#my scale of 'ridiculous trigger points' is difficult at best we keep finding things

[etlu-yume]

Like I'm not kidding the absolute 180˚ change between Wednesday morning and Thursday morning is extreme.

BACKSTORY:

I bit the bullet and started using 'moodistory' to try and track what my therapist called "red and green thoughts" (positive/negative). I'm still working it out, but thought it was kinda important to differentiate between "angry" bad and "sad" bad. Moodistory lets you select one of their many pallets, or customize as you like. I had to tweak this one a little to get my red/blues but so far it's working pretty nicely. You can also add/remove layers of tracking, I think the default was 6 but I went back to 5 (two negative, one neutral, two positive)

(Img: five square boxes with varying stages of a smile from a frown in the first box, to a smile in the fifth box. Colours red, blue, grey, grass-green, emerald-green.)

So. I've been trying to track moods this week using moodistory and this scale and besides having a meltdown on the first day I used it (because of the tracking or not idk. It could just be a coincidence), it made something extremely clear for me on Thursday morning where I was very "??? freedom??"

Admittedly Thursday's screenshot was taken in the morning. There was still a lot more day to go. But you can see the VAST change in the amount of red (angry mood swing) and blue (sad mood swing) here. Like. Tuesday and Wednesday are pretty on par. Thursday is a completely and utterly different. Thursday morning first thing is when the cycle finally decided to actually start - and I think that relief went A Long Way.

Because when I'm trying to track these moods/thoughts I'm trying to add commentary to go with it as it hits. And even if I just compare the rough same time period on Wednesday to Thursday? Just. Here, let me share the samples. They speak volumes (and are pretty generic)

Like. You can even see the tone of voice and the mannerisms of the thought patterns is just. SO DIFFERENT. Wednesday is so "EVERYTHING SUCKS WHY ARE YOU AN IDIOT GOD FUCKING DAMNIT" and then Thursday changes /entirely/.

(Thursday ended up .... very differently in the end but I'm still looking at that morning and how hopeful it was and felt and how at ~peace~ with things not going according to plan I was. "lmao poor thing plz don't crash". I want to get back to that so badly. So, so badly.)

hey im just trying to figure out something are there days during the luteal phase where your pmdd mood symptoms are like minimal even non existent for like a day myb even if the day before symptoms were there and the day after symptoms are present again? esp if the day with no symptoms is like a day without much stressors like for example you're working during the week but then on the weekend you're home you have healthy on time meals enough water enough sleep etc?

This is a good question and I'm gonna have to go hunting for my trackers. Because it sounds like a logical thing and I think to an extent that yeah, there are some days when they are minimal or non existent compared to the previous day? But it seems to be heavily reliant on what external stressors there are, and what/if anything has been set off prior because a BAD bad pmdd day can then bleed (.. har har funny Etlu) into the next day and the next.

I think I've lost count of the number of times I've felt awful and told myself "don't do anything rash give it 24hrs it might just be that you need some sleep" and the next morning I'm still feeling it deep in my bones, and the day after that.

Definitely does happen on the odd occasion, and it's like "??? freedom??" until something happens that night, or the next day, and suddenly you're back at the bottom of the traphole again.

(I was concerned at one stage that maybe it was job!stress that was a problem factor but then I had some irritability/rage turns over christmas and there was no day job in sight so hahahahahahaha no it's not work it's just me.)

I found yesterday morning for example though, as much of a placebo as it may have been, that I was feeling *much* better after confirming cramps were Actual Period Cramps and not phantom ones. I reacted to things better. I had ACTUAL PATIENCE at work. Instead of cursing bitterly at the computer for being slow, I was reasoning out why it was being slow. Of course I counted my chickens before they hatched, and something set me off that afternoon and now we're all the way back at the bottom of the well again cursing that little glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. So whether it was just placebo effect from the period starting, or idk the green tea I'd had the night before (it was DIVINE I hadn't had some in ages and I forgot how much I liked this one). There are moments. Glimpses.

I just wish they were more than the tiny snatches that they are right now.

