Part 5: On being a victim of rape culture

TRIGGER WARNING: This post may be triggering to those who have been a victim of sexual assault.

LANGUAGE WARNING: There is an excessive use of profanities thought this post. 


On being a victim of rape culture

Part 1: The day before
Part 2: Where am I?
Part 3: The day after

Part 4: Reporting the crime

Drunk or sober I am not to blame for being raped

I have spent most of the last six years blaming myself for being raped by a stranger. Why? Because on the day it occurred I had been drinking heavily. In fact, I was hammered. Like most Friday and Saturday nights and a few other nights during the week as well, I drank a lot.

Of course it was my fault! I gave over all my rights to protect myself when I took away the ability to control my physical actions, mental cognitions, and the ability to verbally give consent or otherwise by drinking a shitload of booze with a group of work colleagues on a Friday night. I might as well have been wearing a sandwich board over my shoulders with the words "FUCK ME FOR FREE" printed on both sides.

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!

Yes, there's a good chance that I wouldn't have been raped on 19 April 2007 if I was sober that night.

But there's an even greater chance I wouldn't have been raped that night if the man who committed the crime had any respect for women. Or the law.

Mia Freedman published an article regarding the correlation between sexual assault and alcohol a couple of days ago. It's caused a bit of a shit storm around the interwebs.

On one side of the argument is Mia, and a hell of a lot of her commenters on the post, saying that we need to teach our daughters, sisters, nieces, girlfriends to stay sober while out because if you get yourself inebriated some randy bloke might just come along and stick his dick where you don't want it.

Mia says "Some people are angry at the idea of highlighting the link between drinking and sexual assault. Some people insist that when we mention the connection, we are victim blaming."

Mia, if what you say isn't victim blaming, why have I felt so responsible for what happened to me that night?

And then there are other commentators (Clementine Ford for Daily Life and Kim Powell at the news with nipples) who are crying foul on Mia's argument, saying women have the bloody right to walk the streets at night, drunk and teetering on sky high stilettos, scantily clothed should they wish, without the fear of coming to any harm.

I think I, as a victim of drunk rape, sit somewhere in between the two arguments.

Women should be able to dress up in all their finery, go out and get a little tipsy, drunk if you like, and feel absolutely safe from harm.

But the reality is there are fucking arseholes out there that will take advantage of our drunkenness. There are fuckers out there that will see that lovely cleavage we are showing off as an invitation to sex. Some men will even buy us the drinks to get us to that state of willingness to leave with them. Hell, he could chuck in a rohy to make it a sure thing.

While I was in hospital recently, a blogger friend posted on her timeline this image. It sent me into a spiral of PTSD flashbacks and depression because it brought all the memories back to the forefront of my mind.

Image source

And there it is!

Victim blaming lies in the culture we live in that lectures women to prevent themselves from being raped but doesn't put nearly as much emphasis on teaching our men the meaning of consent and that sex without it is morally reprehensible and against the law.

My right to give consent that night was stripped away from me. By alcohol, yes. But mainly by the man who coerced me by force to his filthy apartment.

You would think waking up out of a drunken stupor while a stranger is violating you, and has been for hours while you were unconscious, is one of the worst things that could happen to a woman.

I've only realised this recently. As bad as being raped was, and I still feel the pain of it every time I sit down on my permanently damaged coccyx, the actual act wasn't the worst part.

The worst and most damaging effect of being raped, for me anyway, is the way I was treated after the assault; once I became the rape victim. 

I've written all about what happened that night in detail which you can find under the tab above titled "From Rock Bottom to Parenthood". The last post that I wrote in the series, "Reporting the crime", is not the end of the story. I've been meaning to write that final chapter for six months but haven't been able to get my head in the right space to do it. I just haven't been well enough to go there. I'm probably not well enough to write it now, but I'll take the risk and go for it anyway...

The interrogation

Even before the night I was raped my life was a slowly, yet surely, moving train wreck in the making. Heavily addicted to cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol I partied hard and I slept around all while holding down a 9-5 office job with a prestigious investment bank. I never, ever blacked out and I never went to a one night stand's house. I always brought them back to mine where I felt safer because my flatmates would be sleeping in the next rooms and could come to my aid, should I need it.

The last chapter ended with me being accompanied by two London Metropolitan WPCs and a friend through what would turn out to be a 17 hour interrogation of my story, my character and my body.

Back in April this year I wrote:

Fear returned to me then as I thought over my life and how by being there, at the police station, it could be put under scrutiny. I've watched a lot of Law & Order and countless other crime shows and I realised that my life was turning into an episode of Special Victims Unit or The Bill. If the cops ever got this guy and it went to court all my secrets would be exposed. All the lies I'd told to my family and my employer would be dragged out in court. Everyone would know about my addictions, my financial debt, my promiscuity. I had visions of my friends and work colleagues being questioned in the witness box as to my character: "Yes Your Honour, Vanessa loves to party. Oh yes, she's known to have slept with a few blokes from the office...".

At some stage in the evening the two WPCs, my friend and I were driven to a rape crisis centre in Whitechapel where I was prodded and poked by two nurses taking swabs of fluids and blood in the hope of finding some DNA evidence. I knew the exercise was superfluous because I'd showered several times since the assault two days before. This was all just routine. I knew I was being put through a series of procedures to be ticked off a standard "girl raped while drunk crime report" as we went from one examination to the next. I remember my friend pointing out to me, while they measured how tall I was and what I weighed, that I was shaking. I hadn't even realised until that moment that I was trembling. I was petrified and in shock. I still hadn't really grasped the idea that I was a victim of a crime. This was all actually happening to me and that my life had been changed forever.

It was heading well toward midnight, if memory serves, when we arrived at what I remember to be a massive police complex situated north of the Shoreditch/Hoxton area I was familiar with. As my girlfriend waited outside I was escorted into what looked like a store room. The WPC asked me to take my top off so she could photograph the bruising on my right shoulder. Photos were also taken of my face from various angles. Instructions to move this way or that were given in cold, well rehearsed lines.

I think it was not long after that the detectives arrived. A male and a female detective. The two WPCs that had been with me all day had done all the hard work now I just had to repeat everything I'd already told them to the female detective while sitting in front of a video camera. This must have been at about one or two in the morning.

I sat there like a good girl, shifting from side to side to avoid sitting directly on my damaged tailbone, and repeated the story of what had happened on the day and night of Friday 19 April 2007. I think one of the WPCs was present as well as the female detective who was asking all the questions. She went over the notes that the WPCs had taken through the day, I guess looking for holes in my story.

Exhausted does not even come close to describe how I felt in those early hours of the morning as they questioned me over and over again. I'd been interrogated for hours and I just wanted to go home. But the questions kept coming: How much exactly had I drank that day? How could I possibly drink that amount and remain standing let alone get myself where I ended up? Is it any wonder why I can't remember anything? What did the perpetrator look like? What kind of black man was he? African, West Indian, Arab? I don't know, I kept telling them. Can't we finish this another day, I asked. When I've had some sleep. No, it was better to do it while it was all still fresh in my mind.

