Update on Book access, 7/24/2023: I don't have a website anymore. If you'd like to purchase the book version of this blog, it is for sale on Amazon here. I am on Instagram and Threads @rannray.
Original post from 9/11/2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
I'm Telling
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Epilogue
Oh my GAWD! It feels so good to sit down and type away - it has been entirely too long, and I am excited about getting back to expressing myself with the written word. I won’t be re-opening this particular blog, though. As the title of this post implies (or really straight up states), this is the epilogue for puttingitallouthere.
A LOT has happened in the past four months, which is about how long it has been since I last posted here. One of the biggest things that has happened is WE GOT THE FUCK OUT OF PEACHTREE CITY!!! I really was not sure it would ever happen, but here I am in my new home, NOT in Peachtree City!
It is very nice to be able to live in a place where I can just breathe in and out. I do that all day long here, just breathe in and out.
I make my bed everyday - literally EVERY DAY. That means I am not IN my bed for hours and hours. I have to admit I owe a lot of that to the fact that we only have basic TV, and if nothing else gets me out of bed, daytime TV will do the trick every time. It is AWFUL, mostly because about 80% of it is commercials implying that I am fat and depressed and have bad skin and ugly hair. I mean, I’m not saying any of that doesn’t apply to me, but I don’t want to be constantly reminded of that shit. It is the opposite of what TV is really supposed to be: unreality, or at the very least, someone else‘s reality.
I go outside every day, too. We don’t have a yard anymore, so I take the dog out every few hours or so. When it is over 50 degrees (Fahrenheit, just in case you were wondering), my family and I walk for miles and miles and miles outside. There is so much to see that has absolutely nothing to do with Peachtree City, and so many faces of people who have not raped me, or known bad things were happening to me and looked the other way, or of condescending assholes who find it easier to write me off as insane than to actually consider the truth.
Guess what else? I clean now. No, seriously. And I don’t wait until whatever is growing on any given surface begins to move independently before I get rid of it. I actually clean BEFORE there is a chance for anything at all to grow on any given surface. Is that crazy, or what? I fucking LOVE it here!
You may have noticed that I have not disclosed where I moved to. Maybe some day I will, but for right now the anonymity of my location gives me a feeling of such safety that I am going to hold on to it for as long as possible.
There have been some bad things that have happened while I have lived here, but not new bad things, just more of the old bad things. I guess since I can breathe here, my brain has decided it is time for me to just drop all of the blocking and just remember. It has been difficult, but mostly sad. I love where I live so much, though, that even processing bad shit has become not so devastating. I remain present a lot more, meaning I don’t dissociate as much, and while that means I feel more, I can also move on faster. I haven’t really been getting stuck in my mind so much, and there is so much beauty and wonder to explore in the world, I am glad my brain can be here more often to soak in as much of it as possible.
Another big thing is that I recently had to have x-rays done. I read this book, The Bean Trees, about six months ago, and in it a horrendously abused little girl had to get x-rays, and the doctor was able to see multiple old fractures in her bones. This was all I could think about when it came time to schedule my own x-rays, and I was scared.
I have had this battle in mind for as long as I can remember between confronting my memories and whether or not they are real. One side of me knew something bad would show up, something left over from a long time ago. In other words, evidence. The other side of me knew that nothing would show up from a long time ago, because none of the bad stuff ever happened. Needless to say, it gets pretty contentious in my mind.
Getting these x-rays was one of those monumental moments of truth in which one of the sides of me was going to win, and the other side of me was going to lose. Being fully aware of that, I avoided getting the x-rays for months. I finally went and got them done about three weeks ago.
When I first started remembering stuff, I obsessively sought out evidence, anything that could put some concrete into the shit flying around in my head. But when it came to seeing these images of the inside of my body, and seeing the remnants of the violence I experienced, so much of me wanted there to be no evidence in those x-rays. I would have given anything to see my bones all smooth and intact, with no injuries apparent anywhere.
