Chasing the High of Relief

The stages of this are weird. The drive I have to keep fighting and keep going. See, it wasn’t there when I sent that email. That’s something I don’t think anyone understands. I didn’t fully comprehend the gravity of the situation until after I had sent the email to report it. There were stages of understanding.

I realized what had happened when it happened. But it wasn’t a big fucking deal. I was in pain. I was hoping it would just be over quickly. I really thought I was being overly dramatic. No one seemed to care they were hurting me. No one was listening. Must have been me, not them. It fucking sucked, but as I always say, pain doesn’t last — and if it does, you get used to that shit.

Then the thing at work happened and I watched it. It looked bad. That’s what I told myself: it looked bad. It didn’t quite click in my head yet. Just a vague “that doesn’t look good” kind of thought. From appearances it did not appear normal or safe or anything good. It just didn’t look right.

Meanwhile my family just thinks I’ve gone fucking nuts. I showed it to my mom and she said, “It looks like a snuff film.” And my mom is kinda meh on the whole thing. She thinks, like me, it looks bad. I also have to remember this is a woman who has been through and normalized sexual violence over the past 70 years for herself. If that were my daughter, he would be fucking dead. No one would have been able to stop me. She wasn’t indifferent, but she wasn’t appalled — until she stops and says, “Oh my god, you’ve never given birth.” I think it clicked in her head how much pain I was in at that point.

Then once the police confirmed it was rape, I was a little shocked. I look back at this and I have to remember I had {D} in my head for days telling me it wasn’t rape. That isn’t what it was. So the police saying it was — and me confirming that a dozen times with them — was an oh shit moment. Like wait, it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t just my opinion on the matter. It was suddenly very real.

I wasn’t onboard yet with the police. I was not like, let me give you everything. Here are the names and numbers of the other two guys. I actually refused to give them that information during the interview.

Now, I didn’t tell {D} I had talked to the police. Which, as a matter of course, is kind of surprising to me. I was trying to protect him still. Having the confirmation from professional law enforcement — people who do this for a living — I believed them. The more I talked to {D}, the more I realized he was lying to me about what it was, and the more I realized the lack of remorse. At that point I got on board with the police and said do something, because he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. I gave names, numbers, blood type. Fuck it, here is everything. There is a reason criminal law exists, and {D} is pretty much that reason. It does seriously bother me that I don’t actually know if he knows he is lying or if he really honestly believes he did nothing wrong. That is the question that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Now, the moment that really shifted me into this fight I’ve been in for the last year and a half — the one that has taken all my time, my thoughts, my fucking life — was when they told me he was being arrested. Prior to that moment, the idea of him getting arrested and being charged was not a thought based in reality. Like, it sounded like the police were going to do something, but for some reason the thought of him being arrested, put in handcuffs, booked in jail, mugshots, the reality of a felony arrest — it just never crossed my mind.

I felt something weird when they said he was being arrested. It was an overwhelming sense of relief. I felt like it was right, and I had a certain peace in that moment. It was going to be okay. I was going to be okay.

Then it didn’t happen. And I’ve been in this desperate fight to feel that peace I felt that day. The weight lifting. Instead, the weight has just gotten heavier. The more I learn, the more I know what the reality of that night was. What the reality of my relationship with {D} was. The more I see the night of him forcing himself on me as violations of me and my right to have control over my body. The more I realize, the more I want him charged. The more I see what this has done to me, the more I want him charged. I thought I was invincible. I wasn’t.

What I keep chasing isn’t punishment. It’s that moment of peace. The moment where the weight lifted because reality finally matched what happened to me. I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t overreact. I wasn’t dramatic. I was hurt, I was violated, and for one brief moment the world acknowledged that. Losing that acknowledgment is what broke me. That’s why I’m still here. That’s why I keep going.