What is worse than rape?
Figure that out and you will have all the answers.
The General’s Daughter
There are rapes worse than mine. I know this. We tell ourselves in a twisted attempt to seek comfort, “it could have been worse”.
I have to argue that point. It was what it was and it was bad. Imagining scenarios where the horror was multiplied doesn’t really bring me any peace. Not living in the past brings me peace.
Fighting the good fight, speaking out loud so others feel less isolated. That is empowerment. Knowing I am whole and healed and not at all what happened to me.
Once upon a time I had nothing and no one.
My family life was in ruins because I ruined it. My friendships were fleeting things. I was as alone as I ever was.
I had been friends with a group of girls, who out of some misplaced jealousy, turned on me one night and held me down outside of a high school dance and kicked me in the head until I couldn’t see.
It could have been worse.
I had no other friends. I was really alone.
Eventually I met another girl. And I clung to her like a floating headboard after the sinking of the Titanic.
Here is where we run into issue with our obsession with comparisons.
I won’t lie and say I have never met anyone as fucked up as her, I have. For some reason I used to be a magnet to that type of inhuman human. But let the record show, she was/is really fucked up. Sadly however, compared to the girls who probably would have left me maimed if not dead had someone not come along and pulled them off me, she was a fucking angel.
She was my first really abusive relationship. She furthered my isolation from my family. Every day there was new drama, I didn’t rest for the years I was with her. Always on alert for the next thing that was coming to get her. She was a false martyr and a master manipulator. I had no sense of self and didn’t know any better. I do now.
A hit can feel like a kiss when the body is starved for attention (unknown)
Been thinking on her a lot lately. Remembering her patterns. Using them to prepare for war.
You see dear readers.
It’s happening again.
Well it was. I tend to write in retrospect.
When I was 17 years old, and thought the sun rose and set on this girl’s ass, that she could do no wrong…she did the penultimate wrong. And she wanted to take me along for the big long ride into Wrongland.
She cheated on her man. No great sin in and of itself. People cheat, it’s a thing.
But to cover her tracks, she said he raped her.
I think I just figured out what is worse than rape.
I hadn’t been on the planet all that long. I had no first second or third hand knowledge of what that word actually meant. But somehow I knew she was wrong.
She said the words out loud and the villagers picked up pitchforks and torches and set about lynching this guy. This man who had committed only one crime, sleeping with crazy.
She backpedaled her way out of it. Said she was drunk when it happened, that she had night terrors from past experiences and got confused. The mob settled down.
I didn’t know the man she accused.
She was my only friend in the world.
But I wouldn’t lie for her.
There are things men can do to women that are unforgivable abominations against the Lord. Rape is exactly that. Taking something and leaving you alive to remember being violated.
There are things only women can do to men that fuck them up on the same level. Lying about being pregnant, which I am ashamed to admit I have done. And so very much worse…false accusations of the supreme violation that is rape.
Three times in this calendar year, men I care about have been falsely accused of rape.
Although I have proof, undeniable proof, that these 3 men did not commit the act they were accused of. I believed them when they told me. I know what lies taste like and they are telling the truth.
I have said, and continue to say, to all women. If a man hurts you in any way and you tell me, I will believe you without question. I stand with the victims. I have been through this process and came out stronger on the other side. I am here for you.
But these men. These good men, who would rather wear a label calling them murderer, looking at me with insurmountable pain in their eyes pleading for help, deserve my protection as well. Without question.
Here is the thing. I had to defend myself for 13 hours on the stand during my rapist’s trial. He almost got away with what he did, he got a reduced sentence…why? Because of women who cry wolf.
I hate using that phrase. Wolves don’t do this. Rapists are low men, and false accusers are low women. There is no comparison here.
Rape is an abomination of something I hold sacred. And to lie about it, makes you equally low in my eyes.
This last girl to spew this poisoned shit was someone I called friend. No more. She no longer exists.
When a woman cries rape she cheapens what I went through. She makes it harder for those who have to live through it. And the pain caused to the falsely accused is something I don’t think I could bear.
I am the sister to all women and good men. I cannot abide.
I wish I could say that when I was 17 and I watched all of this happen that I walked away from that girl and her toxic circus. I didn’t. She used and abused me for years after. I wasn’t strong enough.
I am now.
Outstanding