Latest / Thinking Out Loud | Kimberly / What Happens When You Survive Assault & Ensuing Stories? | Thinking Out Loud
Transcript
- Thinking Out Loud - Podcast: Trigger warning. I share my experience with sexual assault and what happened afterwards in today's episode. I thought I was prepared. I thought I'd know how to stand up for myself. I never it would happen to me. I was raised in a sex positive home where knowledge was supposed to be protection. I knew the words. I knew what consent was supposed to look like. no one you what it feels like when your body freezes. And your mind tries to catch up. Then I entered a community where purity determined your worth, where being good mattered more than being safe. I met someone who made me feel someone I thought I trust. And in the end, none of that mattered nothing prepared me for what happened for the silence afterwards, the kind of silence where you question your own memory, When you replay it over and over, trying to make it make sense where speaking up doesn't bring clarity. It makes you the problem nothing prepared me for the moment. I realized it wasn't the assault I had to survive. It was what came after. ⁓ Hi, me, Kimberly. Today. It's not an easy topic. It's heavy on my heart. I hope it reaches to the people who need to hear it. maybe in some way it helps someone feel less alone. ⁓ Before we any further, quick note, this podcast is for reflection and conversation, not professional advice. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't and listen in a way that feels supportive for you. Here's the question I want to sit with today. What happens when don't just survive the assault? But the silence, the doubt and the story people tell about you after my story doesn't look like how people would expect. I wasn't violated in a way people picture. It was quiet, easy to dismiss. ⁓ was someone trusted I thought was safe. would rub my leg. then one night while his mom was driving me home that touched me somewhere. It wasn't supposed to go. It was dark. I was confused. I remember him smiling and I froze. I acted like nothing happened. It took a couple of days, I finally asked, you mean to me there? like that, he told me it didn't happen. He said he didn't know what I was talking about. that was the moment things started to break I didn't just question him. I questioned myself. I thought maybe I made it up that I was the problem that I was a pervert, that I was a whore. I try to make it make sense in a way that made it my fault. what didn't make sense was how everything changed after He didn't leave me alone. For weeks. was told I was less than a woman. That my passions in art, music, and anything I loved was stupid. That a good wife was someone who stayed home and looked after children. He criticized how I looked, called me ugly, ⁓ and then eventually he discarded me. even then I wasn't free. ⁓ I still had to see him. ⁓ For years. And whether it was intentional or not, it kept me quiet. It worked so well that eventually I forgot why I was afraid of him, my body didn't forget. I withdrew from people, from his mom, who I loved, from mutual friends, because when I try to make ⁓ of it, I was met with things like, he's just a dumb boy, boys will be boys, you're overreacting, you're making this uncomfortable, just move on already. I did what a lot of people do. ⁓ stayed quiet and then I started to believe them. A year later, I met someone and by then I had already believed I was the problem. I stayed in a relationship that should have ended in two weeks and stayed for two years, ⁓ trying to prove I was lovable, trying fix something that was never mind to fix. ⁓ Even my family gave me a label, crazy, too emotional, too much. no one was asking why. ⁓ one was asking what happened. They were responding to the symptoms, not the wound and the silence. It doesn't stay quiet inside of you. ⁓ into anxiety, ⁓ self doubt. ⁓ rewrites how you see yourself. years later, I was performing like nothing happened. Still connected on social media. Still playing a role because. I didn't want to be the problem until I started EMDR therapy. And after one session, memories came back and I didn't even go in there for that. ⁓ And remember thinking, ⁓ I was assaulted. ⁓ Not not imagination, real. And the strangest part, I didn't break down right away. I felt empty. The heartbreak came later. then inability to keep it to myself happened soon after because when I shared it, I probably was desperate and I wasn't met with support. was met with dismissal. You're happily married now, Kim, a better person now. ⁓ I don't want to hear it. had it worse ⁓ and that's when it hit me. wasn't the assault that hurt me in that moment. It was realizing I wasn't going to be held in my pain I would have to carry it without the support I thought I'd have. I would be seen as attention seeking or dramatic or a liar. Like I always ended up being seen as. And that kind of silence, ⁓ it changes you. ⁓ It teaches you not to trust yourself. It makes you question your reality. It follows you into relationships. showed up in my marriage in a way that I tested safety in a way I struggled to feel secure and healing didn't happen overnight. took years, years of repair, years of relearning what safety feels like. today I can say something I couldn't say before. I feel seen. I feel heard. I feel like I can be myself again. ⁓ And for the people who hurt me, I don't need closure from them at this point repair wouldn't be for me. ⁓ I'm not interested in performative apologies anymore sometimes it's late and that's okay healing doesn't always look like reconciliation. Sometimes ⁓ it looks like choosing yourself without needing them to understand. when I asked the question again, what happened when you don't just survive assault, but the silence, the doubt, and the stories people tell about you after, this what I mean. It doesn't just affect you remember. it affects you believe you are and unlearning that that's the real work. I also want to be really clear about something. My goal in telling this story is not a witch hunt. ⁓ It's not about dragging names or burning down. It's about telling the truth of what harm does and what happens when it's ignored I can hold two things at once. ⁓ I can see that he may have been scared from the community that we were part of. I can see that he may not have had the tools to do the right thing. I also can say this, ⁓ doesn't undo what happened this is where my story actually sits. ⁓ It from no consent to harm, to ongoing abuse. That's the issue for me. Not a moment, everything that followed it. ⁓ the the rewriting my reality, the tearing down who I was to keep me quiet. That was not a misunderstanding. ⁓ He knew what he was doing. That harm ⁓ and harm is not middle ground. We get to stand in the middle of harm and call it neutrality because silence doesn't stay neutral. too often it only protects the person who caused the harm. This happened in 2011 and even 10 years later in 2021 when I finally had the words, when I was finally ready to speak, I was told to be quiet. this isn't about what happened back then. It's about a pattern that communities are still repeating now. This idea of, I don't want to choose sides, ⁓ the truth that is a choice ⁓ when harm is not choosing a side is choosing silence and choosing silence is what allows harm to continue. And I don't want that. ⁓ I don't want destruction. I don't want mob I want something harder than that. I want healing. ⁓ I want people to accountability. I want communities that are actually safe, not just comfortable. that does mean something uncomfortable. Not everyone gets to stay. not everyone gets access to you. not every relationship gets repaired ⁓ sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself and for your community is to be honest about harm. Even when it costs you something, even when people don't like it, there is hope though, I'm not where I was. ⁓ I'm not that girl questioning her own reality. am someone who can name what happened, who can feel it ⁓ and not disappear inside it anymore. I can relationships where I am seen, where I am heard, where repair is possible. that does not come from silence. ⁓ from truth. if you're listening to this and you've been through something similar, you're not crazy. And the silence around you, it doesn't define what happened. You are allowed to see clearly. You are allowed to name harm. You're allowed to build a life that isn't shaped by someone else's denial. That's the community I believe in. Not perfect, ⁓ not easy. honest ⁓ safe enough to tell the truth.