually assaulted, I’ve felt that I came off a little rude to this or that person, as I just sort of kept my head down and got quiet.

And sometimes I’ve thought, “I wish they knew I was trying my best, or that I’m dealing with this or that, or that it took really a lot of work just to come outside today… I wish they knew that I’m not super actively trying to avoid all people at all times forever and always. I just, today, sadly, can’t handle any more than this.”

But you can’t put that all on a t-shirt, and you can’t really tell all that to some random stranger that you thought you were maybe slightly rude to in a short interaction.

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

• 3) “How Are You Feeling/Dealing With This?” (etc.) is the question that comes first, full stop.
  
  Or, at least, that’s what I think, in my opinion. That’s what felt best.I never knew how much I wanted someone to ask this, until someone did.I haven’t been super shy about the details. I’ve blogged many of them for the world to see. It’s not like it’s top secret.

  So, it’s fine when someone asks me about them. I’ve answered the questions (publicly and privately) of if I went to the police (yes), if I went to a lawyer (yes), if I went back to school (yes, finally (eventually)), what was I wearing? (a black dress I loved), had I been drinking? (no).

  So, I don’t necessarily mind answering all those questions that come up. And especially at the beginning, when I was still processing everything, I even wanted to walk through the details sometimes (like I thought that would help for some reason).

  But of all the many times that I have told someone in a one-on-one conversation what was happening/what happened in my life (and why I was struggling at that moment), one that really stuck out to me was the person whose first question was, “How are you doing? Are you okay?” in a sea of people asking, “Did you report him? What exactly happened?” and on and on.

  (Just because I’m comfortable sharing my details doesn’t mean everyone is. And even of those who are, not everyone wants to share them/relive them at a moment’s notice.)

  I mean, it’s awesome that people want to take an interest in what happened to me. It’s awesome that they want me to get “justice,” and for him to see consequences. But it was so much more awesome, under the weight of a million questions that I’d been dealing with, to have someone ask about me. Yes, the perpetrator should get the shame, but the survivor should get the support. And that felt very supportive and nice. So, my best advice would be to ask about the survivor – how are they doing? What do they need?

Thanks for reading!

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

• 2) Know when you don’t know the answers.I had one friend who, when he felt the thing I mentioned above, the “I’ve known you for so long, but never seen you act quite like this over anything, no matter how upsetting” (and of course, he’d seen me pretty upset before), he didn’t get frustrated with me or huff and puff and leave. He sat me down and asked if we could really talk about it.
  I ended in so many tears I could hardly speak. And he was no more equipped than to listen.  He was kind and a good listener. But once he knew I’d been assaulted – (And here’s a side note, I didn’t even use the the words “assault” or “rape” or anything like that with him. I just explained in detail what happened and he was like “okay, that’s sexual assault. Anyway…) He didn’t know precisely what to do or how to support someone with who’d been through this. This was a new frontier for him as well as me.So, he encouraged me to call the RAINN hotline, which I did, which got the ball rolling toward therapy and me getting better and everything.He knew something was really wrong. He knew enough to ask. And he knew enough to send me to somewhere else for answers, because he knew he didn’t have them.

  Those were all the right things to do.And I don’t know that I would’ve known enough to do those things. I say that I really wish more people would’ve been like that for me. But I kind of imagine if a great friend of mine seemed really edgy or something, I’m not positive that my first impulse would be “they really need help.”I could totally imagine thinking, “she seems off, but if something were really wrong, she’d tell me.” Or, “she can take care of herself. I’m not her parent. I don’t want to overstep bounds. She’ll ask if she needs help,” or “okay, give her some space. You know this person. You know she’s a reasonable adult. If something’s bothering her this much, maybe don’t freakout and smother her. Just kind of keep a quiet eye on the situation. Give her space and proceed cautiously,” or any other number of things that results in me not being actually helpful.

  And I might be good intentioned at heart – as I’m nearly certain probably every one of my friends were. But the friend who saw something was off and asked to talk about it, and set me on the path toward help… He’s the one I remember the most as being the most helpful. Where would I be without him? I dunno. Help. Be helpful. Think to help. Never hurts to ask.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

Stories of good friendship:

Some people got it so right – which is how I know it can be done. So, here are some stories of my friends who got it right

• 1) Stand firm in your position. For me, I was making a billion excuses for my rapist all the time. “Maybe he didn’t mean to.” (Even after he point-blank told me he meant it, I still questioned that!) “But everyone says he’s such a good guy,” etc.So, when I would sort of re-litigate all that with my friends, it was the ones who stood really firm in their position that “it was sexual assault, he overstepped your clear boundaries” who were the most helpful.Now, that’s a tough thing to do, right? Stand really firm in your position while also listening to your friend.

  They never shut me down. They never were like, “stop thinking this or that, or saying this or that! That’s dumb!” No. They’d usually soften it with some kind of joke. [*super sarcastically*] Oh sure, the man who just completely ignores you when you’re crying and climbs on top of you when you ask not to be touched, and laughs at you when you say you’re uncomfortable, and tells you that you’re obviously not uncomfortable (when the words just came out of your mouth) [etc. etc.] that definitely sounds like a super normal sexual experience to me.

  That exact thing must’ve happened to you a million times before, since that’s what normal sex is, right? Everybody cries during sex, right? Just like he says?” (I mean, I don’t think I do that sarcasm bit as well as my friends did. But it was the one example of sarcasm (which I so often hate) that I always welcomed haha.)

  I love the friends who wanted to listen to me, wanted to hear me out, wanted to give me space of being able to explore “huh, maybe he didn’t really understand.” Of course it’s sweet to have listeners. But you cannot go on that journey with me. You can watch me do it, but you have to stay FIRM on your own ground, no matter what journey I’m going on. I’m already undercutting myself all the time. So, I need you to not help me in hurting myself – to not jump on any little piece I pick out of “but he seemed like a good guy!”

  Sure, yes. He seemed like one. But it’s not our job to take a tiny kernel of niceness and extrapolate it to cover up all the bad things he did. And I need you to stand firm.

  [Random side note: It was usually (not always, but usually) my male friends who were the super-stand-firmers and my female friends who’d go down the “weeeeeeeeell, maybe he’s not bad. Maybe he was just confused” rabbit hole with me. I have no idea what that means. Just a weird observation.]

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

I’ll admit, I don’t think that I would’ve really known how to be a good friend to someone going through this stuff. I think I would’ve fallen into doing a number of the things my friends did. So, I am not above them. I don’t know what I’m doing… But I think potentially there are maybe some lessons here. So, I’m gonna talk about how I feel about various things that happened with my friends over this past year and a half.

[I do first just want to acknowledge and say thanks to everyone who’s done their absolute best, especially when I’ve bene such a mess.]

I love my friends. I think they always have the best intentions at heart… But there were some things that were hard for me:

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Attitudes that were hard to deal with:

[1 & 2 have sort of been covered on the blog before, in case you want to skip to number 3.]

• 1) “Yeah. Well, you know how men are.”(Or any such version of that sentence.) I’ve talked about this before. So, I’ll try not to drill this point into the ground. But, please. I don’t want to hear any version (from men or women) about how “men are just abusive” (even if those aren’t the exact words you use). That’s hurtful. Not just to me, but also to great men (whom we should expect more of than that).
• 2) “One of these days another women is going to come along, and she’s gonna know how to deal with them/What these men need is good women to shape them up.” I’ve also talked about this before. But I’m mentioning again, because it really hurt and felt really pretty harmful. I really never want to hear another woman be blamed for her own abuse/mistreatment. It’s not about a “good woman” changing an abusive man.The culture needs to shift. The abusive man needs to shift. I’m sure the woman is not a perfect person, and has things she needs to work on – but trying to figure out how to magically make a man not abusive toward her is not one of them. (p.s. random thought/side note – in the small sample size of my life, I basically only heard that thought from (mainly) New Yorkers (or, I guess maybe a coupe of midwesterners). Never from people in Southern California.So, I don’t know if parts of America have different views on what relationships are, or how men treat women, or what. But in SoCal – or at least in my circles – we didn’t expect the men to be like that, and nobody even insinuated that if only I’d “put him in his place,” or “put my foot down,” or “reigned him in” or whatever that he would’ve stopped abusing me.)
• 3) This is one I don’t think I’ve talked about a whole lot. But one thing that felt really really hard was the frustration my friends would express along the lines of “You’re Aurora! You’re not gonna just melt down because of a guy! That’s not you! Stop it. Why are you being like this?! I’ve known you for [some people can fill in this blank in with a long time, like even a decade for some]. And I’ve never seen you act like this! Get over it! Snap out of it!”And it’s like, “Okay, if this is the first time you’ve seen my act like this in a decade, then maybe instead of being annoyed, take that to mean something is really (really!) wrong, and let’s figure out what to do about that. If you need a break from me, okay. But telling me how frustrated you are isn’t helping. Don’t you understand I’m frustrated too, and that if I could “snap out of it,” I would? (This one feels like maybe the hardest one to deal with, for me (though they all were).)

My old titles I was considering: How Do We *Really* Learn About This Stuff? / How Do We *Really* Listen To Women?

I think those maybe might sound like dumb questions…
And they maybe, might be dumb questions, I dunno…

Here’s what I’m trying to say… Through therapy, books, twitter, conversations, etc., I have learned a lot about misconceptions about domestic violence, and super-duper internalized misogyny throughout America. I’ve learned about “rape culture,” and how prevalent and institutionalized and ingrained it is. I’ve learned so much.

And now I feel like I understand all these “feminist” words that are being used… I feel like some of these ideas (such as ‘rape culture’) are real, and important to talk about and understand.

And now that I’m sort of “in this world,” I feel happy to have a language with which to talk about this stuff. And I also feel like it makes talking about this stuff easier when certain concepts start to have names.

But.

I used to kind of tune out a little when I heard “patriarchy” or “rape culture,” etc. And if I – a somewhat progressive-ish, at least feminist-ish woman thinks, “Oh my. Let’s all settle down,” imagine how some other people are feeling about those words. I know plenty of men who tune them out.

But now they’ve become sort of part of my lexicon.

