The response from the Polyam/ENM community to my post in the poly group a couple days ago was absolutely insane. I have never felt more seen, supported or validated.
Throughout this process, I have spent a lot of time reflecting, both on myself and my own role in all of this. I continuously hear her voice in my head, over and over, replaying on an infinite loop the things she’s told me over the past 4 years about men, how awful we are, how every single one of us has – at minimum – the potential to be awful, violent and to do harm. I think back to all the times she said and did things that made me feel like I really WAS awful. The times when I advocated for myself within our relationship to articulate my needs, what was important to me, what I needed, and what I wasn’t ok with. I think back to how many times I was made to feel like a selfish, needy, awful person because I wanted things that are normal for people to want, expect or need in a relationship. By the end, I felt, and truly believed, that I was a broken human being that was needy, unreasonable, clingy, controlling and unfair.
Even still, I hear her voice, and it’s saying “see? I *TOLD* you that that is who he is! I TOLD YOU he would be awful and terrifying and dangerous!” and I start to slip into old patterns of feeling like all I’m accomplishing is proving her right, that I’m just a jilted lover who is just out for vengeance and wants to ruin her life.
Fuck that.
If there’s one thing I’m learning in all of this is that reacting negatively to an abuser’s treatment doesn’t make me an abuser. It’s not vengeance. It’s justice. I’m not an abuser for reporting her for sexually assaulting me when I was at my most vulnerable. I’m holding her accountable for abusing me and assaulting me when she should have been caring for me. She made me feel like what she was doing was love, and it created a trauma bond that will take years of hard work to break and heal from. That’s not vengeance. That’s accountability.
Her abuse, her love-bombing and gaslighting created an illusion and a trauma bond that made me be silent, freeze and fawn. She made me think that fighting for my needs and asking/expecting parity in our relationship made me “abusive” and that she was the normal, grounded, healthy one, and somehow, I was the one that needed to figure out how to “fix myself” and “be better” if I wanted to earn the privilege of keeping a place in her life. I would constantly apologize and then run off to find ways to be better at being what she told me to be. (And I am NOT the only one she’s done that to.)
The threat of losing that place in her life was constant, ever-present, and never went away. Her actions the evening of Thursday April 13th were just one of the many ways she accomplished that. She had, after all, told me that the reason she’d planned the date with the new source two nights earlier was to tell him that if he wanted to be in her life, he needed to be ok with MY being in her life, and that she wanted to talk to him about open/ENM relationships. Because I was just THAT important to her.
It was all bullshit, of course. I know that now.
Anyways, I digress. The point is, almost two hundred people commented. People from every profession, socioeconomic standing, multiple demographics and so many different walks of life weighed in.
TWO. HUNDRED. And more than three hundred shared emojis that reflected shock, care, sadness, outrage.. And not one person – not a single one – said I was reaching, overreacting, or otherwise unreasonable. Combined, more than five hundred people made it clear to me that what Erica did was wrong. More than 75% labelled it as rape.
I’m not entirely comfortable with that word, as it’s incredibly sharp, violent and brings with it awful visuals of physical violence.
What I AM comfortable with is calling it sexual assault.
I’ve asked other therapists and counselors. I’ve asked my family doctor. I’ve asked friends and family. Universally, the answer is an unequivocal “yes”. And here’s why:
The fact that a trained, registered clinical counselor whose specific areas of practice are physical, emotional and sexual assault, sexual violence, trauma, PTSD and whose very core tenets are built on consent and informed consent models, made the choice to initiate sex with someone who was in an extremely vulnerable and fragile mental, physical and emotional state who was also under the influence of extremely heavy doses of morphine to cope with the pain of a badly broken pelvis, collarbone and multiple ribs. And on top of ALL of that, I was also dealing with the sudden, traumatic death of my father on the same day of my injury, and was in a very fragile emotional state. In addition, I was also completely dependent on Erica while I was in her care. I couldn’t even roll over in bed without her help. I was reliant on her for the bathroom, food, water, everything.
Those are facts. There’s no embellishments, superfluous or extraneous details – those are the straight, unassailable facts.
That makes Erica guilty of sexual assault. By her own training, by the standards of her own profession, the criminal code of Canada and her also regulatory board – what she did is sexual assault. If she is ok with doing that, and if she can’t see what she did is wrong – then she has no business being a clinical counselor. If she can do to people what she is supposed to heal people from having done to them, she isn’t fit to do the job.
Erica’s dad had been involved in a motorcycle crash at some point in the years previous, and I couldn’t even talk about motorcycles, and she couldn’t even HEAR a motorcycle because it was traumatic and activating for her and triggered PTSD. But a week after my dad was killed, and while I’m in bed with multiple broken bones, and in emotional turmoil and under the influence of powerful narcotics and wearing a sling, she’s like “hey, let’s have sex!”, and then messages me two days later to tell me how much she enjoyed having that kind of control over me? (see previous post) How is that ok?
How anyone could defend that or ignore that I will never know. But I’m sure Erica’s friends are happy to do both. They only get her side of the story, her perspective, her carefully constructed version of the truth, and that’s ok. Honestly, that’s what her friends should do. But, friends supporting someone who committed a sexual assault doesn’t change the fact that the sexual assault happened. And if she is really, REALLY honest with herself, and if if she’s 1/10th the therapist she’s convinced she is, she’ll be able to look in a mirror and see that what she did was wrong. As a therapist, she should know, even if I WAS incredibly enthusiastic about sex, it was her job and her responsibility to recognize that I wasn’t capable and I wasn’t in a state – physically or emotionally where I could consent. But, as I know now, that was the appeal. She enjoyed the power, the control and being the “Top”.
The poly group has shown me – it’s not me. I’m not crazy. I’m not wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong.
She did. It’s her. 500+ people offering care and reassurance; what she did was wrong, and I refuse to let her get away with it.
~ R
Leave a Reply