I have never really found my niche. It feels hard for me to fit in to whatever the mainstream deems as "normal", which I learned is a relative term after a stats class for psychology. As a young child, I was as content to play with my imaginary friend Kowalina as I was the kids in my preschool, plus I was a head taller than the other kids and about twice their overall size (I come from sturdy stock). As I grew older, I was never picked first for teams in PE, I never sat with the popular kids at the lunch table, my clothes were a little different because my taste was a little different. I became a chubby kid, and then around the 5th grade, puberty started prematurely (another thing to set me apart), and I slimmed into a curvaceous young woman. By junior high, I tried to fit in, but I didn't really. I played the games; I hated the girl who was out that month/day/week/hour, but I was curvy, they boys treated me differently, and I wore a jacket year round to cover my body, to hide. By high school, the grunge/alternative explosion had even hit my small East Texas area, and I didn't give a damn anymore. My goals were to get good grades in high school and be involved in as many extracurriculars as possible to look good on future college applications to get my butt out of town. I had long hair the first couple of years, which I occasionally flipped. I was criticized for flipping my hair. Early in my junior year, I had my hair cut in a pixie, which was popular everywhere except G-Town (my hometown). I was accused of lesbianism by alleged friends, non-friends, and even relatives. And, to top it all off, another girl had begun flipping her hair and she received nothing but praise for how cute and trendy she looked. The lesbian rumors were aided by the fact that I did not date in school. I did not have time to waste on boys. I had priorities and goals. I had to get out, find myself, find where I belong. That's okay; I had my orange plaid flannel babydoll dress with boots and a pixie, a promising future, and I was getting the hell out of G-Town!
I started college in a small town in Louisiana. Specifically, I started Louisiana's premier school for Liberal Arts housed within another university. My freshman class was full of other kids like me. We were all a little different,but in our own ways, and we were all intelligent. We quickly bonded and respected each other for our differences and our likenesses. I found a place where I belonged. I wasn't the smartest, I wasn't the dumbest. I wasn't the quirkiest, and I wasn't the most normal. I wasn't the token nerd or geek, and nobody thought it weird that I didn't immediately get a boyfriend or have short hair. I quickly befriended a trio of other girls, and I thought life was grand. We planned to live in a suite the second semester of our freshman year because we were all best friends. We were inseparable. One was a local girl, and she introduced us to a bunch of locals, too. So, I was meeting all these great people in college, plus all these really great local people, too. I was so happy with life.
Then it happened. One of these so-called really great locals raped me on the last night of my freshman year. I spent the summer crying. I hid it really well. I returned to my parents home for the summer and got a part-time job with an answering service. No one had a clue. Nobody suspected anything was wrong. I continued to travel back to my college town over the summer, mostly so I could self medicate on drink, which I knew I could get there. Five hours there and back just to get drunk, to self-medicate. I cried all the way there and all the way back. I was so mixed up, I heard HIS words reverberate through my head. HE told me HE cared about me, that HE thought we could have something special, how much HE cared for me. I told HIM the whole time I knew HIM that I was only interested in being friends. HE reminded me of my friends older brother who had been killed in an automobile accident when I was in high school, so I thought of HIM as a replacement for my friend's dead brother, who was genuinely a nice man from a nice family. I was confused because I didn't know what happened. I did not understand what happened.
In August, my sophomore year started. I am ashamed to say I do not remember much about it. I drank myself through my sophomore year of college. I also alienated myself from most of my college friends. The trio of friends I had made, the self-proclaimed BFF's, had backfired and we had been at each others' throats, so we didn't all get along that well. It did not matter much because I was up late drinking most nights, going to bars, sneaking vodka into my dorm room and drinking it straight, hiding in my dorm room. I remember my friend moved out of the dorm; she and I had maintained (and still do) a close friendship throughout the fighting. I was supposed to move in with another girl down the hall. We went to the administration and filed the appropriate paperwork, but I didn't move. I stayed right in my room all by myself. I preferred the solitude. I slept when I wanted, which was a lot. I scheduled all my classes for 11:00 AM or later, and I missed most of my morning classes anyway. I began gaining weight because I ate and then closed myself up in my room unless I was out at the bar. I even found a bartender who would serve me even though I was under age. I was losing my grip with reality. I was also losing those friendships I made my first year of college. There was a holiday weekend, where we were all supposed to vacate the dorms. I stayed silently and just laid in bed. I went out one time to go get food. I'd been eating junk food I had in my dorm room and soft drinks. I found a bunch of other kids in the dorm, just down the hall. They invited me to hang out. I lied; I told them I would be back to hang out when I got back from getting food. I never went back. I isolated from the one group where I had finally found a sense of belonging because I had been raped.
I was at my most desperate when I began dating my husband. I was ready to give up on my education and return to G-Town and my parents' house defeated, beaten down by the atrocity of rape. He was also going through a rough time in his life. I stayed because I wanted to see where our relationship would go. I began getting more involved in having a social life, but it was full of drama because this social life involved quite a few of these locals who enjoyed the drama. After we decided to get married, I spent most of my weekends returning to my parents' house to plan the wedding. I missed a lot of weekends. One weekend, an alleged friend raped a high school girl visiting her college friend at an after-party at a friend's house. My now husband was a witness. The local group quickly split into two factions: one, the "oh, so-and-so couldn't possibly do that" faction, and two, the "that asshole raped a little girl" faction. The circumstances were similar to my rape; she was drunk and passed out, he took what he wanted. That was the point I finally understood I had been raped. I had a name for what happened. I could name it, say it, but I still felt dirty and ashamed. I finally told a couple of close friends and my husband (before we married). We don't have much to do with the first faction...
So now, I've come to terms with being a square peg and a rape survivor. I know I don't fit in. Additionally, I have a secret I keep from most people. I don't wear a t-shirt announcing "HEY! I WAS RAPED!" I tell people I feel comfortable telling, and the rest don't need to know. It's almost like I have my natural tendency to not fit in with the norm plus an additional reason not to fit in, if that makes sense. I can remember sitting in groups of 4 women, praying let the 1 in 4 be me, not even aware of the conversation. I still do it occasionally, send up a prayer, let me be the token rape survivor in this group... I survived. There isn't much I can do about being a misfit, except find people who love me for my quirky sense of humor, my wit, my sarcasm, my sense of style, my morals and ethics... I have clear lines drawn where women's rights and safety are concerned, and I don't play with that. There is no room for play when it comes to women's rights and safety issues are concerned. One more rape is one too many. One battered woman is one too many. Sometimes, in retrospect, I feel ashamed that I allowed the rape trauma to isolate myself from an ideal situation for someone like me. Now that I'm in a work environment that I rather enjoy, I am so far removed from the normal that I'm an outlier, to go back to my stats terms. I cannot go into further detail, but I am definitely an outlier! However, I have learned, after long struggles with self-esteem, rape trauma, a verbally, emotionally abusive alcoholic father, to love myself, including what sets me apart, what makes me different, what makes me stand out from the crowd. If you have any reason to feel different, whether it is your natural personality, or if you have experienced trauma, learn to love what sets you apart from the crowd too.
