I Thought You Said Villains Were Those Strangers Dressed Up In Dark Clothes?

When I was fourteen, I knew what the bad guys looked like. They were the ones in dark clothing, hanging outside gas stations at night or waiting in the woods behind my house for me to go for a run by myself. They had tattoos. They held a cigarette between yellow, rotting teeth. And every once in a while, they cleaned themselves up, put on nice clothes, and pretended to be an overly-friendly stranger that tried to tempt kids like me with candy or ice cream or a ride in their windowless van.

I knew what they looked like because I paid attention during my sixth grade safety assembly. I watched as the characters, similar to the one described above, performed a skit in the middle of a circle of desks in my classroom. I watched as the bad guys tried to capture an adult woman dressed as a little girl and convince her to do drugs. I watched her save herself by running back to her friends.

And I believed what I was told because it was the same version of the world I saw just about everywhere else. The classic villain, drawn with harsh accent and dark colors, and named things like Scar, Professor Snape, Cruela Du Vill; names that literally identified a character as evil. They were obvious, even to a four year old, no matter how clever their disguise. They were scary, and strong, and sneaky.....but I was prepared for them.  

  

What I was not prepared for was the transfiguration of the wonderfully loving, yet slightly wounded character that the audience immediately attached to. People warned me about walking in dark allies (a place rare in my suburban neighborhood.) My mother made me carry a cell phone when I went running in the middle of the day. My high school put locks on the door so that "bad people" could not get in. I followed the buddy system when I was hanging out with friends. And I never talked to strangers. 

But no one told me that the people that would pressure me to do things I knew I "wasn't supposed to do," would be the same people that sat next to me in the safety assembly and signed their names on the petition right next to mine: the people who were supposed to be on my side. And no one ever warned me that the bad guy would be dressed up as my best friend, my boyfriend, instead of in a long black trench coat. That he would have the same eyes as the boy that loved me. That he would answer all of my wildest dreams before slowly and meticulously tearing them down. That Prince Charming might turn into the villain and try to kill me. 

No one warned me about being in my own house, or explained to me that I had a greater chance of being hurt in my messy little bedroom, by my boyfriend, than I did of running into a bad guy stranger in the woods behind my house. 

What I have realized recently is that one of the reasons the abuse that I experienced was so damaging to my life was that I was completely blindsided by it. I literally had no understanding or even hint of an idea that something like this was possible. There were no words I had to describe what I was going through. Nothing I did to try to solve things made anything better. Nothing I did to try to protect myself kept me safe. And the only thing I really felt was that somehow, everything was my fault. 

After talking to other victims, I understand that I was not alone in my experience. One of the hardest lessons I have learned is that abusers aren't always strangers. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, in fact many times, they are a person you know and love. The difficult part is separating the image or title of the person—attractive, loving, boyfriend—from the behavior—hitting, belittling, harassment, etc.; and understanding that "staying safe" is less about identifying only certain people and situations as dangerous and more about recognizing that no matter who the person is in relation to you, or what the situation may be that a behavior is associated with, abuse is abuse.

What About The Person I Used To Be? Do I Ever Get Her Back?

One of the saddest things about abuse is that even after you get out of the abusive situation, or away from your abuser--if you are lucky enough to do so-- life doesn't just go back to the way it was beforehand. It's not like waiting out a thunderstorm so that you can play outside again...even when the clouds move on and the sun shines, life doesn't continue the way it did before the storm. Instead, surviving abuse is like getting through a storm, only to find that the dark clouds move from the sky around you, to form a squall within your own head. 

For me, through the worst parts of the abuse, I simply prayed to stay alive. I prayed to live through the day, through the night, through another week until I could make it to the day when I got my life back. I was one of the fortunate ones. I did get out. I got away from my abuser. And I got back to my life, only to find that when I did, I was no longer in it. 

The person I had been before; the happy kid, the carefree and wild and innocent girl who wore bright orange spandex to field hockey practice the first day the temperature dropped below 30 degrees and pretended to fall flat on her face while walking in the middle of a crowded mall because her best friend bet she wouldn't; the girl with that huge, ridiculous smile on her face that radiated from her fingers to her toes.....she was gone. Looking back, I watch the process: the slow stripping of confidence, the way my abuser etched away at the strong personality I was unaware anyone could touch, piece by piece, combined with my own desperate attempt to rid my body of any semblance of feeling, all burying me as far away as possible and leaving nothing more than an empty shell to take my place. 

I'm not sure, really, where the weight of the destruction lies for each individual victim. For me it was shame. Shame; that shut me up, that kept me smiling just the way I had always smiled, and forbid me from ever trusting myself again. The type of shame that clouded me from seeing anything beyond the distorted view of what had happened. The type of shame that never let things be anyone else's fault other than mine. The type of shame that made me hate the sound of my own voice, the glimpse of my own reflection, and made the thought of letting the girl I was close enough to see the girl I had become, unbearable.

It took me years to realize that the shame I felt, was given to me-- wrapped nicely in a pretty package that looked a lot like love, and even after I broke myself from my abuser's hold, I still held the shame he left behind and thought it was my own. 

