I took this picture a few days ago, it’s the room and the bed where I was sexually abused. I used to feel terrified and filled with pure anxiety within a 5 meter radius of this room, let alone pass it by and take a picture.
I still remember that incident very clearly, down to what I was wearing, the smell, the feeling, the temperature. I can describe everything to you very well. Even the long term influence that incident had on me, I can tell you exactly how current personality traits link to this. For years (as recent as last week), while sleeping I had wet dreams about him where I was having sex with him secretly and really enjoying it. They used to be very frequent and deeply disturbed me. Now, like the one a few days ago, I didn’t even think about it after waking up. I just cleaned up and changed my clothes.
The moments after I was sexually abused, a concoction of pure anxiety, guilt and panic filled me as I rushed out of this room and did my first ever Contamination OCD compulsions. Washing myself all over, twice, very ritualistically. I remember thinking my life had changed forever. In some ways I think it had, in other ways not so much as I’ve gotten a lot of “normalcy” back since then. (But what is normal, really? Isn’t this normal too? Going through a deep hardship and overcoming that battle?)
I’ve come across the guy who sexually abused me several times in the last few years. No interaction or conversation but just spotted him here and there, one time very close to my house. Doesn’t really bother me at all. Just like the occasional wet dream, it doesn’t make me feel anything. And even if it did, I could accept that as well. Maybe one day I’ll have a very amped version of that dream that might disturb me a bit. I accept that too.
Looking at this bed now I kind of chuckled not as a funny thing really, but just at the thought of how long ago it feels and all that’s happened since then. The Momin on that bed was idealistic, and that idealism broke in the moment on that bed. But that also started a cycle of 15 years of understanding myself and life at a very deep level. The Momin I am now standing looking at that corner from the past is nothing but grateful for the choices he made; the way I navigated this through support and in many moments just by myself; and for not letting this one thing become the cornerstone of my life. It’s just one of those big moments that happened, and as time has gone by and countless other things have happened, this story has shrunk in size. It’s still there, still important, still stands out. But it doesn’t have the magnitude it used to.