When the WPCs finally drove my friend and me back to my flat in the early hours of Tuesday morning I felt worse than I had before I went to the cops. All those questions asked over and over. The doubt in their eyes said it all: another drunken girl got herself into more trouble than she could handle.

My friend told me that while I was being interviewed on film by the female detective, the male detective sat with her in the waiting area of the police station. He asked her all sorts of questions about my character. Did I like to sleep around? Did I have a thing for black men? Did I get drunk a lot? Had I made this sort of complaint before?

If that line of questioning isn't pointing the finger directly at me, the victim, I don't know what is.

Over the weeks that followed, the police would phone me with questions about everything I'd told them. From the description of the building where the assault occurred (taken from the drawing they'd got me to do from memory which apparently didn't match that of the building I pointed to in the drive-by of the crime scene) to my belief that my drink was spiked which was why I had no recollection of getting to where I did (the toxicology results, obtained from blood taken two days after the assault, came back negative of any stupefying substances).

Learning that my blood was clean was devastating. Even though I knew the chances were slim given the time between the crime and when I was tested, I wanted so much for them to find rohypnol or some sort of date rape drug in my blood to give me a reprieve from the responsibility of the destruction of my life.

Appointments with a counsellor at the rape crisis centre were made and on the second occasion I went the social worker told me outright:

"The police would hate me telling you this but do not go through with the complaint. If they do actually find the man who did this to you his lawyers will do everything they can to undermine your character. From talking to your friends and family, to getting information from your colleagues and employers. Your entire life will be dragged before the courts. They will find a way to say you asked for it."

I don't know why this warning from the social worker shocked me, but it did. I had convinced myself that my previous concerns that my private life would be made public was just paranoia. An overreaction from watching too many cop shows on the telly. But when the social worker confirmed my fears I realised that we, as a so called civilised Western society, had not progressed past the bad old days of victim blaming.

To protect myself, I had to protect the rapist.

I didn't even tell my parents back in Sydney what had happened for nearly a week because I thought they'd blame me too. I turned out to be wrong, but that was how deeply I felt responsible for what had happened to me.

I felt like gutter trash. A drug-fucked whore who deserved everything she got. I stopped seeing the counsellor and started drinking from the moment I woke up through to the moment I went to sleep, if I slept at all. I had my hair cut short so the rapist couldn't recognised me should we have the misfortune of passing each other in the street and I was constantly on the look out for him. I tried to keep up appearances by turning up to work when I could because I was so scared of losing my job.

The company I worked for sent me home to Australia for a couple of weeks so I could get some rest and see my family. As I flew back to London two weeks later I knew deep in my heart I should have stayed in Sydney. I was flying straight back into the path of self destruction. The burden of blame and disgust was so great that I wanted to die.



There are so many messages out there for women to keep a look out for baddies ready to jump on them at any given chance. Just as Clementine Ford puts it, us women are told:

Don't drink. Don't walk by yourselves at night. Don’t wear provocative clothing. Don't flirt with men you don't intend to sleep with. Don't be rude. Don’t lead men on. Don’t accept drinks from strangers. Don't sign a check you don't intend to cash. Don’t go to parties without your boyfriend. Dress like a lady. Understand that the world isn't fair. Look out for evil monsters, but don't make normal men feel like rapists by avoiding their attentions. Smile. Don't imagine for a moment that you have an equal right to take up space in public without having to endure touching, groping, objectification and jokes at your expense. The world is what it is, yo.

The message has to change from telling women to protect themselves to telling men that sex without consent is wrong. We must teach our sons, brothers, cousins, all men from all cultural backgrounds, that NO MEANS NO!

Being unconscious and therefore unable to give consent, means fucking NO!

From the time sex education begins, at home and at school, boys and girls need to have it ingrained in their psyche that non-consensual sexual activity of any type is unacceptable and is a crime.

In an ideal world women should be able to go out and get pissed and walk home alone without fear of being attacked but until we ramp up the message directed at the perpetrators and would-be perpetrators of these crimes, we still must do whatever we can to protect ourselves.


As difficult as it is for me to truly believe I am not responsible for what that man did to me back in 2007, I know deep in my heart I did not ask to be raped. An unconscious body cannot say yes or no. But when I live in a society that is constantly bombarding me with messages like one in Mia Freedman's article, it's a hard not to feel I am somewhat to blame.

I chose to have a few drinks with some colleagues after work.

     I accepted the free rounds of vodka shots that were handed out in the name of lifting office morale.

              I am the one who must have followed that stranger back to his flat...




V.

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And linking up with Maxabella Loves for

Day 6: What do I do?

Day 6, Monday: If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?

Aha! Great question Jenni, creator of #blogeverydayinmay.

Anyone who reads here frequently would know I have a few self esteem issues and I suffer a bit of anxiety. By a bit I mean a lot. If you wanted to ask me a question that could likely send prickles of anxious sweat down my back then this is the one.

What do you do?

Before child I was an executive assistant. I worked for a large financial services company. I had done secretarial work since I graduated high school with a couple of certificates and an ability to type 45 words per minute.

I always hated answering this question with "I work as a secretary". This came up on day 3 - what makes me uncomfortable.

I felt stupid and pathetic and unworthy. The lowest in the ranks of the office. Of course there are lower jobs that are not stupid, pathetic and unworthy. And secretaries are definitely not stupid, pathetic or unworthy. Being a secretary, being a great secretary is hard. And I was a great secretary. When I wasn't hungover.

Back to the present. What do I do?

It is interesting how often people ask that question. ".... and what do you do?". Small talk. So much of human existance is defined by what we do.

Remember my post about work and how much I don't want to go back to the office? I link back to this post all the time...

Funny, I still haven't answered the question yet, have I?

What do I do?

I never seem to stop. From around 7.30am to 1am everyday I'm doing.

But I don't have a 'job' and I'm not on anyone's payroll. But I do pay tax.

I rarely watch TV any more. I hardly ever read fiction these days. I stopped reading political commentary.

And I'm single.

So, what do I do?

I look after my four year old Noo.
On Mondays and Tuesdays I look after my 16 month old niece Mala.
I read blogs.
I write my blog.
I do social media.
I do domestic chores.
I pay my bills.
I shop.
I eat.
I drink coffee and Diet Coke.
I worry. A lot.
I go to doctor's appointments.
I wonder where my time goes.
I manage my moods and my anxiety levels.
I avoid anything that might make my anxiety levels go up.
I over analyse my neuroses.
I occassionally catch up with friends.
I question how I ever had the time to work or sleep in or read a book or follow a TV series.


What do you do?

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Part 4: On being a victim of rape culture

Warning: This post could be triggering for people who have themselves been victims of sexual assault.

