Relapsing is okay - just keep working at it.

I found myself so irritated the other day to realize that I was back in a dark place that I had worked long and hard, many years ago, to recover from. To get better and get stronger and function like a normal human being.

What I'm talking about is that I am a survivor of sexual abuse. It was something that firstly happened to me for a couple of years as a child. Because I was so young when it started, I thought that it was a normal thing that all girls go through and something was wrong with me for feeling scared by it.

Then as I entered my early teen years, it happened again with a vague aquantance that I had just met.
Again a couple of years later when I went to study in Cape Town, a stranger raped me.
I started thinking I was pre-disposed to attracting this kind of violence. That there was just something about me that told men to take advantage of me.

Anyway, eventually I came to realize and understand that it was not my fault, it was wrong and not normal and more than that, I decided that I wanted to fix myself.

Now the thing about "fixing" a sexual abuse survivor is not like fixing any other broken thing. It's not a matter of "follow steps one through five" and the broken thing is as good as new, essentially, back to what it was before it was broken. Which is kinda what I thought at first. But after years of looking for answers and trying to get help from various counsellors and doctors and other older (than me at the time) people, I came to realize that it's not about fixing. There is no such thing really as "fixing". It can never go back to the way it was before the attacks.
It's about accepting, forgiving and learning to live with being different.

Now I know at first blush the words "accepting" and "forgiving' may sound like a disconnect under such circumstances, but what I mean by this is "accepting" that this is a part of my past and therefor, my life. It is part of all the other things in my life that have contributed to making me the person that I am.
And "forgiving" meaning, forgiving myself mostly. Forgiving myself of the all the anger and hatred and resentment I felt towards myself and my body. Forgiving myself feeling unworthy and unlovable. And by forgiving myself, learning that I am worth loving, worth living.

The thing about being a survivor of sexual abuse (as apposed to a "victim" of abuse) is learning to accept "I am different and it's okay. I see things differently, my mind works a little differently and my body reacts a little differently and always will, and that's ok. I shouldn't feel bad about it, because it's not something I did or am doing, it's something that happened to me and changed me. This is who I am now"

It never goes away, not ever, not a single second of a single day, but you learn to live with it. You learn to function, to have healthy relationships, to have friends, to be a whole person again.

But with all this and even when getting to that place where, on the outside, one functions like a "normal" person. (The societal idea of normal) then things can happen that can cause you to re-lapse.

And that's what I realize the other day. There are always still risks for triggers that can make you feel like you're back to square one, after all the work you did at being okay.
And you know what, that's okay too. Re-lapses happen and there will always be triggers.

What I'm learning now, is trying to prepare for possible future areas of re-lapse. To try and identify what my triggers are and what sort of triggers could there possibly be in future that I've never faced before. Especially now that I have a son. There may be trigger areas when he hits puberty or starts getting curious about the opposite sex. Who knows. Now it's about trying to recognize what may happen in the future, trying to prepare for it, and if something comes up that I didn't expect and didn't prepare for, that it's okay if that causes a relapse too.

I'm only human and to again always remember, that it doesn't go away. My history and the way it has changed me will never go away, it's simply about managing it. So here I go, trying to predict the future, trying to prepare.