So....how do we get our lives back? How do we find our way back to the person we were before the abuse and merge the pieces of ourselves together? I've spent most of the past few years since becoming a victim, convinced that I am serving a life sentence while my abuser walks free; wishing for some outline of steps to follow to get back to the person I lost and to figure out who I am now, but willing to settle for knowing that any of this is even possible; all of which leaves me wanting to scream out to someone, anyone: Am I even heading in the right direction? Will I ever get to the end of all of this....will I ever be ok again???!?!

And then, ever so slowly, it begins to come back; tiny flecks of me that force their way through the numbness and the fear.  For me, this process started by chipping away at the shame the same way my abuser chipped away at me. Piece by piece. So slowly that I'm sometimes not aware that I am making any change, but as I look back I can see how far I have come. I don't have to be the abuse. I am not the crazy jealous rage. I am not the assault. I am not a lie.

And I realize, that although I prayed for my innocence and naivety back, I now have a deeper awareness in my own ability to make an educated decision based on what I want; although I wished to disappear from it all, I now see the strength I earn from fighting through; although I swore that no one would ever understand, I now have a better understanding for other victims; although I cursed the years I lost because of abuse, I now appreciate every moment of my life I have; although I wanted to hate a world with so much pain, I am surprised by how much love surrounds me.

I am more than what someone tried to make me. I am more than just a girl left alone on her floor. I am more than an empty shell, a sleepless night, a silenced voice. I am more than what has happened to me. 

The Hidden Power That Can Be Found After Trauma

I've been thinking today, about the hidden power that can be found after going through a traumatic experience. As crippling and devastating as the abuse I experience was--I survived. There's something very powerful when I recognize this. The fact that I am alive. That each day I take another step toward recovery. That I am still standing. I am still speaking. I am still fighting.

And when I think about it, I realize that if I can survive something so severe, what do I have to be afraid of now? Granted, the little girl inside of me is scared a lot. Scared of meeting new people. Scared of trying new things. Scared of starting a relationship and trusting someone else that might only lead to more pain and suffering. Scared of everything, it seems sometimes. But I remind her, she has survived worse. And if she can survive what she did, then everything else seems trivial in comparison. Why be afraid? 

So today I'm choosing to find a way to hold on to that power. I picked myself up off the floor. I got myself out of an abusive relationship. I lived through the night while my psycho ex was camped outside my bedroom. Years of stalking and harassment. I survived. If I can do that, then I can definitely survive a "normal" heartbreak. I can survive a bad day. Walking a runway in front of a thousand people. Meeting someone new for dinner. Speaking to a classroom full of people. Just about...anything. 

Dear Psycho,

I just wanted to let you know:

You swore no one would ever love me like you did-
I 'll make sure they never do.

You told me I could not survive on my own,
but I thank God I survived my life with you.

You told me I was weak,
but you only made me stronger in the end.

You told me I was stupid,
but I'm smarter than I've ever been.

You covered my mouth,
stole away the sound,

but I have found a way back to my voice-
to speak again out loud.

You killed every part of me you could,
left nothing but an empty shell.

But I brought myself back to life again,
I clawed my own way out from the depths of your hell:

I picked myself up off the floor,
I succeeded even with a broken heart,

I lived through the darkest moment of the night
Rebuilt my life each time it fell apart.

I swore I'd never love again,
but thankfully I do:

I love my life, I love myself,
I love someone that loves me too.

So, you might have held me down
but you will never hold me down.

And you might have thought you won,
but you only won that round.

Things To Remember To Help You Through A Breakup

What's the only thing worse than dating someone who doesn't treat you well?

          Being all alone......Right?

When you're dating someone that doesn't treat you right, or that hurts you, you know deep down that you should leave them. You get that uncomfortable feeling in your gut. That little voice that says you need to get out. 

I used to spend a lot of time ignoring that voice and burying that uneasy feeling with a mighty dose of "everything is fine!" I wanted to believe Dave when he said that he could change and that everything would go back to being great again. I wanted to believe him when he said he would never hurt me again. After all, aren't we supposed to give people second chances? Aren't we supposed to sacrifice a little and compromise a little and aren't we supposed to forgive?? 

When I think about it, even when things got better and Dave seemed like he was back to being the loving version of my boyfriend, I would tell myself that I was so happy and so lucky and that everything was perfect again.....but I always felt the tension in my gut. I couldn't get rid of that discomfort no matter what I tried. And I couldn't get that little voice to shut up that kept telling me something was not right. 

Trust Your Gut And Listen To Your Voice! When I tried, finally, to listen to myself and to be honest with myself, the thought of breaking up with Dave seemed like the most impossible, most terrifying thing I could imagine. Because if I wasn't dating Dave, then I was going to be--don don don--alone. I realized that putting myself first was more important than staying in a bad situation. As scary as it was to think about, I could handle being on my own. I did it before meeting Dave, and I survived things that were a lot worse while dating him, so I had to trust myself to get through the sadness of breaking up in order to get my life back and hold strong to what I knew I deserved. 

