Out Running the Past

As a runner in high school I was taught “if you want to win never look over your shoulder to gage your advantage.” I found this advice sound when it came to winning races and attempted, for years, to infuse my coach’s wise advice when it came to the rape, refusing to look back.

I’ve come to believe this was a grave mistake for the past is not like a competitor wishing to defeat me. (Which is how I’ve always viewed the rape.) Rather it is one of the major elements that make up who I am – good or bad. My past must be allowed to run evenly with me never being forced to lag behind nor encouraged to jog ahead. I’m finding that when I’m guilty of doing either the reliable beat of time is unnaturally altered disrupting the rhythm of my stride.

I agree with the analogy bro...the rape made you who you are..good and bad...but, I tend to stay a few paces in front if my past, if I'm able...

Darkheart,

I sure don’t know where the placement of a terrible event is the proper residence in one’s life. What you suggest makes sense to place a past situation behind ones current life experience, though doing so did not work so well for me. Maybe because I tried to leave it in an unlit room out of view thinking I could live a life unaffected by it. I believe what I did is much different than what you are saying. From this dark place the rape creped forward placing itself in plain sight though disguised in nightmares and strange, unexplainable reactions to current events. The rape then forged out in front of me creating rough and dark paths for me and those close to me to travel. I allowed it to remain my future focus which was not a bad decision at the time but I cannot continue to place it at the front of the line. So for me embracing the assault is the major hurdle for me to accomplish. I can’t do this while it is either forced behind me or pushed in front of me for it is not simply an evil act hateful of another anymore. Rather it is now a powerfully driven part of how I view and respond to my world as much so as my mother’s first kiss to my baby cheeks and my dad’s powerful hand laid upon my shoulder guiding my decisions.

I think what I’m trying to say is that the rape’s effects are not separable from me. I’m not a helpless victim in countering all negative outcomes, misbeliefs or my bad behaviors due to it but nor am I independent either and to think I can be is a myth a kind of a magical type of thinking. Nothing will take it away but I believe I have the power and strength to continually turn my reactions to it into something healthy even maybe to my advantage.

edited for privacy

I completely concur that there is a form of resurrection that can rise from the smell of destruction and death in all things bad – even rape. But there are stages that if avoided in order to force this positive outcome I fear the rebirth’s foundation is bound to crumble later in one’s life. At least this is what happened in my case.

This is a tricky subject (turning horrible events into something positive) for depending at what stage a person who is listening in or participating with the conversation is in it can feel threating, discounting, shaming, chastising and an abundance of other types of judgments. I don’t wish to create these feelings in anyone yet I don’t think it wise to avoid the subject, that of the importance of redemption of a bad situation. I too believe that all things can work to the glory of one’s life if we keep looking for the ways in which we can rebuild – but never by avoiding the truth of the cause and results of the fire that devastated one’s fleshly home.

In my case my belief system at the time of my rape did not give me the right to be angry and unforgiving at the men who raped me. So I skipped that stage which resulted in a lifetime of being silently angry at myself and placing all the judgments that was deserving to them onto me. Then I came here read stories of other men and grew angry at their abuser/rapists. Then it hit me – I never showed anger towards those two men! That changed in a big way and I wrote poem after poem attacking them. Now I’m in a different place with my anger and judgments towards them. I don’t ever plan to not be angry with them only to not keep letting that anger guide me. Instead turning that anger into a force for change and education and maybe even being empathetic to another soul whose house has caught fire and burned all that seemed indestructible just moments before the flame.

try going for a less lofty goal maybe. no need to turn a tragedy into a positive. but try for turning a tragedy into something solemn and finding a way to excrecate it enough to let the wound cleanse a bitby bit

earlybird.... how are things going thesedays. you ok