Survivor No. 000727
Content warning: suicidality, self harm, disordered eating, description of sexual assault, police investigation
During my adolescent years, I toyed with the idea of death, dying, and the self-inflicted mutilation of my own body. I would open myself up to the world to watch the blood pour out. I longed for the escape of my own reality to another, given a cutting edge. As I grew into a young woman, the lurking hatred I had for myself continued to exist. My body changed and I attempted to fight and stunt its growth and progress. I carefully designed a façade that would reflect only kindness.
Brit Marling said it best, “the biggest mistake I made was believing that if I cast a beautiful net, I’d catch only beautiful things”. During my third year of university, I experienced the harsh reality that is, not everyone leads with the goodness of their heart. I had to adapt and learn how to survive with the vicious ghost of his actions.
In the days following the new addition to my anxieties, I became mute. I did not dare permit the portal to my thoughts to open. I swallowed my words. I stopped eating to quiet the thoughts. I believed that if I starved my physical self, then the invisible self would deteriorate—eventually being silenced. My body shrank; I watched myself disappear beneath my already oversized clothes. I would only leave the house after dark. I walked for hours every day to try and clear my mind. I became overly exhausted. I wanted to believe that if I stopped taking care of my body, the vessel he had torn apart, then I would forget. I would forget the smell of his breath; I would forget the pitch of his voice when he said, “I promise it’ll feel good. Trust me”, while he pushed into me over and over again. I wanted to forget it all happened. I became a shell of the formerly confident, bubbly, and young woman I thought I could be. I regressed to my adolescent self, and then to my child-like self.
After the self-mutilation, sabotage, and starvation minimised, I found a new obsession. A six-digit identification number. While he has reduced me to his own personal doll to toss around and manipulate for his own pleasure, the police turned me into a six-digit identification number. Attached to this number were the unpalatable details of the horrific acts he did to me. Every morning when I would awake, I typed the number into the database for updates about the evidence collected off my body. Each evening, before bed, I would refresh the page, in hopes of any new movement on my case. After several months, I finally got a call. It’s the call you know is coming. You don’t want to answer because you know what will be said. My gut was right: there was nothing more they could do. The detective assigned to my case wished me the “best of luck in the future” – and life continued after.