Breaking up with someone is hard. There's no shortcut you can take. Even after you realize that it is not healthy for you to stay or that it's not working for you and you deserve better, it is still hard to leave. 

Relationships become comfortable. You form habits around phone calls and dates and hanging out. You have invested a lot of energy in trying to open yourself up to let someone in. The thought of breaking up leads to all sorts of questions. Who am I going to talk to now? Who am I going to hang out with on the weekends? Who will call me to say goodnight before going to bed? Who's going to write me notes and walk with me in between classes and sit with me at lunch? What if I am making a mistake? What if I regret it and he doesn't take me back? What if he's my soul mate and I am throwing it away and what if no one ever loves me again??

Here's some things that helped me when I was going through a breakup, that are important to remember:

Hold Out For The Guy That Loves You In A Healthy Way. The guy that loves you just the way you are. That thinks you are pretty without makeup or your hair straightened or fancy clothes. That is proud of your accomplishments instead of threatened by them. That listens to you if you are scared or unsure and doesn't make you feel stupid for having an opinion. That loves the fact that you have other friends. that is honest and open and communicates. That makes you feel safe. He's out there, and you can't find him if you are stuck with Mr. Wrong. 

Happiness Comes From Within. Being in love, and having someone love you, can make you feel happy. So happy at times that it is tempting to give credit to the other person for making you feel happy instead of realizing that you are responsible for your own happiness. When we think that our happiness depends on someone else, it keeps us dependent on someone else for fear that we will never be happy without them. How great would it be if you could feel happy all on your own? You can! You won't feel happy right away--breakups can be devastating--but trust yourself and know that you have the power to make yourself happy. Your current boyfriend is not the only one that can make you feel happy. 

There Are Other Fish In The Sea. I hate this saying. It used to make me feel nauseous every time someone said it to me. I thought it was the stupidest analogy ever. So, here's a different one for you. Your boyfriend is not the last chocolate croissant on the shelf. Yes, that's right. Think about it. Think about the feeling you get when are standing in line at a bakery or deli and there are five people in front of you and only one chocolate croissant left behind the glass of the display. You know that anxious, frantic feeling that runs through your whole body because you are afraid someone else might buy it before you do? You think that that chocolate croissant is the only thing that can make you happy or that will taste good. That's what's it's like to break up with someone. If there were a hundred other chocolate croissants lining the shelves, we wouldn't think twice about one in particular. Maybe another tray is in the oven about to be served. Or maybe if we tried the banana bread, we would find that we liked it even more than the croissant. So screw the fish and remember, there are other pastries in the bakery.

Continuing with this ridiculous (but helpful) bakery analogy.... remember that If You Are Allergic To Gluten, The Cupcakes Will Always Make You Sick, Just Like If You Continue To Date Someone That Abuses You, You Will Continue To Get Hurt. Think about how delicious cupcakes look when they first come out of the oven. The smell making your mouth water. The icing melting down the sides. It looks like a little piece of heaven, all wrapped up in a colorful paper thin cup, moist and warm and chocolaty. As in an abusive relationships, the cupcake we want so badly looks perfect and oh so tempting. But what we can't see, is that if we are allergic to one of the main ingredients in the cupcake, it is going to make us sick. It is filled with poison. It will hurt us. Usually, we don't know we are allergic to something until we try it, just as we usually don't know someone is abusive until after we've been dating them for a while. Even though we know it's bad for us, a cupcake might still look so tempting that we it will try to make us believe it will be different this time; we want to believe that things can change, but we know that as good as it might taste at first, it will make us sick. Abusers have the poisonous ingredient inside of them. No matter how innocent or beautiful or harmless or tempting they look, the only way to make sure we aren't poisoned again is to leave. Find a gluten free cupcake. Have some ice cream.  Or give up sweets for a while. 

Nothing Lasts Forever. (Enough of the food analogies, I'm making myself hungry.) No matter how bad things are, they can get better. No matter how helpless or hopeless a situation looks, there is a way out. No matter how painful or devastating it is to lose someone you love, you will survive. You will love again. No matter how many millions of billions of pieces your heart shatters into, it will put itself back together even stronger than it was before. You will be happy again. You will love again. There are endless adventures and opportunities waiting for you! Think of life as a giant wheel. When you are at the very bottom of the wheel, do you stay there? No. You start moving upwards. Keep remembering that what you are going through is temporary, not permanent, and better things are on their way.

There Are Over 6,898,948,616 People In The World. Next time you feel alone or worry that you have no friends, remember these numbers. Statistically, at least one of these people would want to be your friend, but chances are, there are millions and millions and millions of people who would think you are pretty freaking cool if they got to know you. Heck, I think you are cool just for reading all of my ramblings, so there's one friend automatically added to your list. Abusers will make you feel isolated from the rest of the world. I have been there too, and I spent night after night thinking that no one would ever understand. I pictured myself inside a bubble. No one else was in my bubble, it was just me, and it was a sad and a lonely place. I felt like there was no way out and no way for other people to break in. The hardest part about breaking the bubble was the battle in my own head. As long as I saw it as being impossible to break out of: it was. But when I realized that it wasn't as thick as I imagined it to be, the actual action of reaching out to others, or letting others help me, was much less scary than the thought of it. No matter how lonely you might be. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.

