Denial is the mother of all fuck ups. It is like a vortex that sucks you in and engulfs you in a circle of confusion and mirage. The problem with denial is that it lives outside the realm of reality and truth. So as powerful as this vortex may seem, its end is imminent.

Denial and I conversed, and we agreed I should keep quiet and live in an oasis of pretense. Yes, I had told Vuyo, A and Dr Cornell, but as soon as I re-entered my four wall dungeon, I enslaved myself with untruth. I signed a deceitful treaty with denial to secure my peace. The treaty required me to keep up appearances, weep in the confines of my prison and never face reality. This seemed like a very small price to pay in order to retain my sanity. Ironically, silence, pretense, and psychological denial were the very things that destroyed my sanity. They drove me into a land of delusion. I now lived in a dichotomous world of impossibility, where denial fought the truth. Truth reigned in my sub-conscious, while my conscious mind was governed by denial.

The first thing that suffered from my treaty was sleep. In order for any person to sleep, their mind has to be relaxed or in a state of partial Zen. Your thoughts have to be gentle and at the back of your mind. My mind was in a constant state of reflection; it roared like a Ford Mustang and raced across the track like a Buggatti Veyron. Gentle thoughts were non-existent in my mind, both my conscious and unconscious mind were riddled by deep and dark images. Every time I closed my eyes I saw his face and the act of rape that he had committed. Then those seven insulting words rang simultaneously like a cacophony between the piano and harpsichord. Since I had so graciously chosen to honor my Kikuyu roots and suffer in silence, I signed slumber’s arrest warrant and welcomed American motion pictures into my bed. As long as my laptop played movies or series, my sanity could escape into a monarchy of fantasy. Motion pictures kept my nightmares a bay, but unfortunately no amount of TV could stop me from sleeping, especially not after being prescribed sedatives. I cannot recall the nightmares I sustained in the first month, but I do recollect they revolved around death, being attacked, abandonment issues, and ghastly shadows.

My rapist was my first enemy and sleep became his vicious accomplice. After being raped sleep or any form of unconsciousness serves as a cruel form of punishment. It becomes a channel to replay your rape over and over again. It does not serve as a way to rest the mind but it serves as an effective method of torture. Imagine being detained in a dark, isolated room filled with huge screens and high definition sound. Each time you attempt to close your eyes and rest, you’re pumped with shots of adrenaline and forced to keep watching. That is what rape victims endure every time they fall sleep.

For me, my laptop became my companion and defense Major General. He was there for me through thick and thin, he heard me cry and comforted me, he protected me from my own negativity and nightmares by making me laugh and illuminating my room at night. The irony of course being that my laptop personified a male being. The very gender that had violated me was the very gender that I trusted to protect me. This is how effective the patriarchal system could be. My laptop replaced my friends and personified the human companion I needed. The scariest thing for me was darkness, especially when I could not sleep.  I did not want to draw attention to myself by switching on the light and leaving it on, so my laptop acted as my convert defense against darkness and intrusion. The fears I had as a little girl had resurfaced and been amplified to a different height. Instead of just being afraid of external monsters with unrealistic peripheral features, I was now also petrified of the ogre that lay within. The Ogre that lived within wasn’t time conscious he attacked at any time, day or night, because his darkness did not relied on nightfall but rather relied on self-criticism, self-hatred, self-alienation, shame, guilt and any negative emotion that could overpower positive reinforcements. So as much as my journey has been long and full of error, I’d be amiss not to advice you seek medical attention if you feel any of the above feelings, because ignoring your trauma will not make it go away but it will rather length the healing process and cause psychological harm.

