I thought there would be stages of trauma like there are stages of grief. But according to the internet, there’s no uniform stages of trauma. Each website describes something a little bit different. 

I think gratitude must be one of them. And I think it must be the last one. Maybe after gratitude, you can integrate it into your life in a way that isn’t a push or a pull, it just is. 

In the beginning of dealing with a trauma, there’s sadness.
Confusion. Hurt. Pain.

Then as time passes, there’s acceptance and if you’re lucky, transformation. 

The transformation piece is especially important because it gives power back to the traumatized. It makes us feel like it happened for a greater cause and that we can leverage that greater cause for the good of all. 

I found that place several years ago.

And today, I found gratitude prompted by a writing prompt on a random website. Thanks, google. 

I’m keenly aware of how rape trauma affects intimacy. It creeps into our most intimate moments, snakes into our stream of consciousness in our most naked states. It rears its fang toothed head around every kiss, each caress until we bubble over with such intense emotion which is akin to an orgasm, just not as fun. Intense emotion that bursts at the seams of our heart strings where we want to let love in behind the cages of our protective mechanisms. 

Rape doesn’t create loneliness. It’s refusing to talk about it that does. It’s one of the most isolating experiences I’ve ever known. Sometimes when I'm lonely I still feel like the teenage girl who hid herself in the closet with her laptop googling how to get my virginity back. There’s been few people I’ve known who really know what the experience is like and even then, we don’t talk about it.

Once, a friend and I were talking about our respective experiences, he turned around and held up his hand for a high five and said “RAPE BUDDIES” - I couldn’t help but laugh. It was funny, rarely do rape survivors get the relief of dark humor and this sense of togetherness in what is often one of the most shameful things to talk about. Believe me, no one wants to talk about rape. Especially those people who have been experienced it. 

That’s why it utterly surprised me that when I saw the writing prompt, “Write a thank you letter to someone you never had the chance to” that I thought, immediately, “my rapist”. 

So if this is the last stage of trauma, let it bring relief. 
Everyone tells you that you are supposed to forgive the people who have done you wrong. I don’t forgive him. I know what happened is a product of a larger societal issue, but I still don’t forgive him. I am hoping that with this gratitude, I can reclaim the experience and shower it with love. The same that forgiveness is meant to do. May the gratitude bring me further into my power. But I don’t forgive him. And maybe I never will.


Without further adieu, I hope that it’s ok to share this with you all. If I didn’t create this space to be able to do this kind of thing, I don’t know what I did it for. 

A thank you letter to my rapist:

I didn’t know when I started this it would be a thank you letter. How can one have gratitude for a thing that has so hindered my life? My ability to trust? My ability to be seen? My ability to let love in?

At the same time, I feel that I have come to this place of gratitude. And so to you, my rapist, I thank you. I thank you for setting me on this path to finding myself. To completion. One that many never find because of this giant hole that you left within me. You woke me up to things. You woke me up to the way things are, an undercurrent that is always there simmering under the surface of every interaction, of every single thing. 

I see the color of sexual energy coursing through everyone’s veins. I see it moving in molecules in the air. I know that it exists beyond a doubt and I know it is what fuels things. Everything. 

You made me see that. It was not a gentle awakening. A kind one. A sweet one. It was one filled with confusion and self hatred and isolation. But I thank you for it. 

There’s perhaps a chance I would have found this same zest for life, passion for living & the work that I do, in the drive that I have had you not induced the kind of awakening that you did. And there’s perhaps a chance, I would not have. Wondering about that doesn’t do me much good. 

For now, I have come to this place of gratitude. This life I live which I delight in so much, full of purpose, full of fire, full of so much love that on the really hard days it keeps me going, it started because of you. So thank you. 

And also, with grace, fuck you.


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