Regaining Self Love
First and foremost a disclaimer: this is a very serious topic and a true story. Hundreds of people go through similar experiences every day. Trigger Warning: a sexualy assault expierence is shared.
In freshman year I was involved in a very toxic friendship. I wouldn’t call it a relationship because there were no labels. There was a breaking point however. I was not quite ready to partake in anything sexual. The relationship started to escalate rather quickly and that’s where I tried to make things come to an end. In hopes of stopping the harassment I cut all ties with this person. After a while, the person was able to get into contact with me, and they asked if we could hang out. Unfortunately I agreed. That night they sexually assaulted me.
For weeks I was in shock and didn’t really process the fact that it was an assault. I felt lost and wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. I took a deep look in the mirror and felt so much self loathing. I hated the way I had let someone take advantage of me. It made me resent myself and my body.
Before the incident I cared a lot about my self image and outward appearance, always keeping up on the latest fashion trends. Suddenly it seemed like I couldn’t keep up or I didn’t care. I stopped paying attention to what I looked like. I would wear the same three grey pants on rotation and an oversize sweatshirt. I didn’t want to wear flash new clothes. I feared people looking at my body. I was scared I was going to draw attention to myself and “ask for it.”
My friends questioned me, they were confused why I stopped dressing like before. I didn’t know how to explain to them why I now hated standing out without telling them the truth.
A couple months passed by and I came to a realization. I was letting my offender win. However, I still was not one hundred percent ready to go back to my fun bright clothes.
I adjusted my style a little. Wearing leggings instead of sweats, a tank top (on hot days) and an oversized denim jacket. I wore that jacket almost everyday. It was just long enough to cover my bottom.
Some days were better than others. On good days I would try on my old clothes in my room alone. And on bad days I would look in the mirror, but didn’t see the loud, passionate person I once was. I saw a young girl scared to leave her house, in terror it might happen again.
I really needed time to process everything. That’s exactly what I did over the summer. I took time for myself, taking out all the distractions of my life. I cut off ties with most of the people I knew, in order to focus on myself and my healing.
Finally, at the beginning of sophomore year I felt ready to finally tell someone my story. I shared my story with one of my close friends. She helped me realise that I am worth so much more than what I wear. I shouldn’t have been focusing on what I was wearing and more of how I was feeling.
Middle of sophomore year that same realisation came back to me. I was letting my offender win. I couldn’t stand the idea of letting him take control of me. I started to innovate more and more with my style. Getting back onto trends.
It was a long painful journey but I don’t regret going through it! I learned a lot. I know clothes will never define me as a person, but it’s a great way to express myself. I love the person I have turned out to be.
The Phoenix's policy on comments is as follows: You are allowed to insert links in your comments. We will automatically attempt to notify blogs if their post has been linked. A comment will automatically be held for review if there are two or more links. (As a large number of hyperlinks it is a common characteristic of comment spam.) Comment authors are NOT required to fill out their name and email if they do not wish to. Users do NOT need to be registered and logged in to comment. Comments are manually approved by the site's staff before being posted. If your comment contains any vulgar language, it will automatically be detected, (through cross-referencing via a pre-approved list of words) and will automatically be put in "Trash".
If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a gravatar.