Making love, having sex, being intimate. Whatever you call it, it can be a wonderful thing. Don't let rape rob you of the chance to have genuine happiness in your life. Choose to reclaim your sexuality, without abusing it yourself, and move on with your life. Be happy, take time to love yourself, stay safe.

“Rape is about having your choices taken away. Being intimate with your partner is something you can choose to do or choose not to do. You can ask your partner to stop and he/she would stop. You may find that some positions may now seem frightening to you and you may feel you want to use positions where you feel more in control over what is happening. If you are with someone who cares about you, loves you, respects you that is entirely different from a man who is abusing you, who has no care or respect for you.”

So I’ve made some progress. After the break down last week I had let go of a lot of things I was holding on to. Like the rapes, abuse and being molested. When Justin molested me it took away my childhood innocence. I had lost that special place that no one was supposed to touch and I knew that no one was supposed to touch me there. But ever since Justin started to molest me, my privates would always hurt and I couldn’t explain it. After I had my daughter( I have a vaginal birth) I tore and needed stitched for the second time(I had stitches from a rape years ago) and I remember laying in the hospital on my side crying because my anal area had hurt so bad. It wasn’t from the stitches per se but I kept feeling like someone had put something in my rectum and I couldn’t get it out. It didn’t hit me until earlier this week that I was having body memories of Justin putting his finger in my rectum when I was 5. I never really understood that everything was connected to each other as far as emotions and feelings.

“Separating rape/abuse and sex
It is important to learn to separate rape/abuse and sex. Healthy sex is nothing like the violation you experienced, and in working on your sexual healing and rediscovering your likes and dislikes; you can learn to differentiate the two. The actual acts may be the same, but that is where the similarities end.

This task can become complicated, as many non-survivors connect rape and sex, so their perceptions become skewed. Survivors may worry that others are judging them for wanting to become sexually active, or that the assault must not have been “that bad” if they are able to enjoy sex again. Some people may even openly question a survivor’s desire to engage in sex after rape or abuse. As difficult and wounding as these types of comments can be, it is important not to let them interfere with your own views and desires. You are entitled to healthy sex, and no one can tell you how to feel.”

When it came to sex, I always felt dirty and nasty. I felt like I wasn’t deserving of anything but pain because that’s the only thing I was used to. After being raped and abused for so long, it’s so hard to get used to being treated with respect. I had no emotional connection with the act of sex but pain and Frank along with Banky and the other men. It’s a hard concept to grasp, knowing that you have the right to your body and no one else does. It was hard for me to accept that I can say no to sex now. That I don’t have to do anything that I don’t want to.  The Vaginismus makes it that much more difficult, especially when you do want to be intimate because the anxiety and fear of sex made my body go on danger mode and my vagina would close up.

So this is where my journey begins. I had to take back what Justin, Frank and Banky took from me. I am so determined to thrive from this instead of bouncing between victim and survivor. Right now I’m in Sex Therapy and working around the issues that makes me so anxious about sex. It’s going really well so far. I understand how my body is connected to my past but also to my mind.

I went and bough Ben Wa Balls for kegel exercises and so far its helping me relaxes a lot more. Ummmm…………. Sexually I feel so free right now. I don’t feel like I’m being pressured to do anything I’m way more open about what I want and what I like and what I’m willing to try. It’s like I have control over my body and I don’t feel like it’s in danger anymore.

It is important to note that Vaginismus is not triggered deliberately or intentionally by women. Vaginismus has a variety of causes, often in response to a combination of physical or emotional factors. Despite the fact that Vaginismus is involuntary and can strike any woman, many women feel intense shame from being unable to have intercourse and keep their pain private, feeling uncomfortable sharing their secret with anyone.

Its 4am and I can’t sleep at all. I’ve had Vaginismus since I was 19 from multiple assaults. It’s always bothered me to the point my anxiety goes through the roof and I start having panic attacks from thoughts about the rapes. Things have gotten a little better but I feel like the stress from my life, therapy, dealing with my dad dying and trying to be a mom are messing with me emotionally. I started getting really emotional about this last week. The stress is getting so bad now that for the past two months I’ve been having my period a week earlier. Like I can feel my body getting weaker every day. I don’t have an appetite anymore; I’m restless when I try to get to sleep but most nights I only get 2 to 4 hours.