On being a victim of rape culture

Part 1: The day before
Part 2: Where am I?
Part 3: The day after

Reporting the crime

As Monday morning dawned and the familiar smell of freshly baked croissants filled the air, the butter seeming to permeate my pores, I became conscious one again of the constant hum of the air conditioning units below. There was a split second before I was completely awake that I forgot what had happened. Just a few tiny moments where I was free from the horror that was my life until - BANG - it all came flooding back. This was going to be a very difficult day.

I dressed for work wondering what I was going to do about sitting down at my desk all day. My coccyx continued to throb in excruciating pain and even sitting forward, putting my weight towards the edge of the seat, was insanely painful.

The walk to work was uncomfortable. Had the person who had assaulted me found me walking home along these streets on Friday night? Is that what happened? Was I not able to get a cab out the front of the office so decided to walk home after all? Maybe I'd fallen over and that was why my coccyx screamed in agony every time I shifted my weight? The questions were never ending.

The first thing I did when I got to the office was stop by the kitchen to get a coffee. One of the young guys who'd been at work drinks Friday night was there making his breakfast. I don't remember his name now. I spoke to him while I waited for the coffee machine to do its thing. I can't remember word for word what I said. To quote myself now would be complete conjecture. I think I made a comment about the night, that I didn't remember much. He seemed embarrassed. I was embarrassed. I didn't know this bloke enough to question further. Now, in retrospect, I wish I'd ignored my fears and made him go over with me every frigging detail that he recalled. Someone must have seen something!

In my team's room everyone was busy either looking at Excel spreadsheets or speaking to clients on the phone. I attempted to sit at my desk wincing as I lowered myself onto my chair. The first thing I did was email the female manager I remembered talking to just before I lost all awareness of was going on. I asked her what she remembered of the night. What did I say to her out the front of our building?

While waiting for a reply I told my boss, who had become a friend over the years, that I'd hurt myself falling over and needed an alternative seating arrangement. I ordered one of those funny backless ergo chairs that you kind of kneel on.

I couldn't concentrate on work. I wanted answers! Surely someone would know something! But who to ask? I desperately wanted that manager to email me back and say that I'd said I was going to another bar. It would explain why I ended up where I was. Kind of. Maybe that would have meant that I met this person the normal way. That I wasn't stalked and attacked. That it wasn't premeditated.

Finally the email came through. She wrote that I had said to her that I was going to catch a Black Cab home and that she caught the Northern Line home. She said she was really drunk too and fell asleep on the train, waking up at the end of the line.

My heart sank. To me these words confirmed my worst fears: I had been attacked and raped. I retrospect, either way you look at it, whether I went there willingly or by force, I was raped. An unconscious woman can not consent to sex. An unconscious person cannot consent to anything! It has taken a long time for me to accept that.

Blood rushed through my ears, my vision blurred, I thought I was going to vomit all over my keyboard. I had to get the fuck out of there before I exploded. I had to tell my boss, my friend. I couldn't speak to him even though he was only sitting on the other side of the petition. I knew the only thing that would come out of my mouth if I opened it would be a scream or a sob. I didn't want anyone else in the room to know what was going on. So I emailed him: "I need to speak to you privately. Now."

He looked through the glass dividing us and could see my upset face. "Let's go for a coffee", he suggested. I got as far as through our office door. To the left was a door that led to the fire stairs and goods lift. I lurched left, quickly yanked that door open and went inside, my boss following me, and collapsed in a heap as I wailed "I've been raped".

I lost it then, fell apart in my boss's arms as what little hope I had of things getting back to normal finally disintegrated. He held me and I knew he was crying too. Pulling himself together he stood back and said I had to go to the police. I argued that they would just say it was my fault. I was drunk! What sympathy would they have for me?

My boss said no matter what happened I had to do it for me. By going to the police I would be acknowledging to myself that something had happened to me. That I was not to blame. That a crime had been committed against me.

Next my boss told me to go downstairs to one of the cafes on the ground floor. He would call the manager who I'd emailed and ask her to come and talk to us about what she remembered. It felt so good that someone was on my side! Someone was taking me seriously.

The manager sat down with us for a coffee and repeated what she remembered of those last moments of the Friday night before everyone headed home: I had categorically said to her that I was catching a cab home. She had no reason to believe I would have gone back into another bar. By that time, all the venues but the nightclub were closed anyway. I thanked them both and walked to the police station.

Not understanding that the City of London had it's own police force I went along to the only cop shop I knew. It was the Liverpool Street Police Station. I used to catch my bus home to Battersea when I lived there from the bus stop just along the way.

(Source)

The entry to the police station was unassuming and quite small. There was a police officer behind a counter and a couple of people waiting to be seen to. I had no idea what to do. I just walked up to he counter which was in earshot of the people waiting and told the office that I needed to report a crime. He asked me what crime would I like to report. "Um, I ah, yeah, I was raped", I stuttered out.

I felt about sixteen again. Scared and alone in a foreign country. I wanted my mum - anyone familiar to me - to be there with me to hold my hand.  The officer looked embarrassed, as if he didn't know what to do. Finally he ushered me in through a door on the left and along a hallway to an internal waiting area. I wasn't there long before a WPC (woman police constable) led me through what turned out to be a massive complex of rooms and offices.

It was about 10.30am by this time I think. I remember the hallway was wide and long. On the left I noticed an open door that led through to what looked like a classic London pub. Off duty police offices who must have just finished the nightshift were drinking beer. At least that's what I thought I saw. People have doubted me when I've told them that part of the story. I swear it is true. Later in the day, walking down that same corridor, I remember seeing bar snacks on the counter. Like pickled onions and cubes of cheese. Maybe I imagined it.

I was escorted up to a room that was especially designated for victims and witnesses. It was comfortable yet clinical. There was a sofa, a TV and some toys. Posters advertising crisis centres and other such services were up on the walls. I was left there while they figured out what to do with me. You see I'd come to the wrong place. The crime had been committed in Shoreditch which is in the Greater London area only a couple of kilometres away. That area came under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. As I waited in that beige room for victims and witnesses I felt a loneliness and despair that is beyond description.

Fear returned to me then as I thought over my life and how by being there, at the police station, it could be put under scrutiny. I've watched a lot of Law & Order and countless other crime shows and I realised that my life was turning into an episode of Special Victims Unit or The Bill. If the cops ever got this guy and it went to court all my secrets would be exposed. All the lies I'd told to my family and my employer would be dragged out in court. Everyone would know about my addictions, my financial debt, my promiscuity. I had visions of my friends and work colleagues being questioned in the witness box as to my character: "Yes Your Honour, Vanessa loves to party. Oh yes, she's known to have slept with a few blokes from the office...".

The wait dragged on as I frantically searched my own handbag and wallet for remnants of cocaine. It would be just my luck for the cops to find an old wrap of lotto paper with scratchings left behind. When I came up empty I scanned my mobile phone for dealer contacts and deleted every single one. Of course I was being irrational. The police weren't going to search me. Or were they?

