All day the only thing I could eat/drink was ice cubes. If I even attempted to sip a glass of water or tea I’d throw it up immediately. And forget eating. I had like a cracker (remember my saltine cracker diet? Ah, the good old days) and I threw up for like twenty minutes. Eventually there was nothing left in my stomach, but I’d throw up anyway. Even the dogs are concerned. They would leap to their feet whenever I got up and sit on my lap whenever I sat down. I really hate it when dogs lick my face, but I let them today because a) I was dehydrated beyond belief and had no energy and b) I knew they were just trying to make me feel better.

BUT. I seem to be recovering. Haven’t thrown up in like an hour and a half, which is The Record of the Day. So maybe it wasn’t the stomach FLU, necessarily, but just some kind of 24-hour bug. I managed to have a glass of water, real WATER, not ice cubes, and a few crackers, and so far they’ve stayed down. I still feel really gross though. I did take a cold shower and that at least got rid of the vomit smell and cooled me off.

Whyyyyyy does this keep happening to me? As if the withdrawal wasn’t bad enough, and then the anxiety, now I have the fucking stomach flu. Why haven’t we found a cure for this already?

Whine, whine, whine. I feel like all I do lately is complain about how sick I am. But now that I’ve gotten the “stomach flu sucks” crap out of my system, I have something therapy-related to talk about.

So, FOMB raped me one more time than I had originally realized. That’s what we agreed on earlier, right? But the reason we agreed that FOMB raped me is because we (okay, I) decided that hitting me qualified as intimidation and coercion. But if hitting me to get me to have sex makes it rape… does that mean Greg raped, me, too? Repeatedly?

I mean, I never really thought so. Yes, Greg liked to hit (beat) me. But it was never about sex. He hit me because it made him feel powerful. Sometimes he would hit me and we wouldn’t have sex at all. Other times, he’d hit me over and over and over, and then he’d apologize and we’d make up and then we’d have fantastic makeup sex. He was never violent during sex like FOMB was. And he never tried to do anything I didn’t want to do. I don’t feel like I ever had sex with him because I was afraid of him (I’m kind of a moron. But you knew that already). Okay, yes, it was most definitely an abusive and unhealthy relationship. But I don’t think it was a sexually abusive relationship.

Oh praise God. One of the dogs has been barking incessantly for like a half an hour so I locked her in her crate (it’s what the owners told me to do!) and that did not help at ALL. But the dog has finally calmed down somewhat and now she’s only whining a little.

Anyway.

But if GREG didn’t rape me even though he was hitting me, does that mean FOMB didn’t rape me that one time? Am I being paranoid? Am I calling rape when it wasn’t? That’s something I never wanted to do. I honestly have no idea.

So now that I’m back to being USED to flashbacks (ugh), I have managed to control my nausea, although I’m still not eating too much. (OH, by the way, I ordered the PTSD book the Psychiatrist wanted me to get on Wednesday but I have no idea when it’s going to arrive. 5-8 days I think.) I didn’t have any flashbacks while driving today, although I admit I didn’t drive too much. I saw a white car parked in front of the house I’m staying in (dogsitting, remember?) and I FREAKED out and locked myself in the house and kept the dogs close, but the car left shortly afterward and I realized, hey, I’m in a gated community now. I very much doubt that FOMB managed to get in WITH his car. I mean, sure, you could probably hop the gate if you wanted to, but it’d be a long, hot walk. And how would he know what address I was at? Or that I was even dogsitting at all? Whatever. I’m being paranoid.

I have had two flashbacks today (which is an improvement). The first one was when I first got to this house and I was sweating because I’d been moving in and carrying all my stuff up and down stairs and their air conditioning wasn’t on, so I was hotter than hell. The sun was shining in because this family also apparently doesn’t believe in CLOSING THEIR BLINDS so I was just sitting in the chair and closing my eyes and next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor of FOMB’s kitchen, half on carpet, half on linoleum, and the sun was burning my skin as FOMB shoved his penis in my mouth. It’s been a long time since I had that particular flashback. For some reason I’ve always found vaginal penetration to be more traumatizing than oral, so I typically don’t really think to myself, “Oh, I was orally raped.” Add to that that the oral rape preludes a vaginal rape and I basically don’t think about it at all.

