Bargaining.

Stage three: Bargaining.

This chapter is mainly about the "what if" and "if only." It's also a little hard to explain so bare with me. I think I felt this stage probably right after the assault happened and sometimes, I still catch myself ‘bargaining’ when I think back on the whole situation. What if I didn't go out that night and stayed in? I wouldn't have been raped. What if I took a different route on my way home? I wouldn't have been raped. What if I stayed out longer or went home earlier? I wouldn't have been raped. Although all the answers to those questions may be true and it hurts to think that if maybe I did one thing differently that night, none of this would have happened. But I have to stop bargaining with myself over the "what if." That's not always the easiest thing to do though when it comes to sexual assault.

I remember I would instantly get depressed thinking about what had happened and the thought, "Well if only I (insert some excuse to cover up what happened) then I wouldn't feel this way." I kept going back and forth with myself all the time. Thinking and analyzing every possible scenario that I could think of to disguise the act of some guy doing this to me despite how I would feel in the long run just so he could ‘get off.’ But why was I doing this to myself? Why do I still do this to myself? Because deep down, I know I'm just punishing myself. What happened, happened, and there's no "what if" or "if only" scenario I can think of to get myself out of the situation that I was unfortunately put in.

All this bargaining makes you want to return to your old life before this assault happened to you. Thinking about every happy memory because anything was better than how you were feeling in that moment. You think about wanting to go back to ‘the good old days’ any chance you had. But what if the good days are ahead of you and you just don't know it at the time? What if even though it's hard to believe you'll never get through this, you'll come out even stronger? What if this situation will help you realize so much more about yourself than you ever could?

I'd call all those "what if" statements, the best "what if" statements because trust me when I say that they all came true. And continue to. Here's the thing, you're always going to bargain with yourself in almost any situation you get put into. What if I woke up 10 minutes earlier? I wouldn't be stuck in traffic. If only I ate that salad for lunch, I would feel skinnier. What if I didn't yell at my friend the other day? We wouldn't be fighting. If only I could go back to yesterday to relive a moment. Well, I can't.

Those "what if" and "if only" statements constantly pop up in your head but what I've learned is that you can't go back and you can't badger yourself with those questions because it will eat you alive. You'll sit up for hours at night (I know, I've been there) and let your mind wander into a million and one different directions of how your life could have gone. But what's the point? Like I said before, what happened has happened but the real obstacle now is how to get past it, not bargain with yourself about how life could have been.

So now, when I find myself in the state of only asking myself "what if" and "if only" questions regarding my assault, I take a step back and ask myself, "What if the assault didn't happen?" Well honestly, thank god if it didn't, but that's not what goes through my head anymore. Of course, there's not a day or even probably an hour that goes by where I wish I wasn't sexually assaulted but I think about how strong I've become, how strong my voice and words have become for not only myself but others, and how strong I'm only going to continue to become. I try to alter my negative thoughts about the assault and turn them into positive things I've learned about myself throughout this whole (what seems like a never-ending) experience.

I'll be honest, this chapter was hard to construct. Not because I didn't know what to write, but I didn't know how to put my feelings into the right words. Writing these chapters has been a learning experience and sometimes I find myself wanting to quit and move on to something else when I can't find the correct way to write these (hence the three month pause). But then when someone, who you least expect, reaches out to you and compliments your writing, and how you should keep going, that gives me the strength. That gives me the motivation. That gives me the realization that these chapters are not just helping me but they're helping others in some way shape or form. So yes, I would like more than anything in the entire world to not have been sexually assaulted but then I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be writing this story and I wouldn't be half the person that I am today. So these stories will go on, they'll continue to be honest and I believe that they will make a difference because I never want the thought of "what if I finished those stories" or "if only I finished those stories" to ever cross my damn mind.