Finally two Met WPCs came and sat with me. They had come from a large police station in the area where the assault had taken place. They asked me to tell them exactly what I remembered. I think they left again. I just remember waiting. A lot. Next thing I recall the two WPCs, who would be my escorts for the entire day, drove me to my flat. We were to collect the clothing I wore on the Friday night. I text my flatmate to warn him that I'd be home soon with a policewoman in tow.

My jeans, top, underwear and socks were all on the floor of my bedroom where I'd stripped them off just two mornings earlier. I half expected the WPC to crouch down by my dirty knickers and pick them up with the end of a pen from her pocket like I'd seen done so many times on Law & Order. Instead she donned latex gloves and bagged each item in separate brown paper bags. I wondered why on the telly the cops used plastic evidence bags. Why didn't the shows' producers ever get that detail right?

Back in the police car the three of us were to do a drive by of where I thought the assault had occurred. I can't tell you how horrific it was to return to the scene of the crime. I was so scared I'd see him on the street! That he'd see me in the back of the police vehicle cruising past the flats where he lived. I slouched down in the back not wanting to be seen. That rush of adrenalin, as the urge to run overtook me, whooshed through my senses and I couldn't focus any more. I had to get out of there. I think I pointed at the building and we left.

(Out of morbid curiosity and/or to challenge myself I looked up the place on Google Maps just two days ago. I really didn't think I'd find it but I did. The building is just how I remember it. Those streets I walked along they are still there just as I recalled.)

Back at Liverpool Street I was returned to the room for victims and witnesses. I waited some more. In that time a friend called. She didn't know what had happened and when I explained the story to her she said she'd come to me immediately. It was around three or four in the afternoon by then. This friend of mine, who I'll be forever grateful for, left work early to come and be with me.

I've just done the numbers in my head again. If I arrived at the police station at around 10am by the time my friend turned up at 4pm I'd been with the police for six hours. We didn't make it back to my flat until three the next morning so there is 11 more hours of this story to tell you. For both our sakes I'll save it for the next post in this series.

Thank you once again for reading and for your supportive comments.


V.

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Part 3: On being a victim of rape culture

Warning: This post could be triggering for people who have themselves been victims of sexual assault.

On being a victim of rape culture

Part 1: The day before
Part 2: Where am I?

The day after

Grief and shock overwhelmed me. Pain, both physical and emotional threatened to completely engulf me but I tried to hold onto some hope. Maybe what had happened was something I had wanted, it was just a bad, stupid, drunken one night stand. I couldn't sit down because of the pain in my coccyx. I looked in the mirror at my naked body and saw that I was bruised all over my left shoulder and on my forehead and I knew these injuries did not happen willingly.

Questions kept ringing in my head:

What happened to me last night?

Why can't I remember anything?

Why was someone having sex with me when I was out cold?

How long was he taking advantage of me before I came to?

What exactly did they do to me?

Why was my coccyx so damaged?

How did I bruise my forehead and left shoulder?

At what point in the night did he meet me? In the forecourt of my office building or somewhere on the way home between the office and my flat?

Had I been complicit or did I struggle, causing the bruising and coccyx pain?

I rang the girl who I had started the evening with. I didn't really know her at all, she had not worked in our office for long. I can't even remember her name now or what she looked like. I felt awkward talking to her on the phone. I can't remember the conversation very well which is weird but I remember the feeling it gave me. She didn't want to know about it. I felt I was making her uncomfortable when I told her that I didn't remember anything from about 10.30-11pm when we were all leaving to go home. I told her something bad had happened to me. I think I asked her if she'd seen me talking to any strangers. I didn't get any worthwhile answers from her and the conversation was over quickly.

For some reason I couldn't stand the thought of sleeping in my own room. I set myself up on one of the three large sofas in our lounge room. With my pillows, doona and the TV going, I had to lay on my side because of my coccyx that burned in agony. My flatmates offered to go to Boots the Chemist to get the morning after pill which you can buy over the counter without a prescription in the UK. I took a stack of Tylenol PM which I'd bought from the States. It was an over the counter painkiller with a sleep aid in it. I just wanted to sleep and wake up with this nightmare over.

In my head I tallied up the amount that I'd drunk the day before: 1 third of a bottle of white wine with lunch, 2 bottles of beer between 4.30-5pm, 1 whole bottle of white between the two bars, 2 vodka shots. Quite a lot but I doubted enough to make me not remember anything. I never black out. Ever.

It got me thinking: Maybe my drink had been spiked. The use of date rape drugs in the UK is a significant problem. In this article I just found from early April 2007 on the Guardian newspaper website the author states that date rape drugs are used in one in three sexual assaults in the UK. Maybe that's why I couldn't remember anything from 10.30pm through to 3.30am: someone had put something in my glass. Remember we had been sitting/standing at two tables near the entrance to the bar. It could have happened when I went to the toilet. Or when I went outside to call my dealer.

But who would have spiked my drink? My first thought was that I'd got into a minicab out of the front of my building and the man whose flat I ended up in was the driver. A version of this is still one of my theories.

Minicabs in London are 'private hire taxis'. They have to be pre-booked and are not to be flagged down in the street unlike a Black Cab. But they are always found touting their service out the front of pubs and clubs on busy nights looking for fares. Minicabs are not put under the same level of scrutiny as Black Cabs. Anyone with a car with a satellite navigation unit can look like a minicab driver.

The message is everywhere not to get into minicabs off the street. I just found this latest advice from Transport for London. It basically says do not get into a minicab unless you have booked it through the minicab office yourself. I remember adverts on the back of toilet cubicle doors in clubs with statistics about unlicensed minicabs and rates of sexual assaults against women.

Pretty much everyone I knew got in them despite the warnings. You come out of a nightclub in the small hours of the morning and all you want to do is get home. The drivers mill about at the exit to venues and call “taxi, taxi, taxi!” trying to get your business. You then negotiate your price home. It’s a flat rate, not on a metre like a black cab. If you've only got twenty quid left in your pocket who’s to debate it when the driver offers to take you across London for that price?

The not knowing what happened was driving me insane. I had to know! A very vague image came to my mind. One of me struggling. Of putting my arms up and pushing someone away. The memory is so hazy that I don't know where I am but I think it is dark and that maybe I'm outside. Maybe I'm on the ground and I'm trying to get away. I don't know. I've thought over that tiny shred of information for six years. Has it changed in that time? The mind plays tricks.

From Saturday morning through Monday I laid on the couch popping painkillers, smoking cigarette after cigarette and drank beer. I wouldn't sleep in my room. I kept the TV on for distraction. I did everything I could to avoid processing the events of Friday night but the image of his face kept popping into my head no matter what I did to try and block it out.

