What does it take?

“I have had dreams, and I have had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares, because of my dreams.” ~Jonas Sulk.

What does it take to overcome a nightmare? When you can’t seem to get over or past it long enough? When it comes up at some point during the day or night? Everyday. When it’s been months? When it’s a whole new year? Does it mean your dreams aren’t big enough? Bright enough? What does it take to not be triggered? To not relate? What does it take to not be lying in bed at night and you’re suddenly choking back tears? To sometimes have similar nightmares in your sleep? What does it take to not have moments of terrorising fear when you’re with your lover? To push him away because you can’t stand his weight on you?

The thing is, I don’t remember much of it. I don’t remember how it started, or how it ended. I don’t remember all of what I said, or what was said to me. I don’t remember if it was one of them, or two of them or all of them. All I remember, clear as day, is trying my best to push him/them off. My feeble attempts, my helplessness. I remember the stinging cold of the night. The dampness of the grass where I spent the night.

The truth is I didn’t really register it until the next day. And even then, even now, I don’t remember all of it. I remember the difficulty of the next day. Seeing the familiar face of my brother. Him seeing me and immediately asking me if I had been raped. The breakdown at my answer at the realization and confirmation of the previous night. The having to give an account of events at the police station and the hospital. A recollection of details I could hardly remember. My version changing at every interrogation. The confusion. The medical tests. The bruises on my face. The black eye that lasted for a week. The dirt under my fingernails. The dried leaves in my hair. The dirt on my clothes. The bruises on my thighs. The stench of stale alcohol on my breath.

Did the fact that I had been extremely intoxicated help? Was it better that I didn’t fully recall the assault? The pain? Their faces? Or was it worse? Worse because it wouldn’t have happened were I sober? Worse because the rapists will forever walk scot-free? Worse because I couldn’t have fought them off tried as I could? As I did?

That thing in the movies. Where you burn a note or some item or throw something in the river…and somehow you find some sort of closure. I tried it, you know? Burnt the medical records and my police statement. It didn’t work. And now I think I’ll never be fine. Its a matter locked up inside me, locked below my breast, locked up in the deepest crevices of my brain, as though in a grave, a place of permanence.

And so I ask. What does it take to overcome a nightmare?