i never told my parents…

I never told my parents that I was sexually assaulted. I nodded towards it once during a convoluted argument with my them about the necessity of my mental health treatment and the blame that they debatably carried for me ending up on antidepressants. I screamed something along the lines of “you didn’t do anything to me but you don’t know everything else that has happened”. My mother's momentarily comforted and artificially resigned, but venomous response was “Well, nothing would have happened if you hadn’t started [having sex] so early.”

And so, the worst thing about being assaulted by my boyfriend in high school during what I understood to be a BDSM scene was not the assault itself. It took me at least a year to even acknowledge that what had happened was, simply, not alright. I was aware of the injustice in the moment and the few days that followed, and then simply removed myself from those emotions for months after. And though I had a therapist during that time, I did not tell her until much, much later. The worst part was that the people that I spoke to during those first few days, the people I desperately needed to support me, did not stand by me. It was chilling.
Upon reflection I still attempt to explain their apathy away:
When I first told my friends what happened, I presented the situation as a complicated one. I asked them if they thought I simply did not communicate enough, and because of that, if it was my fault that my boundaries were violated. I didn’t really want to acknowledge that what had happened was wrong, so I posed questions that may have led people to offer reassurance rather than support.
I tell myself that the friendships that I thought were important and valuable were once sided. The people around me that I loved simply did not care about me and it made sense that they were unwilling to be uncomfortable around someone who was more talented, extroverted, and funny than me. I was not worth sacrificing their ease of interaction with this boy. The cost of excluding this person from their lives was not worth the price of including me in theirs.
I postulate that maybe the environments they grew up in led them to see any kind of deviancy as inherently deserving of punishment. Maybe my clothing and behavior was part of a narrative they understood as being a natural precursor to being assaulted. That argument seems so incredibly dense now, but five years ago it probably held more water.

I always feel the need to say that I know now that engaging in a dom/sub dynamic as a high school aged person was wrong. I read a lot of material online that emphasized it was not for me, but I did not understand why and I was not convinced. I think kink educators need to do more to explain that their content is exclusively for adults. It was never inaccessible, I purchased whatever I wanted from an instagram apparel store that sold toys as well, making it more difficult for my parents to notice. I do not think the shame from a scolding would have stopped me, had I been caught, it may have actually propelled me further into my interest.

This trauma stays with me in my struggle to develop meaningful friendships more so than with sexual or romantic relationships. What he did was wrong, but it was also wrong for me to engage in BDSM as a teenager. I believe I was rejected for support on the basis of that detail, and I believe it was wrong for that to be the deciding factor. Trusting that the people I hold close to my heart genuinely care about me, that they would accept me even if I made mistakes, and that they would recognize the harm being done to me even if I had made bad choices, is immensely difficult. Very recently, I saw on social media that one of the friends in high school who I first spoke to, the only one that head the whole story, spent an afternoon with the person that assaulted me. I swiped up on the post, asking her why she would do that, and she said simply, “I’m still not taking sides.”

In terms of how I have healed, I can accept my choices without excusing them, and also holding the knowledge that I was too young to really understand the consequences and outcome of my actions. I still feel the need to earn care from the people around me, but I consistently remind myself that care and support is given freely. I often offer care and support to people who others do not see as deserving, which has its own complicated set of consequences. I accept that it is not respectful or healthy to run headfirst into everyone else’s burning buildings to earn their possible support in the future. I accept that not every friendship is going to be a close one, and that the definition of closeness doesn’t require you to process everything in tandem. I try very hard to accept that impermanence in all kinds of relationships is natural and realistic, Our personal practice of relationship building does not have to function as an escalator: taking us from acquaintances to party friends to buddies to best friends, or whatever order makes sense to you. I remind myself can’t graduate into importance just by sticking around, so I’m trying to be the kind of person that I love, so that the people around me can see me clearly and decide, just as I will, how close to keep me.