From victim to survivor: my story of stigma and recovery
— — — — — — — TW sexual assault, depression, suicide, anxiety — — — — — — —
Sighs*. Okay, I’m going to publish this one. Finally. After sitting in my drafts for what seems longer than waiting for pre-season to come after a break in sport, I’m actually going to publish this. The root of my severe daily struggles. That what has moulded me into the person I am today. Why I suffer from PTSD, why my chronic depression is worse than before and the feeling of debilitating depression. I’m revisiting the biggest trauma I have experienced in life and especially, why it went so wrong and what is needed to keep on living.
One of the questions I will in evitably get after this is: “Why share something like this? This should be private.” And I think that is exactly why I am sharing this. There is this idea that we might share our feelings at this moment in time, but sharing the deep feelings and emotions that come with trauma, and processing it, is a kind of taboo. Especially for men, as it is often regarded as a weakness in our masculinity.
It is about sharing what happened to me and sharing what I thought/think could be done better by me and others around me. My aim is to encourage people to talk and go out there and support each other. But most of all, I never want people to feel like they can’t talk when they need it. The feeling of loneliness adds to the depression of so many people.
I’m not going to go into details on how it happened, but close to a decade ago I was a victim of male-on-male sexual assault with a racist motive. No, let me rephrase that. I was raped. I think that phrase I initially wrote tells you everything about how difficult it is to deal with it. I tried to write in more academic or more formal words to dissociate from the deep, cruel emotions — but in it was rape and that is what hurts me emotionally every day. I haven’t processed it correctly. And, I have never felt the same since that happened.
I have always been a quiet kid. Introverted. Needed alone time to recharge. Always been very insecure and not as vocal as others. I didn’t do well in big crowds or situations with many people, and I think that’s part of my personality but also part of my mental illness that was there from birth. It is often said that for a mental illness to truly manifest itself in a person, there is a trigger event or trauma. Well this happened to me in the form or rape.
In the first few days after it happened I felt shame. So much shame. But I can’t really rationalise it. I felt ashamed of what has happened to me. I felt ashamed of being so vulnerable and destroyed. I felt ashamed of not being able to be a real man anymore. I felt ashamed of being humiliated like that. And, you know what? All these thoughts are valid, but my thought process was inherently connected to the toxic masculinity that was living in my subconscious. It took me years to find that out, but it wasn’t only on me.
Dealing with trauma is very difficult as it is, but there are two interpersonal things that you need to deal with. It’s the direct, short-term things you need to look at, such as physical injuries, police reports, telling family and friends, court case and juggling this with school and work. I had tremendous difficulties with all these things, because you have to be as vulnerable as you have ever been, time and time again, but I couldn’t do that. Big part of that is when I was speaking to victim support. One of the first questions was: “How can a man that is build like you, get raped?” That broke me there and then.
I shut down. Completely. I felt like I opened up to the people that should be there to help me in this process and I felt more alone than ever. In my mind, I needed to push this away as far as possible and get on with my life. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I still have to deal with the consequences of that.
“Depression is living in a body that fights to survive with a mind that tries to die”
I think it was a bomb in my mind. Holding all that trauma in and having so many questions unanswered. Questions I couldn’t answer myself, because I couldn’t trust my mind. What did this mean for my sexuality? Was I ever going to have sex again withouth feeling numb or anxious? Was I truly a man, let alone a human? Could I keep on living?
That last question was something that became more prevalent. At first it was the physical pain that I needed to focus on and after that I just put the whole situation in a box, into the far corners of brain. But, that doesn’t work and all those unprocessed feelings and emotions come out like a mushroom cloud of an attomic bomb. But, still, I was alone in all these feelings. Slipping deeper and deeper into depression, like a sword piercing your skin.
I think ideation with death is quite normal, but when you are in this state of depression, you can’t think clearly anymore. You feel alone, and while there are people out there for you to help, you decide you are alone. You feel that you aren’t good enough. That you are a burden to people. That it was somehow a turn of destiny. That you deserve the rape. That you deserve to die. This pain you experience, is exactly what you deserve.
The world changes around you. The world is silmultaneously going faster than you can handle, but also slower that you can handle. You live at high speed, but also don’t seem to fully grasp what’s happening around you. Ultimately it feels like the world is going on without you. Unforgiving, cruel, debilitating, life disrupting — the feeling of not belonging. And there it is, you think of ending it: suicidal thoughts become being suicidal.
Being depressed and/or having depression is a spectrum. No one person feels exactly the same and every situation is different. But in general, depression is such a struggle for your energy and everything, because you are fighting to survive every day. Your body is fighting to not give in, not letting your mind control it. But when you give in little by little, you become suicidal.
I think that’s also the core of a big misconception. Many people assume that suicide/being suicidal is about wanting to die. It often is not. There is so much emotional and mental pain, and you want that pain to stop rather than wanting to die. However, there is a point where you are so numb to external factors and the only thing you think of, is ending the pain. That’s the best for yourself, want living with this pain, isn’t living at all. So, I gave in. Attempted. And failed.
Another traumatic event. But now, people know. Road to recovery is inevitable.
I start therapy and finish it. Over and over again. I’m not suicidal anymore, but suicidal ideation and feelings of worthlessness persevere. I feel them to this day.
Recovery is hard and often perceived as fixing something. In all honesty, I can’t be fixed. That POV really made me worse. The idea that I could live an ordinary life, with an ordinary job and ordinary things. That was never me, but after those traumas I had, I’m sure I can’t do that.
I need to start accepting what has happened and live with it. And this is the hardest part for me to write about, because I have to admit that I’m still not coping well. My fingers are shaking, tears fill my eyes. I want the pain to end.
One of the hardest part is to not let the trauma give agency to my life. Regain control. I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor. It takes incredible strength to fight all the urges and dark thoughts, but I’m still here. I’m fighting every day. Sometimes I fail, but always on a path forward.
