Embracing Terror

I've been working with a new therapist for a few months now, and I've noticed she's brought up the word "terror" fairly frequently in regards to a particular issue we've been focusing on. Each time I say, "no, not terror..." and wrinkle my brow that she's brought it up again. Last week, she had asked me what emotion I experienced in a particular moment and I couldn't name it..and you guessed it! She suggested "terror" again. I didn't know what the hell it was, but no it wasn't terror. For some reason though, I really started to think about terror...

I scanned my life looking for times I felt "terrified" and couldn't come up with anything. Sure, I could identify plenty of anxiety and fear, but no terror...at least I don't think so... I know the difference between anger and rage...I know the difference VERY acutely. But what is the difference between fear and terror. I thought about what movies tell me...terror involves screaming, sobbing, shaking according to all of the horror movies. But what if that is only one side of terror?

So, with a slightly different perspective I started scanning through my memories again, without judgement, just looking for events that perhaps others might find terrifying. It took a couple days, but I found it...

I'm 6, I've just gotten off the school bus...Walking up to the door…the screen door is closed but the door is open. My “Spidey-sense” is tingling when I approach the door. I hear sobbing/moaning/mumbling…and wait. I catch of brief glimpse of my sister as she walks on her knees from the hall into the living room…sobbing and rambling unintelligibly. I freeze briefly…I KNOW it is imperative that I don’t be seen…I KNOW there is “danger” here, and I need to get away. I’m momentarily paralyzed by this...dare I say? terror? If I move, she’ll see me, and surely that will mean disaster. My mind races…what do I do? A breath, and I decide to sneak downstairs and hide until someone gets home. I stand quietly for a second…I can hear her jangling around in the silverware drawer, still moaning and crying. I make a break for it, and run downstairs trying not to make a sound. And I wait in the half dark until my brother returns from chores and finds me hiding.

I don’t know exactly what I was afraid of in that moment that I stepped up to the door... I didn’t have visions of her killing me, or skinning me alive. But the relief in my brother’s voice when he found me downstairs let me know that I wasn’t off track in my …terror, as did the conversation when my parents called later that night and he told them K had gotten fucked up on diet pills and he had hid the knives because he was afraid she would have tried to killed me.

Yes, that was terror. And yes, those moments that my therapist suggested might have been sprinkled with terror were indeed terror. Frozen terror. 

Oddly, I'm feeling a bit like a kid with a new toy having uncovered a new emotion. But, then it is kinda cool to have reclaimed another piece of myself, even if it is a little thing like being able to name terror. And to speak it, is to have power over it, so it's all good. I'll embrace my terror...it is an old friend after all. And an old friend who helped keep me safe...

The trigger

There have been many, especially this last year, but the one that has it's roots in deep at the moment, and is strangling me happens to be about he-who-must-not me named, and a certain audio tape that was released in which he brags about his sexual assault of women (And if you are in any way confused about what sexual assault is, here is the definition: Sexual assault is a sexual act in which a person is coerced or physically forced to engage against their will, or non-consensual sexual touching of a person. Sexual assault is a form of sexual violence, and it includes rape, groping, child sexual abuse, or the torture of the person in a sexual manner.)

I am not alone in having had this disturb my calm; this has shaken people across the globe...and yet, somehow, he got a pass. And for me, that pass is the most disturbing.

So, how does this happen? Perps dismiss and blame the victims, and some how, even women, even women who have victims, will roll over and say, "Oh yeah, SHE must be lying..HE wouldn't REALLY do something like that." Why is it so easy for people to believe that victims are making this shit up, and perps are really innocent (victims) of "false" accusations? Is it that so many people have committed sexual assault that the behavior really has become "normalized." Or is it just that the perps scream so loud, and so many times that they are right, and everyone else is wrong that we start to believe them in spite of evidence to the contrary? Is it that we so de-value women that even we women think that this behaviour is what we deserve some how? So far, the evidence points to all of the above.

Let me tell you my story. In grade school I was sexually assaulted repeatedly by a teenager. There was a female adult around who, although she didn't participate knew what was happening, and when I tried to escape would try to goad me into submitting. Said adult also was involved in gossiping around my small community about what was happening. From what I learned years later, many people were aware of some version of what was happening, but the general version of the story was that I, at 7, was trying to seduce him, a post-pubescent young man, and that he only did what he did to get me off his back. He didn't even ask for it, and he got a pass.

So here we are, 2017, my country, my community has decided that a self admitted sexual predator is innocent, so innocent in fact that he was handed the most powerful position in the world...and still when woman after woman comes forward and says, "this man has injured me", the general consensus is that the woman is wrong/lying/the predator, and the real predator is the victim. My community has sided with the perp...again.

What is it that we have to do to believed, to be protected, to be supported? Do we really have to be the ones to scream the loudest? Well, if that's the case, consider this my scream: I was innocent, I was injured, I in no way asked for what happened to me, it wasn't okay, and Mother Fucking Hell: SEXUAL ASSAULT IS 100% NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!