Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Behind the Darkened Shade

The Personal Journal of a Struggling Survivor

My name is Luna, and I have a true story to relate that will be disturbingly familiar to many. Five years ago I was diagnosed with major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from a violent sexual assault by a stranger at age ten, followed by an acquaintance rape nine years later. Other difficult factors in my childhood, several relationships, and my inherent introversion and shyness have exascerbated my symptoms, but the two sexual assaults are the ones I regard as truly traumatic, the ones that turned my life into a seemingly endless, disorienting, bone-chilling fog. I was left with no purpose, understanding, or direction to guide me anywhere--not that there was anywhere I wanted to go. Experience had taught me at such a young age that there was no such thing as a safe, happy place in my world. I know my story is not unique, and that many others have suffered the terror, violation, and crippling psychological aftermath of sexual assault--lasting effects that have come to control so much of my life, as well as the lives of countless others. Indeed, I often used that same bitter realization to avoid acknowledging my own emotional overloads and fragmented, disrupted mental processes.
Too often, survivors are treated as if they are somehow to blame for the rape or assault, that they must be immoral or somehow deserving of the abuse; some people seem to genuinely believe that devout piety and purity will ward off such sordid crimes, or that such unspeakable things just don't happen to nice, normal people.
In an attempt to cast some light on the painful, shattering reality that lies within the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, I am making my own personal experience--my innermost thoughts, fears, weaknesses, insights and even delusions--free to anyone who takes the time to read them. I post entries from my private journal--not everything, but entries that are coherent and bear some relevant insights--unedited, with the exception of changing a few names here and there. I do wish to retain my anonymity and privacy. All else will be straight from my gut; my purpose in journaling is to articulate my own thoughts and emotions in order to clarify and identify my own symptoms: fear, flashbacks, dissociation, and seclusion. This will always be my reason for journaling; nothing I post will be in any way embellished, dramatized, refined, or censored. Consider yourself forewarned. You may be offended by some of the opinions I express--NOT, however, by any explicit sexual content. It's still too disturbing for me to go there. So you see--I am writing for my own benefit, but maybe as I find my own path I can offer insights to fellow survivors, or help them articulate some previously incoherent idea or emotion. Maybe the literary self-expression that benefits me can benefit others, too. Maybe a glimpse of the other side will enable therapists and medical personnel to better grasp the intricacies of the disorder, or enable them to empathize with their patients on a deeper level. Maybe my efforts to heal my own wounds will make some small amount of progress for some survivor, somewhere. Or maybe I'll just acquire a lot of tedious typing experience for my trouble. Who knows? At least it gives me a purpose.

This is NOT my personal ranting ground, nor is it a call for admiration or sympathy. I prefer anonymity because I don't want that kind of personal attention. I do want to educate and enlighten, if I can; if so, perhaps I can have a little nameless immortality that way. Perhaps I have a bit of a narcissistic ulterior motive, after all.

..............................................................................Luna

Entries will be updated completely sporadically, since I can't really predict when I'm going to produce something worth posting.

LunaEclipse@email.com

Dissension Within

I'm always hesitant to write about my emotional and psychological difficulties. There's always that harsh, critical aspect of my mind that ridicules my pain even as I feel it: "Quit your whining, you weak, self-centered emotional infant. It's so trendy to be depressed, isn't it? Trying to make your mark in the literary world through your hand-trowled pit of despair? How trite. It's been done before by others, and it's no longer even remotely interesting. Get a real job. Your so-called illness exists only in your own shallow imagination. You don't deserve sympathy. It's not as if you've ever truly suffered. Life's not fair to anyone, so don't think you deserve to be the exception. Just deal with it. Everyone else does. You're nothing but a tedious, melodramatic burden to society." But damn it, I still hurt! My pain and fear are as real as the air I breathe. My feeling of estrangement is almost tangible, like a thick, dark woolen insulation from the world, stifling my mind and my emotions from reaching out to others. It's all too real; it's not a trendy flight of fancy. Would I pay this price for any kind of shallow peer approval? What fool would? I write not to attract artistic acclaim, but to create a lasting sense of my own spirit. These words are mine, so I must exist. I write, therefore I am. I write to validate the existence of my own wounds. How can I heal if I lie and tell myself that I'm healthy, uninjured? Articulating my convoluted, raging emotions on paper seems to lend credence to their existence, and that sense of validity takes me one more step towards facing my inner terror. The alternative is a recipe for self-destruction. If I deny the existence of a very real spiritual abscess, I'll just end up blindly and clumsily wounding myself more deeply. Stoicism is not a virtue. It's an obtuse, vain attempt to prove and display one's supposed strength and valor. I would think that it is stronger and braver to recognize and address the source of one's pain and fear than it is to pretend it doesn't matter or even exist. But I can't change common societal tenets. At least not today, so today I must venture forth once more and hear bigotry and cruelty, both within me and without me.

The Traumatized Self

I need more information about PTSD in children. The effects have to be markedly different, far more deeply ingrained and incorporated as that child matures to adulthood, than in a victim who has already reached maturity. The ensuing intrusive symptoms and coping mechanisms must seriously influence and even warp the maturing process; they must have a powerful hand in the formation of the entire adult personality. So, really, there can be no "cure." How can one cure a person of his or her personality? Treatment, then, should focus on understanding-both objective and subjective-of the profundity of the experience and the psychogenesis of the resulting thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Comprehension must be the initial goal. Full understanding of the event and the reasons for its traumatic effects will clarify, will "make sense" where before there was only a feeling of senselessness and thus helplessness. It will also do a great deal to begin validating the victim as a valuable, relevant person, as well as validating the severity of the experience and its impact. Trauma in childhood or adolescence, severe trauma, leads to a complete invalidation as a human being, or even as a soul with a right to exist. Those so young have too little self-image to maintain any sense of stability. This first profound event in one's existence has shattered one's half-formed view of life, the world, of good and evil. Not only are the familiar perceptions of reality gone, the sense of self is seriously damaged, if not destroyed. The child is left with none of the necessary psychological resources with which to build a functional psyche. Reality is destroyed. Self is destroyed. Everything is now fragile, untrustworthy, unstable, and inconstant. There are none of the necessary constants creating a foundation on which one can begin building a meaningful life. A parallel, if you will: A devout, ascetic Christian monk who has given up all for his faith and his God walks into his spartan chamber to find God himself dead and mutilated on his floor. God, irrevocably dead. The monk's life, reality, beliefs, and purpose have all been shattered. In my case, I felt that I had come face to face with the devil himself. No horns, no tail, no flames; the devil was a man. That's when I learned that evil isn't obvious or recognizable. Horns, tails, and fire are obvious, but not a simple man. I had to distrust all-especially all men. As I grew and learned more, I came to despise men for their apparent slavery to their carnal urges, as well as for their simultaneous oppression and dismissal of women. In my perception, men saw women as superfluous and irrelevant except as sexual objects. I have struggled to overcome this prejudice after meeting men who are not such monsters. Yet still, this old belief sometimes taints my perception-probably because there's a grain of truth in it.

	Let the Truth Ring Out! Because our voices can (and do!) make a difference!
	This Let the Truth Ring Out site is owned by Luna Eclipse. Want to join Let the Truth Ring Out?
[Skip Prev] [Prev] [Random] [Next] [Skip Next] [Next 5] [List Sites]

This Survivors Sites Webring site is owned by Luna Eclipse.

Want to join the
Survivors Sites Webring?

[Skip Prev] [Prev] [Next] [Skip Next] [Random] [Next 5] [List Sites]