Rape (Victim Perspective)

Something has happened that should never have happened. Your body was used for something you did not consent to. Your boundaries were not merely crossed — they were destroyed. And what remains is not just a memory. It is a landscape of physical reactions that feel as if someone has rewired the basic circuitry of your nervous system.

Perhaps you can barely feel your body anymore. Perhaps you feel it too much — every touch too loud, every closeness too threatening. Perhaps you oscillate between both: numbness and flooding, freezing and startling. Your sleep is no longer safe. Your breath is no longer something you can take for granted. Your body, which was once your home, feels like a place where something terrible happened — and which you cannot move out of.