“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…..