I've been having a bit of a hard time lately. I moderate TwoX, and so every day, I've been exposed to something new with the Brock Turner case. Article after article, story after story of rape, victim blaming, and discussions of who should have done what. I don't mind moderating - I actually really enjoy it - but on this particular topic, I find myself lost inside my own head.
Several months ago, I was raped by someone I trusted, and while the circumstances aren't much like the Brock Turner case, I see a lot of me in the lady, and a lot of my rapist in him. I know what she means when she says two lives were destroyed. I know for me, my bed isn't a safe place to sleep, and when I do sleep I'll wake up in the middle of the night, convinced I'm being held down, trapped, and that my voice is gone. I have moments where I'm catatonic with panic, where music that's his starts playing, and I am doing everything I can to not run, run as fast and as far as I can. I still can't be around men of a certain type without being afraid, and I still can't trust people or open up. It's taken a long time for me to be able to start going back to the things I enjoy.
But it's more complex than that. I didn't report my rape. It's a decision that I've looked at many, many times, sometimes thinking I should have done something differently, sometimes glad I didn't. When it's someone I know and trusted, it's harder. He wasn't in control of his mind. I don't think he ever heard me say no, and I don't think he noticed or registered that I was trying to get away and couldn't. I don't even know if he properly remembers it.
What he did was wrong. A part of me broke, and I don't know if it can be fixed. But I didn't report it because, while it was him, it wasn't. Maybe that's the lie I tell myself to make it all better, I don't know. But I can't condemn him for something he doesn't remember.
Which brings me back to Brock Turner. What he did was monstrous as well, and I don't in the slightest bit disagree with him going to prison. He deserves it, much like I think my own rapist deserves to go to prison. The fact that he's going to prison for three months is a travesty in the eyes of the law, and makes a farce out of the whole idea of rape. The woman he raped, too, did nothing wrong, and shouldn't be condemned in the slightest, not by anyone, and certainly not by people who don't have the faintest idea what it is to be raped. Equally, though, I don't think he's evil. I don't think he's the worst person in the world. I think he was caught up in a world he was not prepared for, drunk in a society that pushes men to sex and sex well, and didn't stop to think at any point about what he was doing. It's wrong, incredibly wrong, but I find that, much like I can't condemn my own rapist to hell, I can't condemn him either. He ruined her life, and that is incredibly evil, but I can't call him evil. Not when I see so much of the man whose life hasn't been ruined, whose life I let stay on the same course, in him.
This is entirely the wrong forum for these sorts of thoughts, but it's been the wrong forum for most of my thoughts, so I figure this can't be too different. It's the sort of thing I've been wanting to say, but is really only the sort of thing I can say with the veil of anonymity. My friends and family wouldn't believe me if I said he raped me, but I also just want to say something, to vent, and maybe admit that that was something that happened. Anyway, those are my thoughts. I just wanted to share.
In other news, my husband is losing his job at the end of the month, and that crippling fear of unemployment is creeping in. But my fat, 13-year-old cat somehow caught a bird this morning and left it in the middle of my living room, which is adorably evil. The baffling part is that she doesn't even properly have access to the outdoors. I have a bird feeder on my balcony that doesn't currently have birdseed in it. How did she even catch it? Cats are weird.