[drink-n-watch]

Another week, another brand-new episode of Psycho Pass. I’m going to hold back and be all mysterious and stuff. Because that’s how I do. I definitely don’t blurt out exactly how I feel about a show in the very first line of every post and then there’s no point in reading the rest. Nuh-huh. No siree. I gots some restraint! Who do you take me for! So instead, Matt, how are you enjoying season 3 so far. It may just be 3 episodes in but as they are double length, it’s now longer than most movies!

Oh, so does that mean it’s my turn to blurt out my thoughts in a single sentence? Okay, um, err, this show is still as consistently excellent as I thought it was based on the previous two episodes! Oh no, I hope I’ll have something to write for the rest of the review now!

Is that so? Fascinating. I can see how you would think and/or feel that way! (I write my part first… I have no clue what Matt said at this point…

So let’s get right into it. First I just a few general comments on my part. I enjoy high stakes corruption stories and although that’s also what season 1 was, the fact that this allows us to look into the public face of Sybil a bit more, through the device of gubernatorial elections is a great angle in my opinion. Diving into what has to be extremely complex and unique politics of a Sybil controlled society has so much potential.

I had to look up what “gubernatorial” meant (we don’t have anything like that in Australia, so forgive my ignorance), but yes I think politics and the world of ‘Psycho Pass’ is a perfect fit. 

I mean what powers do politicians even hold in such circumstances. Are elections largely a population suppression tactics. Something to keep the masses happy? If so, why are they so incredibly high stakes. Seems ridiculous to be going through all this for what amounts to a reality show (which might explain why both candidates are entertainers). So much potential!

What do you think?

I mean, if I know anything about politics and people its that ambitious people will always be ambitious and wanting to be ‘the best’ regardless of the world they live in–so even if politics amount to nothing more than a popularity contest without any real power or ability to change anything outside of Sybil’s system–people are still going to strive for that, people are going to kill for that even. We’ve seen time and time again in the real world that people do extreme things to get what they want, even if to ‘outsiders’ their goals seem ridiculous or pointless.

 Yakusuji really surprised me as a character this week. For a second there I thought they were going with a “bad guy is bad” sort of characterization but then it all took a very sharp right turn! I still don’t know if his character is sincere or if it’s all a big act. Either way, I didn’t expect it and I like it! Maybe it’s my suspicious nature that leads me to think he’s less than sincere but Psycho Pass did teach me not to trust anyone!

He’s definitely an interesting character but the way his character ties into Enforcer Todoroki’s subplot makes for a compelling bit of character development. As for whether he’s ‘on the level’ I don’t buy it…

I did find the assault scene a bit blunt. Not as in too brutal (mind you I thought it was hilarious that someone could kick a skull in so hard as to actually make it explode!) but just a little too straight forward. At least that’s what I thought as I was watching it. In hindsight though, if this was a political machination and not just the random terrorist attack they are making it out to be on the surface, then this type of direct and flamboyant assault is exactly what would be the most effective!

Yeah I took it to be that they were being intentionally flashy, down to the attackers wearing the same clothes, I found it to be a very intimidating scene.

How does anyone in this universe manage to keep their hue clear? I was only watching those little holo assistant thingies pop up for a few minutes (like the old Clippy office assistant) and I already felt my urge to murder rise. I wouldn’t last a day if I had to deal with those things and keep my thoughts in check!

I loved the idea of someone being physically assaulted and then a little pop-up comes up warning them that they were receiving injuries in-line with someone being assaulted, it’s that kind of AI assistant mentality that makes me hate AI assistants like ‘Alexa’ and ‘Siri’ all the more (but that’s a rant for another day).

As our heroes were chasing the attackers down, we got some surprising bit of universe building and musing on the dual nature of justice and law. One of my very favourite lines from the first season was said in a similar context. As Akane was chasing down criminals she said something to the effect that there’s a misconception that laws are there to protect people but it’s really up to people to protect the laws. I love that idea. It really epitomized Akane’s character and the fact that that’s what’s going through her mind in a high-pressure situation was just perfect.

