Relapse

*TW*: sexual assault, self harm

A little over a year ago, I relapsed into a pattern of self-harm. Right after Thanksgiving last year, I spent the whole night on the phone with the crisis help line and watching Queer Eye with my roommate while waiting to hear from my therapist. I took nearly a week off of work.

I had struggled with self harm in the past. During high school, I saw a therapist for it. But I had been clean for over 12 years. I felt devastated and disappointed. I grieved what I saw as my ruined success. I didn’t understand why I had ruined my sobriety and pulled myself back under into a habit that I knew would be difficult to break again. There was a reason, though. There is always a reason we do what we do, even if it’s not evident. Usually, we’re reacting to life around us, especially when it has to do with trauma.

Last year, I survived a sexual assault right around Thanksgiving. Much like my first experience of sexual assault, my perpetrator was someone I knew. I’d had some drinks and still don’t remember much of what happened. It was so similar to my first assault, in fact, that I started to believe that everything was my fault. How could this happen twice? Maybe I was the one to blame.

If you’re thinking the same thing, I have a few things to say. First, survivors are never to blame. I own 0% of the blame for what happened to me. My perpetrator is the only one at fault. Second, people under the influence of alcohol or drugs that cannot remember what happened to them are not able to legally consent to any sexual activity. And, perhaps most importantly, there is never a reason or excuse for rape. I could be passed out drunk and naked in someone’s bed and it still would not give them the right to my body. My body is mine and only mine, and if I am not able to say a coherent “yes”, then I am saying “no.”

Before I was able to fully own this more freeing narrative, though, I packed down my shame. I didn’t talk about my assault. I believed that if I never thought about it, I might be able to forget that it had happened. I sort of mentioned it to my therapist once. I didn’t tell my partner or my best friend. I ignored my flashbacks and wrote off my spiked anxiety. And while I might’ve cognitively been able to forget somewhat, my body would not forget what happened to her. She knew what violation felt like and she was crying out for help. This is where the self harm came from.

While it seems contradictory to those who have never experienced it, self harm is often an attempt at control. Much like an eating disorder, self harm feels like it allows someone to control the pain that’s happening to them when they don’t feel like they can control emotional pain. Sometimes self harm occurs out of anger. Sometimes out of sadness. Sometimes loneliness. It’s safe to say that I felt a combination of all of those things. I felt angry at myself, sad that I felt imprisoned by this experience, and lonely because I was bearing it without any help.

Because I continued to box up and stuff down my memories of the rape, I ended up hospitalized last spring. And during my partial hospitalization, I was finally able to share my story. I grieved for days afterward. I had so many pent up emotions about it that it was overwhelming. But the release was what I needed to move forward.

I still struggle, though. I currently have 35 days clean. At one point in my healing journey, I had two months clean. So, all of this is still fresh, but I am beyond proud of the steps I’ve made. Each clean day is a victory. When I relapse, I have not started from the beginning again. Instead, I learn how to heal in an imperfect way and keep going.