one year has passed; I am hurting but safe

content warning: rape; mania; substance abuse

views from the sky above somewhere in Colorado

One year ago, I woke up in Las Vegas. It wasn't a scheduled vacation -- unless you think that booking a flight four days out is planned. It was a search for refuge, an adventure to visit a friend who made me feel more human, a journey toward anything that would remind me that I was alive and okay and worthy of love and respect.

In the middle of the night on March 22 of 2019, I left a club with another person. I abandoned the friend I'd gone out with that night in a parking lot, knowing she didn't have a place to go and that her car was at my apartment (20+ minutes away). I figured that she would figure out something. I left my car behind (honestly the smartest decision of the night, considering I was at least 12 drinks deep). An uber arrived courtesy of the person I left with, and we went to his place.

He gave me the address so I could send it to a friend, in case of emergency. I still remember the door we used to access the building. How obscenely large the elevators seemed (new construction). The location of the dumpsters that I would hide next to in the morning. The brightness of the well-lit hallways. Staring at the number of his apartment door, so I would know it, in case of emergency.

Turns out, in case of emergency, at least that night, after I tried to fight him off, all I remembered to do was freeze. After I was raped, I laid in the bed (awake, as I would be for a total of 39 hours before I finally crashed into nightmares of it happening again) frozen. I acted fine in the morning. He took my phone and added himself to all of my social media accounts. He added his number. He forced a kiss when I walked out the door. I hid behind the dumpsters, blocked him from everything, and anxiously waited to go home.

The lyft driver who took me to my car kept asking if I was okay. I wasn't. I lied. I didn't want to tell anyone who would potentially kill that guy (my driver was an ex-marine). The few people I did tell who asked for his address never got it. I still don't remember it. But I do remember how I felt. I do remember how I feel -- because it doesn't go away.

---

Once I had my car, I picked up the friend I abandoned the night before. We went to a gas station. I ate watermelon spears. There's a picture of that. And I told her. She expressed the expected emotions of anger and worry and concern and etc. I went home. She went home.

And I told one other person. His response saved me from myself, from the plan I had to drink until I forgot it all. He told me that it wasn't my fault and that what I chose to do next was solely my decision, one that he would support no matter what. He replied to me often and honestly, providing a shoulder to cry on from thousands of miles away.

I didn't report it because I didn't want to have to face that person again, to go through the testing and questioning just to know that the kit would almost certainly be backlogged for so long that maybe, just maybe, I would be healed and healthy before I would have to face it again. I don't regret my decision.

Sometimes though, when the nightmares increase and return my restless body to the land of sleepwalking (likely to check the window and door locks, but I have no memory of it), when the paranoid thoughts negatively impact being in public (looking around furiously when I think I hear something, feeling like everyone around me is talking about what I said/did/wore/ate/thought), I wonder how I managed to spend at least $2000 in a week for a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas to visit family, meet up with a friend for not nearly enough time, get a new tattoo, and drink alone in a giant casino suite bathtub... I wonder why nobody said anything at all.

---

I feel that one of the hardest aspects of dealing with trauma and the memories of manic decisions (I did not cancel other plans I'd made months in advance and decide to drop thousands for a Vegas adventure four days before the flight in a stable state of mind) is not knowing whether my actions were "right." Forget logic; I don't know her. But right and wrong, I fight with them daily. Is it right for me to avoid my apartment for multiple nights because the last time I slept there (early last week) I had the worst nightmare in the history of my entire life? I could divulge the details in full color; it's that vivid. But I won't.

Not until the appointment with a psychiatrist and unless I can manage to schedule a therapy appointment as well. I don't want to say what my brain thought, what it won't stop thinking, what is making me nauseous day and night.

But I will say this. Whether it was right or wrong, I miss the safety that I felt on that trip. I miss catching an early flight from Des Moines to Phoenix and befriending an ENT who gave advice about needing my tonsils out (he was right) and my life at the time. Tim, if you still read this, thank you. I miss sitting in airports and hearing people compliment my purple hair. I miss the lovely pain that comes from a tattoo needle sticking the skin thousands of times, permanently adding more art to the canvas that is my body while I told my artist all that had happened and he cried with me. I miss running to hug people I love; I miss wearing a black jumpsuit just to take myself out to dinner. I miss the adventure.

Yet somehow I have the comfort and safety I need to survive, that I need to feel loved and respected. And that, my friends, I know without a doubt, is right -- perhaps even logical.