Wow. Three years.
Three years of nightmares. Self doubt. Self hatred. Confusion.
Confusion about sexuality. About love. About men. About me.
About what I deserve. Or about what I don’t.
Meaningless sex with men I don’t care about.
Shying away from the ones that I do.
A loss of trust. Of vocal power. A rise in hopelessness.
Weight gain. Weight loss. Weight gain again.
Nights filled with tears. Gazes in the mirror with disgust.
But things changed.
Or maybe still are changing.
I’m growing.
Through it, past it.
But it takes work.
Surrounding myself with people I love.
Talking about what happened to me.
How it made me feel.
What it taught me.
What it took away.
This started with a lot of “have to’s”
I have to look in the mirror and tell myself I’m beautiful.
I have to tell myself I deserve better.
I have to focus on loving me.
I have to know I deserve to love it in order to have it.
But these things became part of me.
Less that I “have to” do them
More that I enjoy them.
Today, three years later, there are things I now know
I know I deserved better then.
I know I deserve better now in whats to come.
I know my words matter, though they seemed to not.
I know sex can be beautiful if I let it.
If I do it for the right reasons.
I know I am beautiful.
My soul is beautiful.
My body is beautiful.
I know I will find real love.
And I know real love does not mean rape.
Though I was lost in that for so long.
I’ll meet someone who I deserve.
Who makes me feel safe.
Not unnerved.
But for now I’ll do that for myself.
I’ll do good things for me.
Because I deserve happy things.
And I deserve to be happy
twentysandtrying.com 