Still Here

For anyone who is still following this blog, don't worry, I will return soon! I have been ill for some time now and I just underwent gallbladder surgery so I am well on my way to recovery. I still have many ideas for the blog and will continue with it as soon as I can.

Tough Day . . . I don't know why

A really bad thing happened to me. I am still very angry about what happened! I still want to cry about it. People think I’m strong. I am not. All I want to do is cry. I think about it. Whenever I think about it . . . I still can’t believe it happened. But it did. And I hate it! If I could turn back time, I would . . . but that is not possible. Why is this coming up now? I don’t know. I really don’t know much, but I’m having a rough day. I was told this was going to happen from time to time. I want to be a strong woman . . . I want to so BAD! Why do I keep letting him affect me like this?

Can’t think of it like that. HE already did his thing. HE already hurt me. It’s over now. I am doing fine. I cannot let him ruin my life. He is in the past. I am now. I have a good life. I have a wonderful husband. I have fantastic parents. I have a great brother and sister. I have unbelievable in-laws (both mom and dad and bro and sis), and my friends are just remarkable.

Thank you for standing by me through this. I know it has been a while since it has happened, but you are my rocks. You are what keeps me sane. The fact that it still hits me and that you are still with me . . . I couldn’t ask for more. I love you all!

Matt

That last post was some pretty heavy stuff, so let's lighten it up a bit. I mentioned in a previous post that I would tell you about Matt. Matt is a guy that I met one week after the rape occurred. I didn't feel much like going out, but one of my friends talked me into it saying that we could leave anytime I wanted to. So I agreed to go with her to a karaoke bar. Karaoke is not really my scene, plus I was still in a bit of shock from the rape so I just kinda melted in the background. I was sitting at a table looking through the song book. Matt was sitting next to me and we started talking about music. Next thing you know, we were talking all night long. We ended up going to a billards bar after that and we were still inseparable. It totally took me out of the bad mind frame I was in after such a traumatic event. Then we walked outside and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had just been raped! And I said it! Out loud! To Matt! I was pretty sure I scared him off forever and that I would never see him again.

Fast forward 3 weeks . . . he shows up at a game watching party I attended. I was shocked. As it turns out, Matt was good friends with the people I went out with that night. Again we were inseparable. We bonded over silly things like gummy worms and we teased each other about our out of control hand gestures and other quirky mannerisms. Still, as much as I liked him, I was not ready to date. He knew that and never pressured me into anything. Then one night, our friends just couldn't take it anymore and they blurted out, "Why don't you two just go on a date already!" It's almost as if the idea had never occurred to either of us. Well two months after our initial meeting, we FINALLY went on our first date.

I didn't think it was going to go anywhere. As much as I liked him, I thought there was no way that a guy was going to be able to deal with the crap I was going through. I startled easily, was hyper vigilant, would cry at random times with no warning. He couldn't take me on any surprise dates because he didn't know if that was going to trigger a flashback. I just knew this would never work . . . what guy would deal with all that for a girl he hardly knows?

It happened, every single symptom mentioned above. Right in front of him. He didn't even flinch. When I was startled, he hugged me and comforted me. When I cried, he'd get me a tissue. If we were in the car and he didn't have a tissue, he would pull over at a gas station and buy me some. If I had a flashback, he helped talk me down and bring me back in the moment. This was a time in my life where I felt like even the people close to me couldn't see the real me behind all my grief. But somehow Matt, who had only known me a few months, saw right through everything to the real me.

After we had been together for about a year and a half, he came with me to my last counseling appointment. He brought my counselor flowers and thanked her for helping me get through this. She warned him that it is not over and will never be over. Big life events may trigger bad feelings or flashbacks at anytime with no warning. He didn't care, he still loved me.

A year and a half after that he proposed! And we got married on May 2, 2008. It was the best day of my life! Matt took me from the lowest place in my life to the highest place in my life over the course of 4 years! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful man in my life who can see the real Caitlin no matter what I'm going through. I love you Matt!

