After Assault: Life’s a Bitch and Then You Keep Living

I’m walking home from my friend’s apartment. It’s cold; the mid-February sun is slinking down the sky, painting pinks and oranges across the clouds. The snow on the ground is deep and iced over, every shaky footstep I take is met with a loud crunching noise as I make my way home. 

I spent the morning sobbing. Hysterically, loudly, messily. I would’ve kept sobbing the whole day, tucked away in bed listening to Phoebe Bridgers, except I had plans to go make pierogies at my friend’s. I cleaned myself up, washing away the crusted snot and puffy redness of my flushed cheeks and I put on real clothes for the first time in days. 

After being assaulted, it’s hard to be a person. 

I am walking home from making pierogies at my friend’s apartment and the winter chill is filling up my empty chest with a deep sadness.

I am sad, I am angry, I am confused and hurt and so upset. I feel messy. I feel feral. Everything comes racing back with each frozen footstep. I stop walking. My breath makes tiny clouds in front of me. I begin to cry again. 

Where do I go from here? I think between shudders, tears rushing down my face, and freezing. Where do I go from here? Where do I go? 

Flash forward a year. It’s now winter of 2022 and I have started my internship at my local Advocacy Center. The Advocacy Center in my college’s town is a resource for victims and survivors of abuse and assault, providing emotional and legal help, as well as being a source of education to the general public. My job, as the intern, is to help plan a rally against domestic and sexual violence called Take Back the Night. 

Take Back the Night began in the 1970s as a movement against violence against women. It originated in Philadelphia and Los Angeles and has spread across the country in the subsequent decades. The movement’s name is a reference to a June Jordan poem. 

I found out about the Advocacy Center, and Take Back the Night, purely by accident. A friend reposted their call for an intern on Instagram. At the time, I was angry at the trauma I had endured, at the way I wasn’t believed by people in my community. I was angry that my story wasn’t the only one, that many of my friends have been assaulted or harassed. I was angry at the systems that make rape culture the norm and keep rapists from facing repercussions for their actions. 

I was angry, I wanted to make a difference, however small. And so: I applied to intern at the Advocacy Center. 

I got the position, and back in February, I started working on planning Take Back the Night. 

This year, my supervisor tells me, is especially important. After two years of being virtual in my town, Take Back the Night is finally in-person again. Because of the newfound intentionality with a connection through the pandemic, the planning board decides on this year’s theme to be “Power of Community.” I feel this power as we all join in on weekly Zoom meetings, discussing the rally and the importance of supporting survivors. While we plan, people share details of their lives, the daily triumphs, and tragedies. In this small community on Zoom, I feel seen and heard, and celebrated.

When I am not working at the Advocacy Center, in the office hunched over my laptop, or at my apartment on a call, life continues. I still take a route home from the bus stop that avoids triggering locations. I still feel my heart stop when certain names are brought up in conversation. My copy of Know My Name by Chanel Miller still sits on my nightstand, waiting to be picked back up when I’m finally in the headspace to continue reading it.  

My college advisor asks what the biggest takeaway from my internship is. I think of the weeks of planning, all the hours spent folding tee shirts and writing thank-you cards for the people who helped make the event possible. My biggest takeaway, I think, is that people care. Compassion is hard work, and some people are willing to put in the work. 

There are good people out there, and we are making a difference. 

When Take Back the Night finally happens at the end of this month, the community will come together. There will be advocates working so people have someone to turn to if they decide they need support. My supervisor says it’s a powerful night – people will feel seen, people will 

Being assaulted is traumatic and it’s a trauma I will carry with me. But as heavy as it is, the weight of it is starting to feel easier. Or, perhaps, finding joy is starting to be easier. 

In the time since I’ve been assaulted, I have made friends. I have made gnocchi from scratch and eaten it on my porch while watching the sunset. I have danced, I have hosted dinner parties, I have been kissed on the forehead, and I have been called beautiful by strangers. In this time, I have eaten so many strawberries and pet so many dogs. I have laughed so hard that I’ve cried,  and I’ve felt so much love from so many incredible people. 

In the aftermath of catastrophe, there is joy. It is uncomfortable and hard to find at first, but it is there. Healing is not linear and there is no clear endpoint for healing. I will forever be growing around this trauma – it is still there inside of me, but I am growing nonetheless. I am moving on and I am healing. 

Which is not to say I am healed. Part of me is still afraid. Part of me is still standing in the snow on that walk back from my friend’s. Part of me is still crying, wondering where the fuck do I go from here? 

I think I know the answer now: Forwards. I go forwards. 

I keep living.