Nightmares, my 20-Year-Old-Rape, and Bill Clinton

In January of 1998, I was raped at a Maine ski resort at a friend's condo where a small party was going on following  a bit of barhopping. The story isn't particularly original (it's here if you're interested in reading it), and it's certainly not why I'm writing about this long-ago event at this late date.

I should mention that I've written about the repercussions before as well, here and here, but that's also not what has me in a a bad place right now.

No, it's like it's coming back, and I am just a hot mess.

I had the rape nightmare last night...and the night before. Not a random mosaic of images obviously symbolizing the rape in some way that I'm hopefully smart enough to figure out, not an "anxiety attack", but what was essentially a reenactment.

I've been a disaster for days.

You'd think that after all these years, I would stop doing this to myself, that my brain would just say, "Geez, Katie, it's been almost twenty years, let it go already!"

Yeah, not so easy...

It usually happens a lot in January, because that's when the event itself happened, but it has not ever been quite like this.

It took me a bit to figure out why I'm going through this, why I am again ripped apart by the smart, sassy, feisty little girl who died in January of 1998 to be replaced by the woman typing this. 

Me, brother Mike, sister Meghan 


In the old neighborhood (I'm on the right, holding a play I'd written for the neighbor kids to perform, I think)


With another childhood friend.

A woman who put on a lot of weight, because I was pretty the night I was raped and I do not want to be pretty anymore.

A woman who struggles with virtually every relationship, from family to friendships and everywhere in between, because she trusts nobody.

A woman who cowers with fear at bullies, injustice, and those who habitually do the wrong thing.

A woman who almost lost her passion for her profession because of the pain she lived with, pain she lives with to this day.

A woman who apologizes all the time, to the point where it's annoying and she knows it is, but she can't help it.

It took me years to share that this had happened to me, years. I'd buried it down deep, and while it shaped the adult I ultimately became, I do not think I experienced direct emotional pain on a regular basis. And once I shared, of course, everyone said, "Get help."

So I tried to get help, from a variety of sources using a variety of techniques. I think about the rape and my rapist more since trying to "get help" then I ever did before, largely because I had a huge flashback brought about by the bloody trauma of my daughter Gabrielle's birth that led to what was eventually diagnosed as PTSD and Postpartum Depression.

The last treatment I tried involved the therapist forcing me to relive every detail. Remember and retell and relive every single freaking detail. Blood sticky on my legs. Having my face forced into a pillow, smelling laundry detergent and tasting cotton. The pain getting ever worse. Blood, everywhere. The laughter of my rapist, which echos in my nightmares. He thought it was funny.

After that, I figured I'd just deal on my own, and I've been doing okay.

Until this year.

I couldn't figure out what had changed, why the rape has been on my mind constantly, marring any happiness I should be enjoying.

And then it hit me ...

The so-called "liberal media" has gone crazy posting pieces implying that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assaults (which I read to be "rapes") in order to knock down Hillary Clinton's chances of breaking the glass elevator and becoming the first female president.

It was the terminology "sexual assault", not "sexual inappropriateness" that got me going, I think.

Women had affairs with Bill Clinton, and they were paid handsomely in cash or favors to keep quiet about it (I've had bosses imply that my future with a company would improve with sexual favors). Women were sexually harassed by Bill Clinton at the workplace (I have been sexually harassed at the workplace, more than once).

Those women, women who were certainly victims but took bribes to keep quiet about it, don't know anything about being sodomized and screaming and unable to keep your mouth open because it is literally cracking at the edges, about being gagged with their own bloody panties, about having pieces bitten out of their skin. They don't know what it is like to have these images flash every time a man kisses you, even if it is a man you know and trust. They don't know what it is to scream for help knowing that everyone upstairs is passed out and the music is too loud.

And yet they are putting themselves out there as victims for political gain.

I would not ever intentionally cheapen the sexual assault of another human being, but it seems that this is being done to me ... and I can't possibly be the only one.

So I guess I can blame Bill Clinton for my nightmares, a sleazeball who was a sexual predator but by most accounts lacks the violent, sadistic streak that killed the finest parts of me on a cold winter night.

Or, I could politely ask the right-wing, anti-Hillary people to just shut up about it. My wounds are salty enough, and every time I read about Bill's dalliances and sexual misappropriations, they burn more and more.

Most recent pics: still shooting for unpretty...

Can You Learn to Love Yourself?

I've been off the radar for a few days trying to figure out some things. It was a good experience, and I learned a lot about myself and how to go on to live the happiest life possible.

