How to Forgive the Unforgivable
i can count on one hand
the amount of times my life has been
broken down into seconds
where i consciously remember counting to
escape the reality i was experiencing
but at some point those seconds became
minutes
became hours became days stuck in this
perpetual state of counting
as a distraction but for what
when i was 18 years old i saved up
enough money to go on my first study
abroad trip
madrid i had been studying spanish in
school for years
learning about their language and
culture i had prepared myself for
everything i thought that summer could
throw at me
i even remember having a four block
radius street map
printed out in a folder waiting to be
used it never was
and then a week after i arrived just a
few days before my 19th birthday
i was rudely awakened to my own naivete
lost without a map to find my way back
to it
16 minutes that is how long it lasted
how long he held me there before i was
able to leave
16 minutes that would end up defining
the next two years of my life
i’m sometimes asked what i thought about
during that time
i remember thinking about the word no i
remember pausing to wonder
if i was mispronouncing it if even in my
broken spanish
i had forgotten how the word felt in my
mouth
i remember the word rape survivor
feeling homeless
in my mind thought they could never fit
in my hands
i did not know how to hold the weight of
that noun
i knew rape the way most of you know it
a story
a narrative that excludes men from the
title
survivor what was happening to me
while contradictory didn’t feel real
five hours how long i waited in one
hospital
before being told we can’t treat you
here
try somewhere else with the crime scene
sitting in a plastic bag against my feet
the employees staring and whispering in
spanish i
waited for five hours to be referred to
a different hospital
there four hands examined me two police
officers asked for my statement three
different medications prescribed
come back in six weeks twelve metro
stops
two connections class at three that day
my life broke
into a segmented chunk of numbers
only two counselors available one speaks
english 45 minutes away
it was easily digestible counting
when i met with them they told me i’ve
never met with a male survivor
before and i retreated into the
self-proclaimed feeling
of being first when i returned to the
united states i was met with the same
foreign idea
the global prescription that men could
not
would not be survivors three words
followed me through my search for
support
for women only a disheartening sentence
i got accustomed to repeating in my head
for women only support groups
counseling sessions resources i had
found my way into an area
i was not welcome forced to navigate it
alone
it’s been over two years since i was
sexually assaulted
for most of those two years i counted
number of days since it happened i was
living on a man-made timeline
living a life that started on that
street in madrid
my perception of life revolved around
how far i could get away from that
street
counting reassured me every day that i
was distancing myself
but the healing did not start until i
stopped counting
until i reflected back on those two
years and i started to forgive
after spain i became reclusive a shell
of a former self
i did not recognize anymore i struggled
with basic tasks
eating sleeping showering my grades fell
i distanced myself from my friend groups
stopped going to class
trauma i learned does not rest when you
need it to
and i can only distract myself for so
long before it inevitably woke up
and it did and when it did i was forced
to face the fact
that my whole life the i what i had
planned for myself
who i had pictured becoming had been
distorted
as your reflection does in disturbed
water
the road map i had clung to shredded now
i had to look at myself in the mirror
and get to know the stranger that was
now
inhabiting my body carrying me through
the banality of every day
blame took over my thoughts blaming
myself for going to spain
for taking that metro line for the
weakness of having to admit to myself
every day that i would never be the same
and that i was alone in that blame a
blame no one could take on or carry for
me
forgiveness found its way into my life
when a friend finally pointed at my
perceived weakness
and renamed it strength the idea
suddenly took on a new meaning
one that celebrated my strength for
getting out of bed rather than shaming
me for not doing it earlier
for eating something quieting the voice
in my head
that said it wasn’t enough i had to
realize
that i was holding myself to a standard
that forgot my own trauma
one that expected the perfection i had
once strived for
my forgiveness started and continued
with the redefinition of what success
looked like
i had to give myself a period of time
where society’s bare minimum was good
enough good enough was the grace i
extended to myself
that required me to love all of me but
to also see
that good enough as a coping mechanism
adopted to keep me alive
rather than as a true reflection of who
i was
who i am two police officers
asked me why i didn’t want to report
you’re letting a rapist walk the streets
freely
one friend asked to see a picture after
i disclosed what i had experienced
i wanted to see if he was attractive
they said
articles tv shows society kept accusing
me of the same thing
it doesn’t happen to guys men wouldn’t
let that happen to them
you could have fought back those words
repeated in my head
long after so much so that they became
internalized voices that i had adopted
as my own
and with that so too came the resentment
resentment not only in the extreme
responses
ones of police officers and friends
victim blaming
but of the more subtle responses a lack
of empathy from a family member
brought with it the same pain it was
resentment
that would craft elaborate stories of
why someone would never check up on me
why a friend would ask for a picture or
a police officer for a statement
they were written into my mind as
characters meant to reiterate my very
fear
that no one knew how to support much
less talk to
a male sexual assault survivor
that i was alone but i had forgotten to
humanize them
i had isolated myself from the idea that
humans
act human i expected the perfect
response
the exact words that would put my pain
into perspective
a fix it was those exact expectations
that prevented me from healing
my resentment at this humanness put up a
barrier
to forgiving these people
most importantly however i decided that
their mistakes
were from miseducation rather than spite
so i educated i went on to conduct
research abroad
as well as here at virginia tech about
sexual violence and how it impacts
academic success and financial stability
and i’m currently in the process of
starting the first collegiate
male survivor support group on the east
coast
this all to say that advocacy was my way
of showing
friends and strangers alike what i
needed
and to remind male survivors like myself
that they
are not alone to understand that no one
can read my mind
but anyone can educate themselves and
help
and finally my rapist
inevitably i found myself blindly
trusting forgiveness
it suited me until it didn’t until i had
to face the idea
that i had forgiven everyone in my life
except the one who shadowed it
the one who i found tethered to my
person
i had to let him go and it wasn’t until
recently that i learned the most
important lesson of forgiveness
forgiveness is not a loud declaration of
apologetic empathy
wrapped in cliches and guilt forgiveness
rather is a quiet humble
acknowledgment of pain one that needs no
response a monologue that needs no
rebuttal
no closure from both parties forgiveness
is selfish
because it requires you to release the
anger
and the pain and the sadness and the
good enough
for yourself and no one else
you release all of these with the hope
and the confidence
that better is waiting in the after
that you are more than the situation you
feel reduced down to
i have never forgiven the rape it was
cruel
and it took more of me away from myself
than i care to remember
but selfishly i have forgiven him
i have forgiven the idea of him
lingering in my head
i know there will always be a part of me
that will remember his face
what his room smelled like the street
address
or the background noise of news
but there is a peace that i’ve come to a
piece that knows
it will never change no matter how many
times i rewind that tape
it has been over two years since i was
sexually assaulted
and the number of days continues to go
up
but that mental clock that man-made
timeline i constructed
has changed i no longer see myself as a
before and after of my sexual assault
but rather before and after finding the
strength to forgive a shedding of my
shadow and my guilt and my shame
like winter clothing finally stepping
out into spring
and sergio my shadow
i forgive you thank you