abuse trigger*

In my end is my beginning
-T.S. Eliot-

   I distinctly remember the night I decided to get better. I mean once and for all better. On Monday 19th January 2004, at a few minutes past midnight, here, the real story began. I took a deep breath, trusted my instincts, and let myself go. I let myself taste the other side. I let myself fly freely around my environment. I looked in the mirror, removed the mask, and allowed myself to see my own reflection. And I spoke;
“You will do this. And it will start now.”*
   My mask I wore throughout the endless rapes and sodomizing, were what kept me alive, kept me breathing. Each day and week passed, each morning I would rise, fixate the mask, and go on. Until I no longer could go on in that way. The crash ended before it had even begun. Breathe through the pain, no pain no gain, pain is what allows you to know you are alive. This is how I survived the years of torment inflicted on myself. I re-enacted all the pain on myself in order to know I was alive. I took what I hated of him and made it a part of myself. But in 2004 that ended. I chose to walk a different path. I chose to recover.
   Engaging with this topic has given me hope. I know that the future holds something amazing for me. I know that this is what living is. I know this is what freedom tastes like. I love the taste of the rain on my face, the light that shines through the night, and the feeling of well being throughout my whole self.
  In **** and ****** abuse you are left hating your body. You blame yourself, and you hurt yourself as a way of reclaiming the body that another took. Your body becomes disconnected from you, it becomes "another", it becomes a "thing.”

   In Greek Mythology, Persephone is the goddess of spring. According to her story, she was abducted, ***** and taken to the underworld by Hades, the lord of the underworld. When her mother, Demeter, found out what had happened to Persephone, she convinced Zeus to force Hades to release her. Before Persephone could leave, Hades made her eat a pomegranate, which meant that she would have to return to the underworld for one-third of the year. According to the legend, the time Persephone spends in the underworld is the time in which there is winter on the earth. Because Persephone made it out of the underworld, she can be called the first survivor.
As survivors we can take comfort from the knowledge that although winter is hard, there is always spring around the corner.

© Sia Jane (2007)