I don't know why I didn't just go straight to the police. I guess I felt like it was my fault. I asked for this. I got drunk and went home with some guy, passed out and he fucked me. It was my fault. I was so drunk I must have deserved it. My luck had finally run out. No longer could I brag about living dangerously without a cost.

I felt lucky I hadn't paid the ultimate price for my stupidity and irresponsibility: my life. The shame that crept over me was all consuming. What would they say at work? Did my colleagues see me with this person? What would they think of me when I asked them on Monday morning to help fill in the gaps of Friday night?

My reputation at work was already pretty bad. I often came to work hungover. I had got pretty good at hiding it but sometimes I would come to work on a Friday morning still drunk from the night before. The year round sniffle was speculated to be cocaine addiction which was of course true. And to top it off I had slept with a couple of men from our office after drunken work functions. I might as well have had "Drug Fucked Slut" tattooed across my forehead. I knew that's what they all thought of me. My work colleagues would think I'd finally got my comeuppance.

And that's exactly what I felt like: Scum of the earth who'd got what she deserved.

So began the victim blaming.

And I blamed myself for everything.




V.

Linking up with the #IBOT crew at Essentially Jess.

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Part 1: On being a victim of rape culture

Warning: This post could be triggering for people who have themselves been victims of sexual assault.

I've been avoiding writing this post. I know it is going to be long and it is going to be painful. It is going to hurt to dredge up the memories. It might free me or it might bring back my post traumatic stress disorder flashbacks. I don't know. I just feel I should write about it and tell my story of being a victim of rape culture.

The recent case in Steubenville, Ohio, in the United States has brought it all back to me. I've read article after article about the appalling crime that happened against an innocent 16 year old girl. I've also read about the disgusting backlash against that young women. The victim blaming she has suffered because she was drunk and passed out at the time two men raped her while her peers looked on and did nothing has been reprehensible.

It is six years this month since the night I was raped. 

Me in a pub in Shoreditch four months earlier

This is the story:

  

It was Friday 19 April 2007. The day had started like any Friday. I woke up hungover and tired and in a bad mood. I was living in Shoreditch in East London in a three bedroom flat that was inconveniently located above a bakery. You might think it would be lovely to wake up to the smell of freshly baked croissants but I can assure you, it is not. Hot, humid and buttery the air made me feel a constant hum of nausea just below the surface of my skin. Probably because I was hungover most of the time.

That day it was cool, but not as cold as it can be mid April in London. I dressed in my favourite blue Lucky Jeans jeans, a black knit sleeveless cowl necked top, black velvet blazer from Gap and my cherry red Doc Marten ankle boots and headed off to work.

My office was about 20 minutes walk from the flat. The not so fresh London air woke me up as I pounded the back streets to get to the centre of the Square Mile in time for work. I had that usual Friday morning feeling: Gagging for the end of the working week so I could party all weekend.

Lunchtime came around and a couple of the girls from other departments asked if I wanted to go for lunch. We went to a restaurant not far from the office. It was Italian if my memory serves me. We shared a bottle of white wine between us. I remember we talked about our party lifestyles. The other girls both had boyfriends but they still liked to go out and drink with their mates. I remember gloating about the risky, outrageous life of sex, drugs and music I led. About how trashed I could get on the weekend without anything really bad happening to me.

In those days I was proud of my ability to consume vast amounts of alcohol, cocaine and ecstasy. Either alone or, usually, together. I thought the double life of corporate slave by day, drug loving rock chick by night was so incredibly cool. But the reality was that during the day I hated myself. At night the drugs and the booze set me free from that hate. 

To stop the self loathing I was drinking earlier in the day, every day. On the weekends I often woke up (if I slept at all) and began drinking not too long after. My hangovers stopped seeming so bad because they just kind of felt normal. I bruised easily and always had the shakes. My nose ran constantly and the excuse of year long hayfever was starting to wear thin. 

We returned to the office late from lunch and as the buzz from the wine started to fade I felt agitated and annoyed that I wasn't tipsy any more. By 4.30pm our trusty Friday arvo drinks trolley made its rattly way around the office floor. Drinking a couple of beers in quick succession took the edge off but just upped my desire for more.

My flatmate had text me to say he was making a roast lamb dinner and did I want to share it with him and his girlfriend who was practically living with us now. This really annoyed me. Why the fuck would I want to spend Friday night home with a couple? As if on cue, one of the girls I'd had lunch with emailed and said she was going for a drink in one of the bars on the ground floor of our building, did I want to join her? Yes, bloody oath I did.

We shared another bottle of white wine. If you've started to total up the amount of grog I'd had that night you're probably thinking I should be pretty wasted by now, at least a little tipsy. But as I said earlier, I was used to drinking one or two bottles of wine a night during the week so a couple of beers and half a bottle of wine (not to mention what we'd drunk at lunch) was really not a lot for me.

We discovered there was a group of people from our office drinking in the bar next door so we went there hoping to score some freebies. The corporate credit card was over the bar and the drinks were flowing thick, fast and without cost to me. My friend and I shared another bottle of wine. By this stage I was definitely on my way. That familiar edginess started to overcome me and I went outside to call my dealer. Alcohol just made me want coke and vice versa. There was no answer so I went back into the bar.

All my work colleagues were as pissed as girls on a hens night while a couple of trays of vodka shots were passed around the group. I pretty much always stuck to beer, wine or cider in those days but not to be outdone, or to miss out on free grog, I joined in and downed a couple. Things started to get hazy then.

There must have been at least six people from our office there. They weren't from my department so I didn't know them well but that didn't matter. We were all pissed and having a laugh. We milled around two high circular tables near the entrance to the bar which was pretty busy being a Friday night.

There were four bars in our building, one of them being a nightclub. When it was near last drinks at the bar we had been drinking in a couple of people suggested going to the nightclub for a dance.

I vaguely remember going down the stairs to check out the club and then coming back up the stairs. I remember the girl I had originally gone out with had gone back up to the office to get her bags before heading home. I remember standing in the forecourt of the building with a manager who had been drinking with us and we talked about how we were each going to get home. She was getting the Northern Line to go home to South London. I was going to get a cab because I didn't like walking the backstreets late at night. It must have been around 10.30ish.

I have no recollection of what happened in the five hours that follow.

Over the last six years huge amounts of my mental energy have gone into trying to piece together what happened to me in those five hours.

Right now I am overwhelmed by emotion just writing this. My breathing has become shallow. Noo is in his bed behind me so I'm trying not to dip too deep into this chasm of fear lest I start crying.

I've often wondered why I need to know. Isn't it better that I don't know? That I wasn't conscious?

Thank fuck there were no smart phones, no Twitter or Instagram to have recorded it. Facebook was so new that only a few of my friends had started using it. Not like the 16 year old Steubenville victim who had her photo taken as she was carried by her hands and feet by two animals who managed to gain the sympathy of the mainstream media because their lives were going to be ruined by the evidence they spread around the world via social media.

