There is So Much More You Don’t Know About Me (Daily Word Prompt is Hideout)

There is still so much of my story and journey living with bipolar disorder that you do not know about me yet. Slowly more and more of my story will come out and I will reveal more of my story and parts of my long journey living with bipolar disorder that have all combined together to create the story of who I am today.

My passion in life is to help others in any way that I can. I write my blog with hopes of helping others in a variety of ways. I want to encourage, inspire and eventually share many more chapters of the novel of my story and life to give many people hope and let them know that they are not alone.

Even though my blog is based on my story and journey of living with bipolar disorder there are so many more aspects of my life that can and hopefully will touch others in many ways by having them be able to relate to their own life and struggles they are going through and know that they can persevere and survive and thrive through their struggles.

I have been physically and emotionally abused as a child and have been sexually assaulted and abused as an adult as well. I have been homeless for over three months of my life and been divorced with my husband constantly trying to take away my children from me due to my mental illness.

There is so much more I have not shared with you yet and I want to. I listed these aspects of my life to let you know that so many of my life experiences and struggles I have faced are not all caused from living with bipolar disorder. Writing about more of my chapters in my life will hopefully help free me of them and I pray will help, encourage and inspire you in some way.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.  —  Maya Angelou

After reading a post from the blog The Catalysts for Change on the topic of preventing sexual assault, it caused me to touch a painful place and memory in my heart that I try not to ever visit and relive.

One of the points of her post that helped me the most came from Vice President Biden on April 29, 2014.

“We had psychologists and psychiatrists testify. They pointed out that the most difficult kind of assault to recover from is the one where you knew the perpetrator”.

I had never heard this before and this was new and beneficial information for me. I am so thankful she shared this as it helped me greatly to learn this. I was sexually assaulted by someone I knew.

This was a man I unwisely and unfortunately dated very briefly. After I told him I never wanted to see him again. He later entered my home uninvited. I had left the door of my home unlocked at the time, so he just walked in to my home as I was lying in my bed.

I won’t go into complete details as some of it is unnecessary to read and some of you may not want to read those details.

He walked into my bedroom. I tried to fight him off as long as I could. The struggle and fight lasted too long for me and I realized the only way to make this stop and go away and end it as soon as possible was for me to give up. He was much stronger than me and was overpowering me. I could not stop this from happening and I let him do what he came there to do.

I gave up and went away somewhere safe inside my mind pretending I was not there and that he was not sexually assaulting me. I left into my brain and pretended I did not exist.

I left into my  hideout inside my mind to a safe place to protect myself as if I was not there and it was not happening to me. I dissociated. Dissociation is when your brain protects you from horrific experiences, struggles, fears and painful and bad memories.

One of the worst parts I will always remember is that when he was all done with me, he stood up and said, “I feel better now.”

Then he left after grabbing his things. He just walked out of my house as if nothing had happened.

I will never forget those degrading hurtful and controlling words he said to me. I wish I could dissociate those words and the assault out of my brain forever, but those painful words and memories come back occasionally and still make me feel sick to my stomach. So I try as hard as I can to make those memories leave my mind as quickly as I can.

I pressed charges against him for the sexual assault. I wish I never would have started any of that painful and degrading process, but once I started the process I felt like I had no choice and had to finish what I started. I thought if I quit and gave up then people would not have believed me and thought I made the whole thing up, which of course I did not.

The assault went to a jury trial. I had to testify against him in court and relive the whole thing over again. It was awful and I when I was testifying I kind of pretended again that I was not there. I had to, so I could survive it all.

I am not sure of the justice system and people’s views on rape, but somehow it all needs to change and improve for women. I lost the case mostly due to the fact that I knew him.

I was very severely depressed for months after the sexual assault and the trial experience becoming immobilized in my bed and hiding my thoughts and feelings away deep inside my head trying to find a spot that I could forget everything. I isolated myself inside my head and inside my home finding another safe hideout again.

One day while I was hiding from my life, my social worker called me to inform me and warn me that my perpetrator was arrested and would soon be on the news as he is facing charges for robbery and a murder attempt.

This time the jury got it correct and my perpetrator is now serving a 40 year Prison sentence with about 23 more years to go. I always hoped that the jurors from my sexual assault case found out that the same man that they gave a “get of jail free card” was a very dangerous man and broke into a family’s home to rob them and almost killed the man who lived there. I hoped they realized how wrong they were finding him innocent of the sexual assault.

I did try to get him off the streets so no one else would get hurt, but they did not believe me and let him go to commit more crimes and injure someone else, negatively impacting the family’s lives forever.

I praise God that this man is no longer free as I would have been scared of him for the rest of my life. After he was in Prison he called my home and sent me cards etc. which haunted me. I finally got the prison to get him to stop calling me at my home and stop sending me things. I explained the situation and they prevented him from having anymore contact with me at all. Praise God for that.

It took me a while to recover after the assault and trial as I was severely depressed for months, but I eventually overcame it and survived again.

Thank you for reading this as it has been very therapeutic for me to share this with others. I never usually share this chapter of my life. Thank you so much for listening, well reading actually. I appreciate it greatly.

I think it was easier for me to share this kind of story with nameless faceless people, but I know you are all very beautiful kind and compassionate people. I appreciate each and every one of you. You are all my blogger friends. Thank you for being there for me.

Here is a little gift of music for you… a music video by Donnie McCurklin and Kirk Franklin called “Ooh Child.” I love this video as it makes me happy and is a lot of fun to watch full of happiness and love and HOPE.   “Ooh Child things are gong to get easier…things are going to get brighter… someday….. It isn’t over until God says it is over… ”

I hope you enjoy it and it makes you smile…

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/hideout/