CW: rape. This might trigger some people, please don't be offended.
Counseling yesterday, I spent some of last night sobbing when I went to bed, I sobbed this evening, and at lunch time.
The realisation that I was recipient of abuse, not just the narcissism involved, but the words at the end of my relationship distilling it down to I was a female. It wasn't just about power or oppression. It was done to impose a version of reality that wasn't real. Rape is about power, oppression of an individual. I had the epiphany that I was raped. Like, not because it was to dominate, intimidate, power or anything like that, but literally raped because I was a woman, adult human female and he was not.
I wish I could just blank it all out.
He tried to groom me, and interestingly, with the (not going to name him because we don't want TRAs in this thread) the dude who wrote IT Crowd being banned from twitter for hate speech, and using the word groom in a potentially hateful context. So, it turns out that grooming has been banned from Twitter as some kind of hate word.
While most people would relate it to what nasty ppl do to kids, it happens to adults as well. So people who have experienced trauma are having their options to speak their truth limited or censored. It also gets said that abused women are being recruited and exploited for some kind of cultural warfare that is happening. That just isn't true, because if you believe that, then that invalidates the woman's experience, minimises it, delegitimises the lived experience so that we step back and go "well, she's being taken advantage of, so rather than listen, we pity".. And then disregard her narrative and her experience.
It's not just about belief. Women don't speak up against a mainstream pov unless it is important, most of women simply do not want the attention.
I can't just say - transwomen are men, because in my group of friends, I would be the outlier. They have determined that a man can feel like a woman, therefore is a woman. This is HUGELY triggering for me. My experience this week, was to be told by a friend that "I understand you feel this way because of your experience and it was terrible, I can't imagine how it would be for you" and then sent me an article about how my generation of women have got it wrong (written by a man of course) and we were influenced by TV shows, movies etc. So, I was gaslit, unknowingly by a close friend.
That resulted in a lot of tears. So now I can say I was raped, repeatedly, over 8 years. Just not to my friends, but to complete strangers who don't know me and believe me, because they have a similar lived experience. I would be shunned, if I said what I thought, I realise that now after seeing a lot of crap coming from them on FB/Twitter or dismissed as a "victim".
My counselor asked for more info, she's a psychologist that specialises in Trauma. She is absolutely gobsmacked at what I've been through and was horrified to know that there are so many more women out there, who can't speak their truth for fear of reprisals. It's not her area of experience, but I think she wants to know more. She certainly doesn't believe that a woman should be forced into maintaining a relationship with a TIM, as it literally breaks all original intent when forming the relationship together.
I haven't been able to diarise everything about my ex yet. When I am finally able to put pen to paper, I know that I'm going to be ok.
Reading some of the new poster's stories just breaks my heart. You are all strong amazing women, I'm proud to know you.