Confusing Questions:

I've started advertising for the fundraiser and retreat center. (The fundraiser just being a small, starter kind to begin prepping for the big Farm-Aid type in the future.)

I don't know if it's really going to happen, like I've mentioned before, but I've put it out there to everyone I do and don't know via another anonymous site (but including photos of myself). So this is my experience and this is what I'm doing to help other survivors.

I posted the below message on my other site asking them to join my volunteer group:

May 29, 2006
7:42 PM

I think I might have "invited" you guys already, I don't know... but I created a volunteer group for anyone/everyone that can help me with this stuff. I hope you guys are all in, even if I haven't seen you in forever. And if it has been years, then at least now you know why... just trying to get my life back somehow... and it sure as hell doesn't happen overnight.

The group name: ---

... so please join if you can help. And if you're a band, I hope you'll join in hopes of playing at the event mentioned below...

Thinking about having a big concert here in -- . There is tons of room to make a lot of stuff happen. And I hope you don't mind the location, considering its right across the beach... I know, tough, isn't it?

Not this year, though - thinking Sept. . 07, the first weekend after school starts in the fall. Students will be back in town and this will be a great way to start the school year... lots of music and events to raise $$ and awareness for this. (I plan to sell "admission" tickets to raise funds. I cant remember if --- is free or not, but similar to that, but bigger and better... I hope...)

Maybe I'm just sending everyone on a wild goose chase with this shit... or maybe I'm just trying to force some kind of greater purpose onto why I was raped. But whatever the case, if I can make it happen, then that would be really fucking great. If I cant make it happen, then fuck it - I at least tried, didn't I?? As far as im concerned, I've got nothing more to lose...

So, my rambling aside, hope you can help, everyone...

Much Love
xo

PS - On a lighter note, I spent the day at the beach today and got sunburned. (I know, since when the hell do I get sunburned??!) So now I'm brown and red. Does that make me medium-rare? Damn...


A random guy contacted me to volunteer. We initially emailed once or twice about him helping me with getting a little website started up. But he's the same one I became a little weirded out by and don't want help from anymore. He emailed me the below questions regarding my rape. I'm confused. I don't plan on responding, but they are questions I've been asking myself ever since I "exposed" my rape to everyone.

I really don't think that these people, my friends included who now know I was raped, understand how this experience changes every little ounce of your being. It fucks up how you perceive the world and your place in it, how you relate to everyone, how you communicate to friends and strangers...

I picked up my pot again last night - was getting too weirded out by how exposed I am now. Just needed to smoke and think...

And last night, while I was baked again, I started to realize (and maybe I've mentioned this before) that maybe I'm advertising to do all of this only as a way to finally not hide from my rape anymore. Maybe I can't even make any of this happen. Maybe I should just delete that site and go on with life as usual - as if nothing is wrong, as if I'm totally & completely content, as if I am a normal human living any old life.

But that's not how I really feel...

I REALLY feel like I HAVE to do all of this for some unexplainable reason, and I will make it happen. I don't know... or maybe I AM just using this as an excuse to "shout" out my experience so I'm not hiding anymore...

Anyhow, here are his questions. I am so confused with what the point is to any of this. I don't care if people even know anymore. There are millions of girls and women who are hiding this inside of them, like me. I am just confused with why I feel so pulled into doing all of this... and scared and knowing that I AM doing all of this... Every since the moment I was raped, lying there knowing what just happened - and also knowing I could never tell anyone - I knew I would do whatever it took so other survivors didn't have to survive alone... like me.

There is no worse feeling that feeling like you are just broken pieces all alone in a world of matching wholes.

