The After

*This is the original piece I submitted to Elite Daily which was then edited to fit their audience and published as "Going To Group Therapy After My Rape Helped Me Rebuild My Life."

The After. That's where the pain is. Everyone thinks it's in The During. But that's the easy part. In The During, you're in so much disbelief that you don't even get a chance to think about the pain. But in The After you have a lot of time. You have the rest of your life.

I don't know how I got here. I don't remember being on the subway. My body is running on autopilot, placing one of my feet in front of the other until I arrive at my destination - group therapy for victims of sexual assault. I’ve been coming here for the last month. Two hours, once a week.  It sounds like a prescription. Doctor's orders. There are only four of us here. They told us smaller groups allow for intimacy. Intimacy with a stranger. That phrase has come full circle for me now. No one is “fine” here. No one is “great, how are you?” Here, we are comfortable in our brokenness. Here, we carefully extract the necrotized parts within. We lay them out for comparison, pointing to them and nodding with recognition. Guilt. Bitterness. Exhaustion. Grief. Within these four walls I am understood. Our stories are not identical, yet they are the same. These women aren't strangers. They know my soul.

I come home to sit in the shower with the lights off. It's cold out there. And loud. I'm sensitive to these things now so the shower has become my refuge. It's warm and quiet and the sound of the water hitting my body is a mind-numbing constant. It's reliable. It's safe. When I open the door to the bathroom, an avalanche of steam pours out around me and I'm immediately greeted by the frigid air and fluorescent lights. I'm reluctantly shocked back to life. 

As I'm dressing I scan my body with my hands. My breasts. My stomach. My thighs. Everything feels foreign. It's not my own. I cover this strange woman with layers of clothing and climb into bed. It's only 7 PM but what little energy I started the day with was spent hours ago. With the curtains drawn, I reach for tonight's relief. Nyquil. Advil PM. Unisom. Benadryl. I never have the same cocktail twice in a row. The Ambien and Xanax are saved for when I'm really desperate. But I feel desperate all of the time. 

The nightmares are never the same but they always include death. Even now in my consciousness,  I can still smell the blood and flesh. I can still feel the nausea. I lie awake staring at the ceiling, too afraid to check the time on my phone. It's still dark outside which relieves some of the anxiety. I know it was a dream but the evolutionary responses have already kicked in. Increased heart rate. Quick breaths. My senses are on high alert. The dam breaks and the tears fall. It doesn't matter what time it is. There will be no more rest tonight.

My alarm goes off and as I pull the comforter away from my body I have to pull the weight of the world with it. Everything is heavy. I don't wash my hair. I don't wear makeup. It's too exhausting to care about my appearance. I'll probably cry the makeup off anyways. I cry all the time now. Especially at work. Basic tasks have become overwhelming. What would have been considered a small inconvenience a few months ago now feels like disaster. Everyday my sky is falling.

The headaches that turn into migraines are so frequent that I've stopped counting them by days. This one has lasted for weeks. If I lie very still, the pain starts to disappear. If I lie very still, will I disappear? I've never felt so alone in my entire life. I've never felt so invisible. 

I see my individual therapist once a week. She's my Wednesday morning. She’s given me a “grounding stone.” I’m supposed to hold onto it when I start to spiral. I grip the stone in my pocket as I bleed out in her office in 45 minute segments. The time passes and I leave feeling everything at once and yet nothing at all. 

You've probably heard of pregnancy brain. But have you heard of rape brain? I forget things. Tasks. Words. Entire chunks of time. I'm a bad friend because I forget details of a conversation. I'm an incompetent coworker because I forget projects. Failure. That's a word I don't forget because I feel it all of the time.

I'm positive I'm having a heart attack. For the last two days my heart hasn't stopped fluttering - a pleasant-sounding word for an unpleasant experience. I get an EKG and my doctor tells me I’m not dying. I’m experiencing heart palpitations brought on by stress. I cry the entire way through the appointment. I don’t know how much more I can take before my body rejects me completely. How can one be so sure they are dying and yet still be alive? 

Today is my last session with my therapist. I've been with her for fifteen months. It's strange to think I'll never see this person again. This person who knows my raw truths. I can’t remember her last name but I know she saved my life. I can't stop crying. But they are tears of pride. Tears of gratitude. We don't say "see you next week” which feels strange. We hug and as I shut the door behind me I feel like I'm leaving a piece of me in that room. Maybe I am. 

It took two and half years after my rape for symptoms of PTSD to appear - for The After to arrive. No one handed me a list of all the pain I would feel. If there was some kind of orientation on what to expect, I wasn't mentally present for it. Processing my assault through therapy was a kind of exorcism. And I was the host, the demon, the priest.