We got something similar this week with Arata capping off a chase explaining that even in a Sybil controlled society it is imperative to exercise human judgement “that’s why dominators have triggers”. It’s a great line! And one that solidifies Arata’s devotion to ideals rather than establishments.

I’m glad you brought it up, that line really stood out to me too, the importance of the human aspect in an (at times) inhumane system.

Matt, you mentioned last week that you felt the writers of Psycho Pass season 3 had gotten around to reading old US news, it seems that they’ve moved on to more recent fare as the general depiction of the mudslinging politics does seem very familiar to what has been happening not too far south from my own home in the past few years!

Immigration’s a tricky thing, ain’t it?

Although, aside from the winky topical references, it does make a lot of sense that a society as portrayed in Psycho Pass would be particularly xenophobic. To be honest, I was really surprised they even had large scale immigration. I figured the country would have been largely sealed off!

So far, the themes of racial/cultural tension are handled a little naively and way too simplified for my tastes. However, I do realize that with everything going on in this narrative, you got to take some shortcuts.

I suppose there’s still time for a more nuanced discussion on immigration from this show, I imagine someone like you Irina, an immigrant yourself, would have a lot more to say on the subject than most people?

What did you think of Haruki Enomyia? I’m asking cause I have no clue what to make of them.

Difficult to say, for a second I thought they might be setting them up as a bigger villain for this story but I think they’re probably going to end up just another pawn in the bigger game being played. I think they were more just here to give us an idea of what kind of life Kazumichi had in the slums before joining the force. Though I think him just walking around the town with Arata did that well enough.

Am I the only one who noticed all the food in this episode? Maybe I was just hungry, but everything looked delicious!

C’mon Irina, all anime food looks delicious!

Ok back to more serious stuff, we got some very decent character-building backstory for both Kei and Arata. Now normally, this would not be my thing. It was delivered in straight exposition and boy oh boy was it all tragic! Taken independently, both of their backgrounds would have had me gently rolling my eyes and moving on without a second thought. Oh my, an anime protag with a tragic backstory! But it’s in how these stories intertwine to create such a bizarre picture of their relationship that brings the whole thing to a higher level.

It’s kind of interesting that they chose to more or less have our entire supporting cast learn this complicated backstory at the same time via the expositional method you mentioned. On the one hand I guess it helps to have everyone on the same page with their history but it makes me wonder if it was done for a more specific reason. Like one of the Enforcers using this information against our dynamic duo or the opposite and it puts more faith in them and brings closer as a team–who can say for sure?

In fact, the peculiar dynamic between Kei and Arata is truly fascinating and so far, a strong point of the season for me.

Agreed.

A few little random thoughts:

I quite like both the OP and ED. I like the visuals in the OP better, in fact, I like them a lot, but I prefer the ED song!

The interiors are really beautiful this season. I’m not so taken by the architecture, but room designs consistently catch my eye.

Also, I didn’t know where to fit it in the review, but I liked the statement that acting weak releases cortisol making you feel more relaxed. The behavioural neuroscience angle is one I like a lot and I hope they develop it more as Psycho Pass is the perfect universe to explore this in.

I thought it was interesting–if briefly mentioned–but I have to wonder if it was just the writer showing off some fancy things he learned on wikipedia and wanting to put it into the show (okay that was a bit catty of me, apologies to the writer of Psycho Pass).

Oh I guess I should finally admit it. I really liked this episode. More than the last. So far, I think the writing may be a touch weaker than I had hoped. There’s a lot of slightly clumsy exposition. But I’m also starting to see the foundations of a potentially fascinating story with some very intriguing dynamics. I’m excited. When the episode ended I was both surprised by how quickly it had gone by and a little bummed I couldn’t watch the next one right away!

I have to agree (we seem to agreeing a lot this time!) our new characters feel like they’re living up to the potential of this show’s world while adding interesting things to it too. Political corruption, a shadow organisation called ‘Bifrost’ pulling the strings (cool name by the way) plus all the internal machinations at the various levels of law enforcement and interpersonal relationships too makes for a rich and compelling tapestry. If you’re a person who adheres to the 3 episode rule and you haven’t given this show a chance yet then 3 excellent episodes in a row should be proof enough that Psycho Pass is back and firing on all cylinders!