From the random guy who wants to help:

Jun 3, 2006
2:40 AM
Subject: RE: Need your help

Sunburns! Nice work. Summer is here! I think I already have one of the hallmarks of the days of sun and beach fun: an aberrant blonde eyebrow or two, this from a three day weekend of basking about by the catamarans on the beach. Ah, how I remember the college years... blonde streaks in my hair, sun bleached eyebrows, emblems of indolence... but those days are gone, fallen into the past, a Shangrila of youth. But while still on the subject, have you ever been to Baja? Your trips to the islands were probably the same, but coming back from Baja, which equals a multitude of days out in the open sun, I remember how my arms turned a shade of blonde... blonde arm hairs. Fun! Someday again...

Anywho, perhaps this is rude, and apologies if it is, but I wish to probe you some with questions. It's partly because of what I studied in school, but more just wanting to understand people (which is probably why I studied what I did). So you were raped. You're very open about it, which is good. An ex-girlfriend of mine had herpies, and she was just in denial/repress mode about the whole thing. Not in that she didn't tell me beforehand, which to her credit was an incredibly mature and brave thing to do, but just in that she didn't study or want to understand what herpies was... and what it wasn't. She supressed it. The dirt bag guy that gave it to her didn't tell her he had it beforehand. That's f'n dirty. I didn't think it was healthy for her to not be able to talk about it much; she was actually annoyed when I researched it (having an obvious vested interest in wanting to know more), and spoke to her of it. I think it ate away at her some...

You seem to have taken the opposite tact in such deeply affecting matters which perhaps also carry a social taboo to some, being completely open to what happened to you. I personally am abhorrent that rape exists in the world, it's just a disgusting sort of person who would do it, someone who obviously is damaged inside, and think it's great that you are so open about it. I've only known one other person who confided to being raped to me, and she didn't even tell her sister about it. I'm sure it's terrible to know just how many girls it's happened to...

My questions to you are more on why you are being so outspoken about it, why you are trying to form your own groups about it. Is this you just acting out on yourself, or have you talked to a therapist about all of this (for god's sake I hope so! I've seen one about much more trivial matters... and learned something)? Is therapy playing a part in what you are doing? There are a lot of rape awareness groups out there already, I imagine, I'm just wondering why you are doing your own thing...

My second question to you had to do with you you phrased your last bulletin. You said you were just trying find greater purpose into 'why you were raped.' Why? Do you think there is really a why? A 'why' connotates that you think things happen for a reason, that you were raped for a reason, that there is a greater power at work here and that this was a pre-ordained event... that it was meant to be. Personally, I think that's crap. This is of course all based on very little knowledge of you, only some pictures and writing samples, but I'm guessing what happened to you was not a 'personal' thing, it wasn't because of who you are. I think it was some sick-fuck who raped you, period. No rhyme or reason, no purpose, just male animalistic sexual drive (which all men, and women have... we are just animals) that was completely unrestrained by the bonds of civilized society. A deviant. Basically, a dirt bag. It wasn't a personal thing against you, it was just a thing. Your writings almost make it sound as if your identity is centered around a 'rape survivor.' Something tells me you are considerably more than this... that this isn't the source of who you are.

Again, apologies if I'm just being completely out of line here, but I feel you being so open makes it ok for me to be so as well. Maybe this is one of the 'good things' about such an impersonal place such as -- !

Ok, that's it for now. I hope you have a terrific weekend! And I'm totally available if you ever need help/advice on web related stuff.

Off to slumber land...


Not really sure how to react/respond to this. Those are the same questions I've been asking myself for so long now. I'm afraid I can't answer them... so then what the fuck am I really doing with all of this?

Do I really center my identity around being a "rape survivor"? If I haven't known any other life, then isn't this my only identity thus far?

I'm so completely and utterly confused...

Going to take a shower, smoke a bowl and go the beach... just need to be left alone to think... or not think at all, for that matter...

A Favorite:

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

- Rilke

SNAP OUT OF IT!

I need to snap out of whatever is going on with me lately.

What's going on with me?

I am totally and completely frozen in fear of pursuing my ultimate dream: Writing.

I have been having such twisted and fucked up physical reactions to the flashbacks while writing that I am just too damn drained and tired to attempt it anymore. I know it will get better and easier, but I just have to snap out of it.

