When I got away from the place where I had been raped, I walked home.  I had my horse with me but I couldn’t ride him.  I just stumbled my way home through snot and tears.  My horse kept nudging me as he had never seen me like this.  I can’t explain fully what was going on inside.  I think I was shocked, in disbelief.  And surprised.  I was so surprised at how casual and normal the man who had just raped me, had been.  He apologized for ripping my clothes as he handed the remnants to me and asked me if I wanted a drink of water….I mean, an absolute fucking gentleman.  Anyway – sorry, that bit of sarcasm was unavoidable – I left with my head down and a confused shame, embarrassment and doubt came over me.  I doubted what had happened.  I doubted what I believed.  I doubted my actions and questioned whether I had offered myself for this man to take.  But that was not true, I know this now that I’m older, stronger, wiser and not confused by my naivete anymore. At the time I had no compass,  nothing like this had ever been in my world. Now I wasn’t safe anymore,  that’s how I felt. My parents couldn’t do anything to change what had happened, neither could I, or any god or universal plane… I know it changed me forever.

I always wondered if I would’ve been a different person if I hadn’t been raped. How different my worldview may have been, my relationships with the men in my life. Those things ate me up at that confused time,  but what killed my soul was that someone had taken something from me that I didn’t give.  I played the situation over and over in my mind.  It broke me. And then there were my loving parents whom I couldn’t look in the eye anymore. I felt dirty, guilty and ashamed. Those feelings began to become so intense and overwhelming they consumed me. And in a very short space of time,  merely days.It seemed that everything and everyone else was rushing by and busy with life and I just seemed to keep repetitively falling and falling. Scrabbling at nothing on the sides and feeling totally worthless.