When Your Body Remembers Rape

 I am now sleeping without medication which is to say quite honestly may be one of the hardest things I've done for myself. My husband said that I'm brave for doing it.

So, I wake up around 4:30 every morning and am always reminded of the negative things I hear about myself and all the things I need to do the next day. Exhausting... lol.

I am now using an app to help me calm back down to get back to sleep. It works. But in the process of going back to sleep it draws out my fears. I cry for a minute while I acknowledge the pain of what happened and then move forward. It's refreshing as well.

I uncovered an ache in one of my buttocks that has really become painful all the time in the last couple of years. It's on the line of the sciatic nerve which makes all the sense I need.

During the first rape I was so young that a grown man on top of me would have definitely hurt my pelvic and buttock muscles. Only makes sense. But the real damage was the nerve endings in those areas that remember what happened and how it made them feel.

So, now my body is running on fear fuel all the time based on the pain in my bottom. This of course makes my heart race. And this happens while I'm asleep as well. No wonder.