Cheers...

Finally, another long week is over. Just got home, took a hot shower and am back working at my second full time job - surviving. Just cracked open a brewski - only six left. Think I might end up getting a little drunk by myself tonight!

I am really a writer. I wrote my first book when I was in the third grade. I still have it, nicely and neatly preserved. I look at it every single day for inspiration and motivation. I have a full time job where I work my ass off Monday through Friday and get paid pretty well for it, too. This is exactly what I need right now - a stable financial situation where I am valued, appreciated and rewarded for it. I have received two raises to date and one promotion. As of yesterday, I think I received another (kind-of, indirect) promotion. And I am up for another raise in just a few weeks. Not bad. This is really good for me right now - having a job where I feel productive when I feel SO unproductive in the rest of my life. What I need more than anything else right now is a stable financial situation so I can focus on trying to get published while paying off my school loans and getting out of debt.

What I REALLY want to do is help other rape and sexual assault survivors through my writing. But I haven't quite figured out how to do that, especially because I know I have to find my way back before I can help others to find their way back.

So, last night, I posted some online ads advertising this site - in London, Barcelona, Sydney and New York to start. Why the random places? BECAUSE SURVIVORS ARE EVERYWHERE. I don't know how much response I will get, but I did it anyway. I figured at the very least, I can be connected with other survivors to aid in my own healing.

And then the next step is to start telling my story at colleges and universities. But first, I have to start therapy again. I hope I don't back out of it. But I know I need it. I have already made the call, just waiting for an opening. I don't really want to go, but I am sure if I don't, then I will keep reliving my rape over and over and over again.

There is a reason I have beaten seven suicide attempts, a cocaine overdose and MANY blacked-out drinking and driving nights. I don't know what that reason is yet, but I think it is that girl deep down inside of me doing all of the fighting to stay alive - the same girl I abandoned the night I was raped.

So now what? I don't know... but I am writing an anonymous letter and sending it out to as many rape crisis centers as my tired and aching little body will allow. In this letter, I will write of my own experience and list this site as a means of support for the crisis counselors to offer to their clients.

Why am I doing this? Because I have sought counseling at my local rape crisis center two different times in my life. Receiving something like this from my counselor, while in the heart and core of the MOST FUCKED UP thing I have ever experienced, would have been a Godsend.

I am not trying to play God here... just trying to put the pieces of my life back together.

I will post the letter here once I have written it (hence the many beers tonight)... if I don't freak out while writing it and back out of the whole thing because I've had another breakdown.

(sigh)

Dear Abandoned Girl... Hope I can do this...