It's been 4 years. 4 years I've struggled to look at my reflection in the mirror, 4 years I've flinched when someone accidentally brushes past my skin and that I've slept with my light on for fear of waking up in a cold sweat sobbing at the image of you that is forever ingrained in my mind.
What you don't know is that I had already spent the majority of my adult life struggling to feel "good enough". It took you only 5 hours to rip that away from me.
In hindsight, I can see you were looking for someone just like me werent you? Someone with low self esteem, that you could break? I was too blind to see that you groomed me, even as an adult.. You seen I was weak and you manipulated me, we weren't strangers. You knew me and you knew how to break me, that if you kept pushing me I'd stop saying no.
You took the quiet sobbing that replaced the fighting back as permission, permission to degrade me, beat me and break me. The ugliest thing I've ever seen was the complete lack of compassion and emotion in your eyes as I begged.
I'm sorry for many things, I'm sorry to the younger, more naive me. I'm sorry for for making myself so vulnerable and not believing in myself for such a long time.
I'm sorry for the other girls who were also hurt because I was too afraid to speak up.
For the relationships, friendships and the oppurtunities I lost because you made me feel so undeserving.
The part of this that surprises be most is that I cannot even hate you, you have shown me that I'm stronger than I ever imagined. I've grown from what you did to me,I wake up in the morning happy to experience another day.
I hope for better, that eventually I'll wake up every day to someone that loves me. That can see past all my flaws, even those you have created and love them too. I want to put as much good into this world as I take out.
I'm not your victim anymore, I refuse to be.
I refuse to feel ashamed, ashamed to admit I was raped. I refuse to feel ashamed if myself ever again and I refuse to wake up and not feel like I'm "good enough".