Psycho Pass s3 ep3 – Tensions Flare Another week, another brand-new episode of Psycho Pass. I’m going to hold back and be all mysterious and stuff.

[letsdiscoverkitty]

hi kitty - i'm being referred to the ED services in my area and even though the waiting list can be a year, i'm so so nervous, do you have anything you wish you'd known before you started seeing someone for your ED? x

Hey lovely, first of all I want you to know how proud I am of you for reaching out for support, I know how hard that can be and I know that ED is going to be raging about it but I promise that this IS for the best. I really really hope that you get some news soon, to have to wait a year is utterly ridiculous and downright wrong - I hate how much of a postcode lottery MH services can be in the country :( 

As for what do I wish I had known before starting to see someone? Good question...

Number one: has to be that these people, that work for the services/your GP, are not the enemy. They are not trying to work against you or make things worse, they are trying to help you and are fighting alongside you. A lot of what they may say might not make sense at first and it might feel backwards, but they know what they are talking about; trust them. ED will try to trick you into thinking that they are lying/that they don’t know what they are talking about but they do. They are fighting your side and want to help you; listen to them, trust them.Number Two: It is okay to talk. The first step towards recovery is being able to admit that something is wrong in the first place. This can be hard and it can open a lot of wounds/bring up a lot of emotions/feelings that you have suppressed for so long, but that is okay. You are allowed to have these feelings and emotions - they are very real and valid and deserve to be heard. Talking and opening up does not make you weak or a failure; it is the complete opposite. Speaking out and asking for help is the bravest and strongest thing that you can do. I know you might have had your guard up for a long time, letting down the drawbridge is not going to be easy, but it will be worth it and it can be done. You do not have to go through this alone.Number three: The people around you (your family and friends) are a huge and vital part of your support network. They are the people that are there every single day, they are the ones that are going to be there (whether physically or on the end of the telephone) through all of the emotions, the ups and the downs. They are there to support you and they want to help you through this but they are not mind readers. As much as they want to be able to understand what you are going through, unless they have been through it themselves, they can’t. However they will try their best to understand and be there for you - it is okay to let them in, to tell them how they can help you (whether that be in the form of a distraction after meals, helping you get to appointments, joining you on appointments, going food shopping, practicing eating out etc.) Number Four: There is no ‘perfect’ or ‘right’/’wrong’ way to recover. Mental illnesses are notoriously difficult to treat because every single person is different. There is no ‘one thing’ fits all. We are all individuals. We are not meant to fit inside of neat little tick boxes that fit into x or y criteria, those things are there to help professionals to know what might be helpful/not, but it is important to remember that what has helped one person might not help the next. Just because you have been diagnosed with x it does not mean that you have to fit into every single box. It does not mean that you have to be or act in a certain way. YOU ARE NOT A DIAGNOSIS. Do not let it define you. There is no ‘perfect meal plan’, no ‘one way to recover’ - these are all lies that ED will make up. Just because your road may look a little different to someone else’s it does not mean that you have done anything ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’. We are all on our own journeys; and yes our paths may cross at times but you need to stay focused on your road and do what is best for you. Number five: You are not a unicorn. ED will try to make you believe that you are a ‘unicorn’ - by this I mean that it will try to make you believe that the ‘rules’ of recovery do not apply to you. That you are different. It is all lies. ED is trying to make every excuse it can to stop you from going against it. The truth is that ED would never be satisfied. It will never be ‘enough’. It will always try to take no matter how much you ‘give’.Number six: There is no such thing as “sick enough”. There is no weight or BMI or number that will ever satisfy ED. It will never be enough. It will always point out that there is someone, somewhere in the world, that is ‘sicker’ or ‘more worthy of treatment’ than you. And it is all LIES. This is the thing about ED, it always lies. This is a MENTAL ILLNESS, which yes has some physical health complications at times, but that is not the illness - that is a symptom that SOME people suffer from. A weight does not determine whether you are ‘worthy’ of treatment or not. Number seven: There are going to be people who don’t understand. There are going to be people who say the ‘wrong’ thing. There are going to be difficult conversations, there are going to be miscommunications. And it’s hard, but this is part of life. Life does not come with a ‘trigger warning’ attached. Number Eight: Recovery takes time. A heck of a long time. Longer than you first thing. But just because you might not be where you thought you would be in x months time, that does not mean that you have ‘failed’ or let anyone down. This is your life, your journey, there is no scale or number or time length that defines you and your recovery.Number Nine: Do not compare yourself to others. Like I said before, all mental illnesses manifest in different ways. Comparing yourself to others will only feed into the disordered thoughts, it is another trick that ED loves to use to try to trap us and stop us from moving forwards with our lives. If there are certain people in your life who are causing a negative effect to your recovery, it is okay to take a step back and put yourself first. A lot of recovery is about putting yourself first, and that can be hard, but recovery is about learning to LIVE again, it is about finding out who you are, healing your mind, your body, and your relationship not just with the world around you but yourself as well.Number Ten: You are worth it. Keep saying it over and over again. Write post it notes to stick up around your mirror, around your bedroom, in the kitchen - wherever it is that they may help you, stick them. Keep a journal, write, and keep writing. Hold onto ‘the little things’, these are the things that often matter most. A unexpected smile here, an off-guard laugh there - the little things really do add up. Catch them, acknowledge them, and celebrate them (because ED will hate this) - and that’s another thing, ED is not going to like this one single bit. It is going to try to throw everything it can to put a barrier in your way, to stop you from going against it; and this is where you are going to need your support network, in other words, your army. They are there to fight for you and catch you if ever you should fall, because nothing is perfect. Recovery is a whole new learning curve. There will be slips and falls, and times when you feel like ‘nothing’ is changing but I promise you, with all my heart, that things can and will get better. It might take longer than you hoped, and there may be some stumbles along the way, but you will get there. Keep your motivations close, use all the support you can, this is not going to be an easy ride, this is likely to be the hardest thing that you ever have to do in your live, but it will also be the most worth it.

