When something bad happens, I tend to laugh or make jokes. It's like that line from that one Barenaked Ladies song One Week...."I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral." That's me, I'm that girl. It's not that I necessarily find anything humorous, it's just that I'm uncomfortable so I want something I'm comfortable with which is laughter. When I sprained my ankle my junior year and everyone stood around me in a circle, I laughed. When a friend of mine died in middle school I cracked jokes to cheer up my friends because I was uncomfortable showing how torn to pieces I was. When I slept through my English midterm sophomore year I made jokes about it even though I had sobbed about it on the phone, and still wanted to cry days later. When Mom was visiting last week we were talking about all of the crap I'd been through and suddenly I remembered some of the ridiculous stuff that was said right after I was raped. And by right after I'm talking literally the day after and later....
Please understand that this is pretty much how my entire family deals with pain.
So my assault happened early morning on May 6th and I went to the hospital that night and didn't get home til the next morning (the 7th) at around 8. I went right to sleep and called my mom when I woke up. I told her about everything that had been done at the hospital and I remember saying "well the nurse felt bad and gave me a bunch of jolly ranchers." What were the words flying out of my mother's mouth? "GEEZ! If you wanted Jolly Ranchers you didn't have to go through all this nonsense, I would have gone out and bought you a freakin' bag of Jolly Ranchers!" Some people right now have read this and are getting mad at my mom. Shut up. I was laughing so hard my roommate had to come outside and see what my problem was. A comment like that was exactly what I needed. I needed a joke. I needed some normalcy!
About a week later when I was back in NY I was standing in the kitchen with my parents and I looked at my dad and said, "Hey Daddy wanna hear a funny joke?" He said sure and I proceeded with what I thought was a pretty great joke. "Two peanuts were walking down the street....one was A SALTED HAHAHA GET IT A-SALTED?" I busted out laughing, mom was laughing so hard she was in tears, and Daddy looked liked he wanted to beat me with the spatula in his hand that he was using to flip pancakes. My bad. I just wanted something to laugh at since bouts of laughter were few and far between those days.
When me and mom were talking about this at Biscuitville last week she said, "speaking of....remember when you were a little peanut walking down the street and..." She didn't even get to finish her thought I was laughing so hard. From now on when I talk to people I know well in person I'm not saying "when I was raped" or "when I was attacked". From now on it's gonna be "well when I was a peanut walking down the street".
I'm not trying to say that what happened to me doesn't matter. It absolutely matters. What happened that night has driven most of my decisions for the past 2 years (jiminy crickets, can you believe it's almost been 2 whole years!? Time sure flies when you're having fun? Or ending up in loony bins :) ) I refuse, though, to let it stop me from laughing and smiling. That's how I mask the pain. That's how I deal with it. If that's something people take offense to then they have no reason to stay a part of my life and that's how I honestly feel about it.
Also please don't forget to donate to my RAINN page y'all! Thanks to Lisa for donating :) If you guys have some extra dough in your pockets I urge you to donate whatever you can. My deadline is end of April and I want to raise as much money as possible for this organization. If it hadn't been for their hotlines and resources I wouldn't be alive and bloggin' today! Here's the link in case you forgot:http://rainnmakers.rainn.org/kconnell
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