Proof. DNA. Fingerprints. Witnesses.

This is the kind of proof needed to make what happened to me real. This is what people want. This is what I do not have.

The proof is in my scars. Every white, tan, violet, pink line on my body is a piece of evidence. Proof.

What else do you need?

Hook me up to a brain scan. See the terror, the shame, the anger that flares in my brain every time I see his face or hear his name. Proof.

Or maybe put me in a sleep study. Watch me wake up, trembling, tears streaming down my cheeks. See me reduced to the scared 8-year-old little girl I used to be, curled up in the fetal position, desperately attempting to feel something I haven’t felt since I was four years old, safety. Is that enough proof for you?

Or do you need more? Here, gather some witness statements.

Call my therapist, who told my parents I had the most deeply rooted eating disorder she’d ever treated. There. More proof.

Or maybe you should talk to the ER doctor, who said I missed my main artery by a hair while he sewed 37 stitches into my arm. How’s that for proof?

More? Here’s the number of the nurse who threw up when she saw the deep wounds running up and down my arm, the blood draining from my body. Yes. That was enough proof for her.

Maybe you should call the staff at the psych ward that had to pry the makeshift blade out of my hands that I was clinging onto for dear life.

Because that was my life.

For years my life revolved around numbing the pain that my rapist caused me. The pain that isn’t real because some judge didn’t sign off on it.

Because there wasn’t enough proof.