Another year has come and gone, another year of growing and healing
In about a month, I will be 26 years old. Every birthday since the rape, I am reminded about the attack. I’ve never told anyone this, but every year I am older, I think “It’s been ___ years since the rape, and I am doing pretty good.”, or “not so good” when it was the first or second year mark. This year will mark 7 years. It’s interesting that thought comes to my mind around that time, but thankfully, every year I have healed more. Today I was thinking about the effects that the rape still has on me. When I get really bad, shaking anxiety, sometimes for no reason, I think about the rape. Mostly I am angry that I still have anxiety. “I wasn’t always like this” I think to myself. Sometimes I am ashamed of my anxiety. I feel like I should be able to control it more by now. I mean, it has been almost 7 years, what is the deal? I decided that a lot of times, I am too hard on myself. My anxiety used to be paralyzing, I used to get triggered into flash backs that made me have