So, I don’t know. I think it’s important to use language that’s seemingly accessible to all, and not really intimidating. So, I try to be careful-ish about not overusing those words (though I think sometimes I do – whoops).

But I also wish we could talk about them in a way that made the conversation easier once we all got on the same page about overall concepts.

Anyway, I have no answers. But I do think some of this “feminist language” is both helpful and almost not-helpful at the same time, depending on the audience. And it’s just something I think about…

[This is part of the sexual assault series.]

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

So… okay. You’re a friend who wants to help. And if you can’t tell the person to put their foot down, what do you do? You obviously care. You don’t want your friend to be in an abusive relationship. So you’re like, “change it! Get out! Do this! Do that!” …Because you want to help.

It’s not coming from a place of maliciousness.

…I’ve read a few books now about abusive relationships. And some of the advice that I’ve seen is that if you’re sort of almost commanding her, “leave that man,” then it’s easy for you to almost sound like him… You’re not being abusive or anything. You’re not him. But, as far as how it makes the abused woman feel – it’s another person trying to order her around. So, maybe don’t do that.

I don’t really know the answers for how to get your friend out of an abusive relationship. But I do know that having friends get angry with you for “not being the strong, smart woman they know you are,” and “allowing this to happen to you” when you got in over your head and don’t know what to do – it doesn’t feel exceptionally helpful.

I know (or at least believe) it comes from a place of love. And I try to accept it as such. But I was doing enough yelling at myself. And he was definitely doing enough yelling at me. So, I didn’t need another chorus of yellers.

There’s a chapter toward the end of Lundy Bancroft’s, “Why Does He Do That?” that helps explain this better than I can – how to be a good support person if you have a friend in an abusive relationship. So, I guess go read that, maybe? [Seriously, it is a good book.]

In conclusion, whatever tactics you take… shifting the blame to telling the woman that she’s responsible for her treatment because she hasn’t “tamed him,” or “put her foot down,” or whatever enough seems like not the best take. (And it’s one I hear I surprising amount.)

[This is part of the sexual assault series.]

I feel a little weird making a strong statement like that, that to some degree, is based on my opinion and personal experience (as opposed to being real fact).

But also, I’m gonna go ahead and declare “just put your foot down” is terrible advice for people in an abusive relationship.

It’s just not that simple.

For instance, with me and sexual assault guy, I “put my foot down.”

When he talked to me like no one should ever talk to another human being during a fight about basically nothing, I let him know I was very upset, and was not happy to spend time with him, etc.

And he laaaaaid on the charm. He took me to a sort of nice restaurant. He apologized so hard. He just kept saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He was a perfect gentleman. And do you know what happened later that week? He sexually assaulted me.

Of every abusive relationship I’ve ever known [granted, they’re usually done in quiet, so I can’t say I’ve been familiar with a ton, but of the ones I have been], very few times over the course of a pretty long time has the abused person ever felt comfortable “putting their foot down.” And each time they did, things got amazingly better for a little bit – and then they got 10x worse quickly after.

An abusive person, sure, will maybe get a little “better” to keep you [if you’re ‘lucky’, and putting your foot down doesn’t put them in a rage-filled tailspin]. But assuming they get better for a hot sec – then they get worse to re-establish dominance.

You don’t get to have power. That’s not how abusive relationships work. So, if they feel they give some power up to you, they will take it back (usually even harder than they did before). “Putting your foot down” to an abusive person is terrible advice because in most cases, it will ultimately make you less safe, more in trouble, more scared, and get you deeper in your situation.

I used to think it must be my fault that people would say things like that to me – I must not be using the correct words, trying to minimize too much and such. But after I tried to get ahold of the language, and really explain (as best I could) that this guy was abusive, and threatening, and scary and a serial sexual assaulter (among other things), etc… I still got it sometimes. “Oh, it’s just gonna take the right woman, and he’ll shape up.”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It should’t be any of our jobs to “fix” an abusive man. We are not responsible for our own mistreatment. We don’t hold a secret to making someone not abusive.

(And if there’s a way to stop that weird narrative sometime in my lifetime, it would be really pretty dope.)

And I’ll pick up with a related thought here tomorrow.

I’m about to finish (maybe?) what I think is probably the end of this whole saga(?). And before I do, I wanted to hit on any last questions…

I think we’ve (hopefully) covered basically everything. But one of the last questions I never got around to was – how did I learn to sleep again?

[spoiler alert: *dramatically bangs head on the table, because uuuuugh gross it’s about love/intimacy/bah blah blah blah uuuugh. So, feel free to skip this one if you want.]

I hadn’t been sleeping basically at all. I was up almost every hour for a while anytime I ever tried to sleep – getting exceptionally interrupted sleep, any night when I ever was lucky enough to sleep at all. Thank goodness for the couch in my office, because I’d always need to nap during the day. ‘Cause I was just never sleeping at home…

It’s weird to say, “I was so lucky” to start a sentence when it has to do with my sexual assault saga. But, the one part of it that I was indeed so lucky about was that the man I was so (so) deeply in love with still existed in this place that was kinda this whole other world… (California).

I know I have some mixed feelings on having gone back to California so much. But one thing I loved about all the trips was getting to see California guy. Everything seemed a little more possible with him – including sleep – a billion times more possible in his arms.

So, as we fell asleep, I traced his chest with my finger. I paid so much attention to every millimeter of it. I’m sure I could describe it in great, perfect detail to a professional sketch artist – which is more than I can say for most faces, tbh.

I put my hand on his chest as he held me to sleep. And I made sure to concentrate on that feeling so much. I wanted to take it back to New York with me.

I know it was both hard to concentrate, and hard to feel at that time. So I just kept focusing, kept tracing, kept looking, until I fell asleep…. Because while I couldn’t sleep anywhere else, I couldn’t not sleep when I was in his arms.

And so, when I was in my bed, alone, and I couldn’t sleep, I would put my hand just in the air right next to me and pretend to trace his chest, and my shoulders would fall like 4 inches. I’d be totally unaware of how much tension I was holding in them until they’d lower so much, and it’d be like “whoa.”

And then I’d lay my hand on the bed next to me – as though I was laying it on California guy’s chest. And I’d fall asleep thinking of him holding me. (I don’t even usually like to be held! …But by him I do.)

And that’s how I slept.

Different people have different tricks. You’ve read them in 1,000 google articles. I tried a number of them. And I’m sorry that my ‘trick’ is something that’s not easy to replicate. But after I was assaulted, I wanted to know how people did everything – how did they sleep? How did they have sex? How did they function? Was anything ever normal again? I had a million questions.

So, for the people asking those questions now, I thought I owed a little answer – even if (I’m sorry), it’s not an exceptionally helpful one.

[This is part of the sexual assault series.]

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

Sometimes I even mentioned something slight, as the tiiiiiniest signal for help, in the world. But it’d be lumped in with just some normal stuff, and would’ve been so hard for anyone to pick up on… And even though I’m a grown adult who speaks the language of the people I was with – I couldn’t bring myself to just talk in real terms of what was really happening.

So, some people close to me noticed some weird-ness, but didn’t know what to do with it. Some people not close to me perhaps didn’t notice any. I don’t know that I noticed an external difference between my instagram post where I was desperately trying to be happy vs. the ones where I actually am.

I didn’t get help until one of my closest friends who’s known me for a while sat me down, and was just like, “Seriously, Aurora, what is going on? This is not the you I know. There is something – some part of something I am missing.” And he kept asking questions until he got to the root of the issue, and he convinced me to call a helpline. And he showed a lot of patience. And he was a giant fulcrum of help.

But how do we know? (How would we know to be him in this situation?) How do we know when something is really wrong vs. when someone is just a little off?

I don’t know the answer. I just know that it is surreal to remember how hard I was trying to keep it all together when all of this happened, and how hard I was trying to paint this facade of okay-ness. (And how only one person noticed enough/did enough/(or maybe felt comfortable enough) to make sure I got on the path of getting the help I needed. Not that I blame anyone else, as I said, I was trying to keep the facade! …Which is maybe silly anyway. I probably shouldn’t have tried so hard for too long to keep it together… I dunno.)

And, so, for a while, it seems like my facade worked (at least kind of)! I could see a scenario where people could keep it up better than me, and for longer… So, how do we know when they’re in trouble?

[I don’t have an answer, it’s case that’s unclear. I’m kind of just postulating, and opening a conversation, if anyone would like to comment or contact me, etc. Sorry, and thanks!]

[This is a post from the sexual assault series.]

As I reflect back on the past year and a half or so, I think about the various stages I went through. And I think about the beginning stages of being desperate for everything to “be okay.”

I think of how much work I put in to trying not only to appear happy in front of other people, but also to force myself to ‘be happy’ too.

I would be crying myself to sleep every night, but I would be making lists during the day of reasons to be thankful, to remind myself, “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. My life is actually good. It’s cool. It’s good. My life is good. I have a good life.”

I tried not only to remind myself of this, but also to do it publicly. I made this instagram post in March in about how wildly happy I was – but I did it through tears. “I’m happy. I’m happy. I’m happy. I’m happy. I’m happy,” I told myself (and to some extent, the world) – even as I was wildly unhappy.

Even when we talk about my individual one-on-one interactions with people, a lot of time, I wasn’t giving the full story.

A lot of people afterward told me something felt “off,” but they didn’t know what.

I talked to some of my friends about how much I was affected by this guy refusing to speak to me. [He punished me with 30 days of silence following the second assault]… But I didn’t tell them issues surrounding it, or that he’d assaulted me.

Everyone understands that it would be frustrating to have someone you talk to multiple times a day, all of a sudden, not be talking to you anymore. Everyone understands the idea that you wouldn’t want someone to be so angry with you, that they refuse to talk to you. Everyone also understands that I, specifically, as Aurora, can take it kind of hard if I’ve really upset someone (and it might bother me more than an average person).

But no one could understand the level of distracted-ness and despair I was feeling. “Okay, so you made somebody angry somehow. You didn’t harm him. I’m sure he’ll talk to you. It’s really not that big of a deal if a boy’s not talking to you for a while, Aurora.”