My academic performance was the second thing to sustain irreparable mutilation.  Now as much as I would like to sit here and tell you I was an A* student, I’d only be lying. However my grades were above average, and most importantly I loved and understood everything my lecturers taught. All my life I had keenly followed current events. So imagine my delight when I not only got to study these political events, but I also got to analyze the theories, philosophies, economic and social factors that catalyzed these events.  In those days not even death itself could stop me from attending those lectures but as soon as I was raped nothing could get me out of bed. I mean really, I could barely motivate myself to shower; now I not only had to cleanse myself but I had to concentrate and act like Middle Eastern policies would be enough to fix my current realities? Funny thing was, I was desperately seeking any form of escape, and even though my studies could have offered me that escape, they required much more energy than my body possessed. Sadly, I lacked the basic energy needed to be honest with myself; therefore the graduate future I had worked so hard to secure, was now hemorrhaging from shrapnel wounds it would incur for next few months. Those few months would destroy my academic future for what feels like forever.

A leave of absence could have prevented the wounds that my grades suffered but this solution came with its own complications. A leave of absent required me to tell my family what had been done to me, and quite honestly I was so petrified of telling them that I chose to deal with this alone, in a foreign country.

Secondly, a leave of absence meant I would be doing nothing else but trauma therapy and for therapy to even begin I’d have to be cognizant with my rape and I wasn’t planning to do that, as I had signed a treaty with denial. So as long as my inability to face reality was in play, my academic future would continue to loom over my head and my new obsession would take effect.

Here is what I’ve learnt so far.

• A rape victim cannot recover from rape alone, asking for help does not make you weak, neither does admitting to yourself and others that you got raped.
• Denying any trauma’s existence whether it is rape, car accident, emotional or physical abuse does not solve the problem, if anything it makes the problem worse and harder to deal with. Seek any form of medical attention. If you are in Kenya, go to your nearest clinic and ask them to direct you to the nearest therapist. If you live in Nairobi specifically, go to Nairobi Women’s hospital and they will assist.

If you live in South Africa or London or USA contact rape crisis center.

• Escapism whether with technology, alcohol or drugs also only amplifies the problem and makes it worse. Long term escapism and denial has real psychological effects whether it is depression, deep dissociation behavior, alienation and loss of touch from reality.
• Lastly, without proper cognitive health everything can seem and prove to be impossible. Negativity, self-loathing, self-criticism, only act as barriers of success and opportunities. So ask for support and care from positive people, and set aside any pride or shame that may try and deter you from asking for assistance.
• Yes, you are the captain of your ship, but every captain has crew members that support him through his or her journey!

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Awake, The Tormentor! is inspired by the agony I experienced and sometimes still experience when im awake. In the previous post I wrote about my treaty with denial, this was part of the first stage of my’ healing’/ coping process. Denial was my first line of defence. It was a response to the state of being awake, I’ve written in the past how sleep was a difficult/ an impossible task after being raped, well, being awake was its own form of torture!

Awake, the Tormentor, won the battle because he managed to separate my soul, spirit and body from each other. He intertwined them into opposing whirlpools, corrupted and convinced them to work as tripolar opposites. In the rare occasions I left my dungeon, whether to go to Vuyo’s room, the grocery store, upper campus or wherever, I left as three forms. My empty shell of a body, walked along side my spirit and soul; and they existed as phantoms. To the naked spectators I seemed whole and conventional, but in actual fact, the being before them was a corpse, with the affliction of my rapist gestating in my womb! My rapist had many abettors and Awake had joined his employ!

I hadn’t left my dungeon for over two weeks and to be honest, if I had it my way I would have stayed in there forever. The level of torture in there was alpine. It was the very territory where I had been violated but it was also the only place where I could protect myself from further violation. My room in Woolsack was both my cage, and my deserted island away from testosterone annexation. Salvation was very limited, so any source I attained had to be held onto. The irony of this situation was the very person that could save and heal me, I hid from! I was certain that God had deserted me, the minute he let someone assault me. Not to mention, I had always thought of God as male, so asking me to trust another male, especially, the very male being that had created such a monster as my rapist, was really overstepping all bounds of my logical centre. Unfortunately for me, no woman can be island; just because I suffered a traumatic event didn’t mean that the world had stopped spinning. So duty called and I had to attend an East African Society meeting (EASOC). The problem was, the organizing committee, also know as the Comm, had 5 guys in it. These guys had become like family, we laughed and made inner jokes together, we also went through ridiculous challenges and came out on top. These guys had taught me how to relax and take life as it came, as they would say, ‘its never that serious!’ Unfortunately for me, it had become that serious and nothing could save me from my demons….

