[Surviving Abuse, the After Years + Victim Blame]

So, on the list of things that I have survived in my life, there is a lot of terrible things. Somehow the top of the list will always be staying in an abusive relationship for as long as I did (which was close to a year). I generally pride myself on being a strong person who doesn't let anyone take advantage of her ever. Not after I learned better. But then he happened. The litany of things that were done to me include (but are not limited to):
Choking me in front of my then 3 year old son.
Forcing sex when I was pregnant and recovering from pregnancy.
Making it so I couldn't sleep for up to three nights in a row when he was upset with something I had supposedly done.
Jealous rages over me having to go to work (to make the only income in the household) that resulted in screaming in my face and physical violence.

I hate talking about this. I do. So I don't. And I'm actually not going to now. I gave a couple examples to illustrate how bad the situation really was in order to lead up to this story:

So, yesterday at work, my coworkers were talking about a girl we work with who the night before had to call the cops on her boyfriend for physically assaulting her. The way the conversation ended up going was this: "Well, she left him before, it's her own fault for going back to him." And a part of me just shrivelled up inside. Because I know this how people probably talked about me for that time I was with my ex.
Here's the thing (and the soapbox for the day): STOP BLAMING VICTIMS. Whether they are victims of sexual assault or domestic violence, they are still not at fault. No matter what. Much like no matter how short a girl's skirt is doesn't mean she should get raped, a woman never deserves to be beaten by a man. EVER.
You may not get it. You may not understand how someone could stay with someone like that. I hope that you never really do understand, because it's the kind of thing that understanding tends to come through living it.
Here's the thing with abusers: the first step of abuse is that they tear down any sense of self worth you may have. You genuinely start to believe that you don't deserve better and that this is the best you will ever do. You start to confuse the anger and abuse with passion. "Well, he must really love me or he wouldn't get so upset." So you start to become one of those women who makes excuses for him. You start to hide the things he does or says on a regular basis. You start to believe that no matter how broken this is, that no one else is going to want you, especially no one normal who would treat you right. And, hey, every relationship is more than a little dysfunctional anyway, right?

So, if you ever find yourself hearing this, be the person who speaks up and says DON'T BLAME THE VICTIM. Something has been broken and what she needs is not blame, but understanding and compassion. Don't ever hesitate to tell her that you care and that you don't think it's alright what's happening. But don't blame her. Because with that current statistics as high as 60% of young women alone being in abusive situations at some point in their life, there's a chance that it could be you someday.
Compassion and empathy, not blame. Seriously, think about it.

(To be edited and updated with resources for how you can help if you know someone in an abusive relationship or if you are in one yourself.)

[Rape Culture and Me]

So, there are a lot of subjects in my head that I want to write about. A lot. Narrowing it down has been exceedingly difficult, but then I thought about what made me really want to start this blog in the first place. There is this continuing discussion about whether or not rape culture is a real thing.

Click this for a fantastic missive on why this shouldn't even be a debate.

I can't even lie that this is a discussion that fills me with anger and a bit of resentment. The truth of the matter is that I am a rape survivor and victim. Also, almost worse than that, a rape culture victim. This is my story.

When I was 15, I was going through a majorly rough patch in life. At home (if a motel room can be called a home), I was dealing with a highly volatile, violent situation between my mother and her boyfriend. Being an audience to a domestic violence and doing everything to protect my then baby sister from being harmed in the crossfire takes it toll on you. Especially when you're doing it in a new town, away from all the stability you knew. I (perhaps inevitably) quickly turned to drugs, drinking and the completely wrong crowd to distract myself from all that.

Part 1: I developed a close friendship with an upperclassman we'll call T. What I thought of as a close friendship, at least. I spent an inordinate amount of time with his girlfriend, his best friend and him. One night when the girlfriend wasn't around, we were drinking and I was getting high. I was a slip of a girl and rapidly reached a point where I was unable to function normally. I was also a virgin at this point. That old fashioned kind of girl who wanted so bad to just find the right boy (or girl) and be in love with them. I'm fairly certain you can see where this is going and that's where it went. I wasn't passed out. I almost wish I was. What those two boys and their other friend did to me is something I wish I didn't have to fully remember. It's the kind of experience that 18 years later makes my stomach twist in knots when I talk about it and makes my hands shake as I type this. The word no was said and didn't matter. It didn't fucking matter, because I was just one girl.

Part 2: Then we come to what happened after. I fell silent and I fell apart. I couldn't go to my mom, because she already had so much going on that I didn't want to add to the situation. I couldn't go to my friends, because it was my friends who had done this to me. Just to make sure I couldn't say anything, T told his girlfriend that I had hit on him and he had to tell me no, destroying that friendship. I couldn't go to the police, because at the end of the day, I was just a drunk and high girl in a too short skirt who got "taken advantage of". I carried it in silence for years and I broke for years. The first person I ever even told about it was my first boyfriend when I was 17. Even then it was because I was lucky to find a fantastic first love and felt he deserved an explanation about why I had intimacy problems.

Part 1 is how I was a victim of rape. Which was awful and destroyed my life for many years. It took a lot of time for me to move beyond victim to become a survivor. Part 2 is how I was a victim of rape culture and in many ways I still am. This culture that told me in so many ways that I deserved what I got, because I was a lost little girl who made some bad decisions. This culture that told me my no meant less than someone else's, because I was a "bad seed". This culture that makes light of and romanticizes violence against women made me feel like there was no one I could tell and no one I could trust. I honestly can't help but wonder, how much of my life and how many different decisions I would have made, if this culture didn't tell me to be silent at every turn.

In many ways, I'm still silent. This is the very first time I have told the entire story from beginning to end. The partial reason is that it's such a difficult story to tell, but another part of it is that part of me still thinks that if I had made better choices, it never would have happened and that makes it partially my fault. Silence almost killed me then. Maybe not being silent will help save someone next time. Which is why I decided to finally tell this story to the world.

So, next time you're tempted to think that rape culture doesn't exist, think of that (and all) broken little girls who make bad decisions and when what they need is someone who understands, what they get is someone who murders their sense of self worth.

[Intro+Warning]

1. I'm opinionated. About everything. You will probably not agree with at least some of what I have to say and that's cool. I still have a lot to say and needed a place to put it. So, here's that blog.

2. About the name: S is for Slut. A word I've been called a lot in my life. Not as much in recent years, but still. In that case, it was a word for a woman who "acted like a man" (or at least some men) and didn't want commitment. It's also a word that gets thrown around to describe any woman who thinks she deserves to make her own decisions about her health, body and life. If you take that definition, slut doesn't seem like such a huge insult, now does it?

Really, that's all I have to say as far as a warning goes. This is the internet. If you throw a rock, you're going to hit an opinion you don't like. Or a picture of a cat which you may or may not like. My only rule is that on this page, disagree to your heart's content. Please comment and tell me your thoughts. Iwould love to hear it. Just don't be a disrespectful ass hat, because there is never any reason for that. Ever.