Speeding Ticket

Ok, this is my first post with very raw emotions. I got a speeding ticket, my first ticket ever. The crazy thing is that I didn't even know I was being pulled over. I was in a park trying to get to my softball game. I got a little lost in the park and therefore was going to be late for my game. I finally found my way, and when I did, I sped up so I would be able to make the game. I parked my car and then got out of the car. Next thing I knew, there was a police officer asking me why I was driving so fast. It took me completely off guard. I was fine through the game. I was fine through dinner afterwards. Then all of a sudden it hit me. Like a ton of bricks.

How could the police give me a ticket for speeding and not even give the rapist a warning for doing the horrific things he did to me? I mean, they should have at least put him on the sex offenders list. I can't stop crying. I keep thinking of the police dective's face when I think about getting that ticeket. I get flashes of the rapist's face. He got away with it! How could I not get off for going too fast in the park, and HE was able to walk free and clear after he RAPED me???

I'm really not upset about the ticket, obviously. People get tickets all the time. But this was my first ticket ever. I've been driving for 13 years and it was the first time I was even pulled over. I am upset with the police. They have no problem punishing people for their first offence when it is something simple like driving too fast, but when it is something like rape, they let the guy off free. They just assume you made up the whole story. I wonder how that police officer would feel if I told the judge that he made up the whole thing. That I was really going very slowly. His wife will leave him if he doesn't make more money, so he made the whole story up. I wish that would work. If I knew it would, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But clearly that is not how life works. I have learned the hard way that life is not fair at all.

I cannot reiterate enough, please, please, please, ALWAYS believe a woman when she tells you she was raped. It has been 5 years since my rape and I still have episodes like this from time to time. Everyone thinks I'm so strong. I'm only "strong" because I have to be. I have to keep living my life. I can't let this rapist take anything else from me. But from time to time I do have these moments still. And it sucks! But tomorrow is a new day and I will be fine. I am a survivor.

(I definitely feel better having written all that down. I should be able to sleep well now - I hope!)

Party Time!

Hello Everyone!

I took the day off today to prepare for the party. Matt* bit off a bit more than he could chew with the home repairs, so hopefully this place won't be a total disaster for the Take Back the Summer Party tomorrow! For the record, he and Rick (Matt's dad) have made the place look amazing so far! I just hope it will be complete by party time! I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still here and that I have just been busy with party preparations. I will post some pictures soon!

*For those of you who don't know me, I will be blogging about Matt soon!

Memphis

We are in Memphis right now. You may be wondering what this has to do with the rape. Well, going along with yesterday’s post, it has to do with my rape anniversary. I was trying to find something to do for me on that first anniversary. One of the other things I felt like I lost was my drive to exercise, especially run. I used to run all the time before the rape and I even completed a marathon a couple years before. So when the anniversary was approaching, I decided to look for a run. I knew a marathon or even a half marathon was a bit out of my range since I had let myself get so out of shape and I only had a few weeks to train. So I started looking for a 5K in my area. I did a few internet searches and came across a site for the Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center (Memphis is only a 4 hour drive from me). They just happened to be hosting a “Take Back the Night” 5K the week before my anniversary! I was so excited and I decided that I was going to participate.

I also wanted to do something for the Women’s Resource Center. I could go on and on about how wonderful they were to me during my first 2 years after the rape, but I will save that for another post. Anyway though, they were so great to me that I decided to do the run as a fundraiser for them. So I sent out a note to ALL of my friends, family, friends of the family, etc. letting them know what happened to me a year ago and what a wonderful organization the Women’s Resource Center is and I asked them for donations.

I was extremely nervous to send out that letter. After what happened to me with the police detective, I was afraid that people wouldn’t believe me. I was afraid that I would lose more friends. I almost didn’t send it out because of this. Then I decided that if the Women’s Resource Center even gets a small amount of money, it would be worth it. So I reluctantly dropped the letters off in the mailbox and went home.

A couple days later, the donations started pouring in. With the donations were words of encouragement and support. I couldn’t have asked for a better boost on my one year anniversary. A time when I thought I’d be all depressed, I had never felt more loved. And to top it off, I was able to raise over $3000 for the Women’s Resource Center. Having so many people rally around me like that was extremely therapeutic and it helped me heal more from the emotional wounds.