It had been over two weeks since I had seen the EASOC comm, but I was dreading it. It’s almost as though I was carrying my rape as a cross, where my audience, was the one and only male race. My judge and jury were male and from the African continent, where patriarchy was hailed because it uplifted their sexist beliefs and culture. I only had three females as my potential allies, but we were up against a couple hundred men (as the EASOC meeting was held in male residence in UCT, known as Kopano). The problem was I was too afraid to confess my rape, so I bore my cross alone. As I walked to Kopano from Woolsack, my spirit and soul phantoms secured my alleyway. Each time a male walked passed me, I envisioned my soul and spirit being entrapped and that male charging towards me like a Springbok player at the ruby world cup finals. My fate seemed sealed and my body was failing to cope with reality. My heart was pulsating harder than the African drum, my legs had become stiffer than Table Mountain and my chest had tightened into a ball of fire. I was gasping for air and my ear drums felt like they had exploded. My gasps were so loud and hard. It felt like a Rwandan gorilla was banging on my chest and trying to reclaim his territory. I tried to seat down but my knees wouldn’t bend, and I’d be out in the open without any camouflage, so I ran! I ran to the entrance of Woolsack and hide myself in a little corner and tried to calm myself down. I began to count out loud but it sounded like a radio comm had reacted with a cellphone and I all I wanted was for it to stop. I need you to stop, I said. I commanded my heart, chest, legs, and tears to stop but they wouldn’t heed my call, so I retreated to my sad position and let the panic attack pass, on its own. The bright side was, I was late, so they wouldn’t be any time to hug anyone,

“YAY! I thought, NO PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH THE BOYS!!”

My attack finally stopped and I began my journey again. Same formation, spirit and soul led the way and my corpse followed. I arrived at Kopano and tried to write my details in the sign in book. My hands were numb and so was the rest of my body. I couldn’t take my eyes off the guy giving me instructions. I honestly wanted to shit my pants.

“ALL AROUND ME WERE MALES!!! ALL MALES!! RUN BITCH! RUN!! NO WAIT, WE HAVE TO FACE OUR DEMONS SOMETIMES, STAY STRONG MARYANNE KAMUNYA, STAY STRONG!!”

These are words I told myself. Unfortunately,  my heart started palpitating again so I wrote my details down as quickly and neatly as I could and blended into the wall and walked away. Throughout my ‘normal’ absence at Kopano my mind’s eye, soul and spirit held my cover! As I approached the meeting room, I noticed the boys hanging out outside, I quickly looked around and couldn’t see any of my allies.

SHIT!!! I CANT DO THIS, THEY WILL ATTACK ME!

Suddenly it dawned on me, all my male friends had now become a thing of the past; men WERE NOT to be trusted, especially Kenyan men. I propelled myself forward as my soul and spirit were urging me to turn back. The irony of this whole situation was, as I was shuddersome of being around the boys, they seemed happy to see me. So one after the other they hugged me and throughout those hugs I checked out and escaped my body completely.

If they were to have me, they would have the empty shell that they called my body but they would never break or have my spirit again!

This dear brothers and sisters is what rape does to a victim, it alienates us from the ones we love and turns our minds against us!

[Maryanne Kamunya] and [misbeloved], [2014]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Maryanne Kamunya] and [misbeloved] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

WEEPING MELODY

When a person is raped, there is a severe battle for their psychological and physiological health. Rape is about power. The rapist has to show his victim that he holds power over them and their surroundings. The power is both physical and psychological. Throughout the rape and even after, as long as the rapist is still in the vicinity, they attempt to belittle the victim through verbal and physical abuse.