The second flashback, as gross as it was, occurred when I went to the bathroom. I started my period this morning and I COMPLETELY forgot it was coming, so when I saw all the blood it was quite a shock. Ever since the whole knife-in-the-vagina thing I’ve had the most ridiculous periods (COPIOUS amounts of blood), so that only makes things harder. I went to the bathroom and I was immediately transported back to waking up in FOMB’s bedroom, having completely forgotten most of the events that had transpired before that, and seeing all the blood between my legs and on the sheets. It wasn’t necessarily a long or drawn-out flashback, and I didn’t see FOMB in it, but it was a really bad memory.

Last night I managed to sleep through the night, but I kept having the same dream over and over (or maybe it was one long dream) where FOMB/the Organism (I couldn’t tell the difference; he would change so often and it was so dark that I had a really hard time with it) stuck his fingers inside of my vagina and my anus. Now, if I don’t like anal sex, you can imagine how much I enjoy FINGERS in that area, so it was a REALLY bad dream. I honestly don’t even particularly enjoy fingers near my vagina (especially with long fingernails. Ugh) but this is probably too much information. Sorry. Can’t seem to stop myself.

The dogs are weirdly calm. Normally they’re pacing and jumping on me but for the most part all day they’ve just been sleeping and occasionally wanting me to take them out or pet them. I think they not only miss their family but it’s really hot outside so even though I cranked the air conditioning waaaaaay down (I’ll change it back before the owners get home; they’ll never notice) they may be lethargic because they don’t want to get too overheated. I don’t know. The owners have also been training them since Daisy got bitten by a rattlesnake three weeks ago so maybe that’s it.

I have a really bad headache. I hate snooping around but I didn’t bring any painkillers with me and I might have to resort to taking something in the house. I gave up caffeine a few days ago and I had a ridiculous headache then too, but that went away after twenty-four hours, so I honestly have no idea why I have a headache right now. Maybe it’s from being hot all day.

The worst part is when I have flashbacks while driving. And unfortunately that happened a lot today. I was going to see my friend SG’s son at the hospital (he had a rod put into his spine on Monday and he’s not doing well) and it’s a long drive there and back. While I’m driving I’m not really thinking a whole hell of a lot, and ever since I got off the Ativan I’ve been really tense while I’m driving (tight muscles, clenched teeth, hands in a death grip on the steering wheel) so that just made everything worse. I remember passing the street the Organism live(s)(ed) on. So next thing I knew I could smell him. Smell turned into physical sensation. I could feel his cold hands on my breasts. My breathing was coming so fast, but all I could hear was HIS heavy breathing.

I was having a hard time driving. I pulled over. Sat there for a few minutes until it passed. Then I continued on. What was I going to do, go back home? I HAD to see SG and her son. And how would I explain my sudden turnaround to my father? “I had a flashback”? He wouldn’t get it. So I kept going.

After that, the flashbacks came hard and fast. I gave up pulling over and just tried to focus on the road. Somehow I made it to the hospital and managed to visit SG and her son without letting on that anything was wrong. They’re under enough stress and don’t need that. I stayed for maybe a half an hour and then I left. On the drive back home, I thought about SG and her son a lot, so the flashbacks were more infrequent and shorter. But when I made it back home, I vomited for like ten minutes, even though there was nothing in my stomach.

I’m going over to the house that I’m dogsitting at today to get instructions for the dogs. Tomorrow I will move into there and be there until Wednesday. I’m hoping being distracted by the dogs will make me feel better, but I’ve been in that house alone for up to two weeks before, and I know from experience that staying in a house with just two dogs and having to go outside late at night to let the dogs out makes my thoughts turn to being attacked. I get the feeling this hard time is not going to end for a bit.

Help?

I was talking to DK tonight. Somehow we ended up talking about sex, and THEN I mentioned, “But when you’re being open to different forms of sex, bear in mind that I would NOT recommend being open to anal.” And she was like, “You’ve tried ANAL?!” and then I had to explain.

You may not recall, but I have had anal TWICE: once with FOMB, once with Jacob. The time with Jacob was not necessarily unpleasant, because he was gentle and stopped as soon as he knew I wasn’t enjoying it, but I still didn’t like it at all and I don’t plan on trying it again, like, EVER. And of course I explained this to DK, and then she was like, well what about the first time?

I couldn’t just leave her hanging. We were having an open, frank conversation. I couldn’t just clam up (like I always seem to do with the Psychiatrist. But I’m not afraid of DK). So I told her.

