Great fucking job to Shonda Rimes for creating a domestic violence episode in Grey’s Anatomy. The effect that domestic violence/sexual assault/rape/etc has on the mind is devastating. It is not talked enough. It is not realized enough that these things happen to seemingly normal people with seemingly happy lives and people don’t believe it can happen to normal people. I applaud the creators of Grey’s Anatomy for bringing awareness to the reality of this situation.

“This was not your fault. You didn’t ask for this. There was nothing you did to deserve this.” I struggled with this idea FOR YEARS. Believing that I got raped because I cheated on my then-boyfriend. When instead the reality is I was raped because a MAN could not process the situation and took out his frustration on me. I was raped because of HIM. Not because of me.

Rape/domestic violence/etc is NEVER the victim’s fault. It’s sickening to know that victim blaming is so real and so common. Abby does an amazing job at bringing this to light. The actors did an amazing job at performing real/raw emotions.

Of course it’s a show, but Ben’s conversation with Tuck is the perfect example of consent and how it is not a hard concept. It’s a beautiful metaphor to allude consent to a time-out in a sports game. It makes it very understandable.

Also, Karev is less like Karev and more like a dad at this point. It’s a little proud moment to see his character develop.

One thing I did not like is how Jo treated Karev after she met her birth mom or how she had no ounce of compassion for her birth mother despite coming from her own domestic violence situation. She, of all people, should understand the hardships of a complicated situation, a situation where you feel you don’t have an exit strategy. She was so compassionate with Abby, where was a fraction of that for her birth mom? Understandably she’s upset and frustrated and feeling rejected, but she sought out her birth mom for ANSWERS, and she didn’t even give her mom that opportunity before trying to guilt-trip her mom. Wouldn’t you want to know the circumstances of why you were abandoned before judging someone? Not just the fact that she was young, didn’t have a stable relationship/life, but the fact that she was raped. I’m honestly surprised Jo didn’t even consider that a reason for her to be abandoned. It’s one of the main reasons for abortion, but instead Jo decided to make up an entire fiction in her head without any consideration for all of the possible reasons. Can you not imagine the heartache her mother felt looking at her own child and being reminded of the worst day of her life? Yes, children are beautiful, innocent souls, but they are also the result of two human beings. Of course her mother should have went about the situation in a smarter way but as she said, she was not in the right mind because rape does that to people. Rape has a very real effect on the survivor’s mind, thoughts, logic, rationality. PTSD is real. Jo should be blaming the rapist for her crappy childhood, not her birth mother. The rapist put her mother in that position. It’s similar to victim blaming, which is disgusting to come from Jo. Why blame everything on her birth mother when there is a whole other human being responsible for her existence as well? Why place blame on the victim? Rape/domestic violence and the resulting trauma needs to be talked about so much more so victim blaming stops. It’s such a “taboo” topic because rapists are afraid to talk about their wrongdoings and they intimidate survivors into keeping quiet, making others believe it’s their fault. It’s such a wrong and twisted world.

It is never your fault.

It was my 19th birthday when I was raped. NINETEEN. I was hardly a legal adult and I wasn’t even of drinking age. NINETEEN. And 19 had always been, and still is, my favorite number. But that means every birthday, I am reminded of the trauma I endured. Every birthday is another year that I have survived and I never forget that. Each year that goes by does get a little easier but it is something I will never forget. Can you imagine being a parent and finding out your child, at NINETEEN, had been raped? It was heartache for me, as the survivor, to go through. I can’t imagine the insurmountable pain a parent would go through to discover that about their child. I never told my mom outright that I was raped, but she does know I have this blog, so she must know, if she reads it.

I went through YEARS of being numb and feeling dead inside, YEARS of depression and suicidal ideations before even addressing the reality that it was rape. Jo’s birth mom is correct in that calling it rape is the first step. I didn’t truly call it rape for years because in my head, it was just trauma. My mind literally blacked it out and all I was left with was silence. I became isolated as a result of the effect on my mind. I withdrew. I hardly talked to anyone. I did a lot of crying. I stopped trusting everyone.

I was not raped by a stranger off the street. I was raped by my boyfriend at the time. I was raped by someone I thought I had wanted to marry, have a family with, live the rest of my life with. I was raped by someone I had trusted my whole life with. And he ended up controlling the rest of my life by raping me. My mind has never been the same, my depression and anxiety has only worsened because of it (obviously), he gave me a new friend called PTSD. I am not the same person I was at 18. I am not the same hopeful, aspiring, quiet, shy, trusting, innocent girl as I once was. And maybe if I never had gotten raped, I would actually be a veterinarian right now because one of my main reasons for not becoming a veterinarian was the prominence of suicide in the field, the struggle with compassion fatigue and depression. Maybe if I had never gotten raped, I wouldn’t have to give up my childhood aspiration of being a veterinarian in exchange for my mental health. Maybe if I had never gotten raped, I would not have attempted suicide in August. Maybe if I had never gotten raped, I would have a stable, healthy relationship. Maybe I’d be married by now. Maybe I’d have a house by now. Maybe I’d have kids by now. He took all of those possibilities away from me. Do you know how it is to feel that little? To have someone take away your future? Yourself? Your mind, your identity, everything you knew and thought you knew, in a matter of minutes, seconds.

It was never my fault.

And as much as I can blame him for all of the subsequent downfalls, it took me years to gain a fraction of my life back, to rebuild myself, to finally be able to talk about it, acknowledge it, be angry about it. I am a new person. I am alive despite being raped. I am alive because of me. I am not stronger because I was raped. I am stronger because I am me. I am stronger because my soul eventually came back after being lost for years. My soul finally found my body again and gave me the strength to live. My trauma does not define me. Being raped may have taken a lifetime of possibilities away from me, but I am now in control of my life and the only one that can change anything in my life now is me. I hold onto myself tighter now. I know who I am again after being lost for so many years. And I’ll be damned if someone tells me it was my fault or, “Why didn’t you [insert victim blaming phrase disguised as sympathy]?”

Surviving rape does not define me. I define myself. I make my story. I live to tell my story, help others in similar situations, encourage others to tell their story. Because it’s not talked about enough.