For me, the power statement was “we need to go get the pill!” The word WE insinuates that my rapist and I were one, like we made the decision together, like I had a choice in whether or not to engage in sexual activity, that I allowed him not to use a condom or any form of protection, that my biggest concern was getting pregnant not STIs or STDs or the psychological trauma I had incurred. The word “we” was an admission of guilt and an assertion of his so called authority. He was saying to me I will not leave you until I am certain that I have been absolved of all responsibility. Pregnancy for him was the embodiment of evidence, it would force him to admit his guilt and take responsibility.

I need rape victims everywhere to understand, whether or not he admits that he violated  you, does not negate the fact that he committed a violent crime against you! It doesn’t matter how many times he attempts to convince you that you gave him consent or how many times he tries to justify his actions, he raped you and knows what he did!

It doesn’t matter whether you let him into your space, if you were wearing “inappropriate clothing” or your demeanour was ‘seductive’, if you did not give him formal or informal consent, he raped you!

Lastly, it doesn’t matter how many people falsify your testament or how many people deny the truth. Their denial of the truth does not pardon his actions, and neither does it obliterate your experience….

THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU, IS TO DEPEND ON YOUR FAITH IN GOD AND IN YOURSELF. AVOID NEGATIVE AND IGNORANT PEOPLE, AS NEGATIVITY, IS A VIRUS THAT DISSOLVES THE SOUL! FIND A SUPPORT SYSTEM AND HOLD ONTO THEM LIKE A LIFELINE!

After he raped me, every cell and fibre of my being felt eroded with his manure. I felt so filthy, soiled and sullied. When a Christian baby or adult is baptised, they tell you that you are absolved of all sin; baptism is the expunging of all your past sin and the original sin, Rape is the act of smearing the rapist’s sin onto the victim’s body and mind. Therefore, all I wanted to do was to vindicate myself of his sin and renew my purity. The minute I could, I cleansed myself.

Those of you who know me, know I have a serious addition to Dettol, the smell and its properties just soothe my soul because nothing makes me happier than a germ-free environment.

So naturally, I took my big bottle of Dettol and barricaded myself inside the bathroom. I ran the hot water, placed the Dettol on the ground, laid my back against the wall as I attempted to squat and hold onto my sanity. The minute I realised my blockade was impenetrable and indestructible, my weeping melody began. The harder the water fell against my body, the more venomous the tears felt against my cheeks. The tears were a reflection of the bleeding soul and spirit that lay within. My veins felt like they were drenched in an undeniable realisation, the realisation that rape had become my reality. From this day on I bore the face of a rape victim! 

That was my weeping melody, a melody that could not be erased by water, Dettol, screaming, tears or hypnosis. The melody was strong and full of discords. It was a destructive melody that rang the mantra of the devil. This melody did not aim to uplift, it aimed to annihilate my body, soul and mind. The harder I tried to fight it, the harder it fought to burst my eardrums and shred every ounce of my body. Funny thing  was, the weeping melody laid within. It had been placed within me by my rapist. I may not have been carrying his human spurn but I was definitely baking his weeping melody in my womb. The clarity of this composer’s intent rang loud throughout my body and held my brain as an undeserving captive. I tried to liberate myself by scrubbing myself free. I started by pouring the Dettol throughout my body. I promise you if I could, I would have poured the Dettol on my face and ingested it so as to cleanse my insides and silence my weeping melody. The sad thing is, the harder I tried to wipe out my rapist’s essence, the harder it stuck to me like glue, and the harder it corrupted my neurones.

