DARKNESS HAS FALLEN

Lost,
In taking my advice to heart, please remember this: You have been through a life-altering event. It may have only taken minutes, but those minutes have changed your life forever.

You were raped and someone threatened to kill you. That is something that can take a lifetime to recover from. You can beat this thing, but you need help and you need time.

You need help from people who have been through this. My advice is fine, but I have never been through a rape and I would like to see you in touch with people with the expertise to deal with this. Call a rape crisis line if things get too ugly. And don't let anyone tell you that you aren't recovering fast enough! You go at your own pace. When you are ready to let this go, then you will let it go, but don't rush yourself. Just let yourself ride this roller coaster. It's OK. If it gets too scary, call for help.

You may find yourself scared of things for no particular reason.(It was this way for me when men started trying to date me. I later learned that I was scared because I knew about men only from being in hospitals.) The fear you may be feeling may be in reaction to the rape. You have every right to be afraid and I'm sure if you ask other rape victims, they'll tell you the same thing.

It may have be a one time short event to Mr. Peasant Rapist. But he handed you a life sentence when he decided to give himself a little power trip at your expense. You will never see things the same way again. Remember, it was HIS actions that caused this, not yours. He had no business being in the woods with a knife.

I know that a great evil has befallen you. But you can draw great good from it. Remember your anger at the man you raped you. Use that anger and join a women's group. I know some of them up here organize what are called "Take Back the Night" rallies where women gather during one night and march through the streets, to protest stuff like just what happened to you. Women's groups up here got particularly active after a man took a gun and went on a university campus and murdered 14 women engineering students in 1989. He specifically singled out the women and killed them.

It's just this sort of barbarity that we must devote ourselves to stopping, and all the smaller ones where women are hit, yelled at, raped or murdered. Women deserve to be treated with honour and respect, as the men themselves would like to be treated. If they think we enjoy the sexist comments and being raped, they should think again. If they aren't doing it because they think we enjoy it then why do it? It's all about power and control. They feel women belong in one set place and should stay there. Some of them will use violence to enforce their beliefs, or just crude comments.

This isn't Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. If a woman wants to work or to go jogging at 3 am in the morning, then by all means, she should be allowed to do either. God created Eve too, you know, as a companion to Adam, not someone to be used as a punching bag, because her husband didn't like his dinner. If you're someone's companion, then you should expect to be treated well, not like dirt.

You said that my understanding of what you went through touched your heart. Lost, I spent 20 years feeling guilt over someone else's actions. I went through a trauma and never got the help I needed. I'm paying for it now. I don't want to see you suffer like I did.

Besides, I suffer from pain 16 hours a day, by nature's design. I have no sympathy for those who choose to inflict similiar suffering on someone else, for fun. I would like to give Mr Peasant Rapist my pain for a couple of days. Better yet, I'd give it to him for every day as long as you suffer from HIS actions. Every night when you have a nightmare, Mr Peasant's legs would hurt. It would certainly make him think twice about hurting anyone else. I would make him sit in a wheelchair for maximum effect. (It hurts when I sit.) It would make him a target for the other prisoners too.

He would learn what it means to be vulnerable and helpless, real fast. That's an image that the disabled rights movement doesn't like, but a) the pain has made me that way, b)I would be no match for anyone who decided to hurt me as you were hurt.

So giving this guy my pain and sitting him in a wheelchair, WHILE he does his time, seems like adequate punishment. Let him learn fear. He seemed willing to dish it out to you. Let him walk around again when you've recovered from the rape.

There is a thing more crippling than cerebral palsy: the prison of your own mind.

Lost hasn't posted in ages. I hope this doesn't mean she has killed herself or something...

_____________________
RIP Dexter...
<font color=red>The best dog ever!!!</font color=red>

<font color=green>In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning.</font color=green>
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm not dead, silver_queen. I'm right here.

((((((((((((((((((((Lost))))))))))))))))))))

Fuzzy xx