I feel weird right now. I'm just typing for typing sake. What comes next? What does come next in this story of the night that changed my life forever?

V.

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GIVEAWAY: Microsoft Office 365

SPONSORED POST

Before I was a mum, or a blogger, or even a party girl, I was an office worker. A secretary. Seems so long ago now but working in the corporate world, sitting in front of a computer all day, was a huge part of my life. It was a love/hate relationship. One of the aspects I loved was using a computer. And I was (and still am) a big fan of Microsoft Office.

Now I'm not just saying this because I'm about to pitch to you a sponsored post about the latest Microsoft Office 365. I am telling you the truth. I love it.

I was crap at academic subjects at school but then in year 10 I got to choose 'computing' as an elective. We learnt the programing language Quick Basic and I actually enjoyed it. In year 11 we moved to Melbourne. I chose a school that had a huge focus on information technology. Now you might say, so what? But this was back in 1991 and "IT" subjects were all pretty new to the school curriculum.

I did Information Processing and Management, Information Technology in Society and Document Production. In the latter we learnt DOS based programs WordPerfect 5.1 which was a word processing application and Lotus 1-2-3 which was for spreadsheets. In the first two subjects we learnt Microsoft Works which was the precursor software to Microsoft Office and ran on Windows. Compared to the DOS programs this WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) operating system was AMAZING to my little 16 year old self. Right from the beginning I was hooked and I aced all three subjects.

In 1993 I started working in an office that only had that old fashioned blue screen of WordPerfect 5.1. Next I moved on to a job with Windows running Word 2.0 and in that same year we upgraded to Word 6.0. I can't tell you how exciting it was to get the latest version! All the new features: Autocorrect! Wingdings, autoformat, that red squiggly line under misspelled words that we now take for granted. Oh, so good.

This is the only photo of me that I could find from when I started working.
The year was 1993 or 94 and you can see I was really excited about something. Not.

With each new version more features were added (Wordart! Different bullet shapes!) to what started out to be a very basic program. Fast forward, ahem, 20 years and now we have Microsoft Office 365. Oh, how far we have come.

It has been five years since I have worked in an office but I still love using Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook for my everyday life as a mum and a blogger and soon to be Virtual Assistant:

• I type my blog posts, university assignments, letters, invoices, media kit, CV in Word.
• Keep track of my budget, weight and passwords in Excel.
• Create birthday cards and blog infographics in PowerPoint. 
• My many doctor's appointments, manicures, playdates, man-dates and babysitting duties are tracked in my Outlook calendar. 
• Outlook also manages my way too numerous email accounts and blog subscriptions.

I guess you can imagine how excited I was when the Digital Parents Collective gave me a free 12 month subscription for Office 365 to play with and tell you about. Very excited.

There are many cool new features. I don't have enough time to go through them with you now but if you want to find out some of the #OMGtips from users all over the world check out this site here.

Giveaway

I have five 12 month subscriptions to Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium to giveaway. Each subscription can be used on 5 different devices around your home. How cool is that?

All you have to do is give me your best #OMGtip on how you would use Microsoft Office 365 to make your busy life a little easier. I'll get my dad, who fancies himself as a bit of an Office wizz, to judge.

The rules

• Comment below with your best #OMGtip on how Microsoft Office 365 might make your life a little easier
• Subscribe to babblingbandit.me (see form below if you haven't already)
• Like the babblingbandit.me Facebook page
• This competition is only open to Australian residents
• Competition opens Wednesday 3 April 2013 and closes midnight Wednesday 10 April 2013
• Winners will be notified by email on Thursday 11 April 2013
• Judge's decision is final

Good luck!

V.



Disclaimer: I have received a complimentary subscription to facilitate this review. Digital Parents Collective covered the administration fee to host the giveaway. As always, all opinions expressed are purely my own in accordance with my disclosure policy.

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Work: My one taboo subject unleashed

Tears are streaming down my face. I have the proverbial frog in my throat and my skin is prickling with anxiety. My chest is tight and burning while my head feels woozy and I'm having trouble focusing my eyes on the screen. I'm hungry despite having just had breakfast and I feel nauseous at the same time. I want to lay down and close my eyes and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist but my mind is going fifty to the dozen and I know I need something to focus on or this feeling could spiral out of control.

I'm letting people down again. But I can't go back there. Not now. Maybe never. I hate it.

I've been avoiding writing about my return to working in an office. This year is supposed to be all about positivity. About being happy and achieving what I want to do. This year I was to join the majority of the adult populace and start working again. But here I am on day three and I'm not at work. I'm here at my own desk. The place where I feel safest.

I've been promoting my blog on Facebook to my own friends and family. Now as I write I am cognisant of the fact that I now have an audience of people who know me in the real world. I love that but I have had to make a promise to myself that no matter who is reading my blog I wouldn't let that knowledge change my voice.

I've written about some pretty damn full on shit here over the last year or so but I don't fear anyone's judgement about my crimes of the past. I do fear, however, what people think of how I am now. Actually, the only judgement I fear is about what I do for money. I should I say what I don't do.


Whether we live to work or work to live having a job is an enormous part of any adult's life. Whether we work the 9-5 or the 7-7 or 8-3, in an office, a hotel or at a school or anywhere, we can spend more time at work than we do with our families. For many, work can be what defines us. For most of us, work is what brings in the money so we can live. What we do for a living and how much we earn determines what kind of life we can afford to live. And what we do for work can also be how other people judge us and how we can judge other people.

I started working when I was 18 years old. I didn't have a part time job through high school, not because I was lazy, but because I was too scared to. I was so terribly shy and awkward that I hated dealing with people I didn't know. I spent most of my final year of high school hiding in my room.

All through school I had no idea what I wanted to be. I liked the idea of graphic design because I loved art and I did my year 10 work experience with a graphic design firm. Other than that all I knew (and I have written evidence of this somewhere) was that I wanted to travel and then get married and have a family.

When our family had to move from Sydney to Melbourne my sister and I got to choose what school we went to. The one I picked had a 'business school' and my destiny was settled. My parents chose my subjects and I did a secretarial certificate while completing year 11 and 12 so when I finished my Victorian Certificate of Education I was qualified to work as a junior secretary.

In the first ten years of my career I moved around a lot. Working in small businesses, I had to move out to move up. I was trained very well in my first role by the senior who worked with me in a tiny office. I had loved working on computers since we got our first Mac in 1985 and I excelled at the IT subjects I studied through high school. So by the end of my first couple of years of employment I was doing pretty well.

I loved doing all the tasks that required me to use the computer but I still hated dealing with other people, especially on the phone. I stuttered and ummed and I always felt like I didn't know what I was talking about. I felt inferior and stupid and small. That feeling was replayed when I started working again last week for the first time after an absence of five years which is why I find myself here, writing about the one subject I hate to talk about.