The answer to my problem is quite easy--simply put, I need to love myself, to value myself, to see the good in myself.

The problem is, I don't.

I did get it down to that one issue, however, which is actually quite good progress for me.  It turns out that virtually all of my problems cycle back to that one problem.

All I can hear is Whitney Houston singing "The Greatest Love of All", but...well, it's just not that simple.

I am raising three amazing children (well, Emily is pretty much on her own, but she does sometimes text me in the middle of the night to ask random philosophical questions), I am loved deeply by my husband, my mother, my siblings and their spouses, and my nephews. It only follows logically that I am a pretty good mother/wife/daughter/sister/auntie, yet I can't for the life of me see why.  Or maybe it's how.

And I'm not writing this for people to throw compliments at me.  I know I am a good mother.  I know I have some talent at writing and teaching, but I know that both of these have ceased to be easy for me. I know I'm a nice and caring person.

But I don't know it, if that makes any sense.

I guess it's no secret to most people that know me in person or who reads this blog regularly or is a friend on Facebook that I have been struggling with some debilitating Postpartum Depression that ended up waking up a sleeping nightmare of a crime I thought was buried forever (a sexual assault I wrote about here and focused on the repercussions of here), so I've also been diagnosed with PTSD.

I did make a lot of progress over the past few days, though, and I'd like to share some of it in the hope that it can help any of you out there, anyone that has Postpartum Depression, PTSD, or anything else.  

There is still a stigma attached to mental illness, so I am feeling some shame as I write this.  I'm actually going to say that Postpartum Depression is hormonal and affects a large percentage of women and that, you know, I certainly didn't ask to be raped and have it all come back through PTSD. It's not like, I'm really messed up on my own.  I also have some pretty interesting purely medical stuff going on as well.

And I hate myself for writing the above paragraph because, while true, it dishonors those that suffer from bipolar disorder or depression or OCD or borderline personality disorder or whatever.  People that suffer from those are no different than those that are living with cancer or diabetes.  

Yet the stigma remains.

Anyway, I'll get off my (fairly hypocritical) soapbox now and get back to the point.

I was given a list of positive affirmations and encouraged to identify which of those were true for me.  At first, I scoffed.  I mean, we're talking "I pursue my life's purpose" and "I feel fulfilled and joyful", and my personal favorite, "I balance my self-confidence with modesty perfectly".  

Eventually, I found a couple that did resonate with me, so I read a little further and found a few more, and then I decided to make an effort to take it seriously.

I made a list of the positive affirmations that I felt were true about myself.  There were twenty-four of them, but I felt that it wasn't as cut and dried as that; in other words, many of the twenty-four had a disclaimer.  I then decided to write them in my own handwriting along with some freewriting on the topic.

I care for people.  I do, but often to my detriment.  I am extremely sensitive with minimal self-esteem, so I take things very personally.  I know I need to develop a thicker skin.  Either that or stop caring, and I think that's impossible for me.  My parents bought me a beautiful red jacket when I was a little girl of six or seven.  I gave it away to another little girl who lived in a bad part of town and who didn't have a jacket at all.  If my mother's wrath at that event didn't put a dent in the "care dial" on  my heart, I don't think anything will.  It is so hard to care about others, though, when they clearly don't care about you.

Here's another:

I deserve to succeed.  I have done so many awful things that sometimes I really don't feel this, but the truth is that everyone with pure and positive intentions deserves to succeed, and I definitely fall into that category.  This is one I need to focus more on ...

The next step was going through my freewrites and generating questions for each.  I came up with a ton of questions (I needed to get a second notepad at about this point), and then I went through those questions and came up with what I called "Katie's Essential Questions", which means areas that recurred as common themes that ran through my positive self-affirmations.

Virtually every question came back to the fact that I have very low self-esteem, minimal self-confidence, and this pervasive feeling that I am unworthy of love.

I am still wrangling with this issue as I type this (and, boy, does it feel good to use a computer...I had to write in long hand because it was how I could make it be me, but this is so much easier).  I didn't come up with an answer, although I went through my "essential questions" with my mother this afternoon and she helped me see the connection between all of my questions.

It's funny, because I am your typical ADHD person ... even my brain is disorganized.  It was very hard for me to systematically take on this task, because it seemed both stupid and overwhelming and, most of all, a supreme waste of time.  I used a notebook and a half to realize something that I already know ... that I am not the world's biggest fan of myself.