Because, with the information they had, it wasn’t that big of a deal! They didn’t know what was really going on. They didn’t know the horror that had happened the last time I’d been with him, or that I was crying myself to sleep every night (thinking/hoping a resolution with him would help – therefore being pretty desperate for him to talk to me again).

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

Kind of picking up with the idea from my last post [but don’t worry, it’s a new thought in case you didn’t read that one] –

Not only do all these definitions of words I’ve known for basically all my life not have to change based on one outlier. I also don’t have to change all my behavior based on him either.

I think I may have talked about this in some previous posts… But there are totally innocuous things that scare me more than they used to.

For instance, I am sometimes weirdly afraid of being nice. One of the (multiple) reasons for that is because I didn’t realize I was in like a death match for power or something. I thought I could just be nice to someone in my life I cared about.

But if I dared say something nice, or do something nice, it’s like we were in a broken video game. Instead of everyone’s power supply getting bigger (because I feel good for… e.g. getting a sick person snacks, and then he feels good for being thought of) and everybody wins – his green bar of power gets stronger and stronger, and for some reason, mine depletes.

He would use those instances I was nice as “examples” or “evidence” when he’d start telling me how I “chased him, because I’ve never chased a woman in my life. I’ve never had to. It was yooooooou who wanted me. [muaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha]” He would always be trying to exert power over me from innocuous ways to dangerous ways.

And it wasn’t just that. Sometimes he’d make me feel bad for things I shouldn’t feel bad about. If I’d be a little polite or nice, he’d get on me… “why would you say thanks for breakfast? Your croissant was $3.” And he’d roll his eyes and get almost annoyed that I even so much as said thank you.

And it wouldn’t just be a statement. He’d want me to explain why I’d dare say thanks for a “cheap” thing or whatever.

What? I said “thanks for breakfast,” and now it feels like I’m testifying in a court of law because it wasn’t a “nice” enough breakfast to say thanks for?

It. was. all. exhausting.

And/or I’d be made fun of for being nice. At first, it was seemingly fun teasing, but like everything else with him, it eventually turned into just teeeeearing me down. I could not do anything right – and that included being “too nice” to people in the world around us.

AND niceness is sort of what got me in trouble in the first place. I ignored so many red flags. I wanted to “see the good.” If he did something mean to me, I’d try to figure out what I could do to be even nicer… “If I’m just nicer he’ll be nicer to me.”

(And I know that’s the scared behavior of someone who’s been abused more so than it is just “niceness.”) But still. Niceness has almost become scary in some weird ways.

And we’ll pick up here tomorrow!

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

…And if I’m worried about his voice specifically as the ghost on my shoulder trying to normalize what he did – he would always try to normalize what he did. It doesn’t matter what I write or say or do. He would always argue that he’s super respectful toward women. (I lived through that conversation a billion times, no matter which way I went about it.)

And I can’t be having that argument with a freaking ‘ghost’! (Why would you argue with a piece of your own brain being taken up by this dude?)

And even if I did argue with that ghost (’cause I have!), I have to know that that ghost is gonna argue the same thing no matter what (even if I were to never watch, nor ever write, nor ever enjoy anything again)… His manipulative thing always stays what it is…  I can’t change my behavior and my brain to accommodate a stubborn ghost! (I really shouldn’t be arguing with him in the first place, tbh.)

Basically, the definitions of things don’t have to change. I don’t have to jump, or have an internal gasp, at the words “miscommunication,” “man,” “dating,” “sex,” “sleep,” “breakfast,” “spending the night,” etcetera for many other words/phrases/ideas – all that.

I’m not constantly defending myself anymore. (Or, at least, I shouldn’t be.) I’m not always talking about what happened to me. Sometimes I’m just living outside of all that… I can just have a conversation about those normal things, (…period). I had put a comma there, like I needed to say something else, or add a qualifier. But I don’t think I need one? I can just have a conversation about normal things.

I sorta only just realized at the end of this post how silly all this sounds. Because that all seems pretty clear, right? Like it could be one of those this-goes-without-saying things that I’m still allowed to write and laugh and live, and that doesn’t have to do with someone harmful no longer in my life… I suppose maybe I just needed to be reminded. So, thanks for coming on the ride to help me try to figure that out.

[This is part of the sexual assault series]

Picking up from yesterday –

Even my hero (Michael Jackson), whom I look up to in large part for him using his platform to sing about a ton of different issues/stories/interesting things – Brilliant Michael Jackson, who had songs from Heal the World to Black or White, to Jam, to Little Susie, to Tabloid Junkie, to Scream, to Earth Song, and soooooo many more… Even he still had In The Closet, Remember the Time, You Rock My World, The Way You Make Feel, She’s Out Of My Life, and plenty of other songs about romance and/or sex and dating and blah blah blah.

Relationships and all that jazz is part of life! And it feels nearly impossible to avoid talking about that stuff completely, especially if you wanna write and perform things (like I do). Heck, even as an editor, I’ve had to have a million conversations about sex and/or relationships in various jobs in which I’ve edited things that have to do with all that stuff (and people’s opinions and personal experiences start to come out in your office, when you’re all discussing how something should play, or how it should look)…

You might be able to write you own stuff without sex/relationships in it (if you’re writing all by yourself), but when you’re part of someone else’s show, you’re part of it. And relationships usually creep in, in one way or another.
They’re. part. of. life….

But all that has nothing to do with me and sexual assault guy. And if I write a normal non-abusive guy/girl couple, or if I talk about silly dating stories at a bar, or if I write a sketch about a “funny” miscommunication (or if I still laugh at that Key and Peele sketch)… that all has nothing to do with him either.

[Basically, some miscommunications, sometimes existing in the world, doesn’t mean that sexual assault guy so often using “miscommunication” as an excuse to hurt me all of a sudden becomes valid….]

And we’ll pick up here tomorrow!

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

But one thing I feel like I have to keep in mind is not. every. single. thing. I ever do/say/write about/talk about from this point in my life forward is a commentary about abuse, or assault, or my abusive relationship with sexual assault guy. I’ve gone through a lot of trauma therapy with the hope that this all won’t define me as a person, and I don’t expect it to define me as a writer either.

So, I think I will generally stay true to how I’ve always been – which is that I will probably, for the most part, not reeeeally talk a looot about romantic relationships, a ton, in public. (Although I guess you never know…) But, at least for now, those weren’t things I tried to talk about publicly, or focus my work on before. So, I don’t super anticipate that changing…

BUT. Just because it’s never been a full-on focus of my work, that doesn’t mean I will never write about a romantic relationship. I have before! I sometimes still do, and I probably will in the future.

Sometimes I just want to do a sketch. Or a love song. Or a little love story. Or whatever. And I’m not going to throw out everything I’ve ever written, and cut off possibilities for anything I ever could write just because I think someone might try to compare my abusive relationship to whatever silly future story I write.

[And sometimes, I just wanna watch a sketch, or listen to a love song, or enjoy a movie… And I’m not gonna take those opportunities away from myself either. I can watch a silly relationship, I can watch adjacent things happen, I can enjoy that Key & Peele sketch about miscommunication – and so many other sketches and sitcoms and stuff, without any of it having to be about him, and/or without my feelings about the stuff I’m watching having anything to do with him or what he did to me.]

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.

Picking up from yesterday (and still somehow trying to make sense, but who knows if any of this ever will) –

I feel like there are some things I used to laugh about, that over the past year and half-ish started to seem a little unfunny to me – a specific one I can think of is “miscommunications.” Those can be reeeeally funny. (Three’s Company ran for 8 years and 174 episodes, after all!)

And I’ve laughed a seemingly uncountable number of times at this Key and Peele sketch. (Has that or has that not happened to all of us?)

I even wrote one of my audition songs for BMI about miscommunication! I obviously thought it was funny enough to write about then! (And I got in! So, they obviously thought it was funny enough to accept me.)

But in the last year and a half or so, to some extent, I’ve pretty much been avoiding nearly any subject that even sort of tangentially has to do with sexual assault guy….

For one thing, I dunno, everything feels like it’s just one half step away from getting so out of hand, or dangerous. I saw how fast “little miscommunications” turned into this abusive rabbit hole… Although, it doesn’t have to be that way… It shouldn’t be, and it’s very possible – even normal – to not be that way…. (That’s something I have to remind myself of over and over…(and over).) So… let’s hope that most likely it won’t always be that way in the future.

For another thing, I guess there’s a slight part of me that worries that someday I’m gonna write some sketch, some story, some song, some something that has to do with some “silly” relationship issue, and it’s gonna very teenily resemble something that happened between me and sexual assault guy, and then somebody will say something like, “ah, so that wasn’t a big deal after all.” Or he himself, will poof, pop his head right around some magical corner and say, “See?! You wrote a sketch about [miscommunication, or someone mansplaining, or someone who doesn’t listen, or any of the other sort of, kiiiiiind of-iiiiiish adjacent behaviors to the abuse he inflicted.]. Guess now that we can laugh about it in a [story/script/song] it’s all totally 100% normal. See? I’m great and not ‘abusive’ – what a mean word, Aurora. And everything was all fine – it’s all fine!”

And we’ll pick up here tomorrow!

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

Anyway, back to the more breezy paragraph I was trying to do – “nuance” exists. And romance/dating is weird. I feel like I should be allowed to say that my “worst date story” is a time when… I dunno, maybe when my brand new dress ripped down the back, as I made too large of a leap up some stairs, [or something silly like that]…

I think I could say something silly and dumb, because when people ask those silly questions of “what was your best or worst this or that?” at game nights, or comedy nights, or on twitter, or whatever, it’s not a court of law where you’re under oath to give a very specific and literal answer of your “worst.”

They’re asking for just a funny story. I don’t have to be like, “oh, the time a dude was exceptionally controlling, and manipulative, and then raped me, and then literally laughed in my face when I talked to him about it later….”
That is technically, I would say, my “worst date,” but it’s not a funny game night story. That’s for therapy (or a serious night, or a conversation with a good friend, or a panel about assault, etc…).

