Marshano beat me to it. But she is spot on – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works.

The best help I ever received was from a neighbor. Virginia knocked on my front door and flat out told me, she could see I was struggling, and she had a good idea why. And then she asked if she could talk to me. I said yes and we sat down at my kitchen table. In a few short, no-drama sentences she told me what had happened to her and what had helped her. Then she handed me a business card and said, it was up to me and left. Suffice to say I picked up the phone, dialed the number and made an appointment. Virginia’s ex-husband had beat her. She suffered PTSD. I had a different issue.

Rape is bad enough, but even the idea that a grown man sodomized an eleven-year-old girl is beyond most people’s comprehension. Even the word sodomy triggers revulsion. But the hardest part for most people, is trying to understand why a man would sodomize a girl. In fact, in front of a whole courtroom full of people, judge and jury, that’s the question, the defense attorney asked me on the witness stand. I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know what the word sodomize meant (my Mom and the DA called it rape). Nonetheless, a courtroom of laughter is how I discovered I had not been raped and I never talked about it again.

Eventually, I did learn what sodomy was and figured out why everyone was so confused. But the first time I did try to talk about it out loud – I had a physical reaction akin to anaphylaxis (a bad allergic reaction to a bee sting). I tried over and over, but my throat kept cutting off my air. I'm rather attached to breathing, but I kept at it. I practiced when I was alone at home. I practiced while I was driving in the car. I just kept trying until finally, I was able to talk about what had happened as comfortably and easily as anything else. When I was not afraid of the words anymore, the fear those words had once evoked was gone. You see, I had not been afraid of getting raped again. I’d been afraid of people laughing at me the way they had in court.

In some mis-guided effort to protect me, my little brain was determined to keep me away from the words that hurt me. I appreciated the effort, and the intention, but sometimes you just have to force yourself to think, instead of feel. And once you do, you feel safe again.

Obviously, I think QJ is right. Taking the power out of words is an important thing to do.