I’m sure some of you are wondering why in all my efforts to cleanse my body and mind, I hadn’t reached out for God’s salvation. As far as I was concerned, I lived in a godless world. The only hope for my salvation lay in the bottle of Dettol if Dettol could not save me, nothing else could. You must understand, all my life I had tried to see the best in people. I lived in a world created by the most high, and everything in that world had a purpose and a beautiful essence. When that short asshole raped me, he opened my child’s eye to the grave evils of this world. This battle was not just about my split hymen, it was about the loss of my innocent perspective. Prior to my violation, I viewed the world through a child’s eye. Yes, I was a female adult, but no amount of experience could bust my bubble, pun intended. Trust me, until someone shakes the very core of your being, your innocence remains unharmed. The second that it is shaken, nothing looks the same ever again. Not only do you feel alienated from the world, but you are reborn into an errant and aberrant world.

Weeping melody was the corruption of my innocence, the innocence of my body and mind. I wept for both my physical and psychological health. The physical health refers to the annihilation of my hymen, the violation of my thighs, legs and any other body part that was stained by his touch. You see, I couldn’t touch my own body, without having flashbacks of him touching and violating me. The image of his desecration was tattooed into my mind’s eye; so the ritual of cleaning myself was not helpful at all. Every drop of soap that fell in the name of purification, was a constant reminder of my affliction. The harder I scrubbed, the deeper my affliction ran.

The mental turmoil I had, only increased the weeping melody. My mind was racing between acceptance of what had just happened and complete denial, for fear of losing my sanity. I tried to justify his behaviour by finding fault in my conduct, by convincing myself that I had done something to deserve this. Maybe it was the fact that I had allowed him to comfort me, maybe my demeanour, while he was comforting me, was seductive and I did not know it. I tried really hard to understand his cerebral process, but the harder I tried to find an excuse for his conduct the fasted I marred myself. The saddest part of being raped is how quickly the victim bears the shame. The moment he pulled his penis out of my vagina, I bore his shame. With every thrust, the shame was intensified and engraved onto my soul. The shame did not come because I did not fight him or scream, but because I found a way to mirror the stigma of the world onto myself. I convinced myself that no one would believe me, so I chose to keep silent. Not because I couldn’t find the strength to fight him legally but because the shame overpowered me.

Here’s the truth, you cannot bear the shame of your rapist, because you did not violate him or yourself, he violated you! Thus no one else but your rapist should bear shame and fault for his crime against.

Secondly, it is not for you as the victim/ survivor to prove your innocence to your family, friends, his family or his friends, because your innocence is not proven by his admission of guilt, your innocence is affirmed by itself. So try not to focus on people who don’t believe, as they have made a conscious decision to add to rape culture, rather than fight it. That’s a reflection of them and does not diminish the truth!

Lastly, remember that God the almighty also hates the crime of rape. We see this in Deuteronomy 22:25-30, the punishment befalls on the perpetrator, not the victim. Romans 13 also speaks to the above. So in reality, there is no need to feel ashamed, discouraged, suicidal, or depressed because the Lord our God loves you very dearly. That does not mean that your feelings are invalid, they are extremely valid and understandable feelings to have. So call onto Yahweh, Jehovah, Lord,  Allah, Jesu, or Yesu. He is a mighty God who will NEVER FORSAKE YOU OR DEDUCT HIS LOVE FOR YOU! YOU BEING RAPED WAS NOT AND WILL NEVER BE YOUR FAULT! TAKE COMFORT IN THAT FACT AND REMEMBER HUMAN VALIDATION IS WORTHLESS, WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT YOU ARE STRONG AND BELOVED SURVIVOR!

 

 

 There is peace in acceptance and strength in your survivor! Strive to heal and the Lord will steer your ship! © misbeloved/MWK.

Speaking out about my rape is part of my journey and I cannot ask other survivors to speak up and break their silence, without first freeing myself by speaking out.

Every time I’d visit my GP he would ask me:

“Why do you choose to hold the weight of the world and the shame of your rapist on your shoulders? Every time I see you, you walk and behave as though you committed the crime against him; but he is the one who should be ashamed of what he did to you.

My response was always the same:

“I walked and behaved as though I am guilty because I feel guilty. I carry my rapist shame on my shoulders because I think I must have done something to deserve this. In addition, I know everyone knows and blames me for this.”

