One step forward. Two steps back.

Firstly i want to apologise for not posting in over a week. I'm still getting to grips with trying to communicate the complicated feelings inside of me. Often i don't even know what I'm feeling. A jumbled swirly mess of feelings and emotions floating around in my mind. It's so misty in here it's hard to see clearly. My arms are outstretched desperately searching for these feelings, to grab them, to understand them, to deal with them. But after every search i come back empty handed.


In the time immediately after my assault i was sailing down the river 'De-Nile'. I had three friends with me named shock, dissociate and disbelief. We were all very good friends for a long long time. I was in - what my therapist called - 'delayed shock'. In the four months that followed my assault my flashbacks and nightmares resembled a movie. So vivid it was like i was watching it on a screen inside my head. The actress looked just like me! The movie distressed me but i had no feelings or emotions about it. I was completely numb to the scenes i was forced to watch, over and over and over.


Four months after the assault was when i came out of the 'delayed shock' and the post traumatic stress symptoms worsened. I guess you could say i was behaving the way society would expect a rape victim to behave straight away. Four months on and it felt like my assault was only yesterday. Five months on and my symptoms worsened after discovering the CPS were not going to prosecute my abuser. In these months i suddenly switched from observing the movie, to being in the movie. I was the actress, i was in the scene, i was  experiencing a million emotions all at once. The numbness was gone, and i felt everything.


This sudden realisation only lasted a month. Maybe it became too much, maybe my brain couldn't take it anymore but i have shut down again. I've gone from being the movie star, to being a viewer again. I'm numb to everything. I don't cry anymore. I'm like a lifeless ghost, endlessly traveling from day to day, with no real meaning. Whilst the acceptance was unbearable pain i knew i needed to go through that stage. But now i've gone back a stage. Im viewing the movie again watching the life of someone else. Cause that certainly can't be my life. That can't have happened to me!


Someone out there, please help me, I'm desperate for answers. How do i accept that I AM the girl in the movie again?