In the months leading up to my trip to New Jersey for what I expected to be the trial, I was not okay. In December I had to go over my rapist’s summary judgment motion’s statement of “undisputed” facts point by point and identify exactly where in the evidence many or even most of these “facts” were, in fact, disputed. I never really bounced back from that. And in anticipation of the trial, I really ceased functioning. I had to take leave from work. My only goal was to make it through.

I returned to work basically as soon as I got home from New Jersey, although I was faced with a huge backlog of transcripts that I’ve never in my career had. Because I hadn’t been working, a lot built up. So I was trying to catch up and also wanting to go back to being a helpful member of my team, who had shown me more support than I could have ever imagined.

The truth was, and is, though, working in court and dealing with trauma that includes so much court related stuff was and is hard, to put it simply. Things that weren’t triggering before – simple things – are triggering. In the aftermath of what I’ve been through, my heart no longer believes in justice at all, and exposure to the system feels like it’s draining the life out of me. I used love my career. I loved my job. I love my team. It is breaking my heart feeling this way. On top of that, as I’ve continued to struggle, I’ve continued to fail to meet deadlines and for a while I failed to work fast enough to even shrink my backlog at all.

In ways, the lawsuit ending allowed me to finally feel a lot of things I had to suspend to survive. In other ways, the end of the lawsuit itself left me with wounds I did not expect that I am struggling to accept. And I’ve never stopped suffering from the trauma my abuser inflicted on me, which has new ways of hurting me still. I am flooded with too many unbearable feelings.

After my therapy file was given to my rapist, I didn’t know if I would ever be able to see therapy as a safe place ever again. But as I saw my life still unraveling despite the lawsuit finally ending, I recognized I needed help, and I felt a fire in me that refused to let my rapist and the ripple effects of his abuse take any more from me than it already did. So I made a therapy appointment. And I’m so glad I did.

I’ve been seeing my therapist for a few months now, and right away it felt like a good match and has continued to. Therapy has helped a lot. It helped me start to get back on track with work. Helped me accept that I simply need to set goals for myself that objectively aren’t good enough, because the truth has been that I cannot just catch up from the deep hole I’m in. Accepting that all I can do is what I can do helped me make more progress and feel a little less like I’m completely failing, and the more progress I’ve made, the less I actually am failing. As I write this, I’m really close to being back to a backlog that is manageable and physically possible to complete on time. I am working more efficiently. I am regaining some confidence.

My therapist and I discussed me doing an intensive outpatient program for trauma. I felt, and feel, so much guilt about taking more time off of work, but being honest with myself, I’m not really contributing in a very meaningful way anyway. This came about because my therapist asked me what I thought it would look like in the aftermath of the lawsuit, and I said I expected to be more broken and have more time to heal. I expected that I would have to have more time because I wouldn’t be able to bounce back to any level of functioning as quickly as I did. I realized that level of functioning in many ways was a lie. That in fact, I do need more time to heal. To actually heal. Not just go back to faking it, and in this case not even faking it well.

And that leads me to now. I started a trauma program last week. It’s a holistic program, which combines traditional therapy with somatic healing. The program is run through a university’s trauma research department. The program itself has been offered for a few years and is the culmination of a decade of research into trauma and human resilience. Most of the offerings are one on one, and the program itself is completely personalized. How often and what services I attend are decisions I and the team of practitioners make together. The team is constantly communicating with each other, so everyone is on the same page. I’m treating it more like an IOP for now, and I will be able to taper off and do services less frequently, letting the healing and lessons sink in, be reinforced, and continue.

When I first heard about the program, the idea resonated deeply, but I also wondered if it could really help me. Partially because I felt so much hopelessness and partially because I wondered if it was too good to be true. But after talking to the people running the program extensively and even reading the published research papers of some of the providers, I felt a lot of optimism it was going to be exactly what I needed. One of the issues I’ve dealt with in a big way for a long time is not trusting myself. When I talked to my therapist about the program, he pointed out enthusiastically, your gut is telling you something! You can trust that!

It’s been less than two weeks, and I can’t believe how far I’ve come already. I feel rooted in hope, when literally last Monday I was clinging to trying to believe in something. After each session, I’ve been writing reflections. I’m writing them for me, and I didn’t write them intending to post them. Then I thought maybe someday I’ll share this. But I’ve decided I’m going to share them now. I make no promises I will continue doing so, but I realize I’ve shared so much of this story, and the healing I’m feeling already has been so impactful. I want to share that part, too. I want this story to include how it gets better. I have no idea if any of this will resonate, but if there’s any chance it will, I want to continue to be open and let this part be available, especially to anyone who relates, has related, or will relate to so much of the harder stuff I’ve shared. So read on to hopefully watch me heal.