But I Love Him

Love. What a confusing word. To a victim of abuse, this word is tarnished, burned as it is used for so many contrasting emotions. At one point, love was wonderful. Love was a connection between two people. It was something you searched for and longed for, something that grew inside you. Something warm and comfortable and exciting. In the beginning of my first relationship,  love was everything I imagined it would be, and more. Love was having someone to cuddle with. Love was finding notes in my locker and getting sweet text messages and having someone tell me that I was beautiful and that I was amazing. Love made me feel alive. It made me smile when I woke up in the morning and smile throughout the day and smile when I got back in bed at night, thinking about love. 

Then, slowly, love became Dave's excuse. Love was the cause for jealousy. Love made him scared he would lose me, love made him cling and pry. Love was his reason for everything he did. "This is all because I love you so much....I don't mean to hurt you, I just love you so much it makes me feel like I am going crazy...People only find love like ours once in a lifetime, I can't let you throw it away." Love was the excuse for the dirty words. It was the reason he climbed on top of me, held me down. It was what made him follow me, what made him call 50 times in a row. Love was the force behind his fingers as they gripped my arm. It was the pain I felt as he pushed me up against a wall. "Love" was what was responsible for what was hurting me. 

The first definition of love was so strongly engrained in me, that by the time the second definition of love came about, I could only see it through the lens of the first. When people ask a victim why they stay with someone who hurts them, it comes back to this progression. If the second definition of love was presented to us first, we could see it independently and identify the flawed language: this is not love, it is abuse. But abusive relationships do not start out abusive. The power of the abuse comes from the abusers position of gaining trust and establishing a loving relationship. 

Because of this, love becomes a prison. Love is the reason why we stay. It is the reason why we excuse the abuse and why we don't recognize it. But I love him. I said it so many times when I was stuck in the cycle. I love him. And I did. As a victim, this is the one of the most important realizations you can make. The love you feel is real and it is strong and at times it feels downright crippling. I didn't fall in love with a horrible monster...I fell in love with a loving, caring, seemingly innocent boy who was my best friend. I wasn't in love with with the boy that hurt me; I was trying to find my way back to the person he used to be. 

If the person you are in love with makes you feel afraid or badly about yourself, start to break down the relationship in your mind. Take it apart, piece by piece. Write it out if you can so that you can see it in front of you.

Without thinking about your boyfriend or girlfriend, think about love in general. 

What does love look like?

What does love feel like?

Does love make people feel good or bad?

Does love make people feel safe or scared?

Does love make people feel better about themselves or worse?

Does love make people smile or cry?

Does love make people feel like they have a voice or should it their voice away?



Think about the people that you love most in your life, like a
younger sibling or a cousin or a best friend. What do you want for them?

Do you want them to have lots of friends or to be alone all the time?

Do you want them do be successful or to fail at everything in their life?

Do you think that they are beautiful? What would you do if they were crying or if they were upset?

Do you want them to have their own opinions about things or do you want them to be quiet all the time and to do whatever anyone tells them to do?

Now think about what you want in a relationship. If you had the power to create a perfect relationship from scratch...what would it look like? What would your perfect partner do or say to you? How would you feel in this relationship?

Think about the relationship you are in right now. Is your definition of love the same as your partners? Does your partner's "LOVE" make you feel the way that other kinds of love make you feel? Do his actions match what he says he feels about you? Are they loving? Do they make you feel the way that you described love made you feel?

These can be a hard questions to answer because you have to look at the present, not the past; and you have to look at the bad times, not just the good. You also have to separate the words from the actions. You have to separate the person and your feelings of love from the way he actually makes you feel. When I ignored how great everything was in the beginning of the relationship and thought about what I was feeling at the present moment, this is what I felt at the time of my relationship with Dave.

As much as I loved him, I realized that our relationship was not a relationship I wanted; our "perfect" relationship, was no longer there. Dave was no longer the person that I fell in love with. I saw the old Dave in snippets, but the way he treated me was not love. I stopped excusing his behavior and took back my definition of what love was to me. 

As you ask yourself these questions, you can start to separate yourself from the abuse. The first step to getting your life back is to be aware of how things really are and to be honest with yourself. What is happening is not your fault. You can't make it better by "being a better girlfriend," or "doing everything perfectly." You are dealing with an abuser. You are being abused, not loved. 

I understand that the love is strong. Losing someone or something we really love is devastating. If the person you fell in love with is no longer the person that you are dating, this is a big loss, and it is sad, and it is not easy, especially because outwardly they still look like the same person. Mourn your loss, but hold on to what you really want in a relationship and don't let the good times blind you to the bad.