I mean, maybe if you’re a specific type of amazing super smart comedian who can spin that into jokes, good on you! I guess it could be for a silly night (since anything can be!), but I don’t think it has to be.

And I definitely have yet to figure out how to mine a ton jokes and hilarity from what happened… I wish I’d found that angle on it. I haven’t yet. I might not ever.

It might become less painful for me, but I don’t know that it will ever become “funny,” or some kind of “hilarious story.”

I’m not sure I’ll be able to find lots of pockets of humor in it… Some of my comedian friends have told hilarious jokes when we’ve talked about it… So, the humor is indeed in there somewhere. (I think humor is always in there somewhere.) But it might not be intrinsically in there for me (in a way that I could mine it, polish it, and present it)… Anyway…

Also, I feel like there are some things I used to laugh about, that started to seem a little unfunny to me over the past year and half or two years or so.

And this is what I’ll pick up with tomorrow.

The Definition Of Everything Doesn’t Have To Change.

And it doesn’t all have to be about me.
And it doesn’t all have to be about him.

(Wild concept, huh? That the whole world doesn’t revolve around me, and also, not every single thing for the rest of my life has to be about sexual assault guy.)

One of the things I’ve talked about kind of a lot here is how he’s not “just some asshole,” and this wasn’t just like, “normal dating pains.”

[Also, like most posts on this subject, I have only a very light grasp on what I’m trying to say. So, if I’m meandering too much, or not making sense. Feel free to just skip to tomorrow! :-)]

As you can probably tell from the 4 or so years of my blog before sexual assault guy, dating has not been my favorite subject to talk about, even semi-publicly… Just feels kinda private, and I dunno. It’s just not my thing to talk about… Usually. But. Whether or not dating is my favorite public subject, it still comes up sometimes organically… There are still twitter threads and stuff that are supposed to be funny, in which, for example, someone might ask about your most disastrous dating experience (and people chime in). Or, you know, sometimes you’re just having a conversation with someone (or a group of people), and dating (or things in that vein) comes up.

And I have now  become afraid/annoyed/a-something like, “Oh, well I can’t tell a ‘funny’ story anymore. Or, I can’t ever talk about a time where a guy was a little aloof or ‘didn’t listen’ or was sort of ‘manspain-y’ or whatever, because somehow it will undercut what happened to me.”

…Because so many people have wanted to throw sexual assault guy in with this whole idea that “well, guys don’t listen. That’s just kinda how it is is.” So, if I tell a story of a guy who doesn’t listen, am I just making their case that guys don’t listen?

But nuance exists. (And, just, side note, to me, it’s really not even that nuanced of a difference between “somebody kinda zoned out, or forgot my birthday, or whatever, vs someone who doesn’t hear you when you say no over and over as they push you down (etc. etc., we don’t need to get into it all here).

And we’ll pickup here tomorrow.

[Another post on recovery]

So, I’ve talked at length about dealing with PTSD… For instance, what it’s been like to live with, and how it’s felt like it’s eroded some of my relationships. And I’ve made some giant strides recently, which has been awesome.

But even in the midst of my giant strides, I still don’t go to everything possible. I still turn down certain get togethers, or what have you.

I still sometimes sit at home or sleep in rull good, because I’m just exhausted, or I’m not really feeling being around people.

And I have become so very sensitive to any behavior that isn’t “Aurora,” or that isn’t “normal.” If it reeks of sadness, or depression, or a trauma response, it feels like *sirens blaring* RED ALERT!. RED. A-LERT. Something’s wrong! You’re not healing well enough, or fast enough, or something enough. (Gaaaaaah!)

But like… As much as we all think/(know, hopefully?) that I’m this adventurous person wanting to soak up life and take the world by storm… I still am just a normal human being. I have stayed home before. I have been tired before. I have wanted to be alone sometimes before (not often at all, which is probably why it’s such a generally foreign feeling – but sometimes!). These aren’t utterly new things I’ve never ever experienced.

Normal human mortals have a range of feelings, and sometimes those feelings include exhaustion/sadness/just generally not feeling so hot.

So, I do still want to keep an eye on my behavior, and try not to become a complete and total hermit. But, at the same time, I don’t have to be “on” or whatever every single moment of every single day.

I want to get back into the normal range of this stuff – but it’s good to remember there is indeed a range to be in. Emotions aren’t just smashed up against the ceiling of constant energy/happiness/extraverted-ness the whole entire time of every single moment of every single day of your life.

(Basically – life’s an orchestral album, chock full o’ range, not a punk rock album after a potentially iffy mastering session… Did you like that music engineering analogy (joke (ish)?) at the end? No? Just me? Okay, cool, nbd. :-))

[This is part of the sexual assault series.]

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

It kind of feels like every time I’m going through something hard, I think there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, and I try to run to the end of it. And I get there! And I’m in the sunshine for what feels like a short amount of time, until, poof! Another tunnel falls on me! Am I ever gonna get to spend considerable time in the sun? Do I somehow bring these tunnels on myself?…)

Am I this tenacious person who will fight no matter what obstacles befall me, or do I crumble harder, or easier, or faster than some others would under obstacles? Did I not handle that year in and out of the hospital as well as some others might have? Did I not bounce back from being assaulted as well as some others might have? (Or even as well as I personally did when I was raped in college?).

Is there always gonna be some “setback,” some “excuse”? Do I just have weird random bad luck about some things, or am I somehow making things into bigger things than they are, or somehow bringing this bad luck on me? [I mean, it’d be pretty darn hard to blame me for a congenital heart defect. But we could try! haha]

So, I dunno. As per usual, I don’t really super know much of anything sometimes, it seems.

So, am I a triumphant Phoenix who’s always rising from the ashes? Or am I mess who falls into bad situations (her fault or the universe’s or both?) who can’t get her life together to save her life?

Maybe time will tell, and also whatever narrator ends up being the person who tells the story. Maybe it won’t even be told. After all, I’m just a little blogger right now… I have big dreams, but I might be basically unknown ’til the day I die. Anything is possible. I usually say that because I believe any dreams can come true, but that also, I suppose, means outcomes I don’t want are possible too. So, we’ll see!

Ah, confusing, complicated, convoluted, weird, interesting life.

[For more in the sexual assault series, you can go here. Thanks!]

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

We can use various [some random-ish] goalposts (that you’ve probably heard me say before).
1) got my Equity card as a teenager!
2) in 3/4 of my editing jobs, I’ve been the only woman on the team, and usually the youngest – most of the time by at least a decade and sometimes much more than that (not that that in itself is good, we need more women, but you know, defying the odds…).

And on and on we could list certain things (like, to my knowledge, being the youngest person to be accepted at the Juilliard summer program I did *hair flip* etc. etc. etc.). But even these things could be listed as failures, technically.

1) Sure, that’s cool to get your Equity card early, but how much have you been using it? When was the last time you were a paid actress? I am getting consistent-ish paid gigs to act or sing, but not as consistent as would be nice, and not as high-paying as would be nice. It’s absolutely not anywhere close to how I make my living right now. Which brings us to point 3…

2) Sure, you’re making a space for yourself in a space that doesn’t seem, in many places super welcoming toward (or at least inclusive of) women, and you’re doing it younger than most – even when compared to men. Amazing, right? But if you want to be a writer/performer as your real, real profession… Then, even if you do an “impressive” feat in another arm of the industry, what does that even mean? You’re not living your actual dream…

And we could go back and forth and all day… One thing I’ve really thought about when it comes to all this is how it felt like open-heart surgery was this giant setback. I talk a lot about how it felt I “lost time.”

I quit school. I gained weight. I had a lot of issues that stemmed from that. And I worked SO hard at putting my life back together. And then, when life was better than it ever had been before, things got harder than they ever had been when I was sexually assaulted. That was kinda of my new ‘open-heart surgery’ to get over.

(And even before that, as a kid, it was like I was trapped as this girl who was abused. And so it was like, “When I graduate high school, when I leave… things will be better”… And they were! It was a tough mountain to climb. But I thought I was climbing it… And then, boom! Open-heart surgery.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

I’ve been thinking about the different ways narratives affect things… I think about this sort of a lot – not just with sexual assault and abuse..

I thought about this before any of that happened… I maybe even have talked about it on this blog before?

If I haven’t, I’ve definitely drafted some things and I’ve talked about it in real-life to people. I think about the various times we’ve seen our heroes fail… And I’ve thought about what really marks a failure?

Even if we think about one of my favorites, Cory Booker… I feel like we could point to a bunch of various failures. He lost his first run for Mayor… But then, that documentary was nominated for an Oscar… But it did lose… But then he did become the Mayor next time, and even a Senator later…

He had some kind of fundraising page for a charity (I think for his birthday?) that didn’t hit the monetary goal… But he still raised a bunch of money for a good cause. He tried to make “waywire” a thing…and it did not become one. But. He did get a lot of people more interested and invested in politics (and maybe even technology and/or social media/sharing) along the way.

I would call Cory Booker a giant success. I adore him. I think he makes a net positive on the world (without making any negatives that would be so terrible, they’d outweigh the overall “net”). I think he’s inspiring. I think he succeeds more than he fails. I think he learns from failures. And I think most of the time when he does fail, it’s because he’s really trying something. He’s taking a giant swing at something.

And, as I’ve also said here before, I had a brilliant improv teacher once who said get As and Fs. Don’t get Cs. Take giant swings. Fail or succeed, but don’t just waste time hanging out in mediocrity.

But all this to say, I think that a potentially different narrative can be made no matter what the story. I think if you hated Cory Booker, you could put all the focus on times he’s failed. I think if you adore Donald Trump, you could try to paint him as this inspiring figure who became President against all odds, instead of an abusive awful grifter (which is still even some of the kindest wording you can use for such a terrible person).

And I think some objective truths sort of make the “correct” narrative a little more obvious for most people. But I do think the same base facts can be spun in different ways…

If we’re gonna be really nice and understanding to me, I’m a story of redemption! Had all that time in the hospital, but came out and accomplished a lot. Was abused by someone at my dream school, but came back and am somewhat killing the game.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

And then I went to JFK. That’s right – JFK. I used to get a lot of feelings there, as (even though I’ve flown into there a billion times by myself, and even with some other people) I couldn’t get sexual assault dude out of my head when I’d be there (as I’d flown with him there too).

