by Thamindri A.

It engulfs you in waves; the first attack by one boy’s arrogance and sense of entitlement, and the second – the stigma that forces you to recoil in silence. Stigma that is laced with blame and shame, wrapped in misogyny and sealed with a system that opts oblivion over truth, every single time. Years have lapsed since my encounter with the first, and each day since has been a battle with the second. Years of oscillating in and out of darkness, falling in and out of life. Years of reflections in recluse with the hope of coping better, living better. The more tormenting reflections consternate on that one night; looking for answers, making excuses for him, for them, for myself. Excuses I would not have needed to fabricate had he did not silenced my screams, had society not silenced my screams every night since. Excuses I would not have needed to fabricate if every response was not doused in blame. Excuses I would not have needed had society prevented the second attack.

Sexual Abuse is the terrorizing of one’s mind, body and soul. Most days since are marred by the absolute loss of self, while attempting to navigate through society’s rhetoric of blame. Most days are a struggle to silence the battles that lie both within and without.

Take a home-invasion; the doors stay locked, keyed and bolted for months after.  Safety feels as though it were a distant memory, , every crumbling leaf wakes you up in the middle of the night – cold-sweats trickling down your spine with the fear that someone will dismantle your safe haven sans consent, again.

All justified responses to losing faith in the shelter that was home.

Soon after the attack, I developed a habit of carrying a blunt pen-knife with me at all times, and sleeping with another under my pillow. As blunt as it were, at the time it appeared as though it carried more authority on consent than my screams. The remnants of that night found its way to the most mundane of things: I was killing sleep so I can keep guard instead, wilting a little at each prolonged gaze directed at me, succumbing to crippling anxiety each time someone accidentally brushed against me on the sidewalk. My home was invaded, sans consent, and cold-sweats trickling down my spine, I feared that someone will dismantle my safe haven, again.

This. This wasn’t a deemed a jstified response.

In the eyes of others, I was weak. I was naive. The story was pre-narrated on my behalf. All the while I was a girl who suffocating on the notion that the world collectively let her down; silenced, discarded. Grappling with the circumstances while nursing the bruises, my first response was to undermine the events of that night. I was starting conversations in “It isn’t as bad as it looks” and ended it with a “could have been worse, others have been through worse”. I was a reductionist. But that is the sort of skill you acquire when you’re a “woman in a man’s world”. A skill you practice while walking up to the end of your lane only to have five men cat-calling you, only to realize then that you’ve grown apathetic to it.

Between all the talks of “boys will be boys” and “act like a girl”, we were conditioned to silent bystanders of our own life; always listening and never speaking out of turn. Like a lightning inductor, we grew from girls in to women that learned only to assimilate the collective cry for help of the society and internalize it instead. So when they started dismissing me, assuring me that women before and after me have been through worse, with the little fight in me already channelled in to staying alive, I chose to dismiss myself.  I hoped they were right, that knowing others have had it worse would somehow pacify me.

In retrospect, I know now that it wasn’t me they were trying to comprehend. In their haste to understand the circumstances better, they imparted apologies and concocted excuses where they weren’t due. “HE could have done worse, but he didn’t”, as though I should be thankful that he did not. Society gave him the perfect alibi. The crime scene was my burden to bear from the start; my dress, my demeanor, my womanhood. I was asked what I did till it “went that far”, I was questioned as to what I was wearing, if I had been intoxicated and a plethora of others that only translated to my shattered and terrified mind as accusations.

I understand now – three years of being prisoner to my own thoughts on most days and enough time-off to reflect and I understand now. It terrified you, as much as it did me, to know that there weren’t apparent markers that could differentiate him from you. All these headlines on sexual abuse and yet you and I  found it unfathomable that perpetrators were among us. Insulated within false divisions of race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, economic status, etc, you were rummaging through the crime scene to find forensics for an explanation – any explanation but the truth that he was a boy, capable of the unspeakable and armed with a social rhetoric that would choose oblivion over truth. I know how it feels, in my haste I’ve tried to assign as many differences as I could to separate him from myself.

But he was not.

He was the boy in the statistic that spell out 1 out of 6 women getting molested in her lifetime by someone known to her. He was not a stranger. The same society that raised me, raised him. You and I raised him.

Discourse on sexual abuse can no longer be Us v. Them. They are among us. We’ve raised them along with the others in walls insulated with oblivion. I understand though, it is so much easier to dismiss the possibility that we breed monsters among us when the alternative is to acknowledge that you and i have a part to play in perpetuating the problem. So we dismiss women who come forward for being sad, whiny, dramatic, overreacting and a plethora of colorful adjectives  while simultaneously urging women to step forward – having mastered the equation of apathy; society strives to maintain the perfect equilibrium of absolving themselves and blaming the victim. As though this is our inheritance for having being born women, as though it is our problem to fight on our own, as thogh society collectively hasn’t contributed in the form of a quip or a joke to rape culture regardless of the gender label we identify with.

In those quiet reflections, there is always an oasis that I linger at for longer – what would it have been like had they not doubted me? had someone listened? had someone believed? had i got the help that i needed? What would it have been like had there was no Second Attack

Different, I’d like to hope.

So here’s my invitation; let’s talk about it.

I’d like to think that in the future my daughter would not understand my experience in its entirety. I’d like to think that the idea of a man violating a woman’s most personal parts without consent is an idea so far fetched for her that she wont be able to relate. But I’ve always been precautionary, speaking in disclaimers. So I hope if things don’t change, she would at least be in a place where she could speak up and say, “I’m hurt” and the world would listen to her and not abandon her. I would like for her to grow up knowing that if someone were to hurt her, the rest of world will still have her back and she doesn’t have to fight alone. I refuse to let my silence be her heirloom, I’m giving her my screams instead.

To do so, it is imperative that we do not succumb to oblivion. We need to acknowledge that we invariably contribute to both the solution and the problem. The solution is not a luxury that we can be waited to be gifted with, it comes from within; it lies in the little steps that you and I can take to ensure we do not pass this plague on to the next. It lies in standing up for each other, standing alongside each other, allowing survivors to grieve, sensitizing pop-culture and media – specially news, avoiding rape jokes and by being more empathetic and less dismissive. Destroy the narrative that therapy is for the weak and de-stigmatize the idea of getting help; it takes courage to reach out for help with a conviction that the world had collectively abandoned you.  Understand that there is no right thing to say – only to listen. Understand that all survivors may not be vocal (rightfully so in their own accord, as they don’t owe it to anyone) – be open to the possibility that your insensitive quip maybe silently crippling someone in your midst – recognize that, avoid it.

I no longer want to seek refuge in oblivion, as daunting as it is, I’m here writing to you hoping you’d listen. Sexual Abuse is not a footnote on a Human Rights Report. It is the girls who dismiss catcalls as nothing much because frequency has made us numb to it. It is the boys who respect a hypothetical “I have a boyfriend” more the girl standing in front of them just saying “NO”, It is in our workplace, at our households, and the journey between. Let’s not silence it with “Could have been worse”, “Stronger than that” and “Keep it to yourself”. We normalized the problem, I think its time we normalized the solutions.

This piece was written exclusively for bakamoono.lk with support from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. 

To find out more about sexual violence and how to report it please read more here