My abuser told me over and over that what we had was so special and amazing and that people search for it their whole lives and sometimes never find it. I believed him, and I felt what he said with all my heart. Looking back now, I am so thankful that I was wrong. Abuse is not love. No matter how much an abuser tries to blame the abuse on love. Trust your definition of love and don't settle for a relationship that makes you feel bad about yourself, or afraid, or alone. 

I hated when people told me that there were other boys out there, there are a lot of other fish in the sea. I didn't want any other fish. I wanted things to go back to being good with the fish that I had. I didn't want to let it go. But surprisingly, everyone was right. It was hard, but I stopped loving Dave.  I fell in love again, with other boys. I realized how much I had been missing out on when I was dating Dave, not how much I had given up by leaving him. And I have found a love that is real, and that is stronger and more wonderful than what I had with Dave. 

'Reviving Ophelia' Movie Hits Close To Home

I just finished watching the Lifetime movie, Reviving Ophelia, inspired by Mary Pipher's book of the same name. Great movie. Made me cry like a baby. But great movie. 

It's not like I haven't been thinking about relationship violence lately. I've spent every moment possible writing and researching for this website. I've dug up stories, dug up poems I wrote when I was sixteen, I've looked at pictures, I've read other people stories, I've read statistics, over and over. Not once have I shed a tear. I'm a survivor, after all, not a victim anymore. I am strong and I am above everything that happened to me, and I am beyond an emotional response to violence. And then, as life has a funny way of working, I was (metaphorically) knocked flat on my back as I saw myself, my own lifeless eyes, in Elizabeth's face (the main character who get caught in an abusive relationship).

Reviving Ophelia. mylifetime.com

Whatever percentage of my reaction that was a testament to strong acting is complimented and compounded with the realization that, not too long ago, this was my life. It was not a movie. It was real. I still believe that no one will ever understand what I went through or how bad it was, but this understanding helps me to realize that as much as I would like to say that I know what each victim is going through, I don't. One of the most damaging parts of abuse comes in the moments when we are alone with our thoughts. Some of the worst words said are inside our own head, as we try to rationalize something that has no founding in sanity. Just as no one will ever know quite how bad things got for me, I have no way of knowing exactly what it is like for anyone else, but I do know that our similarities far outnumber our differences. If we all think that we are all alone, then it turns out we're together in that. 

Watching this movie also acted as a loud reminder of why it is that I am starting this website. I am so happy to see more websites and resources growing awareness for the topic of relationship violence. This wasn't always the case. I spent hours, when I was in high school, trying to find some sort of answer, some sort of help. I googled "help me, please" about a hundred times. I sat on the floor of a Border's for hours on end, flipping through books and trying to find myself in them so that I could read a way out of the hopelessness. And I put on an Academy Award worthy performance in front of the world. I was perfectly fine. My life was perfectly perfect. Perfectly. Perfect. 

How Do I Get Out??

I can't break up with him. If I did, he would kill himself, or me, or both of us.....If I tell people what is really going on, they will think I am weak for letting this happen to me..... I'm so stuck. Things are never going to be ok again!..... I have to see him every day at school. As bad as things are, if I stop talking to him, he will go crazy, and then things will just get even worse...... I don't know what to do! How do I get my life back?

These are all things I thought when I was in high school. I felt isolated and alone, and I thought that my life, as I had always known it, was over. As hard as it is to acknowledge the fact that you are in an abusive relationship and make a decision to get out, getting away from your abuser and getting your life back is even harder.

Impossible to Leave

When I think back to the seventeen year old girl I was, lying on the floor of my closet and wondering what I was supposed to do now, the only thought that comes to my mind is that getting out of that situation was impossible. I was helpless. Not for lack of trying, but no matter how hard I tried I was still stuck. No matter what I did, I felt like there was no way for me to change things or to get my life back.

Even now that I am safe. Now that I no longer have contact with my ex (let's call him, Dave). Now that I live on the other side of the world as him and he does not know my phone number or address and there is no chance I will run into him in my daily life. Even now that I am out of the situation, I still understand the panic I felt during the worst moments and looking back, I still wonder how I survived.

For those of you who find yourself in an abusive relationship, I want you to know that I understand how trapped you feel. Unfortunately, people will ask (as they have asked me over the years) why didn't you just tell him to fuck off and leave you alone? Why didn't you just stop talking to him? Why did you let yourself get stuck in something like this? What they don't understand if they have never been in a similar situation themselves is that 1. I've wondered the same thing for years and 2. the bottom line is that it's just not that easy.

A Game You Can't Win

"Kiss Me, I'm Wasted"

When I was a kid I loved St. Patrick's Day. My mother would leave trails of money around the house and pretend the Leprechaun had come to visit us. As I got older, and realized this was a actually a strange tradition, I wondered why we had this holiday. Then, I went to Penn State, and I understood.

St. Patrick's Day is an excuse for people to get drunk. In State College, students line up outside of bars at 6am. They show up to class with coffee cups full of "Irish Coffee." Whether it is the over promotion of bars on College Avenue, or the chance to eat green eggs and ham and wash it down with a pint of green beer, I don't know; but I do know that, on the whole, Penn State students LOVE St. Patrick's Day.

