Sexual Abuse Survivors Support Community

I understand you're thrown by all of this. It's possible you're reading more into it all than it deserves, though.

Rape fantasies and dreams are not unusual for anyone, including those who have been abused and/or raped. Nor is it unusual to respond. (This used to be VERY disturbing to me as well until I found out it's not unusual at all.)

Perhaps others here will have some thoughts to share as well.

P, who is the lovely young woman with wind through her hair in the picture you're using?

that is TCOS circa 1981 x-country season probably late September which would make me 15 almost 16.

I wrote about it a while ago, might have posted on the SI board.

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(re-post)


It was 1981, I was 15 years old and a sophmore in highschool. Cross country season was in full swing. I was where I always was during school. Hidden under a baggy T-shirt and sweat shirt. Trying to be invisable and get through the day unnoticed and unharrassed by my classmates. I was an island unto my self. No one knew me or liked me. I was not a nice person and people didn't mess with me. I was a tormented soul, lost and adrift in life with out even a life perserver to hold my head above water.


I was in art class, pencil poised over the stark white paper preparing to unleash the creative beast with me when he came into the class room.


I have forgotten his name. He was a teacher who dabbled in photography and worked with the yearbook staff.


He spoke to the art teacher and then came my way.


I didn't look up.


He stopped next to me leaned in resting his weight on the edge of the table with his palm. He said softly, "this one is just too revealing to go into the yearbook"

He slid a sealed envelope under the corner of my sketch pad and left.


My inner core chilled and the cold beads of adrenaline trickled with a sickly ooze within me.


I shot murderous glances at those around me and tucked the envelope into my lap.


I knew he had recently shot a cross country meet at the local park. I knew our uniforms were, as the team called them, "invisable white" All I could think was great! a semi nudy picture of myself, grrrrr. Just what all teenage freaks what given to them.


I open it expecting the worse.


What I found shocked me. I found a picture that has become the single best portrait of me ever snapped. It indeed was revealing. It revealed me all the way down to the depth of my soul.


There flying above the grass was a beautiful young woman, poised confident, strong, healthy and free. None of what I felt at that time (at any time?).


I recall the second that shot was taken. I was on the stretch of the course that ran parallel to the Rouge River. I didn't wear my glasses while running, fuzzing the world to an unfocused state. I was relaxed and in my own world, I ran with my eyes down watching the ground three feet infront of me, I never looked up. I wan't thinking about the race. I ran simply to ...run.

It was a time that I could be alone with my thoughts. Where I could be transported to a blurry quiet place that filled me with peace. Where my only focus on the planet was to put one foot infront of the other.


My serenity was interupted by my intruder alarm going off and I glanced up just as he snapped the shot.


He caught in a single frame of film the illusive "Paja". Only slightly more difficult to capture then bigfoot. Most photos of me I'm guarded and walled off. Not this one. That is me...all of me, unposed, unguarded and exsposed.


A rare glimps of an unveiled me.

You/she is magnificent.

not anymore...i'm an old fat woman now. Youth is so wasted on the young.

********************** trigger ******************** trigger below *******************************************************************

The madness was so tangable around me that no one of the male species every messed with me, ever gave me a second look or talked to me. My sickness ooozed from me and boys didn't talk to me. (neither did the girls either for that matter, hehe) I was able to make it clear that I wanted nothing to do with mankind.

looking back now with adult eyes its painful. how could everyone not see me.

The picture that teacher did use for the year book is from the same photo shoot taken on the next lap, and you wouldn't think its of the same person. I am gone in the other photo, just Duty, Brubaker and ____ are there. My eyes are down and I am ignoring him. I am great full he choose not to publish this photo. I would have freaked.

No I can look at it and go wow, what a wasted life, wow what waste that only my blood kin found me attractive enough to (delete).

When I was in therapy there was a pivotal moment that really rocked the parts of me and changed the direction and focus of our work.

I told RA "I injure to make myself ugly, I will keep injuring until I am so ugly no one will want to (delete) me!"

He waited till the fire left my eyes and he cautiously said "then some part of you must think you are attractive."

He turned over that rock in my head and illustrated a battle that has been raging all my life. To be fully comfortable with self, I must love her and see her for who she is/was.

If I own the beauty then the abuse is my fault. If the Beauty belongs/ed to Maryqueen then I can keep living without that pressure.

(ha, just glanced up and saw I capitalized "beauty"....that is still even to this day a "alter" vs a part of me.)

I can be pretty for my husband. Its challenging to help my daughters grown and have a healthy respect for there images when I literally had no image for years on end.

I choose to add that as my avatar to keep me honest, and real. THAT is who I want DD to be. When I reach into DD and write that is who is writing. Plus it keeps me accountable and might keep the boys from posting as she is "staring at them" LOL.

Hey, I have my own share of pictures when I was young and lithe and beautiful.

I have gained a good 80 or so pounds with the meds and bad eating habits. Throw in a bad ankle (the one I shattered several years ago and now have two pins, a plate, and wire mesh in) and I can't exercise or even walk like I used to, and it's a recipe for me looking bloated, fat, and ugly. I saw pictures of myself this Christmas and I was HORRIFIED. I look TERRIBLE. I need to lose this weight.

My goal is to lose about 50 lbs this year. It equals one pound a week, and I think that's reasonable. I just have to do it.

bravegirlsclub.com has an online Body Restoration class that sounds lovely.... it is about transforming those hateful voices in your head about how your body looks. It's not an eating plan or exercise plan though I can see how it would certainly complement one and change your long term approach to what you put in your body.

I would like to do it one day when I am able to... I find myself bingeing on chocolate and I do it when I am most stressed... I'm talking several pounds of chocolate at a time! It's good chocolate, but still ... that's pretty excessive. I think my muscle spasms are so bad that I haven't gained too much weight - takes a lot of calories to keep such big muscle groups so tight - but it is still a hateful way to live.

I also read a book called Women, Food, and God... how your approach to eating (regardless of your size - regardless of whether there is any outward evidence of your struggle with food) is a microcosm of how you view yourself, your life, and ultimately your view of God or the universe. I thought that was supremely interesting and very revealing. I eat while distracted (reading) or I eat in a hurry and leave, because I am terrified of being still.