But I was just hanging at JFK, no worries, walking freely. And then while on the plane (where I’m writing you from now), I saw something that reminded me of him. And for one brief moment, I was like, “Wait. Did we fly JetBlue? Or did we fly Virgin?” (I mean, I did quickly remember which one, but) I think the point is, all the details used to be so clear and SO present… So, the idea that I can forget those things – even if for a moment – is so great.

So, that’s a snapshot of my life.

My job is wonderful. School is great. My apartment is dope. Working out’s feeling good again. Friendships and relationships are re-strengthing. I (think?) I’m becoming a complete human again (still slowly in some ways, but I’m going in the right direction). And in many ways this is what I dreamed of the first time.

So, we’ll see where it goes from here. But goodness, we’ve spent a LOT of time in the depths of despair. And it feels good to be in the redemption. Mmmmm. Just wanna live in this day for a while. (And maybe I will!)

[This is from the sexual assault series.]

As you know if you’ve been reading my blog at all over the past year and change or so, it has been exceptionally hard time in my life. So hard. Oof, goodness.

[If you haven’t been reading about it, the whole sexual assault series is available here.]

It felt like a freaking avalanche – like nothing could go right. Everything was feeding into everything else. It wasn’t just the fact that I was crying at random times and couldn’t ever sleep. It was that having such an unstable mood and never sleeping, took a toll on my health and my relationships, and everything was falling apart.

It just felt like I was never gonna get better and things were never gonna get better.

And then you’ve seen some posts throughout the last few months when I reeeeeally started to get better – and we start to see a lot more of the good than the bad. (A lot more.)

I’m seeing it more than ever. And that felt really apparent today.

Thus far, I’m doing well in BMI. (I mean, time will tell for real.) But things are really good (at least as far as I can tell! haha). My song is already done and rehearsed for Monday, and I’m singing in my friend’s song on Monday as well. So, school’s going.

It’s reeeeally seeming (and I know it’s too early to tell), but, for now, it feels as though it’s seeming like I really was a talented person in a very tough position who’s doing well when she gets the real chance – as opposed to an untalented person just making excuses. So, that feels good.

I’ve talked about how on the TV show I worked on after The Nightly Show, I was crying in my office a lot and was very disconnected from everyone. But tonight, at this show I’m working on for VH1, I had a mini-dance party to Demi Lovato with one of our assistant editors before I left for the airport. I hang out in the break area. I have conversations with people. I’m still maybe not 100% back to normal-level, but I don’t generally just try to stay away from people as much as possible here (so that’s progress back toward “normal” me!).

For my lunch break today, I went to Pure Barre, as I did yesterday (and as I plan to do a lot). And I didn’t freak out and cry during class. (I used to cry during basically the entirety of some workout classes. I was crying all the time in general…)

But now I can go. I can focus. I can be tear-free. I can be in a room with other human beings, and not be overwhelmed. It’s all (generally) good… I’ve definitely lost some flexibility and some muscle definition (which are both bummers), but I can actively work on that now, which is more than I can say for before.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!

I just, like… I can’t go to Brooklyn.

I mean, I can and I did. But I don’t handle it well. I can’t even think of a time I’ve been to Brooklyn in the last year (since the last Rock ‘n’ Roll Brooklyn). I know it’s weird to have a whole borough out of my life. But that’s my life, at least for now, I guess…

I didn’t do well there. We drove by an area of Brooklyn in the morning uber that I did not realize we’d drive by, and I was like, “Ooh! I wanna get out!”

But, I couldn’t. I’d already signed up. I was basically already there. I had to get in some miles. I also was tapped to run Rock ‘n’ Roll’s snapchat for the event (which was super fun!). So, I had to go.

But I dropped down to the 5-miler, because I just was not in a good headspace for 13 miles. So, it was weird because every time I think, “Bam! I’m better!” it’s like, “WHOA. Maybe I’m not.”

I walked the 5 miler with this super nice woman from Florida. We talked the whole way, and it was all fine and lovely. Then, I did a bunch of snapchatting and then went home and slept.

And then cried. I was supposed to go to a friend’s show that night, and I didn’t. It was the first time in what feels like a long while that I cancelled on something because I wasn’t in a good headspace. So, it felt like a bummer, and like I “lost” the little daily war today. But I guess I just have to try to be better tomorrow.

Picking up from yesterday –

What if, what if, what if… So many of his behaviors seems so adjacent to normal behaviors (but different in very important ways)… But because they seem adjacent, what if any of us are teetering on the edge of being able to do these abusive awful things? What if we think we’re having healthy conversations, but we’re gaslighting? (I mean, I don’t think that’s how it works. But I’ve had a lot of time in my brain, and I’ve gotten a little afraid!)

I went through a phase during all this where at one point, I tried to contact any people I could with whom I’d felt there was any even sort of unresolved thing… Had I thought that maybe I made someone mildly uncomfortable one random day 6 years ago? They’re getting a call! Had I thought maybe I seemed distant during one conversation 3 years ago? They’re also getting one! You get a call. You get a call. Everybody gets a call!

I couldn’t find contact info for some people. From others, I did, but I never heard back. From anyone I did get get to talk to, it was easy talks of, “I don’t even remember that happening,” or “oh, that was so no big deal at all. Thanks for the apology and everything, but seriously. Nothing was wrong.”

(So, hopefully that’s a good sign, I suppose… I’m obviously over-worrying, seemingly for nothing, it seems/I hope.)

There’s still the possibility that something I don’t remember affected someone in a way I’m unaware of. There’s also the possibility that some of the people I do remember but couldn’t reach hold a deep grudge against me. (Maybe that’s part of why I couldn’t reach ’em! Who knows!)

That’s not to say I think I’ve done anything as awful as he has. (I don’t.)
(Then again, he also probably doesn’t think of anything he’s done as all that awful… So who knows anything, right?) I just… I dunno… My brain just runs away from me sometimes, nowadays, I think…)

Anyway, this was just another weird way in which my confidence eroded. On top of everything else, it’s like, “Not only am I afraid of him, needing to be safe from him, I also don’t wanna be him.”

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

Even the way other people see us is certainly not universal. The way our boss thinks of us vs. our significant other vs. our parents, etc. might be different – because they know us in different capacities, and have known us for different various lengths of time and such.

So, there is no complete universal way to see each of us, I know.

But, I feel like generally there’s a general sense of who we are – in which for the most part, even if some things change from person’s view to other person’s view, we all kiiiinda know the gist, the essence of the person..

(Sort of, I guess… Then again, maybe that view is what gets me in trouble, as it’s been so hard to see an abusive man as just that (even when I saw it up close)… But I’m tangenting, as per often….)

Anyway.

I don’t know if this happens to a lot of victims of abuse, but I started to have this (mostly irrational (I hope!) fear of, “What if I’m him?!”

What if I am steamrolling people and not realizing it? After all, haven’t I said some version of the words, ‘Aw, come on! Come wiiiith us!’ if I want someone to come do something I think is fun? What if I’m over-pressuring in a way I don’t see?…

What if I don’t really listen to people? For the most part, I try to take it in when someone says I hurt their feelings. But he thinks he does that too! He’s always like, “I don’t know why women can’t get over things when I apologize.” And it’s like, “well, because you’re not actually apologizing in any way, and it’s weird that you think you are… Do you not know what an apology is?”

But it kinda seems like he thinks he is apologizing (when he’s not saying sorry or showing any remorse, and is turning things back around on you)!

And what if somehow, whenever I think I’m apologizing, I’m not, and no one’s ever felt they’ve gotten a real apology from me? How terrible would that be? [I don’t think that’s true, but what if!]

What if when both me and someone else have done something wrong or hurt each other, and I ask to find some common ground or see my point of view, I think I’m doing something healthy and having a real back and forth conversation, but it’s actually shutting that person down (like sexual assault guy would do to me)?

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.

[This is part of the sexual assault series.]

As we continue some sort of, I think, conclusion/reflection posts (well, with as much perspective as I can have on it right now, still sort of being into it)…

One maybe weird(?) thing that happened with all this sexual assault stuff is that not only have I, of course, not wanted to ever be with someone like him again, I also had this weird fear of “what if I (ever) am him?!”

He is hurting people so deeply, and does not seem to care in the least.
…And sometimes plays it off as though he doesn’t even know (no matter how many different ways and numerous times you tell him).

I told him over and over how what he did was not okay, and how much it hurt me. And I was always met with a million excuses (or the occasional straight-up just laughter in my face)… And also, I was told (by him) so often to think about how he felt – I should feel bad for him that anyone (including me) got upset with him (especially if it had anything to do with disrespecting women (or any specific woman)), because he would neeeeeever do that. How could we do that to him when he’s such a “good guy”?

Either what he did wasn’t a big deal; or if it was a big deal, he has feelings too, and I’m the one hurting them because how dare he be perceived as a bad guy; or it was all a misunderstanding, or, or, or, or, or – whatever the millions of possibilities, none of them were that he just did something exceptionally painful, and took responsibility for it, and figured out ways to be better.

He seems not to have any sort of understanding that he has ruined my life (or at least a part of it currently). It’s not even just a problem in that he doesn’t care. It’s that so often he seems so oblivious (just completely oblivious) to the fact that he’s quite controlling and abusive, and that he is a serial rapist.

He’s either an incredible manipulator (maybe!…(probably!)), or he’s truly just actually oblivious to it all. And that is exceptionally hard (and kinda scary) to wrap my mind around.

I know we’ll never truly see ourselves the way other people do – and sometimes that means we see ourselves better than others perceive (so as perhaps to protect our egos, or ourselves, a little), and sometimes we may see ourselves worse (over-feeling guilt, or low self-esteem or something(…? I dunno. I’m not a doctor with knowledge of how brains work and stuff.))…

[This is from the sexual assault series.]

If you follow me on twitter, you’ve already seen this thread. It sort of piggybacks off an old post I have. But, I think it’s an important idea.

