A Day in the Life

Let me walk you through a day in the life of a rape victim.

2:00 a.m. Up again because I had a nightmare. Woke up screaming his name.

7:00 a.m. Wake up again. This time you have to tackle life. It’s not “oh gee, I need a cup of coffee.” It’s finding the will to make it through another day.

8:00 a.m. If you have been able to hold down a job because you cry at work and never sleep, you get the opportunity to paint a big smile on your face and tell everyone good morning and that you’re doing great today when it’s the furthest thing from the truth.

If you’ve lost your job again, this is where you spend your time applying for jobs that will never pay all your bills and don’t give a fuck about your well-being.

9:00 a.m. Watch your rapist read your blog. Or his girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriends. Or ex-wife.

Note how invasive it feels to have your rapist judge you, but also dismiss what you are saying with a flick of their finger from their shiny fucking office they are in instead of a prison cell.

10:00 a.m. See a number, word, name, or phrase that sets you into a flashback. Take your anxiety medication you never leave the house without so you only have a partial meltdown most days. You no longer give a fuck about anything for a little bit and might be able to concentrate.

11:00 a.m. Fidget with the handcuff necklace you’ve been wearing for a year to symbolize your incarceration and your hope for his eventual charges. You know one day things will change because they have to, and what is just will finally happen.

You just have to wear the necklace until then.

Noon. Time to hassle the AG again.

Five social media sites.

Posts no one publicly responds to.

You keep doing it because you know they do see it. And if they come back in a decade to try to get charges, you have asked every day for two years for them to charge your rapist.

And honestly, it’s the only thing that might garner some attention to your cause.

Mainly it’s just to make yourself feel productive.

1:00 p.m. Write up today’s legal filing. Research case law. You’ve already memorized the code and realize procedure is where you’ll get killed because you are too defiant for your own fucking good.

Why weren’t you like that the night he raped you?

2:00 p.m. Get pissed off reading an article and write a long, impassioned email to whatever government body or journalist is ignoring you or whoever you’re angry at today.

Delete it three times.

3:00 p.m. Try to find some good in the world. Brainstorm how you can change the world so no one else has to feel what you feel at that moment.

4:00 p.m. Have a debate in your head about if you're actually not crazy, but instead you're doing the right thing. Double back to just being crazy and give up. Then change your mind again because what happened is real. Then of course repeat the sanity question a minimum of seven times. 

5:00 p.m. Prepare to leave the house but cry first about getting in the shower and how nothing is going to work out.

5:30 p.m. Actually get ready.

5:45 p.m. Think about canceling even though you’re dressed and ready to walk out the door.

6:00 p.m. Out to drinks with a new guy you met online. You hope he doesn’t judge and you don’t let it slip that you’re a rape victim because that is instant death.

If you do let it slip, you just have to pray to God he doesn’t start saying things like:

“Well what are you going to accuse me of?”

“That sounds kinda hot.”

“Why were you there in the first place?”

See, because it’s acceptable for HIM to have a “kink” where he harms women physically, but as a woman it’s not okay to have a “kink” where you are with more than one partner.

At that point you deserve whatever happens to you.

7:00 p.m. Leave before you bitch slap the motherfucker.

8:00 p.m. Temu and furniture refinishing videos. You need a break from it all.

9:00 p.m. Spend the next hour writing your feelings down about how fucked this whole thing has made every single day of your life since.

Write it in a way that might bring insight or change. Believe that if you just word it properly, like a magic fucking spell, what is clear to you on video becomes as obvious to others.

10:00 p.m. Try another dating site. Maybe this one will work out.

11:00 p.m. Start screaming. Yell. Cry. Call him a miserable fucking rat-fucking bastard loud enough to make yourself feel better, but not disturb the neighbors.

12:00 a.m. Take your meds because you can’t calm down and slowly cry yourself to sleep wondering what fresh hell is going to happen tomorrow.