I will refresh your memory just in case you’ve forgotten or the memory has grown fuzzy. I was “dating” FOMB at that time. We were having sex relatively regularly, and while it was cold and generally passionless and sometimes even methodical, it wasn’t necessarily BAD. And he was attractive and had his own apartment and it was attention from a guy and I was desperate. So I kept going.

One day, he wanted to try anal sex. I refused adamantly. I have ALWAYS been afraid of anal sex. It sounded horrible and painful and I was simply not willing to try it. I’ve even had nightmares about anal sex (or more specifically, anal rape) – even before I’d tried it. After the Organism raped me, I had a few months of complete denial before the realization finally kicked in and after that I was having a very difficult time with flashbacks and nightmares. I remember the recurring dream where the Organism was in my dorm room and he threw me on my stomach and raped me from behind. I was bleeding and in pain and screaming and it was infinitely more horrifying than any dream I’ve had about vaginal rape. I still have that dream sometimes but now it’s usually FOMB instead of the Organism.

I’m getting off-topic.

Anyway, FOMB wanted to try anal sex and I refused. We fought. It wasn’t just a regular fight, it was a screaming fight. I insulted him somehow – I no longer remember how – and he hit me. A hard slap across the face. It made me fall. And then I was shrieking, “You hit me! You bastard, you hit me!” and he was yelling, “Look what you made me do! Look what you made me do!” and I got my clothes and started to leave. But he grabbed my hand and started apologizing fervently and acting sincerely contrite. I know now he was lying, but at the time I was swayed. I sat down with him on the bed and he explained that I just made him really mad and he didn’t mean to do it. So I forgave him. And then he sweet-talked to me until I finally agreed to anal intercourse.

Was I coerced? Maybe. I was intimidated by him after he hit me. Not necessarily AFRAID, because at that time I did not suspect what was lurking beneath the surface. And he was being nicer to me (after the fight) than he had ever been before. Was the fact that he was manipulating me “coercion”? I honestly don’t know. I know if someone on my survivor message board told me she was “sweet-talked” into doing something sexual that she didn’t initially want to do, I would be screaming RAPE RAPE RAPE. And while I don’t remember my motives for finally saying “yes”, it’s probably true that the intimidation was part of it. I’m sure I was afraid he’d get mad and hit me again, or even beat me.

But I consented. I said, “Sure, why not?” In a court, I would most certainly not win. All the defense would have to say is, “She said yes,” and that would be the end of it. So legally, not rape. But morally?

Well, DK certainly thought so. She said what I just paraphrased above – legally, probably not. Morally, absolutely yes. Sex by coercion is still rape. And she believes I really was coerced. And of course the Psychiatrist said it was rape from the minute I told him about it. But I denied it and denied it and denied it and put it out of my mind after a while. And of course after FOMB raped me AGAIN, and again after that, the memory of my anal experience paled in comparison somewhat.

I often have trouble with that. My last rape was so cruel, so violent, so sadistic, that I have a hard time remembering how much horror I felt when the Organism raped me, or when FOMB raped me for the first time. And when I can’t remember the horror, the fear, of those rapes, I have a difficult time considering them rapes at all. And of course there has always been the nagging doubt. “Did the Organism really rape me? Was it gray rape? Was it bad sex? Was it a misunderstanding?” So many questions that still run through my mind today. Sometimes I think I can forgive the Organism. That maybe he really does care about me, that maybe it was just a mistake. Sometimes I find myself remembering the GOOD sex with him, and thinking, hey, maybe I could do that again someday. And then I say stupid things to H (our mutual friend and my spy), like, I don’t HATE the Organism. I do care about him. And of course she tells him. So then the Organism gets the wrong impression, and after my heart hardens toward him again (as it typically does), I regret the things I said.

Once again, I have gone off-topic.

I always have had conflict with my anal sex experience with FOMB. My beliefs and my knowledge about rape SCREAM that it was rape, but I just didn’t want to believe it. And then I didn’t think about it very much, so I never changed my opinion. But it’s true, isn’t it? I was raped not once, not twice, but THREE times by FOMB. Fuck. How did this happen to me?

I slept last night so I decided to start my diet back up again. My online calorie counter website wasn’t working so I started searching for new ones, and my mom was like, “Go to MyPlate,” so I Googled that and I found the LIVESTRONG website that has the MyPlate calorie counter!