I feel like one of the reasons people are often so quick to be silent, or to maybe even stand up for an assaulter/harasser/etc., is because they don’t wanna be one.

After being assaulted last year, I have been talking A LOT about sexual assault, and consent, and all the issues that surround all that with a lot of people (small groups, one-on-one, super publicly, etc.).

And in that time, I’ve heard a lot of stories in the same vein as this one.  Some of the best people I know have a story of like “maybe we were a little too drunk… Maybe I was a little too pressuring… Maybe this, maybe that.

A LOT of people have these kinds of weird, sort of uncomfortable stories about iffy times and how now that these conversations are out there, people are understanding consent in a different, sometimes clearer light… But in that clearer light, people look at their own past and they’re like *tugs at collar* “Oof! Was I being a little coercive? Was I not great in that situation?”

And then we see how in some weird slippery slope universe, we could’ve potentially been the ones who didn’t listen great, or we could’ve “misread” some signal. “We could’ve all been [‘bad guy in the news’].”

But, no. I think
a) these are different things.
And b) if we see any problematic behavior from our pasts, the answer is not to say “oh, well, actually, these people who do awful things are fine, because if they’re fine, then my tiny thing is super fine, and now I don’t need to have any reflection, or guilt, or learn anything, etc.”

[*shakes head*] No.

If you feel you “wronged” someone in your past, or made them uncomfortable, or crossed a line you shouldn’t have, and/or if you feel you understand consent better than you used to, or something, handle that in any one of a ton of different ways you want – maybe see if you can talk to that person, and see if they’re okay/if they need an apology/if there’s anything you can do, maybe get therapy if you need it, maybe pass your lessons on to others (as the article linked earlier does), become an advocate, treat everyone in your future better, give money to groups that help with this epidemic, and on and on.

Find any number of good and helpful ways to make the world better, and to be a better person yourself. But don’t laud the “bad guys” in the hope that if the “bad guys” are okay, then you’re great.

[Doing that *definitely* takes points away points from your greatness – which sounds like the opposite of the goal…]

Let’s all collectively be better? xoxo

[For more on the sexual assault series, you can go here.]

Picking up from yesterday –

For me, one of the hardest parts was that I’ve completely avoided his neighborhood (and for the most part, his whole borough, even).

I avoided school and the area the school was in until he was gone from there.

I even try to avoid walking by his office building when that’s possible (even though it’s in sort of a busy and convenient area of town, I try to go around it if I can; sometimes that’s not plausible, but I’m still cognizant of it).

So, for the most part, I try to avoid areas I think I even might see him. (There’s one main one I can’t totally avoid, being that I live in Times Square and he loves theater and goes to a bunch of shows. So, I can’t avoid my own neighborhood completely. But even that one I used to sort of avoid as much as I could, uberring nearly everywhere… So, basically just going from my building door to a car door and back over and over.)

But anyway.

Even though I know people can go anywhere, for some reason, I never expected to see him on the walk home from my new office (when I was passing by very close to where my old office [for a TruTv show] was!).

If I’d seen someone from that job, that wouldn’t have been surprising. But to see sexual assault guy there? What on earth? Why?

I know he can go wherever he wants. And I assume he has no idea where I work. But nonetheless, it just sort of felt like, “this specific area is my space! What are you doing here?”

[I know a whole space of New York does not belong to me. But you get what I’m righteously, indignantly saying, right?]

Part of me wanted to go up to the girl he was with and very, oh so very calmly say, “Please be careful. This man’s a dangerous serial sexual assaulter.” Another (albeit much tinier, but also much (crazier? pettier?) part kinda wanted to make a scene. Buuuut obviously I didn’t reeeeeally want to do that. Part of me wanted to be like, “Oh hi. Crazy running into you here” – just a cordial thing you might do if you saw an acquaintance on the street, to try to be like, [subtext] “You don’t scare me! I’m out living!”

But I don’t want to talk to him. He’s the master of making you feel terrible about yourself with one little comment. He is perfect at twisting word knives. I don’t want some kind of weird negging backhanded non-compliment that hurts. I don’t want to interact with him. I don’t wanna look in his eyes or have any more nightmares.

Ultimately, he turned to go more downtown and I was walking up. So, after we each got to the end of the small street we were walking on, we went in opposite directions.

As I walked, I thought I saw a random pedestrian look at me weird (as though they saw on my face that I’d seen a ghost or something), but I kinda had. And I’m pretty certain all the blood had drained from my face.

Maybe I just felt insecure and thought a random pedestrian person was looking at me who maybe wasn’t. Who knows.

All I know, is I was SHOOK about seeing sexual assault guy out and about.

The end.

[This is a post from the sexual assault series.]

Holy goodness.

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahaha It’s almost so absurd, it’s funny.

Last week, just out and about, I saw him.

I’ve talked a pretty fair amount on here about how I kind of hermited up in my room and didn’t do much New York stuff after it happened. I deferred school. I often stopped hanging out with my friends. I picked a project (Project 882) that would take me out of town nearly every weekend.

I sometimes talked about how it felt like I “left without leaving,” when it came to whether I’d stay in New York.

And then, after a lot of therapy, I was like, “I gotta get back into the world. The world’s not that scary.
A) Probably nothing will happen to you if you do see him somewhere.
B) Come on. New York has what? A trajillion people? Get real. You’re not gonna run into him, right?

And then, a mere 2 weeks(!) before it happened, I went to Hillary Clinton’s book signing. I was like, “I’m normal. I’m back. I’m spending all night outside in New York. This isn’t scary. Everything is fine. (It felt kind of like maybe an official “turning point” into good.) Then, over the course of those two weeks (between the turning point and sexual assault dude), I started a new job that’s fantastic (on a show for VH1). I re-started school (that’s also fantastic). The whole ‘re-start to my life’ thing is in progress and beautiful. Oh, sexual assault guy? Who’s that! He’s nowhere to be found. I’m free.

AND THEN I TURNED A CORNER WALKING HOME FROM WORK AND THERE HE WAS. (What on earth?!) And poof, my soul left my body.

He was on the other side of the street. And I felt a crushing wave of emotions all at once. What. do. I. do now.

I’m gonna walk the other way as fast as I can. That’s what I’m gonna do. Wait. That’s not what I’m gonna do, ’cause I’m not gonna change what I’m doing just to accommodate him in any way. I’m gonna head that way. Wait. I don’t wanna be uncomfortable just to prove a point. Wait. Where am I even going? Because tbh, I’m kinda lost in the midst of downtown. This is a weird street anyway, and I’m just wandering toward uptown. I could take a number of streets to get there.

Oh my goodness. Also, I was like, “Is that him? I most definitely know it’s him. No one’s face has been burned in my brain like his has. That’s absolutely him. And look…if I still had any unsure-ness, he’s carrying his bag. He has a semi-distinctive bag that he sort of carries in a certain way. And he’s doing that. He’s walking how he walks. He’s the height he is. I’m not having a crazy fever dream/hallucination. It’s him”

Then I had a moment of “do I take a picture? Because this is nearly literally unbelievable. And we all know the ol’ adage, “pics or it didn’t happen.” A camera wouldn’t lie to me. (But my eyes aren’t lying to me either. They should be enough!) Also, what weirdo would be taking pictures of him on the street? That doesn’t feel right. Plus, even if we just zoom right pass it feeling creepy to me, I don’t want a picture of him in my camera roll! I go out of my way all the time to avoid his face.

And also, I am not gonna get close enough to him to get a good picture. I’m trying to stay away from him, not get closer. (And what do I need a “good picture” for anyway? To convince my therapist or friends I saw him? They trust me. I might have issues not trusting myself all the time/feeling a little “crazy” after everything that’s happened, but I’d feel even crazier hiding in the metaphorical bushes when nobody should need a picture. (It’s super weird to take pictures of people on the street when they don’t know you’re taking their photo.) So, I felt way too weird about picture taking. And I dropped that fleeting thought.

My heart beat SO sos so so so so so so fast. I didn’t realize I was gonna feel as though I was running a marathon today. Geeeeeeeez.

And I’ll pick up here tomorrow.

[This is a post from the sexual assault series.]

Ever since I’ve been talking about all this sexual assault stuff, I’ve been asking myself (and to some extent, some people have been asking me) things like, “Well, why did you go to his house?” Or “What were you wearing?” And stuff like that.

And I know we all talk about how ridiculous those questions are… But have we ever stopped to reeeeally consider how ridiculous they are? Why did I go over to his house?

Why did I go over to his house? What on earth?

Since when would going over to the house of someone you’re kind of involved in ever be the kind of decision that makes you think twice? That couldn’t be more normal!

But because something bad happened, now we have to open an investigation into why I went. Why? Why do we do that?

(I mean, I know some of the reasons… A desperate clinging to the hope that we are all deeply and fully in control of our destinies and if only we can prove everyone did everything to themselves, we can keep believing that, or also a chronic disrespect for women [who aren’t the only victims of assault, but sure are often asked these questions]…)

And so, since we have covered a lot of this before, I’m gonna go ahead and stop this blog post here. But I would just advise that maybe the next time you ask a person something about the night they were assaulted (or you ask yourself about the night you were assaulted, believing you could do more, if that’s something you struggle with), think about that behavior on any other night, and think if you’d ask the same question.

(‘Cause, to me, at least, in that context, some of them seem ridiiiiiiculous)

[This is from the sexual assault series.]

Now that I’m sort of wrapping up the “advice” part of this, I thought it was important to talk about how who knows anything anyway.

I feel like I sought out a lot of advice as I went through this.

I felt a lot like I was just spinning down this hole or something. I don’t know. It has been really hard, and I didn’t know what to do (for kind of a long time, and about some things, in some ways, I still don’t).

I’ve read books. I’ve seen a therapist. I’ve talked to friends. I’ve tried some different things on my own.

And some stuff worked, and some stuff didn’t. And some stuff worked sometimes and didn’t work other times.

(It’s been kinda a rough road.)

People have said all sorts of things re: advice and moving forward and such.

When I said it felt like an avalanche was falling on me, someone said you have to feel the whole avalanche hit your face. You’ve gotta stand there and take it until the snow falls past you. Whereas others thought you more try to avoid the snow. Lots of people had different takes.

