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was to escape the pain I was in. I did not have to deal with the reality of my rape. I meet this wonderful man and he would never hurt me. He was a bit older and already established. We meet in a caf. We were together until I was 24. Then I decided that it was pathetic to spend my life daydreaming. It was pathetic to crave something that was not real. I decided I needed a life of my own. I stopped visiting my man and my children. It was lonely, but I had to find my way back to reality.

I did not find my way all the way back. I still held on to some of my fears. I still lived in a fortress. I still refused to leave my room at night to go to the bathroom. There were monsters or dark things. They wanted to kill me in some gruesome way. They wanted to cover my mouth and nose and drain the life from me. Somehow, when I was sleeping, a man slipped into my house. He would rape me and he would kill me. Then there were the bugs that I might see. They simply wanted to contaminate everything and me. They wanted to ruin my genes. Then there was the scale. At four in the morning, who needs the battle? I knew that the site of the scale would cause me to weigh and reweigh myself for up to an hour. I never lost my fear of driving through strange places. In my mind, I always imagined my car breaking down. I forgot my cell phone and before I ever imagined that I would own a cell phone, I had to get out of my car to find a pay phone. In either fantasy I was in trouble. I am attacked by all the men, women, children, and animals in the town. There kill me with their teeth and hands. My body is gone. My loved ones never know what happened to me because I never let them know where I was going.

My therapist had convinced me that these fears were all left over from my rape. I was afraid that one night he would be waiting for me outside my door. It was a very real fear. The thing about people attacking me, that was only because I did not trust people. I felt betrayed by people I thought I could trust. Knowing this did not erase the belief. I will not get gas in a small rural town populated with poor people. They will kill me. I will not sleep without every door in my house being shut and locked. I will not go to the bathroom without turning on the bedroom light and the light in the hall. I will walk carefully and check every corner and crack. I will count to three before entering the bathroom. The shower curtain must always be pulled open so I can see who or what is hiding in the tub.

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