Socially I was still very awkward well into my 20s. At work drinks I always drank too much in an effort to overcome my anxiety. I said silly things and behaved inappropriately and then woke up in the morning hungover and depressed and dying inside at the memory of the night before. There were many, many days that I woke up and just couldn't bear the thought of fronting up to work. Hungover or not, the thought of talking to people, putting on my work face and being the person I thought I had to be in order to be liked was just too difficult.

I got sick a lot. From my first job through to my last I had many an illness that would keep me away from the office for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Bronchitis, tonsillitis, ear infections, flu, migraines, repetitive strain injury, chest pain. But some days the alarm would go off and I just couldn't get out of bed. I just couldn't get on the rollercoaster of life and face the world.

I'd call in sick and huddle under my doona wishing there was a better way. In retrospect, after all the therapy I've done over the last five years, I was suffering depression on and off all through my working life. I self medicated with booze and drugs. They gave me the escape from the shy, defective person that I believed I was.

Strangely though I was actually very good at what I did. When I felt confident and happy I was brilliant at most office administration and I was an extremely fast operator. I can't tell you how many temp jobs I've worked my way out of because I've completed the project in half the budgeted time.

It only took a personality clash, or on a few occasions I was bullied, and my confidence would go crashing down and I'd be sick again and unable to get out of bed.

In 2000 I got a job working for a large international firm. I had only just recently broken up with a man I'd lived with for yearly three years and I was hugely overweight. My new boss was a lazy narcissist who did nothing all day but delegate all his work to the team and then take all the credit for it. He got a thrill over asking people do to things. For instance, he would get me to print out every single one of his emails. Or he'd ask me to answer his phone because he couldn't be bothered to when I was sitting at my desk having lunch. Seriously. I can't remember many other details but I remember the morale in the office was extremely low. Everyone bitched all day about this guy and it became increasingly harder for me to hold it together.

By mid 2001 I was in a full blown depression which once again was untreated. I was referred to a psychiatrist who told me I had serious mental health issues that would require two sessions of therapy a week for possibly years. The sessions were $230 a go and I didn't know you could get a Medicare rebate on it so after the first couple of appointments I told the doctor I couldn't afford to come any more. Yolanda was sending me money from the UK to pay for it which just made me feel worse.

I took some time off work but when I returned it was clear the situation there wasn't going to improve. I remember yelling at that boss about something. He was pushing me and I snapped. I stormed out of that open plan office screaming and shouting in tears. Another time he was horrible I went to the toilet and refused to come out until 5pm. I stayed in there for hours.

I resigned not long after and accepted a role at the large financial services firm I ended up being employed by until 2009. My confidence had been absolutely shattered by my previous employer yet I started a job at this company that is famous for its ruthlessly hard work ethic.

All the while I loved doing PowerPoint presentations and designing leaflets and newsletters and the like and wished I pursued my high school interest in graphic design instead of secretarial work. I always went for roles that were in the marketing departments or had a desktop publishing focus because this was my area of interest.

My last role was as a research administration assistant. The first few months were excruciating because of the massive learning curve. The girl who was handing over the role to me was not leaving because she wanted to. She had built the position up in the direction that she enjoyed which was more of a junior analyst type role but the company wasn't going to pay her for that. They wanted an admin assistant. She loved spreadsheets and charts and analysing data which was an area of weakness for me. She did all she could to handover the role in a hostile manner, making it difficult for me to grasp. By the end of the first few weeks I was in tears with the manager and saying I was unqualified for the role.

Luckily, or maybe unluckily, the company stuck with me. After two years there I was doing the job really well (and fell in love with Excel - go figure!) but I had become sick and depressed again and once again didn't seek proper treatment. I did a self development course called the Landmark Forum which started me on the self development/therapy road but it wasn't enough.

The department I worked in was very male dominated. The team I worked for were young, fit and good looking men who earned huge amounts of money. They were arrogant and sexist and often spoke with one another without any acknowledgement that there was a woman in the room. They talked about their girlfriends and lovers and women in general with utter disrespect. I just sat there and did my work and listened while my blood boiled and what little self esteem I had was eroded, comment by comment.

I was drinking heavily from Friday night through Sunday night most weekends. I was promiscuous and showed myself as little respect as the men I heard talk about women all day did. Some days I was so self conscious, just walking from one end of the office to the other took every bit of strength I had. My body shook with embarrassment as I put one foot in front of the other to get from A to B.

At the time I was also sleeping with and in unrequited love with a man who I pursued relentlessly despite the fact that he treated me like shit. By the end of 2002 I was vomiting every time I had an alcoholic beverage. I didn't understand what was happening to me. The girl who could easily put away 10 schooners on a Sunday afternoon was throwing up after one drink.

I went to the doctor who ordered a whole stack of tests. The vomiting was accompanied by the most intense chest pain. A burning that started at the centre of my breasts and shot through to my back like I was being impaled by a hot poker. I had an endoscopy, ultrasounds, blood tests, breath tests, urine tests but the doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with me.

The only person who suggested I might have anxiety was my mother but I refused to believe it because I knew my head was much harder to fix than my body. I wanted so badly for them to find something, anything, that could be medicated or operated on to fix that horrible sickness.

In early 2003 I cut everyone but my family out of my life. To my family I was unbearable. I was rude and selfish and completely self obsessed. I went on a diet and I exercised. I became obsessed with every calorie I put in my mouth and when I wasn't at the gym I fantasised that I was running. Just running and burning that horrible person that was me away.

I thought if I could lose weight and be skinny then people would like me and respect me at work. After listening to those horrible conversations by my team day after day about girls being a 'moose' if they were slightly overweight or 'minging' if they weren't attractive enough I just thought if I made myself look better I'd be better.

I quit smoking and drinking and lost 12kg and got down to the lowest weight I'd been in six years. People noticed too. They said nice things to me at work. Even my family were more complimentary.  I felt more confident and started seeing my friends again. The guy I had been chasing for so long was giving me more time. And then I started to feel that need to make a change. A big change.

A position became available in our London office. One that I was extremely qualified for and I managed to convince my superiors to let me go. I could get away from the boy I'd loved for so long and I could push myself to try new things, to travel.



That's all I can write today. I want to tell you about London though. I've got to write about it. Maybe it will help me get over this fear of work I've got if I write it all down and analyse it.

I've got to find a way that I can work without having to go to an office. I've got the skills. I've got the equipment. I've just got to find the confidence.


Back soon.

V.

Sex, drugs n rock and roll anyone?

It is Monday night and I've sort of got the time now to blog. I say sort of because Noo is still awake despite the fact that it is 9pm. He is sitting on his bed, which is just behind me, playing with a noisy toy which is kind of distracting, but what can I do? Our room is divided into four areas - his 'room' (which is actually the area beneath my loft bed), my sleeping area, my desk, my built-in wardrobe - all cleverly furnished with a lot of Ikea furniture for maximum storage space.

