“My emotions that first week after the rape were mixed up…..mostly anger. I wanted him to die. And I was upset with myself, with what I could have done….what I should have done. I felt afterwards that I didn’t resist at all. I just sort of stood there and let him do this to me.” Jennifer-Surviving the Silence, Black Women’s Stories of Rape by Charlotte Pierce-Baker

I’m not sure what’s going on with me lately. I’m sad and lonely all the time. I wish I could lay in bed all day and cry.  I’m at work right now and I just feel like breaking down and crying. I’m just not happy anymore…with anything.

I don’t feel like myself at all. I feel like how I felt exactly after I was raped. I’m numb, emotional, lonely, and sad and I just want the pain to end. It feels like I’m walking around in someone else’s skin and I can’t peel it off of me.

I feel like there’s something wrong with me mentally. I don’t want to end up on medication. I know what I’m feeling is now where close to being normal. I know I’m depressed but it goes so much deeper than that. It’s like I’m depressed and happy at the same time. Like one minute I’m happy and excited about life and I can’t wait to change and 10 minutes later I feel like crying and I want to die. That’s not normal but I’m glad that I’m noticing these things.

I don’t want to live the rest of my life taking pills just to balance out my moods. I've felt this way since I was in middle school, it got worse after I was raped the first time. I just keep pushing it back and pretending that everything is ok. I keep feeling like I’m being punished for being raped, like it’s just one more thing I have to add to my list of problems and that I’ll have to tell someone and it’s just one more embarrassing thing. Lmfao as if having the flash backs, panic attacks, night terrors, body memories and Vaginismus isn’t enough to deal with, come on life why don’t you throw in a little Bi-Polar Disorder in there too?

I’m just really tired. I’m exhausted and drained. I keep thinking about my dad and how I have no family. In that year I lost my dad and I lost myself. It hurts a lot……

I just don’t want to fight anymore. I’m just too tired now.

Sing her song of life; she’s been dead so long. Closed in silence so long, she doesn’t know the sound of her own voice, her infinite beauty. She’s half-notes scatted without rhythm. No tune. Sing her sighs. Sing the song of her possibilities. Sing a righteous gospel, let her be horn. Let her be horn & handled warmly & this is for colored girls who have considered suicide but moved to the ends of their own rainbows.

they told me I wasn’t happy about anything anymore. I was in denial, I told him I was happy but just dealing with a lot. I was in denial about what I was really feeling

I’m tired. I’m just tired, I’m not happy. I don’t think I've been happy since I was in elementary school. I can’t even say I was happy then either. I was 19 and young and then I had pushed what happened to me in a place I thought it could never come out of. I was wrong, so wrong about that.

I've had a lot of happy moments but they don’t really last long. I have a lot of happy memories that I hold on to for dear life because it’s the only hope that I have left. Hoping that one day I’ll be happy again and feel ok.

I didn’t think I was this fucked up in the head. I never thought I was. I’d always thought I was a strong person because I’m still breathing and function in a healthy life now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know that I feel sad all the time. I’m happy when I’m with my daughter and best friend but then it’s like the sadness just creeps in and I get sad all over again. I feel depressed but I don’t know what’s wrong.

The other night I was thinking. I was thinking about how much I’m hurting right now but I’m scared of letting it out because I’m really not in a good place to break down. I have a lot going on right now that I’m trying to deal with.  I don’t know who will be there for me if I break down. I don’t know who I can really lean on if I fall apart. I don’t want to fall apart because I have to be strong for my daughter. If I fall apart I don’t know how long it will take me to put the pieces back together again. I’m scared that I’ll go back to cutting and not eating just to control the pain. The thought of killing myself even entered my head. I thought about if it would be better to take a bottle of pills and chase it with the strongest bottle of alcohol I can get my hands on. But I didn’t, I don’t really want to. I just want the pain to stop. I don’t know why I didn’t but the only person I thought of was my daughter. I’m trying to do everything in my power so she doesn’t turn into a fucked up person like her mother.

I didn’t do anything to make someone else rape me. There was nothing I did or had on or drank or said to give anyone the right to rape me. That’s a face. But still I feel like it’s my fault, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that out of my head but I’m working on it.