My rapist was known and loved by so many people at UCT. In the East African Society (EASOC) he was known as and called the godfather. So for many years I was too scared to speak out about what he did to me because I was sure no one would believe me.

I also need you to understand. South Africa was not my motherland. It was a country that looked very different from Kenya, the people spoke different languages than my people, and most importantly, it was a place that I had not fully embraced as my home yet. Thus when I felt homesick, I latched onto my fellow countrymen and women for support. Even though, my closest friends were actually from South Africa and other nation-states. I sometimes needed physical anchors to my heritage to make me feel whole again. Unfortunately when I finally got the courage to speak up about my rape and against my rapist, some of my countrymen and women were the first to call me a liar, disown and shame me.

However, when I finally found the courage to speak to God about my rape, he did not disown nor did he blame me. Instead, he said:

“BE STILL MY CHILD! BE STILL! I’ve loved you from before you were born and I will continue to love even after you die.”

And thanks to his mercy and grace I survived.

This entry is going to be very graphic; I’m not going to sugar coat anything because I need you to understand the pain and destruction that rape leaves in its wake.

I met my rapist at the beginning of 2006 when I started my studies in Cape Town, South Africa. When we first met, he seemed like a normal and decent individual.  He was a short, petite and all in all a typical 20 something-year-old Kenyan guy. His demeanour and attire mirrored American Hip Hop culture, in fact, the only thing that embodied his nationality was his accent; yet even his accent wasn’t a definitive reflection of most Kenyans. It mostly reflected the type of schools he had attended, private schools and the fact that he came from an affluent family.

I did not find him attractive; neither did I see him as boyfriend material. He just seemed like a polite person that would maybe make a great friend. I, therefore, classified him as an acquaintance/ big brother. I hang out with him and his friends once in awhile, and sometimes sort his assistance when I felt I required it. Unfortunately like many male and female relationships things got messy and complicated quickly, so I followed the counsel of my friends and kept my distance. I officially cut all ties with him and his friends at the beginning of 2007. The main reason for this was he continued to act like a sleaze ball. He wouldn’t respect my boundaries or my new friends, so I cut him out of my life. Now when I say I severed ties with this person, I mean I refused to acknowledge his presence. For a certain amount of time, he did not exist to me. Then, one day a friend of mine convinced me to stop being so callous and at least be civil with him. So when he spoke to me, I responded and tried to remain civil. However, before I knew it, I had started hanging out with him and we became friends again. Actually, in my naive brain, I believed he viewed me as one of his male friends. Boy was I wrong. By letting him back into my life, I would soon realise I had opened a proverbial gateway into my own, personal version of hell.

…

In May 2009, I was really struggling with my academics and life in general. Third year was really stressful. The workload was heavier, the reading material was more complex and the fear of failure had almost become debilitating. In addition, the disappointment of not getting my hip replacement was really starting to frustrate me.

At the end of 2008 I was scheduled to undergo a hip replacement but due to unforeseeable complications, I had to postpone my surgery again. This left a bitter taste in my mouth, as I thought 2009 was the year I could realise my full physical potential. For years I had imagined trying different things like surfing or some crazy physical sport that I couldn’t do before. I saw myself letting out my sunny disposition and just acting like a child again. No inhibitions or concerns that I wouldn’t be able to join in the fun or worst yet, I would hurt myself. All you need to understand about my hip is, it sometimes prohibits me from doing certain ‘normal’ things; however it doesn’t define me, and neither does it rule my life.

Anyway, on that day in mid-May 2009, I was having a really horrific day. I failed a test that I had spent a great deal of time studying for and had written 2 weeks before,  I hadn’t slept for a couple of days due to assignment deadlines and for some reason, I was feeling overly emotional all day. Luckily, I had attended all my lectures for the day, so I decided to take the rest of the afternoon off to relax and consolidate my thoughts and feelings.