I hope this helps a little, take care xxx

[themilitantbaker]

Lets talk about BPD for a second...

💖 I had to wait a while to figure out if this was worth addressing (and to ensure I had the bandwidth after meeting my deadline) and the answer is still YES.

YES we need to address this sentiment because it is not only rampant in society but this status in particular was shared by a well known FAT ACTIVIST IN ACTIVIST CIRCLES- a place that you would sincerely hope that ableism and popular false accusations wouldn’t exist. Well... they do and it’s harmful AF, so I’d love to take a moment or two to break down the issues within this status and additionally give you some resources at the end 💖 :

1.) The poster (name doesn’t matter) shared that this was a personal and “anecdotal” statistic. Guyz. You cannot make up "anecdotal" statistics about how many people around you have a mental illness. That is not how mental illness statistics work.

2.) You cannot "sense" when people have BPD or whether they are "working on it' or not. BPD consists of a large set of symptoms that are found on an nearly infinite continuum just like every other diagnosis.

People usually develop BPD symptoms from living in an invalidating environment (and sometimes- we’re now learning, often- have comorbid but separate diagnoses ) and because of this they/we collect coping skills that can be difficult to manage or more harmful to them than useful.

Fun fact: EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US HAS GROWN UP IN AN INVALIDATING WORLD AND HAS DEVELOPED A COMPLEX WEB OF COPING SKILLS FOR SURVIVAL. Some of them are good, some not so good. This means that we all, in some ways, have "BPD symptoms".

Where this becomes "actual BPD" is when it has taken over your life to the point where it hinders your larger life functioning. (See the retired Global Assessment of Functioning -GAF-Scale for more info)

👉 This means that only a PSYCHIATRIST can make a determination or diagnosis because only they (and you) have access to your entire life's information.