But that is not what happened, and of course I knew it would be like that, but I have just had a really hard time giving up that battle in my mind. It is such a bewildering experience having one side of me win at the same time the other side of me loses. Seeing the images of the old fractures in my pelvis and hips, though, ended that battle succinctly.
I didn’t want to look at it, at the x-ray up on the light board. My head kept getting full of air, like I was on an airplane, and I felt like everything was tilting slightly to the left (always the left - I don’t know why). I just wanted to move on and not discuss anything that showed up on the x-rays, just skirt around it and move on with my day.
But I knew that I would be upset with myself if I didn’t look, so I did. My doctor pointed out these faint lines in my bones. Some were bigger than others, and some were difficult to see, but they were there. Between four and six old fractures is what my doctor said. All consistent with the abuse I had described, she also said. All consistent with the lasting effects of the types of injuries I am now seeking treatment for.
I got rocked a bit.
I’m getting rocked a bit again, now, thinking about it so much. I mean, how much pressure does a person have to put on a child’s pelvis to fracture it multiple times over a period of 17 years?
It is the first time I have been able to see myself as a child being injured. It isn’t abstract anymore. It is real. It has made me very angry, and I have begun to feel some sincere outrage for the damage done to that child I was.
There is an aspect of having these x-rays that soundly validates my memories of being abused. It is proof. It means I wasn’t lying, and I’m not crazy, and it really did all happen. But I am too sad to think of it as a big fat “I told you!”
I am surprised I have not wanted to get copies made and sent to my mom and my brother and my sister so they could see the evidence, have it right there in their faces. I am surprised I have not wanted to vindicate myself to them.
But it just doesn’t matter who believes me or not anymore. All that really matters at this point is that I believe me now. There just isn’t room for much of anything else.
Except for this post, of course. Those x-rays are a big reason I wanted to write this epilogue. I wanted people to know there was proof, evidence any human could see with her or his own eyes. So I guess maybe I do want to be vindicated in some way, and that is why I am writing about this now.
But I think it is really just that this is where this part of the story ends: the process of not knowing at all, and then remembering, and then not knowing what the fuck was real, and what wasn’t. That is where it all started, and I guess now that I know - conclusively - it is all real, this is where that particular process can end.
Yeah, so time for the next chapter.
A LOT has happened in the past four months, which is about how long it has been since I last posted here. One of the biggest things that has happened is WE GOT THE FUCK OUT OF PEACHTREE CITY!!! I really was not sure it would ever happen, but here I am in my new home, NOT in Peachtree City!
It is very nice to be able to live in a place where I can just breathe in and out. I do that all day long here, just breathe in and out.
I make my bed everyday - literally EVERY DAY. That means I am not IN my bed for hours and hours. I have to admit I owe a lot of that to the fact that we only have basic TV, and if nothing else gets me out of bed, daytime TV will do the trick every time. It is AWFUL, mostly because about 80% of it is commercials implying that I am fat and depressed and have bad skin and ugly hair. I mean, I’m not saying any of that doesn’t apply to me, but I don’t want to be constantly reminded of that shit. It is the opposite of what TV is really supposed to be: unreality, or at the very least, someone else‘s reality.
I go outside every day, too. We don’t have a yard anymore, so I take the dog out every few hours or so. When it is over 50 degrees (Fahrenheit, just in case you were wondering), my family and I walk for miles and miles and miles outside. There is so much to see that has absolutely nothing to do with Peachtree City, and so many faces of people who have not raped me, or known bad things were happening to me and looked the other way, or of condescending assholes who find it easier to write me off as insane than to actually consider the truth.
Guess what else? I clean now. No, seriously. And I don’t wait until whatever is growing on any given surface begins to move independently before I get rid of it. I actually clean BEFORE there is a chance for anything at all to grow on any given surface. Is that crazy, or what? I fucking LOVE it here!
You may have noticed that I have not disclosed where I moved to. Maybe some day I will, but for right now the anonymity of my location gives me a feeling of such safety that I am going to hold on to it for as long as possible.