So, in 2007, when St. Patty's Day fell during Spring Break, everyone was devastated. Then, someone simply invented another day, dubbing it State Patty's Day and solving everyone's problems. It's continued every year since because...well... it's another excuse for students to get wasted, and the only thing better than one St. Patty's Day is TWO.

Only problem is that State Patty's Day comes with alcohol related conduct violations. A lot of them. So many, in fact, that last year the event's founder publicly denounced the holiday he created. In 2009, “police saw students vomiting or urinating on sidewalks in broad daylight. Drunken driving arrests were up, and more than 20 people needed emergency medical services.” In 2010, local police received 365 calls, EMS received 53 calls (the majority of both were related to alcohol), and 160 people were arrested.

Despite occasional bars agreeing not to participate in the event, State Patty's Day is scheduled to go on. This year, it seems they've indirectly adopted the theme "Kiss Me, I'm Wasted," as a Facebook event, created by Penn State student, Rachel Yamin, and Bloomsburg University student, Bertt Kazatsky, advertising State Patty’s Day T-shirts with this slogan, is gaining popularity. Kazatsky apparently designed the shirts, playing on the common saying "Kiss Me, I'm Irish," and seeing as he is not a PSU student, reached out to his friend, Yamin, to help sell the shirts to her classmates. Over 2,000 shirts had already been sold by the time the Collegian spoke up.

I was happy to see Penn State's Daily Collegian take a formal stand against the shirts in their recent editorial. Only problem is that this article comes after another article that drew attention to the t-shirts; meaning that the Collegian, in a way, has actually helped to advertise for the shirts by giving information about where the t-shirts are being sold, what dates and providing a picture of the shirts. I am glad to see a response to this article raising concern for the message of the shirts, but I know that realistically, the Collegian has probably helped to raise T-shirt sales rather than stop them.

After talking to some fellow alumni and reading through comments in response to the articles, I am concerned with the number of people who find them funny and lighthearted. It seems that some people seem to think that the problem is that if girls wear the shirts, other people will take it as an invitation to make out with them.

As a former student at Penn State, I am not afraid of the t-shirts leading to an outbreak of unwanted kissing (although, trust me, there will be at least one person who tries to take advantage of these shirts--some drunk that will make a move on a girl just because of her shirt--I have seen stuff like this happen.)

The main problem is it that these shirts are another example of support of rape culture. The message, "Kiss Me, I'm Wasted," normalizing the idea of sexual acts paired with excessive drinking. I am against the message on the shirts because the more we see messages like this, the more normal it becomes, and I know first hand that there is a problem at Penn State--like many other universities-- of sexual assault after, and facilitated by, excessive drinking.

I am not knocking Penn State students. I was one of them myself. And I know that not every student at Penn State is peeing in the streets during the middle of the day, or falling down the stairs as they walk through their class in the auditorium. I was one of the students watching all this happen, which means that I can accurately report that 1) not everyone partakes in the ridiculousness and 2) extreme things like this really happen. (And 3) most people fall somewhere in between these two extremes--is it possible to have fun without acting like a fool.)

I also know that not every male at Penn State is looking to take advantage of females....but I do know, first hand, that this happens. I know, first hand, that there are boys at Penn State (and outside of Penn State) that get girls drunk so that they can hook up with them. I know, first hand, that sexual assault is a problem on Penn State's Campus and throughout State College. I know that, in some circles, getting a girl wasted so that you can have sex with her is not only accepted, it is a tactic. So as "funny and lighthearted" as the t-shirt may seem just goes to show how imbedded rape culture is in our society, and as an alumni of Penn State, you can rest assured that I will not be purchasing or supporting these t-shirts.

Some Days

Some days it feels like all I do is keep starting over. I work and work and work. I run until I cannot run anymore. I write until no words are left. I try, as hard as I can try. And I let it sink in for one small second that I am making progress, and then, I fall.

Some days, I figure that this is just the nature of the beast. I’m connected to a group of people I know only a millionth of their names, all suffering a similar life sentence. I understand this in a way the rest of the world will never understand. Some days, I know that it will be like this forever. My life will always be different. It will always come back. No matter what I do and where I go. No matter what I accomplish. There will never be a way to remove this part of my life from the person that I am today.

And then there are other days that I want to scream until my voice is horse. I want to scream and throw things and tear it out of my body in whatever way I can. I want it gone. I want him out. I want to be done with this. I want it to have never happened, so badly it takes over my entire body with a force I cannot explain. I don’t want to deal with this for one more second. I’m done. I’m done being a victim. I will never let him win.

Some days, I fight. I refuse to let this own me. And some days, sadly, I surrender to it and I get through the night by remembering that tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow, maybe I won’t have to deal with this. Tomorrow, maybe it will somehow disappear.

Some days I feel like maybe I could talk. I want to call up a friend of mine just to tell her my secret. Just to get it off my chest and let someone else carry it for a while. Some days I get close to actually dialing the numbers. And some days I swear that no matter what I do in my life, I will take it all with me to my grave. I will never let people know what really happened. I will never let it be real.