What am I so scared of?

I have had, literally, been suffocating when a memory runs me over or when I have a flashback. Especially the things that I have shut out for so many years. When these things begin to spill out of me, I freak out and can't breathe. A few weeks ago, I was hyperventilating so bad & getting so scared that I had to walk around my house and talk myself through each step... I had to talk out loud about what I was seeing and what I was doing: "There's my table. That's my laptop. I'm walking into the kitchen. I am at my house. I am 27 years old. I am single. I am a sister. I am a daughter. There is my car insurance bill..." I know it sounds crazy, but I had to say everything out loud in order to pull myself out of my past - away from Jay raping me again - and back into the present.

Writing has never been that scary for me before. That panic attack wiped me out. I brushed my teeth and went to bed after I was able to breathe more calmly.

I just have to snap out of it.

I know I am having a very strange time with my grandma's death, but death is just a part of life. I have lost many friends at such a young age. But my grandma is one of the most difficult to process, especially since we were so close... I was closer to her than to my own mom. And I feel guilty for not talking to my family since she died... I just need to be left alone.

Another fear: I will be alone forever.

It is much easier to live my complicated and crazy life alone than attempting another relationship. I am tired of "trying and failing" in that department. More than that, I am tired of not being able to be my entire self, rape included, around my boyfriend. I have always had to hide a part of my life with every boyfriend I have had. And when I feel comfortable enough to open up, which takes me a VERY long time, something immediately changes with how he relates to me. And then it's over.

I'm tired of feeling like I've done something wrong in every relationship I've had.

All of my struggles, paranoias, fears, confusions - they are all valid and real. They are not easy to deal with. I admit this. I admit I can be a handful sometimes. But fuck it. I have more than enough reason to be scared. I am completely justified in needing to be left alone sometimes. I have a right to say no to anything whenever I feel like saying no.

Having a relationship with someone who has been through all the shit we (survivors) have been through is not easy. You have to really care about every ounce of our entire being to stick with us through the bad and real bad. And it will always get worse before it gets better. It's always just ended when it's gotten worse for me. They never let it get better... mostly because I completely withdraw and shut down when I don't know what to do... especially if I really, truly care about someone.

I am in a very weird place in my life right now. I feel like everything is all or nothing. I feel like this is kind of my only chance to make something of myself, to make something of my life, to wholeheartedly and 1,000% make my dreams a reality. And I know I can do it if I just stay focused and remember how badly my heart wants all of this: The Survivor Retreat Center, the fundraiser, the non-profit, the writing career...

And I've noticed that when I meet attractive guys I enjoy flirting with/talking to, I want to bail once it gets to the point where he becomes a "real person" instead of just a "fun flirtation." I talk myself into belieiving it's easier to never see him again, to just drop everything before he can hurt me. God knows I have a hell of a time trusting anyone anymore... I begin to panic with how he will react to what my life is REALLY like - the rape, the family, the drugs, the suicide attempts...

I mean, come on... I'm not exactly the kind of girl you take home to Mom. But I look like it.

Maybe that's another reason I'm too scared to get close to someone I really care about: Because I'm not what I seem. I feel like I'm just a big lie. I feel like I'm just lying to everyone all of the time.

Why am I so hard on myself? I don't know...

I guess old habits die hard - I might be bailing on someone I really care about... and I don't even know why. I'm just having a weird time getting things back in order. I sometimes feel like Life is so out of order that I don't even know where to begin anymore...

So maybe that's how you know I really like you - if everything is hunky dorey and I just vanish into thin air.

So, dear readers, don't take it personal I've been wanting to bail on this whole blogging business. According to my theory, it just means I really care about you.

I'm tired of rambling about stupid nonsense. I'm just agitated and cranky with feeling like nothing is working out according to my "plan."

So fuck it. Fuck my plans.

Plan to have no plans.

"Every possibility is elegantly disguised as a problem."

I just have to snap out of it, dammit.

For the love of God, just snap out of it already...