It’s so cool. It’s way more detailed and accurate than my old calorie counter. I plugged in everything I’ve eaten so far today, and the exercise I did. I started out with light exercise because a) it’s hotter than hell in my house and b) I haven’t been exercising regularly for DAYS because I felt like crap so I’m out of shape. What’s really cool about the calorie counter is, once I typed in “stationary bike” the calorie counter came up with “Stationary bicycling: light, stationary bike: general, stationary bike: vigorous” and it measured it by how fast you were going. Since I went at a moderate speed I chose “stationary bicycling: general” and typed in “10 minutes” and it plugged it in with how many calories I burned! COOL.

I may not have exercised for very long (don’t scoff, I’m working on it!), but I worked all the kinks out of my legs and I’m feeling pretty good. I’ll try for fifteen minutes tomorrow, but my mom said I should do ten minutes for a week, then fifteen the next week, then twenty the next, so I might try that. Who knows? The possibilities are endless!

My hands are not shaking as much today. And I don’t feel my feet shaking, which I have not mentioned before but which have been going on for a while. I am hoping this is a sign that the shaking hands were part of the Ativan withdrawal and not a side effect of the rest of my medication. Since my hands are going to be my livelihood they better not quiver forever. We can only hope, right?

I have started taking Prevacid – an over-the-counter acid reflux/heartburn medication. I was having really bad sore throats at night because of the acid reflux, and I ran out of omeprazole or however you spell it (and it wasn’t working on the sore throats anyway), so I bought the Prevacid when I was out shopping with my mom yesterday. It says it takes one to four days to start working, but I didn’t get a sore throat last night, so I’m thinking it’s either that I didn’t drink any orange juice last night, or it’s the Prevacid. It’s got a different “ingredient” (shut up, I’m not a psychiatrist) in it other than omeprazole – I don’t remember what it is though – so I’m thinking maybe it’ll work where the other one failed.

So anyway. I’m feeling better. Progress!

I slept even better last night, and am almost feeling NORMAL today! Imagine that!

My hands are shaking really badly though… which worries me. I’m afraid it was one of the side effects of ANOTHER medication I’m on, and the Ativan was just masking it all this time… I’m supposed to be going to school to become a jeweler in a few months. My hands CANNOT shake permanently. My hands are going to be my LIVELIHOOD… they NEED to be steady. I’ll discuss it with the Psychiatrist when I see him on Wednesday… but I’m afraid of what he’s going to say. I’ll beg to be taken off the medication if it’s what’s causing my trembling hands… but still.

I’m really hoping the insomnia part of the withdrawal is over, though. I think if I can just get in ONE MORE NIGHT of good sleep, I’ll be able to start exercising again (which is important, since I am currently dieting, and besides, exercise really gives me an endorphin boost… also important) — I have been so sick-feeling that I just stopped exercising completely. And if I can KEEP getting good sleep, I think that’ll be a major part of making me feel 100% eventually!

So maybe the withdrawal is almost over?

I have had ear-ringing, trembling hands, small seizures, pain all over, nausea, and fainting spells — and that’s just a sample. Oh, and I forgot the worst part — insomnia. Horrible, horrible insomnia. Last night was the first decent night’s sleep I’ve had in a while. The Psychiatrist put me back on Vistaril, and upped my Trazodone, because he said I was “making him nervous” watching me BE nervous in session on Wednesday — without the Ativan’s numbing effects, I have quite literally been acting like I’m “on meth” (according to the Psychiatrist): I can’t stop moving.

I have been MISERABLE. I know it’ll go away and in the end it’ll be worth it, but right now, I have just been soooo sick I can barely stand it. I was genuinely contemplating killing myself yesterday because I felt so bad. Ughh. I figure it can’t last much longer. I took my last dose of Ativan on Tuesday. So.

Also, it has been… five days since I slept during the day. I’ve had to lay down to rest my back because I’ve had back pain, but overall I’ve had much more energy. I slept like crap last night though. Hopefully it’ll have caught up to me and I’ll sleep okay tonight.

I don’t know what else to say about it that hasn’t already been said. I’ve run it through my memory a thousand times… here in this journal, and other places. I’ve had flashbacks, nightmares. I have a permanent scar on my cervix, and abnormal periods because of the knife he raped me with. I can still hear the infinite click of an unloaded gun’s trigger being pulled inside my vagina. I am sick with fear every time I go to the mall alone.