Some days I feel connected. I hear another story, and through the sadness that I feel I find a small piece of understanding in the knowledge that someone else out there is this big world feels the same things that I am feeling. They know what it is like. Even if I never meet them. Even if they never know we are connected. Somehow, this helps.

And some days I feel completely isolated. I know that no one in the world will ever, ever, ever understand. I think that it would be better if I didn’t get out of bed, or if I just laid down on the floor and stayed there until people forgot about me.

Some days I can’t even remember what it was like. I think about it and I pause to wonder if it ever actually happened. Maybe it was all just a crazy story that someone told me. Maybe it’s just a story that I know. A story about a girl I used to be friends with.  A sad story, but not mine. Not mine.

And some days, sometimes, I let it sink in. And I can still feel the fingers wrapped around my wrists. I can still feel them across my mouth. I can still feel him. And it makes me so nauseous and numb that I can’t even try to deny its existence in my life.

Some days I can’t help but to question God. Why? Why? Why did He let this happen to me? What will it take for it to go away now?

But at the end of every day, I bow my head and thank Him, with tears in my eyes, that I am still alive. I found a way to survive.

Twelve

 My cousin, Ella, is twelve. She watches me as I take off my dress at the pool and comments on my striped bikini, adjusting the straps of her own bathing suit and asking me how old I was when I started texting boys. I tell her, when I was her age, I didn't have a cell phone. We had something crazy called instant messenger to talk to our friends and read the away messages of the boys we thought were cute. Later that night, she lays with her head on my stomach and runs through another list of questions, promising that each one is the last, but then finding another moment of confusion within each of my answers.

I try to remember the things that I needed to hear when I was twelve, or that I would have liked to have known. Be patient; when you are older you will find a wonderful guy, but you’ll probably meet a lot of a-holes on the way; focus on what you want and don’t worry about what boys think of you; be a strong and independent girl…I try to think of answers that won't scare her, but at the same time don't give her false hope or senseless reinforcement to the idea that everything always works out in life and there is nothing to worry about. I find, it is a difficult balance. I don't know exactly what these answers are, but I think maybe all she needs is just to have a chance to talk and to ask and to connect with someone who remembers what it feels like to be lost in a changing world and uncomfortable in a changing body.

At twelve years old, she is discovering the unfriendly nature of growing up that has her running to the bathroom in half hour increments, and glancing at every mirror we pass as we walk through stores in the mall. Aquina and I dress up in fancy hats and scarves, talking to each other in British accents as we run around the spiral racks at Claire's, picking up anything that sparkles and trying to use it to decorate Ella. I put a silver flower clip in her hair. She takes it out. Turns it over and over in her hand. Puts it back in her hair. Takes it out. Puts it back in her hair as she walks over to the mirror. Takes it out. I tell her not to worry because she looks beautiful, but she cannot get past herself today.

When she unpacks her suitcase and shows me her new bras, I try to act excited. I try to pretend like growing up is fun and exciting, hoping I can convince her more than I am able to convince myself. I don’t tell her that when I was twelve, I cried every night for a month after learning about how my body was going to change.  Or that I wore my womanhood as if it was a deformity I was desperate to conceal, layering on five or six sports bras beneath a double set of t-shirts every day; that I prayed over and over, pleading with God to not make me get my period, writing letters to Santa asking if he could turn me into a boy in exchange for being good all year, and hiding each new hair, each new bud of growth with desperate hatred.

As I lie in bed tonight, I can’t stop thinking about twelve. As much as I hated every single moment of maturity, I loved being twelve. I was still like seven-year-old Aquina when I was twelve. I ran around and got dirty and loved loved loved beating my male classmates at every sport. I wore florescent knee-high socks during basketball games. I put a girl in a headlock for telling people not to talk to me because I was a really a boy. I put a boy in a headlock for calling me a girl. I succeeded in changing the dress code for band recitals, so that I could wear my brother’s suit instead of a skirt. I wrote a six-page petition to my gym teacher when he separated the boys from the girls during class, complete with a charted recording of the difference in average time allowed to play (9 minutes each round the boys played compared to only 4.5 minutes per round for the girls), as well as the signatures of every student in my grade. I refused to wear makeup. I refused to shave my legs. I refused to be like everyone else. I loved everyone and I laughed at everything and I knew that I could do anything I wanted to.

Two years later, I would begin my first relationship, and within a year after that, I would watch as my childhood was stripped away from me, stealing with it the pure innocence and naivety I was unaware anyone could touch. Fifteen doesn’t sound that young. Sixteen, seemed so old at the time. But when I look at Ella, with her baby face and training bra, still throwing tantrums when her mom makes her go to bed at 9:30, still fighting with her little sister about who gets to sit in the middle seat and who gets to push the button to call for the elevator; all I can see is beautiful baby. A little girl. A child. And I can finally recognize how young my own face looked, in the darkness of my pale pink room, lying on sheets that had pictures of troll dolls on them after picking myself up from the crumpled pile of dirty t-shirts on my floor and trying to make sense of something to which I hadn’t yet learned the word.