We've both had great days: Noo at daycare, after a week off; and me hanging out with my sister and niece, as I do every Monday.

There's so much I could tell you about. (FYI, Noo has just fallen asleep. Yay.) Thinking about blogging content has become a constant source of internal commentary since the lead up to Blogopolis. It's similar to when I first got into Facebook in late 2006/early 07. My brain was constantly thinking in terms of 'Vanessa is...'. Such as 'Vanessa is having a cup of tea', 'Vanessa is washing her face', 'Vanessa is having a crap day'. Annoying!

I've found my mind has been casting back over the last five years for content. There's so much sex, drugs and rock n roll I could write about but I want to make sure I get it out right. So much that has happened to me just doesn't seem real. I think by putting it in my blog and getting it out there might help me come to terms with it and allow me to move on. Some of it is really trashy and some of it is just plain horrible.

Until recently The Babbling Bandit was all about my experience with my lap-band. On occasion I wrote about my past, but I haven't elaborated too much. The fear I have with giving away too much of my private life is how it might impact on my ability to get a job in the future. I know it is par for the course these days for employers to Google potential employees. Would an employer read this and think "no way, I am not employing this crazy lunatic"? Or would they not even find it at all? I am constantly asking myself this question.

What goes on behind those eyes?

My last post also got me thinking about dating again. Whenever I let myself think too much about being lonely, I think for godsakes woman, do something about it.

What would a potential partner think if they read this blog? Run a mile I would expect. And how do I meet people anyway? I don't work and I don't go out, except with Noo or other members of my family, or occasionally to catch up with friends. Teetotal single mums do not get invited out often. 

Plus dating sucks. I've just been reminded by how much too, by reading back on my blog. Check out here and here. Sounds like a fucking nightmare! I really do not want to get back into internet dating, no matter how lonely I am. I don't want to have to justify my life to anyone. I don't know how to sell this package: overweight, unemployed, single mum with excess baggage on offer to the highest bidder... sounds great... not!

Anyway, I'm not going to post this tonight. I'm over thinking my words. I think I write better when I just let the words fall on the keys. I keep writing about writing. It is annoying. It is like a stream of consciousness brain fart. I've lost my voice again. I'm just typing to get a flow on but it is not happening.

Oh, bugger it, I will post. Get something out there. I'll just chuck a little picture in and out it goes.

V.

Let's get positive

Thank you everyone for your comments. This band stuff is so overwhelming sometimes and it is great to know that you guys are there reading. I'm sorry I haven't been over to your blogs for a while. I will get there as soon as my assignments have been handed in.


I suppose I should acknowledge my anonymous reader... I'm pretty sure I know who you are. Thanks for your kind words. I don't know how comfortable I am having my old world collide with my new one, but that is the nature of the internet. I am acutely aware that whatever I post on here is free for all to read and I guess that is part of the appeal, but it also poses as a potentially dangerous risk. I don't think the danger is with my past, but my future is where my fear lies. 


That's all I'm going to say on that.


****


After weeks of letting this bad feeling build up I finally let it all go yesterday. I had my appointment with the surgeon in the morning and it turns out that my band is in the right place and all is how it is suppose to be, except for my hunger, which he said I have to determine is real hunger or just head hunger. Fuck head hunger! I don't want any hunger. The doc gave me a slight fill, adding just 2/3 of the .1ml that was taken out last time but I wish I could supplement my band with an appetite suppressant that 1. worked; 2. was not addictive; and 3. was legal. All the ones I know of that meet requirement 1. definitely don't comply with requirement 2. or 3. and the ones that do comply with 2. and 3. definitely don't meet requirement 1. Get it?


So, yeah, yesterday I let it all go. On the phone to mum, as usual. Poor love. Burst my eyes out crying "I'm lonely, I'm fat, I'm over it, I'm hungry, I'm tired, I need help." Poor me. I cried for about an hour and then said fuck it to the uni work and made a cup of tea and sat in front of an episode of Big Love with a whole packet of Arnott's Venetian biscuits. I ate 12 biscuits one after the other. First binge in well over six months. About 700 calories worth in half an hour. 


After I felt relieved. It was out of my system. After the show I picked myself off the couch and went and picked up my boy from day care. It always bring a smile to my face to see those gorgeous blue eyes look up at me like I'm the most wonderful person in the world. And to him, I am!


So, positive thinking. Here are some good things things that have happened in recent weeks that I have not focused enough on:


1. My son is the most gorgeous little boy in the world, who loves me no matter what.


2. I got a Distinction for my very first uni assignment and a high Credit for my very first uni essay. Currently a Distinction overall for the subject.


3. I have lost 52% of my excess bodyweight since getting the lap-band on 6 September last year.


4. My BMI has dropped 4.4 points in six months and I am no longer in the obese category.


5. I bought a size 14 top last week in the 'normal' section at Myer. Actually in the 'youth' section. 


6. I started working. Wow. Just one day a week but I'm actually working in an office doing stuff using the skills I've learnt at TAFE and what I'm now learning at uni. But, really, I'm working! After three years off. This is a major breakthrough.

Noo and me playing on the floor Sunday arvo

Back to my assignment now. My next assignment is worth 35% of my overall score and I'm only halfway done and it is due Monday so I've got to get cracking. Will post again once it has been submitted.


V.

5 minute check in/anxiety reliever

Feeling blah today. Mum and dad have gone back up to the Blue Mountains after having been with us for a month. My sister is busy and most of my friends are away. I'm kind of feeling the solitude today - in an uncomfortable way. Not that I'm on my own. Noo is here, but you know what I mean... adult company is what I'm missing.


It is a beautiful warm day here but we are in doors so I can spend time on my uni work. I feel bad cos the TV has been on all day as a distraction for Noo. We did go down for a swim at 9 this morning and played around for about 40 minutes but Noo, understandably, is dying to get out again.


It is the Sydney Festival First Night tonight which starts off at 3pm with stuff for kids. Noo and I will walk up to Hyde Park in a little while to check it out. 


I have a little anxiety today and I'm going to type out the reasons and hopefully that will help quell that nauseous guilty feeling I have at the moment.


1. I feel bad Noo is stuck in doors.
2. A month of bad eating is starting to take its toll. Feel fat, especially around my face. Also feel guilty that I've let myself off my diet for so long. Desperately need a fill!
3. I have so much uni work to do for just the one unit. Either university is just massively more work than TAFE or I'm not good at managing my workload... maybe I'm spending more time on things than I need too.
4. I'm skint. Again! I am such a poor money manager I always run out of money half way through the month. 
5. I know I have to start thinking about going back to work soon but I'm PETRIFIED! To the point of feeling sick about it. 


OK. Hmmm, typing it out didn't make me feel that much better actually. I better make a list of what to do to tackle all these issues. First though, better get ready to go out. Noo is gonna start pulling the place apart out of boredom. Plus I'll be able to strike problem one off the list.


Speak later.


V.