I never thought I would admit this out loud, and the internet is as loud as it gets. As proud as I am of who I am, I was never able to fully accept this particular facet.
Hi, I’m Joel… and I’m a rape survivor.
Up to now, I have pretended as if it never occurred. Back in elementary school, I just wanted to be a normal kid, so each time it happened (the rapings and later on the beatings and bruises), I dove deeper and deeper into my schooling. I worked hard to replace the memories with knowledge and life and friends and anything else, a challenge made even more difficult by the fact that he was the step”father” I was forced to spend my developing years with. Even worse, he’s managed to latch on to my family to this day, even though he has an unfortunate new family. Every time I visit home, I am forced to tolerate the weight of his presence. I am forced to maintain composure and pretend that nothing happened. I am forced to continually re-experience and suffer silently. But tonight, 17 years later, I’m frighteningly grabbing the sun and shining it directly unto that dark, forgotten crevice in my mind for everyone to see.
My shaking hands have sat at this keyboard wondering about the ramifications of clicking the publish button on an academic page like this and sharing this confession for my friends, family, acquaintances, and the world to see. But that’s the issue isn’t it? I never chose this. It was a horrible act that happened to me, so why should I fear the consequences of admittance? Some might say this is oversharing, that I should be selective about disclosing. However, the harsh truth is that this isn’t here for them and they aren’t here for me. This is me, reclaiming every ounce of my identity. I don’t want to hide it anymore.
Tonight, I sincerely opened up to someone close to my rapist and I experienced first-hand why people stay in the dark. Their goal was to make me feel ashamed for keeping this for so long. Their goal was to use my silence as evidence that it’s all a lie. Their goal was to have me eat my words as soon as they were expelled. However, they underestimated me. They empowered me. I was raped, and no amount of shaming will change that, and no amount of shaming will cause me to shrink back into the darkness.
My rapist made it clear that he feels unresponsible because he hasn’t “paid the price”, he’s experienced no karmic retribution. Yet, all I need to do is look around me: at my achievements, at my friends and loved ones, at my future to know that the price has been paid.
I know that publishing this will have a butterfly effect, every rippling cascade changing people’s perceptions and thoughts of me for the better or worse. However, I need people to know, I need myself to know, that I’m not ashamed. The world will keep moving forward and so will I.
-J