I'm a let me brag and show off by showing you my scars kind of personality (a la Lethal Weapon* ). Men can do that and impress people. I routinely get pity.
I have been on HN nearly 9 years. No one ever goes "Damn, girl, you are one helluva badass that you can discuss a topic like this calmly in such a large forum that is overwhelmingly male." No, in this very thread, more than 4 decades after the abuse ended, someone has told me they are sorry my therapy was a bad experience, though I in no way indicated it was.
How much evidence do I need to provide that I am remarkably comfortable with myself, my past and my sexuality before the world stops heaping pity upon me as an endless emotional burden I cannot escape? The answer appears to be that a rape victim is not allowed to move on. They are not allowed to stop being an object of pity.
I find that monstrous and incredibly counterproductive.
That in no way denies that I was traumatized. It merely asserts that a still ongoing issue is the negative way other people choose to view me in defiance of all evidence to the contrary.
Well it's cheap to say now, but I have thought that. :) Not necessarily about this topic though.
I have a friend, who has lived well, but who long ago was raped by her father... and then when she spoke out in her church community, was accused of lying and shunned as everyone rallied around her father, "a good man".
It seems to me there's a middle ground, which is never struck precisely but often close enough, between the extremes of gaslighting and victim-mongering. And exactly where that middle ground lies changes over time.
> Each of us is the sum of our scars.
Caine, in Stover's Blade of Tyshalle.
Also, the horse witch in his Act of Atonement books.
No, not about being a victim of a sex crime, they can't; at least as much as women can't, maybe even moreso.
> The answer appears to be that a rape victim is not allowed to move on.
A “brag and show off by showing you my scars” person is one who has not moved on from the sources of those scars. Yeah, that kind of failure to move on may get a different typical response by both gender and source of the scar, but you can't both have a need to show the scar and complain that other people aren't letting you move on: you aren't letting yourself move on.
I'm well aware men who were raped or molested are treated even worse.
There's a huge difference, as I see it, between choosing to be an example of recovery and being,asyou previously described, a “brag and show off your scars person”, particularly in terms of the audience to which accounts of particular trauma are directed.
This is not one of them. This is right up there with that brief period when you were repeatedly accusing me of being transphobic.
So I have zero plans to argue this further with you.
That may mean not acknowledging the suffering, or it may mean not acknowledging that things will be ok.
I think that's also compatible with having an expectation that the situation will change over time, that most often the intensity of suffering will decrease, and that the survivor will get their life back on track.