3.) ⭐⭐⭐ --> Playing Psychiatrist in this way is exactly the same as playing Online Doctor and health trolling fat bodies. It's JUST as harmful, ignorant and inaccurate. <--- ⭐⭐⭐

4.) "Sensing" says more about the person who is *sensing* and THEIR triggers than their target’s mental health. By "I sense" logic you can catch any one person on a bad day and you could "argue" that they have BPD. Please don't buy into this ridiculousness.

5.) There are MANY people born into families with parents who have some form of mental illness/trauma/substance use disorder/other hard brain things and it’s important that we all get the chance to heal from growing up in a harmful environment. How we go about it is important though.

If you’re struggling to understand something this stigmatized, by all means keep working on it! I'm rooting for you. But it would be best to process with a few close friends or therapist until you understand, not the larger public- as was done in this case. Especially when you’re sharing generalized and inaccurate "anecdotal" statistics that imply that tons of the people reading your status have the mental illness you find so inconvenient. This can (and did) cause irreparable harm for many.

6.) I find myself starting to wonder if BPD is the best term to use anymore, due to decades of misunderstanding and horrible books. I feel like if activists are struggling to understand BPD, it would be in everyone's best interest to simply call it “severe trauma”, as it's another term that carries less ill-informed stigma and can be perhaps more easily understood. Some are implementing the language of "Complex PTSD" which makes me happy. It also removes the blame we place on people for existing in a fucked up world-

🙌🙌🙌 In the wise words of Sam Dylan Finch: “I'm sick of people treating BPD like a propensity for abuse rather than the product of my abuse.” 🙌🙌🙌

7.) Using coded mental health verbiage to perform “understanding” while judging a stigmatized group does not make anything better. If anything it uses recovery language to reinforce MORE stigma and can have catastrophic effects on marginalized groups. Please don't do this either <3

🌟 I will never ask for perfection from anyone- we all make mistakes. No one is perfect, and we all fuck up- me included, on the daily. Humans are imperfectly human. 🌟

The important thing to remember is that when we are called in, as this person was, we listen/apologize/rectify. I hope that if you find yourself in this situation, you can do those three things. Unfortunately none of these things were done in this particular situation so I want to offer some resources for those affected by this status and the concept at large:

💖💖💖👉 If you have BPD or are struggling with a childhood that was traumatizing (they can overlap):

You are not alone, broken, or to blame. My heart is with you, and lawd, do I get it.

I’m sorry that life has dealt you such a shitty hand. I’m sorry that mental health is still so misunderstood, underfunded and stigmatized.

I also want you to know that it can get better.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is incredible and I every human in the world could benefit from it- try it out if you can. You can do intensive therapy (changed my GD life), but if that's not a possibility there are also inexpensive workbooks that are excellent and FB support groups. Marsha Linehan is amazing.

AND- There are several lists of mental health resources on my page, should you need guidance, where to find a therapist, a hotline number or a place to get an internet hug.

http://www.themilitantbaker.com/p/resources.html 👈💖💖💖

✨✨✨✨✨✨

V. IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER:

There is this misconception that having a mental illness means that you're broken. Not enough, to be pitied, or that you're weak. On this, I call bullshit. To acknowledge that you have a mental illness (or severe life affecting trauma) is one of the bravest things that you can do. It is a sign of strength, not weakness. So you have that extra barrier and you STILL get up in the morning? Baby, that makes you miraculous. You deserve a standing ovation and a certificate for your stunning survival. You are my hero. Never give up. I sure as hell won't.

✨✨✨✨✨✨

[bristolwomensvoice-blog]

We are many

*Trigger/content warning: Rape and Sexual Violence

  Very recently I made the decision to actively speak openly and honestly about experiences in my life that I have previously only discussed with a few people.

I am a survivor of rape and of sexual violence.

Whilst my experiences are unique they are also not. They are surprisingly common.

I hope to explain below why I am choosing now to share these experiences.

Firstly, I hope that in doing this other people may feel more able to speak out about their own experiences.

I want to be part of breaking the silence and shame around surviving rape and sexual violence but society currently condemns people who do, so I know that this will have an impact on me and how people perceive me which is why I have not done this before.

