Day 60: Running in the Dark
Finding ways to find closure
Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault
Something I’ve noticed is that I keep waking up in the middle of the night, getting up out of bed, and running whilst I am still asleep.
I sleep with at least one light on every night—which also confuses me because I keep waking up and thinking it’s the middle of the day, and that I’m late for whatever class or commitment I have. Before this happened, I used to wake up at 6am every day.
I get up in the middle of the night and I run away from the bed, into the bathroom or the other side of the room. Then it’s almost like I wake up and realize what I’m doing, and go back to bed. I wonder if I shout or scream in my sleep as well before I wake up. It’s definitely possible. When I get home today my friend is staying in the guest bedroom and I’ll have to ask him in the morning.
I think I did this about three times last night.
It didn’t even occur to me until this morning that this is new behaviour and that I don’t think I’ve done this before.
I imagine that it is the unconscious version of me that was trying to run that night.
I am gentle with myself.
Every night that I get more than six hours of sleep is a win.
It occurred to me last night to read through my posts from the last two weeks. It’s fascinating to witness my mind state over the course of time and what I was thinking and feeling about what had happened. You can literally watch my shock transition over time. I feel like I’m in a really good place right now, which I know was expedited by the yoga retreat I facilitated in Abu Dhabi, which submerged me in the healing energy of sisterhood. I highly recommend attending a yoga retreat if you’re in recovery - specifically a women’s only retreat. I’ll be turning my house into a women’s only sanctuary soon. That’s the plan for the rest of the year!
Something I noticed is that I’ve missed one day of writing. There have been other days I’ve missed, but I always was aware of it and caught up the next day (or once, I did a double day). But there was one day I completely missed. “Why did I forget to write that day?”
I looked at the posts and knew exactly what day it was—it was the day I realized I had been raped. So I’m one day off on my writing. It’s actually Day 61. I don’t know how to recognize that. Should I write something, should I change the day count, or should I just leave it like it is as a symbol?
I finally scrolled through the hundreds of comments on my post on Instagram, and every single one was positive and supportive. Thank you for your love. One comment, however, questioned me. It read: “But you were already having sex, why would he rape you?”
My stomach flipped when I read this.
I will tell you about this—even though I shouldn’t have to. First of all, we weren’t already having sex.
The night I went to his hotel room, it was the first time I had gone to his room. I wasn’t going to have sex with him. I actually went because I wanted to take a bubble bath. The guest house I was staying in didn’t have a bathtub, and he was staying at one of my favourite hotels, across the road, which I knew had a nice tub. When I got out of the bath, we had a conversation about not having sex. If you scroll back to a post I did a few weeks ago about this, I recently decided that I don’t want to have sex outside of committed relationships, because the dopamine hits were too intense. It is too sad when the relationship doesn’t manifest, and then you’re left dealing with all these bonding hormones.
I changed my mind in the heat of the moment. However, he couldn’t get an erection. In the end, I told him not to worry about it - I was actually really glad because then we wouldn’t have to worry about the dopamine connection. He even apologized in the morning and I said the same thing - I was glad we didn’t have sex, because I didn’t want to deal with those hormones.
That’s why I thought it was so odd when I was bleeding in the morning - because I knew we hadn’t had any penetration the night before. I knew he hadn’t even put a finger inside of me. So why did it feel like something had?
But I brushed the wonderings quickly out of my mind. I mostly didn’t think he had drugged and raped me when I woke up because he couldn’t get an erection while I was awake, so how would he get one when I was asleep? This was one of the most confusing things to me during the first week of it all. Then someone said to me, “Maybe he couldn’t get an erection because he can only get aroused by unconscious women.”
I searched it, and it’s actually a trait of some psychopaths. It’s an attraction to unconscious women. I believe that this is increasing due to the frequency of abusive pornography. I think it’s literally retraining men’s brains to be attracted to abuse.
He told me that his ex was a narcissist, and immediately my red flags were up. I am well aware that when someone says their ex is a narcissist, either their ex actually is one, or they are. However, I didn’t think that if he was a narcissist, it would play out this horrifically, this quickly. When I think back to the narcissists I dated in the past, not one of them do I believe was capable of doing what he did to me.
I used to think my last ex was my most extreme narcissist because he lied and had a wife while we were together. But I don’t think he would ever have drugged and raped me or attempted strangulation. This is the next level.
One thing I’ll add is that he was obsessed with listening to podcasts about narcissistic abuse. He said he was doing that to understand what his ex did to him. Now I realize he was educating himself on how to not behave narcissistically so that I and other women wouldn’t spot the red flags. For example, he was not love bombing me, and he didn’t pay for everything. He didn’t really compliment me, either. Most narcissists compliment out the wazoo, and pay for everything in the beginning. I paid for some of the meals we ate. That showed me that he had trained himself to display green flags.
That worries me about the increasing education out there about narcissists. I think true narcissists who want to behave this way are going to educate themselves on how to continue doing it without us knowing.
I’m also worried about how viral Gisele Pelicott’s story is, because I think potential perpetrators could get more ideas. Her story was why I was so panicked that multiple men had been there. However, I immediately contacted the hotel and had them watch the whole night of CCTV, and they confirmed that no one else had entered the room. I believe they are telling the truth.
I have to thank Gisele Pelicot for raising awareness on this. It is because of her that I discovered what he did. I think it’s highly possible that other men have done this to me in the past and I just never figured it out. I always thought I’d have to be stumbling home and falling over in a public space to be drugged and assaulted. Not in the room of someone I was dating, doing breathwork.
I hope that because of her story, he would be stupid to retain or post any evidence of this, because that’s how he will get caught. Otherwise, a crime like this is very hard to prosecute. That’s the one thing that reassures me that hopefully it will not be documented and posted anywhere.
People have asked me what I’ve done legally to report this. In the first three days, I was absolutely terrified and couldn’t even think to report it. Now, unfortunately, he is in his home country. I contacted his country, and they said they can’t file a report since it didn’t happen on their land.
I will be going to the police station tomorrow with my Balinese friend to report it, but I suspect no action will come from it. At least a report will be on his file.
Honestly, that’s why I spoke out on Instagram—because I didn’t think the report would bring me the closure I need, since he can’t be prosecuted or investigated overseas. But at least I can speak out about it, and that will start to give me the closure I need.
I was scared of him for the first little while, but I am not scared of him now, though. I don’t think he will come near me again, since doing so would bring more attention to him. At this point, he’s gotten away with it scot-free, so it’s in his best interest to stay away, I think. I doubt he’d come back to Bali. But I am thinking a lot about security measures I can put in place at my house in Ubud anyways, in general. I think I will install security cameras and connect with the hotel next door, asking for support from their security team if ever needed. Luckily, he doesn’t know where I live.
Usually I go back to Ubud on Saturday nights, but I have stayed down in Uluwatu because I have my very first Kirtan gig today that I’m leading solo. I also feel a lot better driving in the daytime then at night.
I’ve wanted to learn to play harmonium and lead kirtan since I first saw the instrument ten years ago.
Right now, this has been the only way I can connect to the divine.
I am truly grateful for this practice, and I highly recommend it to those in recovery from anything, anywhere.
The recovery program I will be developing will integrate this practice to offer you support.
All my love
Alexandra
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