(un)happy anniversary
It’s been a little while since I last posted. Temple are getting the bike ready for auction, interviews are underway, and I’m stumbling through social plans and moving house in time for September. Along side this, is the coming anniversary of when I was raped.
Last year, I coped in two ways. The first was being busy. I filled my calendar with back-to-back plans; festivals, friends, submitting my thesis, birthdays, dinners, art galleries. Lots to keep my mind occupied and my emotions positive. The second was to carve out a small but significant piece of time to think about what happened. I wrote a letter, outlining acute events, what had happened since, regrets and apologies, and thanks for the people who helped me. Around sunset, with a close circle of friends, we (tried) to burn that letter, on the anniversary. It was a little windy, and no London parks allow fires. It took a lighter, friends huddled around with a jacket to block the wind, and mild burns on my thumbs to turn my words to ash. But it worked! We hugged, while ducks swam by, with a clear sky, in a grubby park, before some olives in a little restaurant. I had compartmentalised my calendar to compartmentalise my emotions, and it worked!
This year however, I didn’t think I needed to take the same precautions. I’ve been talking more openly about what happened, and cycled across the US solo for Rape Crisis. Surely that’s enough time and energy spent processing! It seems not.
This time of year is filled with transitions - moving out of London, starting medical school, hopping between countries to make a few more memories with friends before I focus on education, and sorting finances for school and sports.
Transitions breed anxiety, but normally an organised schedule would settle things for me. Beneath the usual future-focused worries, has been a lump in my throat, a pit in my stomach, and a familiar mix of dissociation and hyper-vigilance. While with friends and their families, I’ve taken slow breaths and pushed these sensations aside. But taking a moment alone, my mind wonders to that night. My eyes water and my saliva turns sharp while it takes more effort to keep my breathing level. Evidently my body and brain aren’t as healed as I want them to be, but that’s okay. These feelings don’t stop me. They’re uncomfortable, but so too are long flights and hard workouts.
Last year, I made space for these feelings. This year I didn’t. They still came, a few weeks early. I’ve got time to compartmentalise my calendar and give space to my hurt so it doesn’t bleed into the brilliant people and places I get to see years later.
One thing I’m learning is that my body and mind work at different paces, but they work together. Evidently, I’m not 100% over it (even if I think I am a lot of the time) and a plan to give space to my trauma around this time of year is important. Next year, I’ll carve out some time and maybe find myself at peace with what happened, or maybe I won’t be. Either way, I’ll have new friends, old friends, and still be moving forward.