We live in a culture that silences and blames survivors and many who want to speak out (myself included) feel unable to because of the responses that we receive.

My hope is that the more we do speak out about these issues the more people begin to understand their complexities and instead of judgement there is compassion.

I also want to make an important note here that I am not suggesting in any way that survivors should speak out – For some people it is really helpful and for others it is detrimental to their recovery. It is different for everyone. I just want to live in a society where people who do want and need to speak out feel that they can without fear of being attacked, ridiculed, blamed or shut down. Those who do speak openly about their experiences are no less strong than those who don’t. Both speaking out and keeping it in are equally as hard.

What is most difficult for me about speaking about this subject is that people really don’t want to hear most of the time because it is uncomfortable. Yes, it will be uncomfortable but it should be uncomfortable, it is an uncomfortable issue. For someone who has experienced it is very uncomfortable for me when my own experience has to be minimised or hidden to protect others. One of the main problems we have is that so many people don’t like to talk in depth about these issues so don’t know enough about them.

We live in a country where we don’t really talk about sex honestly and openly let alone rape, we mostly don’t talk about how we are really feeling let alone mental health issues and a lot of the time everything is communicated through strange riddles and games, so the subject itself when it is discussed is often minimised, undermined or joked about to make more comfortable.

The thing is, it becomes a very scary world if we start opening up these truthful conversations about sexual violence and rape and start listening to and believing survivors because we will not only realise the true scale of the problem but will be met with the distressing truth that it could happen to anyone.

It can. It can happen to women who drink and take drugs and women who never have, women who wear very little and women who well full burqas, physically strong women and women with less physical strength, poor women and rich and famous women, and women from all cultures and communities. It can happen to men, it can happen to transgender people and it can happen to non-binary people. It can happen in the day at or at night, by a stranger, by a best friend, by a partner or even by a family member. It can involve saying no and physically fighting, it can involve freezing and doing nothing, and it can be when someone is conscious or when they are unconscious.

I have experienced sexual violence and rape where I have frozen and didn’t fight or try to escape and for a long time I believed that this was my fault. Then a few years later I was raped when I screamed and shouted and physically tried to fight someone off me. Neither reaction prevented or stopped the attack.

Because of the way most people expect rape to look for many of you only my last experience will appear to you as rape. But I can now tell you that both were. A lot of the time rape doesn’t look like how you expect it to. There usually is no way of preventing it and no real way of protecting yourself from it happening. This is the distressing reality.

We don’t want to believe that this is true because then we feel unsafe. We want to find reasons to make it the victim’s fault because then we can imagine that we would never get in that situation ourselves therefore it could never happen to us. It is not just men that victim blame it is very often women too. Did you know that research has shown that when there are more women on a jury at a rape trial the victim is less likely to be believed and the perpetrator is less likely to be convicted? Disbelieving and victim blaming is often a way to protect ourselves as we try to believe that we live in a world where we can prevent rape and where it is uncommon.

Sadly this is not the reality. Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year; that’s roughly 11 rapes (of adults alone) every hour*’ (*Rape Crisis England and Wales).

These are only the ones that are recorded, there are countless assaults that go unheard or just don’t ‘look like rape’ so are not reported. We need to hear different portraits of what rape and sexual assault really look like so we know what it is in all it’s forms. Most women I know (and some men I know) have all experienced some form of rape or sexual assault at some point in their life but most have felt unable to report it.

The pressures to report rape are huge. The majority of us think we live in a pretty fair and just society but the criminal justice system is actually very ineffective in terms of rape and sexual violence, not to mention sexist and racist.

Conviction rates for rape are far lower than other crimes, with only 5.7% of reported rape cases ending in a conviction for the perpetrator* (*Rape Crisis England and Wales).

Reporting rape is very long winded (It can takes years sometimes to get it to court), is traumatic and rarely ends in conviction. I would never advise someone to report it to the police (I wish I could say otherwise) as it rarely has any kind of positive outcome for the victim. I have had friends who have and friends who haven’t I fully support each of their decisions.

