You Are Not What Happens To You.

Eight years ago today, I was sexually assaulted. I was taken advantage of by someone I thought I could trust. How silly of me. I was thirteen years old.
Seven years ago, I had my first flashback. I admitted to myself that it wasn't me, that it wasn't normal. What happened was real, and it is not OK. I diagnosed myself with PTSD and I told someone. I told a friend.
Four years ago, I uncovered my suppressed memories. I faced them head on and reopened all my closed wounds. I turned to my boyfriend at the time who turned out to be an abuser in his own way. He put me back together only to tear me open several times over.
Two years ago, I got drunk at a college party. A friend of a friend promised to take care of me. By that, he meant wait till I can't say no and take what no other girl would give him. He didn't get so lucky. I saw the signs and ran.
Six months ago, I realized every romantic relationship I've had has been wrong in some way. I used to believe there were things I was supposed to do in a relationship. Even if I felt uncomfortable I would tell myself that it's fine, I would get used to it. Everyone else did, right? Wrong. I always told myself that I could do much better than them, but I didn't want to. I didn't know what better could be. No one told me about the things I couldn't see.

Here I stand, eight years later, a fighter, a survivor, but not a victim. I have been though so much more than this one story. My scars run deeper than that one night on that one couch. My life is so much bigger than this story, this will not be what I am remembered for. 

This is how I will remind myself that I am more than a number, more than a story and more than a victim. In this life we choose. We decide who we are, how we live and maybe not what happens to us but we do decide how we recover, how we move on and who it makes us. 

This world is full of terrible things. There is no escaping it no matter how hard you try but I do not live in fear. 

Over the past eight years, I have overcome physical challenges and managed the pain, cast out my multiple abusers, lost countless friends and lost myself almost completely at times. Two weeks ago I graduated from college with a degree in engineering and vowed to start over. 

I am choosing to start over with a blank slate. Keeping in mind all that I've learned I will no longer let my past dictate my future. 

You are not what happens to you.

[Stark]

I'm in a place of such strength, but I don't feel strong at all. I feel lost. I feel pain. I feel longing and desire. I feel reckless and desperate. But I keep going. Every day I get up and I keep going and that's what makes me strong.
Over and over I choose people that aren't good for me. Over and over I self inflict pain. It's self inflicted because I know letting these people in is a bad move. I know they'll hurt me. But I do it anyway. I know I deserve better, but pain and suffering is what I know. It's familiar. It's comforting. So I don't blame myself. I know I'm responsible, but I don't regret my actions and I'm not angry at myself for feeling the way that I do. One day I'll find what's good for me. One day I'll find what's right for me. It all starts with getting away from here. Leaving everyone and everything I've ever known is the only shot I have at ever being truly happy. I am bitter and jaded and it's toxic for me to stay. There are people that I'll miss, but lately I've been questioning if they'd miss me at all. I feel very lonely these days and that's not unfamiliar to me. I'm angry with my so called friends that don't ever speak to me and I'm not sure why. It's the story of my life. I get left behind for one reason or another. Over and over again. And the time is about right. I'm about to graduate from college. Everything is about to change. Of course everyone is leaving me. The same  happened at the end of high school. But it's not because we're all going to different places. We all live in the area. They all hang out all the time. I'm just never invited. And I'm trying to be OK with that. Because if I'm not wanted, then I don't want to be there. I can make new friends. I'm starting a new job. I still have a few people that seem to have my back. But most importantly I still have my music. At the end of the day that's all that matters. That's all thats ever mattered.
I've been writing a lot. Like a shit ton. I haven't written this much since high school. But this new stuff, it has substance. It's matured. It has real meaning and feeling and emotion behind it. It's addicting. And it makes me think. I've been thinking a lot about what I've done, what I feel and what to do. It's making me stronger. Because I've decided I don't care anymore about what people have always told me and what I've always told myself. It's OK to feel heartbroken. It's OK to feel broken beyond repair. It's OK to feel like you're too damaged to ever be loved. Let those feelings out. Let them take form. Let them haunt you until you're ready to rid yourself of them. For me, let them keep me up at night until I can put them to song. Everything I think and feel has become fair game. No feelings are wrong. Anything that shows its face gets to ride itself out. There are no more rules. No more "don't do this to yourself" or "you shouldn't be feeling this way". Everything is real, everything is OK, everything will be good if I make it that way.
I have no one to talk to because right now I trust no one. And that's OK. I have my music and it speaks for itself. I'm to the point I don't explain my songs. If you hear the truth in the words I sing, good for you. If not, use your imagination, make something up. I write for me and me alone. Anything anyone else gets out of my music is their business. If it's nothing, its nothing. If its something, thats cool. But you don't need to know my personal story in order to feel something for yourself.