Trigger warning: Mention of rape, sexual assault.
By Sarah Noelle
Over the last year, something very strange has started to happen to me. Something that’s been missing from my life for a very long time has begun to rear its beautiful head:
I’ve started to re-love myself.
Now, I know this may sound strange to some. Um, you stopped loving yourself? Why the h-e-double hockey sticks would you go & do something like that? Did something happen to cause it? What changed it back? TELL US!! Trust, I have asked myself all of these questions & many more over the last 17 years.
When I was 17, I had a very serious boyfriend. I was head over heels for this boyfriend. I gave myself fully to this boyfriend, knowing full well of the promise I’d made to my future husband to wait for whoever he was. And when, through some life circumstances, said boyfriend & I ended up having to part ways in August of that year, I was wrecked. But, I slowly picked up the pieces of my heart, went to summer camp for a month, sought God, began to heal my broken heart, & prepared for my senior year of high school. I decided that I was going to save myself for the man I was meant to be with from then on out. I had lost my first real love & wanted to now focus on me, & eventually finding my Unicorn one day that I was waiting for again. By October, everything changed.
You see, I was raped by a close friend that I had known for a few years. Someone I trusted. Someone I thought would never hurt me. And in that one brief encounter, in a matter of moments, my whole view of myself, & the world around me, shattered, altered, & shifted. I told myself it was my fault. I had brought this on myself. I had somehow put out there that I was free for the taking. Given some sort of vibe that this was okay. That if someone I trusted, someone I cared for, someone I thought respected me could do that to me, maybe I really wasn’t worth any more than that. That maybe that is how men were meant to see me, how I was supposed to be viewed. An object. A means to an end. An empty vessel to be used. If one of my best friends couldn’t honor my body, why should I bother honoring it myself anymore. And this uncontrollable beast who craved control was unleashed. I didn’t tell anyone, I couldn’t. I thought I had caused it. So, instead of reaching out, getting help, or not believing the lies running rampant through my head & heart, I just stopped loving myself.
I stopped caring what happened to me. I started acting like I was invincible & that nothing could hurt me, damage me, or break me, all the while I was hurt, I was damaged, & I was broken…but wearing a masked smile so no one was the wiser.— Sarah Noelle
I stopped loving myself at just under a month shy of 18 years old. Continue Reading…