As soon as I got back to my dorm room, I had some lunch and took some espiride. Espiride is an anti-anxiety pill that my GP had prescribed for me about a month or two ago. Once I was done with lunch I decided to lie down and take a quick nap. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was overwhelmed by a flood of emotions, so I began to weep. I wept because I felt disappointed in myself, I felt like a failure and honestly I was just scared of the future. I had barely been crying for 20 minutes in when my phone began vibrating.  I tried to ignore it but it was such an unsettling and loud noise that I had no choice but to attend to it. I picked the phone off the bed stand and took a look at it. His name appeared on the screen and this immediately caused a sharp pain at the centre of my abdomen. I then had a small voice whisper; don’t pick it up, DON’T PICK IT UP! Of course like a complete moron, I decided to ignore that small voice and answer my phone. We exchanged pleasantries and then he told me he was near my resident and asked if he could pay me a short visit. At first, I was very hesitant because I really just wanted to be alone but for some reason, I decided to let him come over. I lived in Woolsack on middle campus, so it was normal for me to entertain my room. Honestly, it had never occurred to me, that entertaining individuals of the opposite sex could pose a security risk to me, especially in this case. I like I said above, I had know my rapist for years and he had visited me before and, he had never done anything to harm me.

Before I continue, it is important for me to point out rapists that do not look a particular way, neither are they of a particular race or class. Most rapists are people we know, trust and have some sort of relationship with. Sometimes rapists are complete strangers, however, this is usually not the cases.

Therefore telling a rape victim they should have dressed more appropriately, or acted differently, doesn’t help them, neither does it solve this epidemic. What it does do is place blame on the victim instead of a perpetrator.

In addition, for those of you that told me I should have never let my rapist into my dorm room, or I should have yelled or that it was my fault and that I wanted to have intercourse with him. Go fuck yourselves, as you’re arguments are not only fallacious they are ridiculously stupid!

My rapist arrived a couple of minutes after the call. He didn’t call me to swipe in, as someone else let him into the residence. I heard a knock at my door, I moved to the mirror and made sure my eyes weren’t too puffy. Back in those days, I didn’t like crying in public, I was firm believer that people who cried in public were attention seekers and feeble. Little did I know this would become my MO for many, many years. After I put some eye drops on, I moved to the door and let him in. We exchanged pleasantries. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, it was very rather obvious I had been crying. So he asked me what had gotten me so upset and if I wanted to talk about it. I replied with a vague answer and tried to change the topic, but he kept pushing and before I knew it, I was spilling my guts out. His response was I should cheer up and take comfort in the fact that other people out there had much bigger problems than I did. This really pissed me off, so I asked him to leave, as I really would rather have been alone rather be patronised. He insisted on staying and cheering me up. For some stupid reason, unknown to me, I let it go and let him stay. He asked me if I had ever watched a movie called Amelie and I said no, and he began to download it.

As the film was downloading he began to make moves on me. He run his hands up and down my chest while trying to kiss me. This made me very uncomfortable and angry. I mean who makes advances on an individual whose clearly upset and preoccupied?

I mean, seriously, who?

Once again, I asked him to leave. He declined and I didn’t insist, I just reasoned that I would throw him out once his downloads were complete. Within a few minutes, Amelie was saved on my laptop. He copied the file onto my VLC player and we started watching the movie. I felt very uncomfortable, because within the first five minutes, there was already a hectic, steamy sex scene. I didn’t like it as I was a huge prude and quiet honestly I thought it was an inappropriate film choice.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t an angel. I had seen films with sex scenes before but all I’m saying is I was very conservative and naive at the time.

In addition, I had little to no level of interest in the content of this movie or his company. Honestly, I just wanted to be left alone to cry and console myself. I asked him to leave but he insisted on staying and cheering me up. He asked me again what was wrong and I repeated my story about my hip and how disappointed I was that I didn’t get my hip replacement. The more I spoke about it, the more upset I got, before I knew it; tears started rolling down my cheeks. I tried to hold them back, I tried to breathe and shout at myself internally, but like many of you know sometimes you just have to let your sorrows flow like the river Nile.