Although I never ask my friends and family for money anymore, I do continue to do the Take Back the Night run every year. Many of my friends know I am going down there and will send a donation along with me anyway. I’m sad that this year they are not having the run anymore. Since we already reserved our rooms, we decided to go anyway. We went to the Red Birds game last night and we plan to attend some museums and hang out on Beale Street today. Not exactly what we had planned, but it should still be fun. I plan to send any donations I receive into the Women’s Resource Center and just enjoy myself in Memphis. I need to start a new tradition next year. I’m glad I have a whole year to figure that out, because I have no ideas now. Any suggestions are welcome!

Blog Title Significance

Wow, it’s been an awfully long time since I’ve written on here. To be perfectly honest, it’s that time of year. That time when the weather starts changing into Spring. I can smell the air, hear the birds chirping . . . and see all the sites I saw when I was driving home to my parents house the day I was raped. Sounds that are glorious to most, but it gets to me every year. Each year the pain is less, but it still gets to me. I couldn’t bear to write about it this time of year. So that’s why I had the hiatus. Anyway, in an effort to get back into writing on here without getting too upset, I thought I’d take a little break from the rape story and explain the title of this blog.

A couple months before the first anniversary of my rape, I spoke to my counselor, Cynthia, about what I should do on that date. I didn’t want to be sitting around and moping about all the things I lost that day. So Cynthia and I started talking about all the things I lost. I lost more than I could list in this post, so I won’t go into everything, but at that particular visit with Cynthia, these are the things I brought up:

• I lost a group of people that I thought were friends
• I lost the ability to give blood for an entire year (I love giving of myself for others)
• As a result of depression and being stuck in a traumatized state I felt like I lost out on my favorite season, summer.

We discussed these losses. I realized that I had met and become very close friends with a wonderful new group of people who lived near me. I also still had all my college friends and some from even earlier in my life that, although they may not live in the same city as me, I still feel very close to them and I know I am so lucky to have them in my life. After reflecting upon this, I realized that the rape did not make me lose friends as much as it helped me to make even better friends and also appreciate the ones I already had.

So then we discussed the blood giving. This may seem like a strange one since I really don’t LIKE getting stuck by needles. However, there is something so powerful in the fact that all I have to do is sit there for a couple of minutes with a needle in my arm and I can save people’s lives! That alone makes the needle stick worth it for me. The fact that I was unable to give blood as a pure result of the fact that I was raped was extremely discouraging. Every blood drive I came across was just another reminder that I had been raped. There is nothing anyone can do to give me back that year that I was unable to donate, but the lovely thing about giving blood is that you can do it every eight weeks. So I scheduled an appointment for a couple days after the year anniversary to give blood. Just making the appointment empowered me and helped me to not feel so much like a victim.

So as we reflected upon the list, the only thing that I still hadn’t taken back was the summer. I can tell you, based on how I feel right now and based on how I have felt this time of year every year since it has happened, it would be VERY easy for me to slip back into that depression and miss the summer every year. I just lost so much of myself that day, and to be quite honest, I really miss who I used to be. It would be so easy to mourn that loss all summer long. But I decided not to let the rapist have that kind of control over me. He already raped me once, and I was not about to let him ruin every summer from here on out.

So I planned a party. I call the party my “Take Back the Summer Party.” Here is what this year’s invitation reads:

Most of you probably know by now that the first weekend of May marks the anniversary of the day I was raped. This marks my fifth year of survival. For those of you who don’t know, “Take Back the Summer” is my own take on the famous “Take Back the Night” rally. Take back the night started back in 1976 to protest the violence that women experienced while walking in public at night. “Take Back the Summer” is my own personal version of this. After my rape I spent my summer in a state of sadness and depression because of all the things I lost as a result of the rape. Because of this, I felt like I missed out on my favorite season, Summer. My “Take Back the Summer” parties symbolize me taking back everything that the rapist took from me. But this party is not just for me. It is also a thank you to all my wonderful friends and family for standing by my side through all of this. I wouldn’t be where I am without each and every one of you. Please join me for a celebration of life, survival and wonderful friends and family.

The first year was very small with just a few close friends and my immediate family and now the guest list has expanded immensely. I even encourage people to bring anyone else they think may want to celebrate with us. I cannot even tell you how empowering it was to have everyone there supporting me. I plan to keep this party going indefinitely. It will be May 9th this year and I am looking forward to it rather than dreading the date. Mission accomplished!