There have been some bad things that have happened while I have lived here, but not new bad things, just more of the old bad things. I guess since I can breathe here, my brain has decided it is time for me to just drop all of the blocking and just remember. It has been difficult, but mostly sad. I love where I live so much, though, that even processing bad shit has become not so devastating. I remain present a lot more, meaning I don’t dissociate as much, and while that means I feel more, I can also move on faster. I haven’t really been getting stuck in my mind so much, and there is so much beauty and wonder to explore in the world, I am glad my brain can be here more often to soak in as much of it as possible.
Another big thing is that I recently had to have x-rays done. I read this book, The Bean Trees, about six months ago, and in it a horrendously abused little girl had to get x-rays, and the doctor was able to see multiple old fractures in her bones. This was all I could think about when it came time to schedule my own x-rays, and I was scared.
I have had this battle in mind for as long as I can remember between confronting my memories and whether or not they are real. One side of me knew something bad would show up, something left over from a long time ago. In other words, evidence. The other side of me knew that nothing would show up from a long time ago, because none of the bad stuff ever happened. Needless to say, it gets pretty contentious in my mind.
Getting these x-rays was one of those monumental moments of truth in which one of the sides of me was going to win, and the other side of me was going to lose. Being fully aware of that, I avoided getting the x-rays for months. I finally went and got them done about three weeks ago.
When I first started remembering stuff, I obsessively sought out evidence, anything that could put some concrete into the shit flying around in my head. But when it came to seeing these images of the inside of my body, and seeing the remnants of the violence I experienced, so much of me wanted there to be no evidence in those x-rays. I would have given anything to see my bones all smooth and intact, with no injuries apparent anywhere.
But that is not what happened, and of course I knew it would be like that, but I have just had a really hard time giving up that battle in my mind. It is such a bewildering experience having one side of me win at the same time the other side of me loses. Seeing the images of the old fractures in my pelvis and hips, though, ended that battle succinctly.
I didn’t want to look at it, at the x-ray up on the light board. My head kept getting full of air, like I was on an airplane, and I felt like everything was tilting slightly to the left (always the left - I don’t know why). I just wanted to move on and not discuss anything that showed up on the x-rays, just skirt around it and move on with my day.
But I knew that I would be upset with myself if I didn’t look, so I did. My doctor pointed out these faint lines in my bones. Some were bigger than others, and some were difficult to see, but they were there. Between four and six old fractures is what my doctor said. All consistent with the abuse I had described, she also said. All consistent with the lasting effects of the types of injuries I am now seeking treatment for.
I got rocked a bit.
I’m getting rocked a bit again, now, thinking about it so much. I mean, how much pressure does a person have to put on a child’s pelvis to fracture it multiple times over a period of 17 years?
It is the first time I have been able to see myself as a child being injured. It isn’t abstract anymore. It is real. It has made me very angry, and I have begun to feel some sincere outrage for the damage done to that child I was.
There is an aspect of having these x-rays that soundly validates my memories of being abused. It is proof. It means I wasn’t lying, and I’m not crazy, and it really did all happen. But I am too sad to think of it as a big fat “I told you!”
I am surprised I have not wanted to get copies made and sent to my mom and my brother and my sister so they could see the evidence, have it right there in their faces. I am surprised I have not wanted to vindicate myself to them.
But it just doesn’t matter who believes me or not anymore. All that really matters at this point is that I believe me now. There just isn’t room for much of anything else.
Except for this post, of course. Those x-rays are a big reason I wanted to write this epilogue. I wanted people to know there was proof, evidence any human could see with her or his own eyes. So I guess maybe I do want to be vindicated in some way, and that is why I am writing about this now.
But I think it is really just that this is where this part of the story ends: the process of not knowing at all, and then remembering, and then not knowing what the fuck was real, and what wasn’t. That is where it all started, and I guess now that I know - conclusively - it is all real, this is where that particular process can end.
Yeah, so time for the next chapter.
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