I don’t know how to say it and I don’t know if I ever will. Some days it’s super easy to say that I was sexually assaulted.

Other days that’s impossible, so I call it “that thing that happened” or “that night” or “the incident.” Whatever I decide to call it, today is a milestone. This article going live signifies the one year anniversary of the day it happened.

The past year has been a roller coaster. I’ve developed anxiety, started having panic attacks, and experienced the kind of depression that drove me to silence for days at a time.

Some days I feel the crushing pressure of what he did to me on my ribcage or my chest. Other days, I forget it even happened, but most days I’m left with the realization that what he did to me made me absolutely terrified of the one thing I want the most.

A friend of mine put it into words when I couldn’t. “He messed you up, but he never took away your desire to love and be loved.”

There were months where I avoided eye contact with every single person I met who had blue eyes because of him. My hands shook at work when I served customers with short blond hair like his.

After months, the sound of his name started making my entire body tense. Quickly, I grew so uncomfortable with physical contact that not only did seeing other people hug, kiss, and hold hands in public send a literal shiver down my spine.

I started to avoid touching people as much as possible because it made me nauseous and anxious to so much as brush elbows with the people I loved and trusted the most.

I bit the bullet and started going to counseling this year. I can’t say how much it actually helped my symptoms, but it’s definitely helped me understand myself and what I’m going through a little better. Slowly it’s becoming easier to talk about, and I guess the end goal is to be able to talk about it without panicking over it.

I’ve consistently been riddled with guilt over this thing I had no control over. Every day I struggle, I think about how I shouldn’t be because others have been through worse. I know none of this is true.

I know it is not my fault. I know it was his.

I that how I feel is the only thing that matters and the severity of it as seen by others has no influence on the way I’m supposed to feel or navigate my recovery.

Without a doubt, the last twelve months have been the hardest of my life. I’ve written before about the days I couldn’t get out of bed and the nights my body shook as I tried to fall asleep.

The worst part is definitely that when I look at pictures of myself from before I met him, I get overwhelmed by how happy I looked just over a year ago and how clear and alive my skin seemed to be. It’s like before I met him I was glowing.

There aren’t many pictures of me from the past year and there are very few of them that I feel good about. I don’t really take pictures anymore. I don’t look the same.

I feel like you can see what he did to me on every detail of my face and that is the last thing I want a visible documentation of for the rest of time.

Despite all the downsides, this year has made me stronger. I’ve met new people, made new friends, joined new organizations, and brought myself into leadership positions.

On the days I can’t breathe, my mind is racing too fast for me to focus, or I can’t lift myself out of bed, I’m comforted by the fact that I’ve survived days like this before I can I survive them again.

Healing is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight and even though I feel like I’m in the same place I was a year ago, I have already come a long way. One day I’ll be able to leave this behind.