IF YOU LAY YOUR LIFE DOWN, NO MAN CAN TAKE IT
WHO WILL LOVE YOU IF I DON’T?
WHO WILL FUCK YOU IF I WON’T?
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I’m at a point in therapy now where we are divulging more into my past traumas, which on one hand I am relieved to finally explore the darkness that has hung over my head like a dark cloud for over two decades. On the other, it is frightening. Feelings I’ve repressed, memories I can’t bring myself to revisit are now things I am now having to dig back up and confront for the very first time. I’m not sure where this will bring me. I want to know but I would also like to keep it locked in a box and stuffed under my bed till the end of eternity, but it would only be a disservice to myself. If I am to truly grow as a human being, I need to face the monster I’ve been running from since I was nine years old.
Lingua Ignota’s CALIGULA has been my soundtrack for the past couple of weeks now as I trudge these waters. It’s an album that best represents how I feel as a survivor of sexual assault. I rarely speak about it, but when I do I don’t feel sadness or the urge to cry. I feel agony for what was taken from me, anger, and bitterness. Anytime I’ve seen survivors represented in music, film, or television, it’s centered around this idea of sadness and paranoia. The weeping woman with a tissue in hand and an eye full of tears. it doesn’t feel accurate to my own personal story. It might be why I never viewed myself as a survivor for the longest time—because I felt like a survivor only looked one way and that wasn’t me.
There’s something cathartic hearing another woman scream “THROW YOUR BODY INTO THE FUCKING RIVER” when speaking about her abuser. There is an ugly side to being a survivor, the parts that aren’t spoken out loud because no one wants to deal with those parts, including survivors. There’s anger, there’s agony, there’s self-loathing, and the feeling you will forever be damaged goods. CALIGULA isn’t afraid to go there. It’s raw honesty is ugly, but that’s also what makes it gorgeous.
Confronting the ugliness of what happened to me is a first step, which in my case is quite a bit of progress within two months of starting therapy. The question is am I really up for this challenge?