By Warrior1
I walked out of the police station feeling 6ft high. I couldn’t believe I had finally done it.
My advocate and I went for celebratory tea and cake. And when I was ready, I went home. That journey home I must have stopped 3 times so I could pull over and text the SOIT officer with details I had remembered. The high was soon replaced with a low. I felt terror. Pure terror. I now know this is an emotional flashback (who knew?). She advised me to keep a diary, to write down how I am feeling, and anything else I remembered.
Once I had reported it, it was like taking the lid off the box and it all came tumbling out. The old feelings, flashbacks, I felt like I was falling apart. Like a wound that had scabbed over and i’d ripped the scab off. Someone at Rassac said to me,”a wound can’t fully heal until you get all the puss out”. It’s a horrible analogy, but true. Sometimes you have to fall apart to put yourself back together.
I just wanted them to get on with it, to find him. I wanted them to start interviewing people, family, friends. Much of this wouldn’t happen until they found him. The wait was unbearable. It was all I thought of every second of every hour of every day. The police began to interview my Mum, and my sisters.
I had always remembered things that he did, that included my sister. When I broached this with her she would say “what happened to me, isn’t as bad as what happened to you” and I would reply, “it isn’t a competition, it shouldn’t have happened to both of us”. I think this is how she dealt with it. I was a victim. She couldn’t comprehend that she was one too.
Warrior Women 