Some days I feel like dying. I still remember after my daughter was born, she was sleeping and I was so tired after staying up all night with her I started having night terrors again. I felt like a horrible mom and all I kept thinking of was how much pain I was in. how I was hurting so bad. I wanted to open up the bedroom window and jump out; I didn’t want to live anymore. I wanted to die, the pain was too much for me to handle and I couldn’t keep dealing with it. It was like no matter what I did or what I tried the pain never went away for long. It just kept coming back and getting worse.

I wanted to call 911 and tell them I need someone to help me. I need help dealing with life. I need help dealing with the feelings that I’m having. I need help with not feeling so sad all the time. I need help with not feeling so sad all the time. I need help not trying to kill myself. I didn’t call…….I didn’t want anyone to know how I really felt. Everyone thinks I’m the strongest person in the world and I’m not. I smile every day and pretend like I’m ok and I’m not ok at all. I feel so hurt and broken and down. I just don’t know what to do anymore…..

It is important to remember that rape and sexual assault is NOT the same as consensual sex/making love/being intimate with someone who cares about you. 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. An intimate relationship with someone you care for and someone who cares for you is entirely different from forced sex. Abusive sex is someone hurting you, having power and control over you, consensual sex is someone you choose to be intimate with, someone you are caring for and someone caring for you.

I feel like a failure as a wife and woman.

This sex therapy is so much harder than I thought it was ever going to be. So yes I am healing and yes it kind of is working but it hurts. It hurts because it seems like no matter what I do I just can’t get it right.

I have so many problems sexually I don’t know where to begin. When I think I’ve fixed one problem, 100 more appear with no solution. After going through the sexual experiences I have encountered and my feelings towards them I was shocked.

I’ve always associated sex with being raped. I had no feelings or attitude towards sex because I never had it before I was raped. With nothing to compare it too besides my own feelings and what people tell me it’s supposed to feel like I was lost.

I didn’t know how to react, I knew that there were a lot of feelings and emotions that I was having that I liked but was also afraid of because I couldn’t control them. There were a lot of feelings I couldn’t stand because it reminded me of being raped. Finding out what my triggers are, going into details about the rape, the smells, sounds, what was in the room really opened up my eyes.

I learned that I still cannot be intimate whenever I want to. That I’m confused about the sexual feelings that I do have.

Unless I’m 100% sure that the feelings I do have are real and not just my past messing with me, I don’t act on them. I don’t act on the feelings because I know I wouldn’t be able to be intimate with anyone in a healthy way. Now I’m starting to understand how my feelings affect my sex life. The sex dreams I have all the time, it seems as though it’s the only thing on my mind and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but I feel disgusting because of it. I feel disgusting for wanting sex, I feel embarrassed and I don’t know how to talk about it. Like I guess I never thought that being molested or raped would ever effect anyone this much or this deep.

I have a problem with controlling sex. I have a problem with my feelings towards sex and how I act out on them. I’m doing things that are only hurting the progression I’ve made.

I masturbate all the time if I had the chance. I do it so much because it just feels like all this pain is inside of my body and it just hurts when I can’t get it out. The pain feels like my vagina and pelvis is on fire from the pain and there’s nothing but pins and needles and my stomach starts to cramp up and my who body feels like it’s been hit by a mac truck. I masturbate to the point where it doesn’t feel good anymore.

It’s really painful but it lets the bad feelings about sex out. Afterwards I’m usually embarrassed and disgusted with myself but I don’t have anyone I can relate to. I just want to have a healthy sex life. I don’t want to feel bad about sex again….

 Even the happiest, strongest, and most optimistic of people have moments in life when their strength falters and their smile fades away

I feel as though he has taken my secrets and pain and cried again for me. He took that hurt and held it for me. He held me when when I thought I was walking through this world alone. He took all that hurt and emptiness and cried it out for me.


I saw the clouds roll in and the pain fall from the skies. I felt the earth relax and let go of gravity for just a second. The dark clouds. Smeared make up. Circles and no where else to go or to turn to.


The winds hold me tight as the clouds roll over my soul. Stealing away everything I held on to I exhale and fall to a new death.