And I think we could definitely make a case for why I didn’t really have to do Project 882, or definitely, even more so, why I didn’t have to go try to have experiences just to feel things (e.g. going to Safari Park and Sea World and stuff). Those things were as fun as they could’ve been in that headspace. But, it was a lot of money, and I was chasing a feeling that swimming with dolphins probably wasn’t going to truly help. (But I didn’t totally know that.)

I don’t know that it’d be even worth making the arguments as to whether I should’ve done this, or that, with all the decisions I made over the past year and a half, because I don’t think any of those things truly hurt me, per se.

Could things have been better, and could I maybe have made smarter decisions and had some better times? Sure, maybe, I guess. I dunno. But would I have magically “healed” any sooner? Probably not. Hard to say.

And nothing suuuuuper irreparable-seeming has happened. (I mean, some crappy stuff has happened, but, as of now, that I can see, nothing hella-hella life altering (as far as the decisions post-assault, of trying to figure out how to move on/keep living went). So, it all is what it is, I suppose.

I just did some blog posts on what to do if you’re assaulted, but what do you do if your friend is?

Again, this is just my personal advice. Go check some other resources and do what you think feels right. But from my perspective, this is the advice I would give.

1. If it has just happened, try to get them immediate help. See if they’d be open to talking to the police and/or getting a rape kit done. This will prove invaluable now, and the window is very small to do it. They may be in total shock. So, you can be the one taking care of important logistical stuff. It’s hard to know what to do. Help them.
2. If it’s been a little while and they are just looking to you for support, one thing I believe is that you should keep a very hard line of, “this is not your fault.” I know the reason your friend is coming to you is because they love and trust you. So, you’re very close with them. That means you probably have had a million conversations throughout your friendship that have gone very back and forth and meandered.You could analyze a text conversation for two hours. Hmmm who is in the wrong here?in some ways, it will feel easy to talk about assault in the same way. I know that we stand up on social media for victims in a large blanket-over-everyone way. But when it comes down to one-on-one conversations – especially if the perpetrator was someone the victim was involved with in any way, it might become slightly easy to morph in to a “normal” relationship conversation where they start making excuses for the person, and you just jump to agreement, because you’re on the same “team” as your friend! And you see the best in people, so you’re cool to make excuses for a little mildly bad behavior. But this isn’t that. So, don’t let it become that.When they start wondering if they caused it, you don’t have to shut them down. You don’t have to squelch their feelings, or not allow them to feel or to talk. But you have to take a very (very) hard line that what happened to your friend wasn’t okay. There is no excusing it. Your friend is not being dramatic. And they did nothing to cause what happened to them.I just cannot stress this one enough. So many survivors will minimize. I have heard horrific stories that so obviously rape where people still question, “Well, I don’t know. I mean, was it really ‘rape,’ that’s such a scary word?”And I’m not saying you need to go so in the opposite of minimizing that it scares them or makes it all seem too much. I’m just saying they will do enough minimizing. I know it’s in our nature to agree with our friends for the most part. But this is the one time where there is a giant line in the sand of agreement. Once they’ve told you they’ve been assaulted, if they start to talk themselves out of the seriousness of it, or explain to themselves why actually it’s aaaaall their fault for not fighting enough, you just keep being supportive with whatever your own special way of saying, “you did nothing wrong.”(I hope that all made sense. I sort of feel like those paragraphs were potentially confusing, but hopefully not!)
3. Almost lastly – and I’m stealing this one from the RAINN tips, because I think it’s good advice.   “Avoid phrases that suggest they’re taking too long to recover.” It’s gonna take however long it takes.If you need to help them remember to go to therapy or take a medication or something, that’s a helpful thing to do – that’s a way to show you are indeed hoping they get better, without putting the pressure on them that they’re not healing as fast as you’d want.I do understand that it can be exhausting to be a confidant of someone with major depression or PTSD or any of the other side effects of being assaulted. It can be exceptionally hard on you. There are resources and support groups for friends and family of people dealing with that. Maybe join something like that, or look up online resources for help.If you absolutely cannot be active friends or partners with someone dealing with those major issues, then give only what you can. Or say you’re sorry for having to do this, but that you need to take a break from them. While it is very hard, from the survivor’s point of view, to see people leaving your life – often because you’re sort of pushing them out… It can get so lonely and add even more sadness on top of a well of sadness. But for me, I was already putting enough pressure on myself all the time that I wasn’t following the magical timeline of “getting better” in my head, that as sad as it was to feel more and more alone, it would be even sadder and/or more frustrating (for me, at least) to be with someone who can’t wrap their mind around “where’s the Aurora I know?! Get up! Be happy!” That pressure is a lot.
4. And that’s what I have to say. (Number 2 is of utmost importance here.) You can read more RAINN tips here.You got this. I believe in your sweet friendship ability!

I’ve spent some of the last posts telling you my own personal advice for what to do after being assaulted. But I think it’s an important asterisk to add that while I believe you can always get help, you can’t always get “justice.”

If you need therapy, or if you need medication for PTSD (or STIs, or anything that might come from being assaulted),, I believe there is some way to get that. (I hope – I hope that’s not just a ridiculous belief from a privileged place in a big city, though I am aware it might be.)

But while I’m hoping to believe you can always, somewhere, find some sort of support group… what you might not get is help from where you expect it, or where you originally feel like you need it.

If your assault happened at work or at school, it is possible you will not have people in your corner there. It is possible that you will want to leave, unfortunately. And that won’t be right that you should have to go, and it won’t be fair. But it might be the best/most possible thing for you at the time (if there is not a system in place to keep you away from your perpetrator).

If your workplace or school is not helpful, you may bring the legal system into things. But that might be daunting for a million reasons. You may not have the time or the money or the energy to go through it. You might just not wanna see your reputation, and every life choice you’ve ever made, dragged out and strangled on the stand. And that’s okay.

You may hope the police could help you, but sometimes they don’t.

Maybe, again, my privilege is showing by being a “non-threatening” white girl who’s, for the most part, only had great (and super few and far between) experiences with police, but I was a little surprised about how things went with the police….

When I told the officer that the man who assaulted me and totally ignored me said, “I knew you didn’t want to, but you needed to” (because he was helping me to “get over” the guy I’d had to leave behind Los Angeles), instead of telling me that was gross or wrong, the officer said, “Was he? Was he helping you? Were you at that point in your life?” As though sexual assault guy was actually being “helpful” in any way by forcing me to have sex in a location I didn’t want to.

And we could argue that my story has maybe too much nuance, and it would be hard to be prosecuted (although, even still, it’d be nice to have a little empathy from the cops, nonetheless).

But I have heard first-hand accounts of people who went to the police who had clearly been raped, with visible bruises, giving specifics soon after it happened, who were asked “But why did you go over to that man’s apartment?” “But you’d done sexual type things with him before, right?” These women were basically grilled and given the 3rd degree, as though they are the criminal.

And I’ll pick up here tomorrow!

I read a lot in the process of all this – blogs, books, whatever. I personally found this blog post from “The Good Men Project” to be really nice and applicable. And I thought maybe some other people might be interested in it too. So, if you are, here it is!

[This is from the sexual assault series.]

Oh my goodness gracious.

I was going to say “wasted,” but I think you could argue that not all of the money I spent was a waste. But goodness, a fair amount of it was.

Before I get into this, I should mention that I am aware of my privilege. I’m aware it’s a privilege to have money to waste. I’m aware that I didn’t have to spend all this money that I did.

[But this is another part of the bigger overarching story of how all this various sexual assault stuff (and consequences after) affected me (specifically). (And financial is a big way people are affected, so I at least wanna touch on it.) So, I’m telling my story, even though this part is brimming with some privilege. And if you don’t wanna read, that’s always totally fine, of course. But, if you do, here we go.]

1) Think. Of. All. The. Ubers. I. Took. [*makes giant, about-to-pop-out-of-my-face eyes*] I never felt like I had any energy…. I guess being incredibly depressed and seemingly never sleeping will do that to you. Also, I had a little bit of a fear of New York – didn’t wanna leave, but also didn’t really want to be here. So, I was just always in an Uber. I can’t even begin to fathom (and I do not want to do the math on) how much money I spent on ubers and cabs.

2) Late fees. Ooooh, this is so embarrassing to admit… Because even though I like to think I’m this “understanding,” or “caring,” or whatever, person who would feel empathy and “get it,” I don’t think that before this happened to me that I would’ve gotten it. I could totally imagine myself thinking, “I know you’re sad and all. But like, can’t you just pay your bills?”

…But I wouldn’t go through mail. And I know many things are paperless, but I wouldn’t go through emails either. And then I’d recognize that about myself, and know that I needed to set up automatic payments for something, but if I’d lost my password to an account, I’d just give up (which I know sounds ridiculous, to not even be able to follow the steps to recover a password, but I was OUT of energy to function… I was a nearly indescribable amount of sad all the time).

And so a [credit card/cable/electric/whatever] company would call me and be like, “where’s your payment for [this card, or that thing etc.]”? And most of the time I would have the money available, I just wouldn’t have the wherewithal to do the teeeeeny teeny tiny bit of work to pay a bill in 2017. I literally don’t even want to look at my credit score. How many late payments did I have this year? I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.

3) Vacations and/or just trips home to LA. There were so many times where it was like, “I just have to get out of here. I have to get out. I can’t be here.” And I understand that feeling. (I felt it soooo deeply in the depths of my bones.) But also, most of the time, I was just paying a bucket of money to go somewhere new to cry. Was that good for me? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe a little of both. Hard to say. Either way, it was a lot.

4) Deliveries. This sort of falls in line with uber trips. But I hated going outside. So, I had food, or groceries, or other things delivered all the time. And sometimes that makes sense in New York. (I live in a place where it’s kinda hard to lug groceries or laundry etc. through a crowd…. And it’s not suuuper expensive to have some of that stuff done delivery-wise.) But there are definitely times where it was excessive and not necessary (even though it felt necessary to the hungry girl who felt she couldn’t leave her apartment).