So when I usually have my period I use tampons and I think it might just be my nerves but they hurt when I put them in and I can feel them inside me and I start to freak out and remember how it felt when I was raped. Then I feel dirty I still feel bad. I get antsy and nervous and just feel like breaking down and crying.

It means remember a time when you did not have the power to protect yourself. It means remembering your shame, vulnerability and pain.

"Not having that little girl in your life means that you have lost something. You have not had access to her softness, to her sense of trust and wonder. When you hate the child within, you hate a part of yourself. It is only in taking care of her that you can really learn to nurture yourself."

So in this healing process i have decided to start from the begining of it all. Lately i have been jumping all around trying to put the pieces back together and ive found out that its just not going to work out for me if i do it thisi way. So as painful as it might be, I'm starting over from the start.

Because of everything that is going on with my "mother" and daughter, I found this to be bring back flashbacks of emotional abuse from her and feelings that I had after I was molested. After years of trying to figure out what I had did wrong, why didnt anyone protect me, I realize that none of it was my fault. My "mother" knew that I was molested and she knew who had molested me but she did nothing about it. I had to find this information out from my sister when i confronted her about it. But then again there was no logical reason why I should really trust her on issues like this because all she does is back my mother up in ever single circumstance. "Mother" can do no wrong, shes God of all Gods.

I knew and understood fully at a young age that no one in my family would protect me. My "mother" being the Malignant Narcissists that she is did everything in her power to tear me down to the ground to her level. She wanted to have absolue control over everything I did, from what I ate, what I wore, to the way I wore my hair to the music I listened to and why I had chose that particular type of music.

At the age of 5 we were walking home from my elementary school(I was in kindergarden at the time and the school was maybe a 10 minute walk from my house) and she had my hair cornrowed with beads on it. While we were walking I had flipped my hair back over my shoulders with my hand(everyone else in my class was doing it so I guess I must have picked it up from there). She completely flipped out, she told me that I wasnt a little while girl and only little white girls flip their hair over their shoulders like that. And that if I ever did it again she was going to cut all of my hair off.

Really was that reacion really nessicary? I was 5 and who cares how I flipped my hair, I WAS A KID. To get so hostile and threatning over a flip showed me her true colors. I knew at 5 that she was a monster. I think it was about a month later i had started being molested by an older boy who rode the bus with me. I didnt tell her a thing. I remember one time she asked me if anyone had touched me and I told her no. Why the hell would i want to tell her someone touched me in my privates? She threatned to cut off my hair because I flipped it, who knows what the hell she had in store for me if I told her this.

The molestation went on until I was in the 3rd grade. He never raped me or made me touch him but he always had his fingers inside of me and for some strange reason he would always rub them together and smell them. Every time he did that it made me sick to my stomach.

I had to take a break from writing this post just now because it brought back so many other memories that I have not delt with and that I had pushed back just to continue to life. Ummmmm....Im actually at a lost for words right now.....

I bought the book, "The Courage to Heal" by EllenBass & Laura Davis. It is a really good book and has helped me deal with being molested, i have been through some of the chapters already but its just so much information that its taking me a while but thats ok too.

I guess i never really thought that being molested would affect my life but it has. After I was molested I had became so quiet, shy and emotinal in school that alot of times I couldnt concentrate with anything in school. My grades were never the greatest even though i knew the work like the back of my hand, i was too busy working on trying to keep the memories hidden so that no one would find out. On top of my grades falling I didnt have that many friends in school. The only person who wanted to play with me was the boy who was molesting me so I tried to cling on to the other kids and would always cry when no one would play with me because I didnt want him to play with me because of what he did. My teachers would send notes home from school saying that I was crying in school again. My "motoher" being the type of "mom" that she is, never asked why i was crying or if anything happyened that made me cry. Her only response was stop being such a cry baby. You would cry if you were molested too. I was 5 and no one cared.

My dad was always working and my sister was younger. It was always them against me. I never was the person my "mother" wanted me to be and im so happy of that. I would hate to be living a life like hers. I have enough anger, sadness adn pain in my life without someone elses. I feel as though if someone is wrong, they are wrong, there are no ways of going around it or justifiying it either. I dont believe in keeping peace at all costs or protecting someone who is hurting your child. Excuses are not a subsutitue for an "apology",

so thats it for me for now. Hopefully by monday i will had a list of everything shes done wrong when it comes to my childhool and compare that with the happy moments.....