To my fellow survivors

Trigger Warning: sexual assault

This is an open letter to my fellow survivors. I see you. I see you working hard every day to continue living your life. I see you trying to forget, trying to move on, trying to move past. I see you having days, bad ones and good ones. I see you doing your best.

It’s okay if your best today is not the same as your best yesterday. It’s okay if one day you feel fine and then the next you feel a million miles away.

Today I was mindlessly scrolling through social media when I came across another friend’s post about that person. How funny he is, how thoughtful he is, how kind he is.

And yeah, maybe he is. He just wasn’t with me. Not that he remembers it. Not that people believe me.

But this isn’t about him. This is about me. This is about us.

“Survivor” sometimes feels like too strong a word, at least to me. I don’t feel as if I “survived” anything. But then there are days when it feels like continuing on to the next day is such a battle, there is no better word for it than “surviving”.

Today is the latter, I’m afraid. I’m not sure why the Facebook post jolted me so thoroughly. Because I’m still angry? Because I’m still hurt? Because I’m furious that every day I have to continue living with this knowledge while he gets to live his life, free from the burden of knowledge of his drunken escapades?

Check. All of the above.

There’s no easy way to say this. It sucks. It majorly sucks. It is a fucking terrible feeling. To live with people surrounding you repeating ‘believe her’ mantras while wondering if that extends to you when it’s someone you both know.

I’m not going to pretend this is a black and white issue. I’m also not going to pretend that I’m completely unaffected by it, as much as I would like to be.

I’m just going to say that to my fellow survivors: I see you. I hear you. I believe you. I am here for you.

Keep surviving.