But ANYway, last night I was taking up too much of the couch during "Downton Abbey", when the Bates family finally got on the same page surrounding a traumatic event. While Anna insisted she was "spoiled", and John reassured her she was not, telling her instead that she was all the more important for what she had been through, I cried a lot, and started to ponder the idea of being "damaged goods" or "spoiled". What does that mean for survivors of trauma, especially something as potentially physically invasive as rape?
We often feel spoiled, I believe, when we fail at something, or cannot achieve what it is we were hoping for. Sometimes we fall somewhere in the middle, like a high jumper who hits the bar rather than sailing over.
My rape happened 14 years ago, but for some reason my body and brain were not ready to handle even thinking about it until now. And so what happens? Far after the event, I have nightmares and flashbacks. My mind races and I find myself asking now "Am I damaged goods? Have I been spoiled?" Media surrounding this subject was something I ignored, thinking "Those poor survivors and families; what must they go through?" This is an inevitable "side effect" of repression. Now that I'm owning things, this same media cuts me to the quick, makes me uncomfortable and angry. My friend Bipolar Disorder seems to have come for another interminable visit, and the anger and fear of my rape comes with it.
Every morning I wake and I weep. I shower, take my meds, eat, and go about my day, but there it all is, between the crying and the cataloging and the singing. You were damaged, you were attacked, you were made different.
There are some who say they would never choose to forget what happened to them, that it has made them stronger and more aware. I, on the other hand, would take a lobotomy in a heartbeat. If the TARDIS showed on my doorstep right now and the Doctor offered to erase that night from my mind, I would gleefully ask for the sonic screwdriver to be pointed right at my brain. But that isn't going to happen. And so we move along.
As I lay in bed that night after that episode of "Downton Abbey", I asked my husband, "Am I damaged in your eyes?" He paused and replied, "It never even entered my mind. Not for a second."
And so I attempt to move along.
