TRIGGER WARNING This article or section, or pages it links to, contain information about sexual assault and/or rape which may be triggering to survivors.
By Anonymous.
“I felt as if I were already redefining it, already dropping (ahead? behind?) into a state of retrospection. I was worried that my memory wouldn’t do me any favours; that it would only make things worse… A constant tug of war: wanting to remember, wanting to forget… How was this journey, this movement to be mapped?”
– Emily Rapp, The Still Point of the Turning World
Memory can be a tricky thing. Our genetic makeup is clever; if something happens to us and we aren’t strong enough to remember, our mind and body has mechanisms to make that memory go away or to minimize the damage of the memory’s daily impact.
I never forgot being raped. I had memories of it, but I pushed them away until they didn’t bother coming around anymore. But my secrets were impacting my insides deeply, and then the memories came back daily on their own, knocking, seeking acknowledgement.