Surviving the Wait

You took the decision to come forward and report. It wasn’t an easy decision and most likely it took you a long time to come to that decision. Then you endure the inevitable investigation, finally waiting to hear whether it will even make it to court or not. Here is one survivor’s struggle.

There are a lot of things I should be doing.

I should be writing.

I should be doing stuff around the house.

I should be calling the vet.

I should be living.

I’m waiting for that call, that decision; Yes, No, We Need More Info.

A trinary of possibilities that themselves branch off into other possibilities.

It’s… Hard.

You can’t just put it away in the back of your mind.

It lurks, it sits there, and yes it taunts.

You’ve had to lay everything on the table, you’ve opened that box of secrets that you’ve guarded for so long.

It’s raw, and it leaves you feeling vulnerable.

Your past, the things you have hidden for so long, are in hands of someone else now.

Each time that file changes hands, another person finds out – a stranger you never meet. It’s another person knowing your past, knowing those horrid, horrible things.

It leaves you feeling exposed, judged.

YOU know what happened.

YOU lived it.

But… Someone else is making that decision. Someone else is in control – and isn’t that how it all started? Someone else being in control? Someone else taking all of your choices away?

It’s how it feels in the here and now.

Even though the irony, oh the sweet irony, is that you did make a choice. You made a choice to make a stand, to lay yourself bare and share this horrible thing.

It’s not easy.

It’s not easy.

It’s lonely – even when you have so many people standing with you.

It’s lonely, because it’s so hard to explain that feeling of vulnerability.

It’s hard to explain that nagging feeling of judgment.

How can you not analyse everything you’ve said, everything you’ve told?

How can you not sit back and wonder if you could have phrased things in a different way?

This waiting is hard, very hard.

It’s traumatic in its own way.

The old wound is open, bleeding waiting for the band-aid of; Yes, No, We Need More Info.

Even that band-aid won’t be the final dressing, it won’t be the final closure of that wound.

But it would be something.

Waiting,

Waiting,

Waiting,

Waiting for that call is so hard.

But it’s all you can do.