One thing everyone needs to know is that when something as traumatic as rape happens there is no right or wrong way to act, feel, or be (when it happens or after the assault). There is only whatever you can do to keep yourself alive and to survive the aftermath and people have different ways of responding. Whichever way your way is it is the right way. There is no wrong way. We each react differently to being assaulted or raped and differently to dealing with trauma because we are all individual.

Trauma from rape and sexual violence is horrific. I felt guilt and shame and a whole host of confusing feelings and pain. I have suffered sleep depravation, I stopped eating, drank, I had panic attacks, anxiety attacks, flashback, nightmares and major depression. Sometimes I felt like I was loosing my mind and losing my identity.

Recovery is slow and sometimes confusing. You might feel fine for a few weeks then suddenly out of nowhere someone says a certain word or looks at you a certain way or you see something in an advert that makes you break down again. When I went out to bars or parties I had to always stand where I could see the whole room and all the exits. It is exhausting. I had to sleep with the light on and sometimes I still have the light on now if I’m tired or anxious. Sometimes you feel totally normal but then suddenly you feel afraid for no reason when you are just buying a coffee or walking into a shop. Sometimes you feel that maybe nothing is real. Sometimes you can’t feel anything at all and your entire mind is just numb. Sometimes you hate yourself and everyone around you.

But after all of that, somehow, my experiences brought me a strength that is more powerful than I have ever had before. After being so low and full-on crashing, somehow it led me to create great happiness, stability and endless energy for life – that I previously didn’t have. I’m not saying that it was good that I experienced these assaults but I definitely never have felt stronger and more understanding of myself than I do now* (*Side note: I am not in any way in a perfect state of happiness, patience and understanding of self – I still sometimes get low or angry and still get anxiety every now and again, I am human, but generally I feel content and happy).

I think this is something else that is not talked about; whilst you can never forget what happened, life does go on after rape. It does not control you. It is possible to have fun, have a great time, and be able to do things, have great relationships, have great sex and have a real life, after rape.

Of course it is different for everyone but so many people assume that rape ruins your life and that is not always the case.

This is why I want to be open about my experiences not just of rape and sexual violence itself but about what it meant to me, how it affected me and who I am now. I speak out not because I want sympathy but because I want more understanding. I want people to know the bigger picture.

Unfortunately because of the culture we live in once I tell someone about what happened to me automatically they act slightly differently towards me and most likely think differently of me. I have been called a victim, I have been called a liar and I have been called brave – all these labels make me angry, as I am none of these things.

I hate the connotations with the words of ‘rape victim’; the imagery of being ‘weak, ruined, unstable, broken, submissive, damaged, dirty or fragile’ – this is what I most fear will be attached to my identity when I speak out. I fear people will think less of me or less capable and able of doing things. Many people I have spoken to also fear this perception and stigma attached the identity of being a victim/survivor.

Being a victim of rape does not mean I am a rape victim. I am my own person, a whole human, not weak, not broken – just me: someone who survived attacks.

What if instead of seeing weakness when we think of a person who has experienced rape we instead saw strength, saw resilience and saw a whole person? All the survivors I know are the strongest, most powerful and most inspiring people I have ever met in my life. We are most definitely not weak.

Rape culture and rape myths harmed me as much as rape itself did. This is why we need to challenge the ideas we have around rape and sexual violence not just for ourselves but also for our daughters, sons, nieces and nephews, for the future of young people on this planet.

Normalisation of rape or ignoring facts are not only dangerous for those who survived these experiences but highly damaging to ourselves too because we are all avoiding the truth. When don’t actually all accept there is a problem how can we expect to find a solution?

We need to start having these conversations, we need to start listening to these stories rather than judging and we need to realise how important it is to understand that there are not only millions of incidents of rape but also millions of survivors. We need to see the people and the stories behind these facts and figures.

What I ask of you today is five simple things: please share these words, please start to judge less and listen more, please be kind, please believe survivors and please really hear what they have to say when they speak.

Article by Bryony Ball

    We are many was originally published on Bristol Women's Voice