Today I am Angry: Surviving Rape

I can’t handle the nightmares anymore. They are so vividly horrible. I wake up as If I’ve been in a feverish delirium; completely disoriented and traumatized. This happens almost every night. Last night I thought a sleeping pill would help it but instead it made it worse. Because I knew that it was a dream but my usual tricks oh holding my breath or trying to die quickly didn’t work. The drugs kept me asleep and forced me to continue my nightmares. I can feel it in their gaze; my friends and family think I’m lazy and un-motivated, or rather too motivated just in the wrong areas. There is no possible way to describe the effect of sexual assault on the mind and spirit. What am I supposed to say? I have dreams of being raped and sliced up and beaten every night. That is why I hate waking up: because my evening was so traumatic that my mind and body can barely move, let alone jump up and leap for joy at another day. Or how about this? I can’t focus on working at my job or on finishing my schoolwork because if my mind is not occupied with things that bring me excitement and joy then my mind inevitably becomes occupied with sadness, anger and fear. We all have daemons, I get that. WE all need to push through the hard stuff because life is what you put into it and if you don’t work hard you won’t get rewarded. The thing is, my daemon has been out in the Ottawa Gatineau area assaulting young girls for 16 years. My daemon raped me 16 years ago and is no only now being charged for it. My daemon is a man that haunts my dreams and puts fear into me every time the sun goes down. So please, don’t tell me life is about hard work and perseverance, it’s about a whole lot more than that. The biggest insult, what really gets my blood boiling, is when people tell me to think about my daughter. How about this? FUCK YOU. Seriously. Guilting me into getting over it, or working harder or being happy for the sake of my daughter? Implying that if I loved her enough I would be able to do all the things you think I should be able to do for her sake. Really fucking rich. Let me tell you what I do for my daughter. I push my feminist ideals down everyone’s throat, hoping that it will catch on so that my daughter will grow up in a better, safer, more just and respectful community than I did. I do public speaking about my experience as a rape victim so that my voice is heard, and maybe some action will be taken to improve access to justice and services for victims of sexual assault work, I love, I put myself through school and I try my absolute hardest not to let myself slip into deep suicidal depression that has been a part of my life since I was 15. That’s what do for my daughter. Also, I don’t give up on what’s important to me. And what’s important to me is making change, making a difference, accomplishing big tasks that I can be really proud of. Planning events, volunteering at others, working for a company I believe in or on a project that brings me fulfillment. That’s just not enough though. Everything I try to do to make my suffering and anger seem worthwhile. All my efforts to drive myself into success can be ruined by a few horrible nightmares, a headline about an A-lister who raped his daughter and got away with it, a night out with the girls that I can’t attend because the dark locks me in my house. They caught my daemon last year. They seem to have forgotten all about me though. The courts, the lawyers, the police, no one has contacted me in nearly four months. I’m just waiting. They won’t even let me face my assailant. I guess that makes sense though, because, as I have been told time and time again. It’s not about me; this case is about the crown and the accused. The crown’s interest is what matters because it’s the crown’s job to protect the rest of Canada from this man. We (anti-violence activists, survivors, women’s rights scholars and criminology experts) all know though, that that won’t happen. He’ll be charged for only a fraction of the rapes he’s done and his sentence will never surpass 5 years. The decision will be a blip in the papers; headlines like "DNA data bank helps Ottawa Police nab man in 1997 sex assault case" wont bring any attention to the victim or the justice system that fails her, wont mention the prevelance of rape or the affter math and devastation a sexual asault leaves. Hopefully tomorrow will be another day and I will feel more determined,and more hopefull. Today however, I am just plain angry and that's ok I should be!