But I’m still alive (although it’s, obviously, not for lack of trying to do otherwise). He could have murdered me. He didn’t. And I would like to think that if he had tried, I would have found a way to survive anyway.

It doesn’t help that my allergies are acting up alongside the creepy eyeball thing. I used my nasal spray, my vapor inhaler, and this really disgusting vapor gel crap that you rub on your chest, and I STILL can’t breathe.

Anyway. I digress.

So, something I wrote about in my last huge packet of journal entries that the Psychiatrist probably won’t read was how my mother dismissed my pain the other night. I was reading a book called Room, about a woman who’s been held captive for years and raped repeatedly and given birth to two children, only one of whom survived, and there was this scene in the book where the woman and her son go back to the room they were held captive in, and the woman throws up because of the memories. That triggered me and I started crying, and when my mother came home she told me I was being stupid because it was just a story. I was reading a post by another member of the sexual assault survivor message board I belong to, and she was talking about how when she was a child, she played with a little bug on the sidewalk. For some reason this reminded me of my childhood, when I kept fireflies as pets.

You have to understand, I was very young. Like four or five. My dad and I would go out to the backyard on the fourth of July and catch fireflies in a jar. I could never catch any but my dad would help me so I’d get a big collection. And then I’d keep them in the jar and poke holes in the top so they could breathe and stick grass inside so they could eat. (Don’t actually know what fireflies eat. Probably not grass.) Looking back it was cruel of me to keep them captive like that, but like I said, I was very young.

So I had this bug collection one year. I kept them alive for a really long time, longer than usual, and I got… attached. The bugs fascinated me; I guess you could say I loved them. We didn’t have any pets at that time, so these were the closest I could get. And one day I woke up and went to go see my pets, and my mom had put the jar in the sun and the bugs had literally fried to death. Greenhouse effect or something. And I, being very young, started crying hysterically because damn it, I was like four years old and I was upset, okay? Stop laughing.

And my mother – she saw me crying and literally scorned me for it. Told me, “STOP CRYING” in a very loud voice. “THEY’RE JUST STUPID BUGS.”

And I stopped crying.

That’s kind of been a pattern with me and my mom ever since. She doesn’t like it when I cry. Just recently – I don’t know, maybe two months ago – I came out of my room and was sitting on the couch next to her crying. I didn’t have a reason. I was just sad. And my mom demanded to know why I was crying, so I told her. “I’m just sad.” And she was like, “About WHAT?” and I said, “Nothing. Can’t I just be sad?” and she snorted with derision.

She didn’t come back to the ER room with me last week. My dad came, because I asked him to, but when I assumed my mother would come back too, she didn’t. It hurt. I vaguely recall asking my nurse if I could call my mom, and she let me, so I called the house phone. I don’t know what time it was because I think I’d just woken up randomly hysterical. I asked my mom if she hated me, and she said she wasn’t happy with me, but she didn’t hate me. I asked her why she didn’t come back to the ER room with me, and she said, well, you had your dad.

But my dad, he was… unsatisfactory… as well. He came back to the room with me, sat down for like two seconds, and then told the nurse, “Well, we know this process takes a long time, so I’m not going to stay.” And then he left.

Both of them left me.

The Psychiatrist asked me in session on Friday, what could your parents do to help you? And I said, nothing. But that’s not true (although I didn’t know it at the time). My mom could help by being more… understanding. Like letting me be sad and cry without fear of being derided. My dad… sometimes he would ask me, “Are you going to be okay?” when he knew I was upset about something and he was going to bed. I must confess, I like that. If my dad asked me if I was going to be okay more often, that would help. Because at least then someone would be acknowledging that I was upset.

I guess that’s what it boils down to, really. I just want some acknowledgement. That I’m in pain and depressed and upset. I remember one time when I was in the hospital at UMC, my parents told Dr. T that I was only in the hospital because I didn’t want to go to summer school. I was mortally offended. I told them they didn’t believe my depression was real, because it was obvious to me that they didn’t. And my mom said, we believe it’s real, we just don’t think that’s why you’re here.

Well fuck them. I am in REAL PAIN, have been since I was fifteen. Maybe before that, even – when I was in middle school and being bullied every day. Just because they can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just like Jacob existed, even though D and MF were blind.

I just want some acknowledgment. “Yes, we know, you are in pain. We know you are depressed. We know you cry sometimes for no reason. We don’t understand, but we know.” That’s all I’m asking for.