How Do I Accept a World Like This?

I don't always know how to deal with the ignorance of people on the subject of sexual assault. I shut down today. In the middle of a conversation with a guy friend of mine. He told me that's just what he thought girls wanted (sex). He thought they just said no, but they didn't mean it. He thought, that people just have sex. Right away. And that's what they do.

How do we accept a society like this? How do we live in a world like this? A world that somehow portrays this idea so strongly that my well-educated, super-liberal, environment-loving, animal-activist male friend, that spends his time volunteering to help less fortunate people and cried after reading about what global warming is going to do to our planet, thinks that it's ok to have sex with a girl after she says no because it's what she really wanted.

My heart hurts today. I don't know how to help change our society, but I will keep trying to find a way. I'll keep trying to be apart of the change. I can't accept a world where this is accepted.

Writing In The Dark: The Power Of Writing To Help Us Through Trauma

"Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer." 

-Barbara Kingsolver

When I was sixteen and couldn't fall asleep at night, I would lie for hours on my lofted bed and try every possible thing I could think of to find a way to rest. I counted backwards from a thousand, listened to relaxation tapes, read the most boring book I owned, but by 2am I would give up and crawl down the hallway to my parents room to the makeshift bed at the far side of theirs.

One night, as I was rolling around, trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable, I felt one of my mother's notebooks on the floor underneath the comforter I laid on. Digging it out, I flipped through the blank pages, then reached up on to her nightstand and found a pen. Before I knew it the words were pouring out of me. From that night on, I slept with a notebook under my pillow. When I crawled into bed, I wrote a poem. A poem about whatever I was feeling or thinking or afraid of. I wrote until I had nothing left to say, sometimes repeating the same thing over and over and over until my hand grew tired. If I woke up during the night, out of breath and terrified by the all to realistic nightmares, I would write, in the dark, through the teardrops that fell on the paper, until I drifted back to sleep. 

Without knowing it, I found not only a way to finally sleep at night, but a way to survive the trauma I was going through and the aftermath that followed. To this day I still sleep with a notebook in my bed and my computer on the nightstand next to me. I write before I go to bed. I write when I can't sleep. I write when I wake up in the morning after another bad dream. I write during the day, on the train, while I'm eating lunch, while I'm waiting in the doctor's office or for a table at a restaurant. Sometimes just a sentence. Sometimes ten pages at a time.

          When I decided that I wanted to write a book, I thought it would be easy to write. However, when I sat down with another blank screen and thought about writing something that someone would someday pick up and read: I froze. Writing while thinking about an audience somehow transformed my words into flat, lifeless sentences that sounded far away and fake when I reread them later; but the things I wrote when I was all alone I hid with a desperate urgency. No one was, or would be, allowed to ever read them. They were just too private.

          Comparing the two categories of my own writing, I came to an important discovery. Not that I have the audacity to label myself a great writer, but looking back on things I have written over the years, the one thing that rings true is that when I write for myself, disregarding any notions of what another person might want to hear, I find the strength of what I have to offer. I find the raw story, the real story, of the girl that tried to make sense of something to which she had not yet learned the word. What it actually felt like to lay in the dark, night after night, on the same bed that held the secret abuse; to wake up in a panic, feeling something wrapped tightly around my wrists, unable to breath; to go to school and play the role of the star athlete, the perfect student, the strong and beautiful girl who never did anything wrong and whose life was so perfect.

        Maybe this is the beauty of the art. When we expose ourselves at our most vulnerable point, when we stop trying to keep the weakness a secret, when we write without regard to what others will think, we find the strength of the gift we have to offer.

January 23, 2004

Somedays I don’t think I’ll ever be a human again.

I’ll never be alive again. I’ll only ever be

a girl with a hole in her chest where she cut out

her heart so she wouldn’t have to feel.

I’ll be a shadow. An empty shell of a person that fell

in love and never saw it coming.

Nothing but a memory—

of a girl who knew how to be a person.

Who didn’t have to think about things like how to push

the words “Hi! How are you?” out of her throat.

Who could sing at the top of her lungs.

Who could dance however she wanted and wear whatever

she wanted and when she laughed, she felt the laugh, and when

she cried, she felt the pain and when she thought about the future

she knew. She could be anything she wanted to be. But most of all—

happy.

Somedays I think that no matter what I do, I’ll never be ok.

Hand Writing

I think that everything might just be better if I stay

laying on the floor of my closet on top of the pile of dirty clothes.

I think, maybe, this is where I belong. Maybe I could just disappear

and no one would notice and it would all just go away.

But then I remember to listen to

that voice that screams so loud I can almost hear

it whisper. “I will never let you get the best of me. I will never

let you hold me down. I will never let you win. And if it takes me until

my very last breath in this life, I will find a way to be happy again.

I will find a way to overcome whatever you try to throw at me.

I will find a way to thrive. “