What I lost sight of, at least for a moment, was that there are twenty-four statements I now own, in my own bastardized print/cursive hybrid, that are at least in some ways true.

The one that speaks the most to me is "I am a kind, caring, and decent person". I put it on my list and know it to be true, yet the question remains ...

Can you learn to love yourself?  And, if so, how?

Repercussions of Rape (Part II)

It is truly amazing to me the response I have gotten from people based on my post Repercussions of Rape (Part I).  So many people have spoken of how courageous I am and how much help it is for people who have experienced sexual assault to read it and know they're not alone.

I am truly humbled by that. Please know that I appreciate the kind notes, Facebook messages, texts, love, and support.

The truth of the matter is, I honestly thought I was over the rape.  I really did.  Like, I didn't think about it, didn't talk about it, only occasionally had nightmares about it.  I even got told by a counselor (originally he was a marriage counselor, but the third time my ex-husband showed up late to the appointment, we realized that marriage counseling was a waste of time but he would happily continue to see me as I felt I had some unresolved issues beyond being emotionally, mentally, and physically tortured by my ex) after spilling the whole rape story that I had great coping mechanisms and there was no real need for me to go back.  He was happy to have me come back if I needed it, insurance would cover it, but there was no real need.

I had no idea that it was consuming my life.

My rape was characterized by someone overpowering me, speaking down to me, telling me I was  nothing, and the guilt associated with my best friend thinking I was sleeping with some other guy in his house when he and I'd had awkward, random, drunken casual sex a few weeks before.

When I encountered a bully, and there are many adult bullies that prey on people they scent weakness in, I would get sweaty, nauseous, clumsy, and my heart would start racing.  I never knew why I had such a visceral response to assholes.

It certainly couldn't be about the rape, right?  A therapist had told me I had great coping mechanisms and a solid support system, that I was just fine.

I do not want to get into specifics here, but just imagine that a person is in a position of power over you in your professional life.  Imagine even further that this person is a bully, a cruel person known for talking about his colleagues (bosses, lateral equals, and peons like me) behind their backs, of laughing at the misfortunes of others, of speaking down to people until they couldn't stand up any longer, telling people they were wrong when this person had no idea what h/she was talking about, and pouring on the guilt by emphasizing how your shortcomings (the ones that s/he had given you) explained why you did a crappy job.

If you had survived my situation, one would think that being bullied by some pathetic loser who epitomizes the Peter Principle would be nothing ... but it wasn't.

So I messed up.  A lot.  It took me forever to do anything at work because I was so anxious, and then it reached a point where it was coming home.

Being beaten down at work every day turned me from a fairly confident woman with many and varied passions (reading, writing, the beach, traveling, spending time with friends) to one who internalized everything.  The dog knocked something off the table?  My fault.  My daughter broke her leg and had to be in a cast because she was screwing around at Hannaford?  My fault.  The washing machine broke? Yup, my fault.

At first these were just feelings, and I tried to keep them from my husband and kids.  After Gabrielle was born, though, it came out in words.  This hypothetical a-hole boss honed the keen blade of self-loathing that went back to 1998, and with the stress of Gabrielle's bloody birth, which was sort of a nightmare, I came to a point where the rape, and its repercussions, nearly killed me.

After the rape, when I washed my hands, there was blood in the sink.  I saw blood in the sink when I washed my hands a month or so ago (and, I mean, I'm an English teacher ... I felt like freaking Lady MacBeth).  I am afraid to take showers, because the shower I took following the rape was when I started to come back to myself, and I was alone and so damn scared.  I will wake up screaming, or I'll jerk awake.  According to my husband, I say the things I said to my rapist when I am asleep, sometimes in a mumble but sometimes nearly yelling.

I am not healed now.  I am in counseling, and I suspect I will be for a long time.  My husband is extremely supportive (except when he's in a bad mood, which is almost never).  I've found some online support groups and even some groups that meet face to face, but the humiliation of someone knowing about the rape makes that medium hard for me.

I guess that makes me posting about it ironic, but the thing is that I am a teacher.  I have had more than one student tell me they were sexually assaulted.  I have heard stories that make my own experience seem very small.

I guess the bottom line is, sexual assault, molestation, rape, whatever word you want to use, they are more common than you might think.  If you are reading this and you feel alone, please know that you are not.

If you are reading this and you are one of my many wonderful friends whom I've blown off, I suspect I've put enough info here for you to figure out why.    

There is a picture that circulates around Facebook from time to time, and I guess that's what I want to end with.