It was at this moment that he saw his opening. It was at that very moment he decided to steal my power and declare it as his own.

Sexual assault is not about sex but rather it is a way for a rapist to exercise their power over their victim.

“Rape is a crime that is committed through a sexual act without the consent or agreement of the people involved. Rape is traumatic, humiliating and can have life changing consequences. Rape is never the victim’s fault. Rapists make the choice to rape and they are to blame.

You can be raped by a stranger or by someone you know or are going out with (date rape). A woman can also be raped by her husband. If you are raped by two or more people at the same time, it is called gang rape. Statutory rape is when someone age 18 or older has sex with someone under the age of consent (16 years) whether or not she gave consent.” (Rape crisis centre SA: http://rapecrisis.org.za/about-rape/)

 

 

I chose the title Memoirs of a rape victim because after being raped you are a victim. You’re not a victim because you are weak or a wreath, but because someone violated you! Nothing you did, or said, or wore, warranted you being raped. So don’t blame yourself, BECAUSE IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. SAY IT WITH ME: IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!

A rape victims journey begins with them acknowledging that they were sexually assault. It takes a great deal of courage to  utter the words  “ I was raped”, but these three words set into motion the wheel of healing. It is through this process of acknowledgement, that your body, soul and spirit begin to heal. It is in that very moment that your journey as a survivor commences.

This journey will consist of pain, doubt, trust issues, depression and darkness but the only way to survive is to walk through it. You can’t do it alone, so please seek medical assistance and find a positive support group, and i promise you, you will come out on the other side. I did, and so can you!

All my life sexual intimacy was an important step. It was a step that you only took when you were well and ready. For me, I would only take that step once I was married. I always though of sex as a gift that i would give to the man i deemed worthy. Unfortunately I had never considered, let alone entertained the notion that this decision could be taken from me. I had never thought about it, because it was not something that was openly discussed. I wasn’t told about it during my Sunday school classes, during my academic classes, neither was I told about it at home; because Rape was not meant to be the norm neither was it meant to be the exception, for many of us rape does not exist, neither do we want it to.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that any of my teachers or my parent or any of my family members are to blame. They taught me as best as they knew. They live, and well, we all live, in a society where rape is an unspoken word. It is a word that bears shame and blame; and the burden of blame is placed onto the victim while the rapists is exonerated. This ladies and gents is the world we live in. We live in a world embedded in fine confines of patriarchy, where social constructs carry the day and stone cold facts fall by the waste side.

This section is dedicated to fellow rape survivors! I intend to use this platform to share my story, break the silence, encourage other survivors to share their story, educate you on the trauma that rape causes, dispel the myths and misconceptions about rape, and hopefully change in the way you think about this issue.

So if you have been raped before and are still struggling with it, this is for you, if you have a friend, sister, mother, aunt, grandma, neighbor or whomever that has been raped, this should empower you to know what to do or say, and what not to say or do, if you are to support them through this ordeal.

I must emphasis RAPE SHOULD NEVER BE ACCEPTED AS THE NORM, IT SHOULD NEVER BE ACCEPTED AT ALL. It is a crime and a hernias violation of a person body, soul and spirit!!!

In addition, like i mentioned earlier getting past the trauma of rape is a journey. A journey that may take a month, or a year or years to overcome, thus NO ONE SHOULD SET A DEADLINE FOR YOUR RECOVERY. If people feel your taking to long to recover, tell them to feel free to leave.

No one has the right to tell you, your journey to survive is taking too long, because you are the master of your own ship and no one but you can steer this ship.

Finally, I will not discuss the effects rape has on men, as I am female, and would be lying if I pretended to know the emotional, psychological effects it has on them. However this does not mean that men are not raped, they do indeed get rape, and so therefore seek the help they deserve!

God is the author and beginning of my journey, through him all things will pass and through him your strength will be renewed. I surrender all, I surrender all