5) House cleaning. I’ve always paid for housecleaning here and there – for real, actual cleaning… (I never learned to “properly” clean a bathroom or a kitchen or whatever…. I mean, I’m an adult who I’m sure could learn how, but let’s just breeze past that for now.) The real cleaning has always been done by some sort of maid service… But the general picking up of my room? I can to do that! But not this time.

I hired a service to come and organize my whole apartment, because after I got stuff out of my storage unit, there was just stuff everywhere. I couldn’t get it together. Usually, I love little organizing projects and stuff. But I was like, “I’m too overwhelmed. Help me out here.” And they were super helpful. But that’s multiple hundreds of dollars that in an alternate timeline, I wouldn’t have spent.

6) Missed details. There are times I had a coupon for something, when it felt like way too much work to even find an email, or a text, or a whatever for a coupon code. There were also times where it felt like just too much work to even grab my frequent flier number.
Did this cost me a lot of money? Probably not. I know I flew a lot, but you gotta fly like a lot (I think?) to get frequent flier miles to count for something. Did little coupons here and there really make me miss out on tons of money? Probably not. Enough to where I’m including it, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as some of these other things were.

7) Replacing stuff. I got a new bed. I even moved apartments (though that had to do with many things, not just him…) But replacing my bed with another expensive ass bed – that was all just because of what happened with him. (There were some other smaller things too that I replaced because they reminded me too much of him or something he said, etc. Though obviously the bed – and the cost of disposing of my first bed – were the biggest things. (Ugh. It was so much money.)

[Edited to add from late 2018: 8) I’ve had a lot of career trouble in the last year or two as well – which makes sense when you’re crying all the time and barely keeping it together. It’s hard to say, but I think I probably lost out on some money career-wise that I don’t think would’ve happened otherwise (though it’s not quite as a direct link as some of these other things, I still think it’s probably worth pointing out).]

So, I dunno. Again, other people have much bigger issues. I know I barely kept working (for a while), but some people can’t at all (which I sorta kinda went through too). I got free therapy. I had things better off than many. But goodness gracious, did I still feel the weight of the money issues.

And as disappointing as all that is, it still isn’t magically fixed. As of the writing of this post, I still take Ubers too often. I’m starting to get over my sort of fear of New York, and I’m starting to build back my fitness to hopefully stat walking way more (all the time). But I still get a little anxious about the subway. And I still take Ubers way too often.

There are still things in here that I still need to work on. It’s not all fixed or all better. But I’m going to make a concerted effort to start to fix these things!

[This is part of the sexual assault series.]

I wrote a post in this same vein not all that long ago – how when so much of society questions survivors (and if what they went through was all “that bad” and all of that)… how in some ways (to me, at least) it almost feels weirdly sort of, kind of, counterproductive (as a survivor) to be okay.

It feels productive to my life, of course. And I’m stoked about being more functional and more okay. But for me, there has been this weird… I don’t know if it’s guilt, or what it is. But it just feels almost sort of like what if it’s the wrong “message,” like, “eh, she’s okay. It obviously wasn’t that big of a deal.”

But you know what? I really wasn’t okay. At all. I was barely functional – reeeeeeeeeeally not okay (as we’ve talked about a lot here on this blog).

But… what? I’m gonna be not okay forever? To what? Teach some random people somewhere in the world [who quite honestly won’t ever give a second thought to me after they judge my twitter, or blog, or whatever they’re reading] some kind of “lesson” they’re not even learning anyway?

I used to not have the choice to be okay, because it wasn’t an actual choice I could make… I had (have?) a true mental illness (PTSD) that kept me up with nightmares all the time, that sometimes made me jump if I was touched even a little, that made it so I could not concentrate on anything at all, and on and on. “Okay” seemed impossible for me.

I had to learn about my brain, and the effects of what happened, and coping tools. (I did a lot of therapy! And I read some books and all that.)

And now, for the most part, I am in a place where I can finally, I suppose, “choose” to be okay most of the time. It doesn’t mean I’ll never get triggered, or I’ll never have nightmares or days where I need a little space… But for the most part, I am in a healthy place, and for the most part, I have tools to deal with the days that I’m not.

And that’s such an amazing, wonderful, fantastic thing! I should be celebrating that 100% of the time, instead of ever wondering what that “looks” like.

I also sometimes worry about what I look like to sexual assault guy if he sees me or hears about me… [I know I shouldn’t worry about him. But he was a giant part of my brain/my life, and getting ready to go back to school, I think is bringing more thoughts up about him and such…]

Part of me wants to be doing so well in his eyes, because it’d be nice to try to prove “hey, I have value, and you can’t ruin me.”

But then there’s also a weird part of me that thinks that if he sees that I’m okay, he’ll think what he did wasn’t wrong, and/or didn’t affect me deeply. I don’t want him to think things are “fine” ever, as far as what he did, because there was nothing about it that was normal. And it’s really not fine.

But if I was still not okay, I also don’t think that would make him think for a second about his actions, or that maybe he affected my life in a negative way.

As with everything with him, there is no winning. If you’re happy, he’s not a bad guy. If you’re not happy, it has nothing to do with him. Or at least these seem like giant possibilities since the one thing I remember most about being with him was if you just exist, no matter how you do it, you’re doing it wrong.

The great, wonderful part of not being with him anymore, is that I don’t have to be controlled by him anymore. I can live however I want.

And he’ll think whatever he wants, or comment whatever he wants on it if/whenever he hears/thinks about me. And I just have to somehow find a way to stop worrying about him.

It is so incredible and amazing that I don’t have to worry about making him angry anymore! (That’s freaking freeing!) Sooooo… I should indeed stop worrying about it already!

If I do see him, I don’t actually know that I will be “okay” in his presence. The last time I accidentally saw a picture of him (because a mutual friend posted a group shot he was in and I ran across it), I cried and cried and felt like vomiting. [I thought of it as a win that I didn’t actually vomit that time, though!]

So, if I do run into him, no matter what my “plan” is of how I want to “seem,” it’ll just be whatever happens…

Ultimately though, I have fought so hard (so very very very very hard to be okay) that I want to embrace every single moment of okay-ness that I can ever have – no matter what anyone (sexual assault guy or anyone else) thinks about it.

Recently, now that I feel like I’m “better” (or at least better-ish), I’ve been trying to go about my “normal” life. But going about my “normal” life again, after a pretty long period of it being not normal at all, is proving hard to me.

What even is my “normal” life anymore?

I’ve talked kind of a lot on here on about the toll this has taken on my relationships of all kind… Friendships have been hurt, whether it was just by pure vicinity to what happened, or by me seeming so confusing and annoying and distracted and whatever else, or just by general crummy life timing, or even by me almost purposefully pushing people away, because for a while I kinda wanted to be alone a lot.

And I imagine it is hard to just unconditionally love someone who is suffering so intensely – to know the right mixture of giving tough love of like, “You gotta leave the house” [or whatever] vs. pure understanding at the toughness of the situation and like, “Okay, let’s talk through whatever you need to again.”

It’s hard to keep in touch with someone (me) if they’re barely functional, and maybe not responding to all of your texts, or if they are, not doing it in any sort of timely manner. I mean, we’re taught social cues. And if someone isn’t being super responsive, yeah, it could mean that I sometimes don’t know how to talk to anyone or function anymore.

But for someone on the receiving end, it could also make them think, “Eh, maybe that person’s not so interested in continuing whatever this relationship is… Maybe we’re growing apart. I’m gonna let them be.”

Or even if they’re not trying to guess my feelings, maybe their feelings are, “If someone isn’t gonna put in effort to be my friend, I’m not doing it either. This isn’t worth it to me.” And that’s valid.

So, various friendships have fallen by the wayside.

And recently, I’ve been sort of on a bit of a mini “apology tour,” almost… Now that I’m feeling healthy-ish again (I think), I’m becoming more open to the idea of trying to rebuild my relationships. So, I’m writing some of the people for whom I’ve sort of fallen off the planet to say I’m sorry for that.

I’ve apologized to people for specific instances that I remember of going somewhere with them but then feeling like a ghost, because I was so distant. (Unfortunately, that also happened once kind of recently, so maybe I’m not quite as ready as I once believed. But, I’m just gonna try my best, I guess!)

But ultimately, some relationships have just suffered too much damage and look like they might not be repairable. And some aren’t necessarily irreparable, but enough time has gone by that somebody else has taken your place in that person’s life. They’ve kind of closed the gap of the friend, or acquaintance, or even possible girlfriend, or whatever it was that you were maybe gonna be for them.

The room in their life is no longer there. It’s not that they hate you. It’s just that you’ve been holed up in your room for a long time while other people’s lives have gone on, and now there’s just not the same amount of room for you anymore…

And seeing that is a little harder than I expected. I think part of me maybe sort of kind of somehow believed that everything would go back to the exact way it once was (even though I’m pretty sure I’ve literally stated in this very blog that it won’t). And yet, I think part of me thought that maybe this relationships piece would go back to the way it was. And that that would be some sort of magic metric that maybe “officially” says I’m better.

But that might not happen.

It sort of reminds me of this story [I guess probably more like parable, probably] this person shared with me at one point during my very tough time… He talked about this gorgeous, beloved vase being knocked over. And it was a bummer that the vase was in a bunch of tiny pieces on the ground. And it didn’t quite fit together the same way anymore. But, someone came along and picked up the pieces, and made it a plate.

It was still beautiful, and still very useful. (I mean, don’t most of us use plates more often than we use vases anyway?)

And at the time, I thought of it as a beautiful story of how life goes on and can become something else, but something still great.

And now, I’m just kind of taking it all in that even though the plate is still lovely and still serves a purpose… it’s no longer a vase. (And maybe I still want to hold flowers!)

And I know I’ve said I have to give up on the idea of certain things, or understand that there was/will be just some collateral damage – but living it… Coming out of the wreckage, and realizing all the things that have truly changed around me…. It’s hard. It’s different for me to “know,” and maaaaybe think I “accept” it vs feeling like it just crashes into me. I dunno. ‘Tis what it is, I guess…

[This is from the sexual assault series.]